The Transformative Power of your Voice

For the last ten years, my focus has been to distribute powerful skills to the change-makers who need them most. When I consider the state of the nation and world I imbue the distribution with an urgency to get these tools to as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. You cannot necessarily hear my voice right now, but you might be able to feel its effect. I am leaning forward. The dragon in my voice is warming your ears.

I teach storytelling. 

This is what I practice, what I teach and what I write about. Storytelling is in the gestalt of the moment. It is talked about in education, technology, business, marketing, religion, and even medicine. It is everywhere, and we can forget that storytelling is our oldest and most powerful skill. It is how we know the world, and how we influence it.

Storytelling, when we look at the word itself, is speaking about something with intention.

It is talking about something, with intention. It is taking a story, and telling it. And when we are intentional or targeted about the stories we tell, we can attract listeners and elegantly convince them to our point of view. If we add embodied vocality to the mix, we become irresistible.

As a storyteller, I am welcome everywhere. The moment people realize I am practiced at spinning tales, they invite me into their homes and trust me with their secrets. I am well aware of this power. 

Many politicians know this, and brand managers definitely do. Anyone who wants to sell something knows the most effective way to get people to input their credit card is to tell a story.

So why are so many well-meaning change-makers who wish to make the world a better place so ineffective with their storytelling?

Well meaning people often don’t know how to properly use storytelling

I see it over and over again: smart, well informed and experienced people are dumbfounded that people won’t listen to them. They have the facts. They have the proof. They have science and good sense, and yet, listeners are not moved into action or change. Why?

I believe it is because they have not yet discovered the power of their voice. They have not found the flavor, zest and confidence that can live in the sounds coming out of their mouths. When they can  enjoy the sound of their own voice, they become irresistible.

1. Transformative storytellers taste their words. They feel the vibration of their voice and enjoy the sound of their voice.
2. This enjoyment helps them confidently believe what they are saying.
3. That confidence and enjoyment transfers to the listener, and they will become captivated and will listen with more intention and loyalty.

When we were kids, the world was new and we could easily access wonder and awe. 

We enjoyed making sounds and talking merely for the pleasure of talking. We were utterly present with whatever we were doing, and we believed everything we said, even when we were blatantly lying. We had the skills, just lacked the content and experience.

To be clear, this is not about charisma over smarts. I don’t think facts should be buried, nor do I think coherent arguments have no purpose. But I do want people to know that we are wired to pay attention to good storytellers. We can’t help ourselves.

If you want to make the world a better place, consider working on your storytelling. 

In addition to paying attention to your presence and your body language, I recommend learning to enjoy the sound of your voice, and then consciously using it to transform your listener. I’ve developed a directional approach to working on your vocality that involves the imagery of fairies. You don’t have to believe in fairies to use this approach, but since it involves fairies, you might consider having some fun with it. 

What are fairies?

The little winged pixie version of a fairy is a personification of a kind of energy: that of sparkling potential. Fairies contain magic and can grant wishes. When we use the word fairy or faery in the context of storytelling, it is the feeling that anything is possible and that magic is real.

In the directional vocality tool, fairies are associated with the "up" direction.

Somatically, “up” feels like floating. You float up into the air, and from that vantage, you can see everything and hear everything. In "up" you have all the information you need and can then bring transformation. This is a place of observation and description: two very powerful components of storytelling. 

When there are Fairies in someone's voice, the listener enters a place of potential. 

Up in the air, the listener can feel that sense of possibility and wonder, and then see the full landscape without any judgement or sense of responsibility. It is light, and actually fun.

There are many singers with voices loaded with fairies: Bjork, Ellie Goulding, Aurora, but you can also hear it in actors like Jonathan Groff or Jim Carey.

Exercise: Embodying Wonder and Delight

• Stand in a neutral balanced position
• Use your imagination to feel like you are starting to float off the floor. Feel your body get lighter and lighter.
• Let your gaze rise as you feel like you are floating higher.
• Look around and see everything like you are a hawk circling in the sky. See and hear everything and let yourself feel wonder and delight. Feel your sense of possibility grow.
• From this place, life seems free, wide, and amazing.

Exercise: Listening for the Fairies

Listen to several voices and notice whenever you feel lighter. Notice which voice make you feel sparkly and magical and a little happier. Ask yourself what are the common qualities.

Some might include:

• Higher pitch
• Brighter color to the tone.
• A dreaminess and feeling that the speaker isn't fully there.

Exercise: Speaking with Fairies

Once you hear certain qualities in other voices, you will start to hear them in your own voice.

• Play with a variety of pitches. Try a higher pitch and see what is comfortable.
• Imagine your voice has color and try to create yellow or golden sounds.
• Imagine you are casting spells when you speak and can create a dreamlike state in your listeners.

A sense of possibility, and light descriptions are “up” and you can integrate this when you want your listener to be in that state of wonder. If you wish your listener to be in their body and feel connected to you and others in the room, then you’ll bring “down” into your voice. This is where the trolls are.

Trolls are beings of the earth - sturdy, solid, enduring, resilient and most of all—connective. 

Think of tunnels and bridges and channels and supports, all carefully crafted to connect one part of the mountain to the other. They help the trees and shrubs and mushrooms have a connective highway for communication.

If fairies are all about inspiration and possibility, trolls are about enduring connection. Trolls connect the planet and make community possible. Singers and actors with trolls in their voices include Bruce Springsteen, Peter Coyote, Meryl Streep, and Greta Thunberg.

If we can find trolls in our voice, we have the power to bring people together. 

We can build community simply with our voice.

Exercise: Find the Trolls

• Stand in a neutral position and then allow yourself to feel heavy.  
• Feel your bones and muscles get heavy and then feel like you are sinking into the earth.  
• Feel like you could build things with your voice.  Believe your voice is a tool. 
• Speak and feel like your voice is forging connections.  

This is different from the excitement or inspiration that “Up” brings.  You are not dazzling when you are speaking from the down direction, you are crafting.  You are building.  And with this quality you can build a relationship.  

When we hear Trolls in someone’s voice, we feel the sturdiness and clarity in their voice.  

We know they are serious and mean business and they will do what is needed to accomplish the task.  Troll vocality will gain trust and will build integrity.

When you feel the heaviness of your body and the weight in your voice, you will build the connection, feel your listener, and win their trust.  

This is down.  This is where the Trolls live.

Up is possibility and more mental. Down is connective and more emotional. This leaves the directions of forward and back, the vocality of dragons and mermaids. 

We can all hear when there are dragons. Think of powerful speakers or singers that make you want to stand up and start clapping. Think of teachers, preachers and politicians that fill you with energy and motivation to do something. Dragons are forward. 

It is the dragons, or spirits of transformation that inspire movement and action. 

Martin Luther King, Malala Yousafzai, Adele, and Freddie Mercury can speak or sing and get us on our feet, stomping and ready to do something, anything. We feel the energy and heat and we cannot sit still. Dragons bring change, and sometimes in dramatic and destructive ways. To use the dragons in your voice, you must contain and tame them.

Exercise: Make an object move.

• Stand in a neutral position and then lean forward. 
• Feel the front of your body get warm and full of energy.
• Focus your attention on an object in front of you.
• With a quiet voice, tell that object to move. Believe it will move if you can find just the right power in your voice. 

The vocality you just found is the dragon. You can bottle that quality and use it in your lessons, your instructions, and when you want something to happen.

The “back” direction is very different from the others. In “up” we find wonder and possibility and magic. In “down” we build connections and empathy. In “forward” we set things in motion and get our listener to move. In “back”, we accept where we are and find the “container”.

A mermaid works with water, and water needs to be contained if we are to leverage its power. You can learn more about containers in this essay, but the basic idea is that when we know the rules of the story, the listener will relax and listen. They will know that the storyteller knows what they are doing, and they will allow the story to work on them.

The “back” direction has to do with trust, safety, and a willingness to listen, and this is achieved through honoring the rules and form of the story. 

Think of people with soothing voices like David Attenborough, or Julie Andrews, or Lord Huron, or Nora Jones. They project that they know what they are doing and everything is going to be fine, even if something dangerous is happening. They are contained and confident and calm. 

This vocality is especially powerful with children. When they feel safe and attended to, they are far more likely to listen to directions or learn a lesson, or behave in a way that the storytelling wants them to behave. An effective way to access the contained and calm quality of mermaids is to simply feel confident.

Exercise: Sound confident.

• Remember a time when you were confident, or make up something in your imagination where you are confident.
• Notice how this feels in your body. Notice how your physical body feels when you are confident.
• Speak out loud. Talk about something you ate for breakfast, it doesn’t matter. The goal is to speak with confidence in your voice. Maintain that confident feeling in your body.

This sound transfers a sense of safety and care. You can modulate the confidence and make it softer or more firm, more intimate or more grand, depending on the situation. 

This is directional vocality: up, down, forward, and back.