#143. Your Voice: Your Identity with Dr. Belinda McMahon Part 2

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Episode Transcription

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  00:00

Hey, it’s Marisa Lee here and I have some really exciting news to share with you. Just recently, I launched my performance mastery coaching program, which has been designed to help a forming artists and other creatives just like you to take center stage in their lives. Whether you’re mid career and simply feeling stuck, or you’re someone who is just about to embark on your career journey, and need help getting started, my unique coaching program is for you. To celebrate the launch. I’m currently offering a free 30 minute discovery session, so you can learn more about the program and how I can help you go to the next level in your life. My first intake is already seeing incredible results. So don’t miss out, go visit Dr. Marisa Lee naismith.com forward slash coaching, or just send me a direct message and let’s get chassis. Remember, there’s no time like now to take center stage in your life.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  01:25

It’s Marisa Lee here, and I’m so excited to be sharing today’s interview round episode with you. In these episodes, our brilliant lineup of guests will include healthcare practitioners, voice educators, and other professionals who will share their stories, knowledge and experiences within their specialized field to empower you to live your best life. Whether you’re a member of the voice, community, or beyond your voice is your unique gift. It’s time now to share your gift with others develop a positive mindset and become the best and most authentic version of yourself to create greater impact. Ultimately, you can take charge, it’s time for you to live your best life. It’s time now for a voice and beyond. So without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode. Have you ever wondered what it is that makes a voice sound authoritative, or collaborative, energized or motivating? What are the various vocal qualities that are required for different situations? Well, this week on a voice and beyond, we welcome back our special guest, Dr. Belinda McMahon, a singing and spoken voice teacher for part two of her two part interview, in which she discusses her fascinating research investigating vocal identity. In her coaching business Voiceprint professionals. Belinda works with entrepreneurs, executives and other professionals to help them elevate their communication skills for greater influence and in packed in today’s show, Belinda explains in further detail, the range of voice qualities that are required to enable a speaker to clearly communicate their intentions and ideas using specific voice qualities, tones, volumes, pace, pitch and energy. Belinda tells us that when we truly connect with our intentions, and our greater purpose in any particular situation, our voice is likely to respond and will represent who we are in that moment. Other topics we discussed in today’s show were around the importance of resonance for sustainability, especially in those occupations, where there is significant and intense voice us how our voices are connected to our sense of identity, and that our voices aren’t a fixed instrument and through training. We can all learn to use our voices in a number of different ways, especially if we feel there is a disconnect between We know who we are, and how we sound. We even delved into my voice and what it says about me. And to learn what Belinda had to say. Be sure to listen to this most fascinating interview with Dr. Belinda McMahon. And remember, this is part two of a two part interview with Belinda. And Part one was last week’s episode number 142. So, without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  05:49

Welcome back. Dr. Belinda McMahon, and you’ve heard that Dr. Title, so I’m going to use Welcome back for part two.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  06:02

Thank you. I’m really excited to be here again.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  06:04

Oh, we had so much fun in the first one, it was almost criminal. With both brushed our hair with both put our teeth back in, so we’re ready to rock and

Dr. Belinda McMahon  06:19

roll. That’s right. Absolutely.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  06:20

Absolutely. So where we left off last time, we were talking about female voices. And so seeing as we’re on that subject, how about if we start with my voice, and you can be brutal here? You can tell me I sound like a fool. And I’ll go Yeah, I own that. I am who I am. So what would you say? And what are the about my voice? And what are the things that I do when I speak? That make me perhaps unique?

Dr. Belinda McMahon  06:53

Absolutely. That’s great. So first of all, I would like to say the entire premise of my coaching is that it isn’t that one size fits all. It doesn’t work that way. It’s not that we want one type of voice and we don’t want anything else. Okay? I think traditional voice coaching has often focused just on, say politicians and journalists, and people who are probably trying to establish authority. And so they’re very much linked into certain vocal attributes that they wanted to train in, in those voices for their requirements. Whereas what I’m trying to do, by having my model that focuses on all the different ways we can use our voice, in the many different scenarios, we’re really trying to look into, well, where’s your voice sit naturally, on this model? And this scale? Where does it sit naturally? And then if you wanted to have a different impact in a particular situation, what would you look to change in your voice? I think if we try and apply certain rules to everyone’s voice, and say that in every situation, we all need sound this way, we’re then we’re completely moving away from individual vocal identity. And we’re also taking a voice out of context. And it doesn’t work that way. As we know, from our years of singing, training, yes, absolutely.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  08:24

Yeah, it’s exactly the same with the spoken voice. So your voice so I have thought about this before we met today.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  08:31

Okay, it’s batten down the hatches.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  08:35

I love it. In my opinion, in what I hear with your voice, you very much sit in the the area where you may remember, let’s just do a quick refresh of what I said the model looks like because I know you know people can’t see it. But if we’re looking at we’ve got collaborative and authoritative, okay, going from side to side, and then the top, we’ve got that energizing, activating and motivating. And then at the bottom, we’ve got calming or, yeah, we’ll just go with calming for now right now. But that sort of that gentle sort of vocal tone thing of meditation type of voices and recording. So if we think about we’ve got these four different we’ve got the the axes, and then we’ve got the four different quadrants being created from that there. So I think you’re very much and this is no surprise with what you do. Your voice very much sits in that energizing activating, motivating type space. Because up there we’re talking about usually a voice having a stronger volume. So a good a good clear, secure volume. The pitch is low to mid pitch. So we spoke last week about some voices needing to always sit a lot lower, but often the voices that are energizing and motivating. Then they go low to meet they have a bit more pitch actuations happening in them. And that’s what you will hear frequent and prominent pitch fluctuations happening is the voice rises with energy, and then rent comes back down.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  10:12

That’s the Italian. Excellent, sometimes we go even higher.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  10:21

That’s all good, I love it, it’s great, you have a very bright tone to your voice, you have that brightness, and that what in the singing world would often refer to as forward resonance. I know that I’ve worked with speech pathologist as well, who also referred to it as that forward resonance. We know from a practical perspective, that forward resonance and that bright tone helps with projection and helps our voice travel, it gets us better volume or better projection for less effort. So it’s a really, really good vocal skill to have, when you need to speak to large groups of people, or in large rooms in large, large environments, it’s a really good skill to have. But it’s also a skill that tends to go along a lot with motivating and energizing type speakers, that brightness. Now, again, maybe that’s come about because they often are speaking in that larger space in those larger environments. But it’s also it’s a, it’s a tone that we hear, it’s present, it’s vibrant, okay. And if we actually think about the fact that they can actually use vocal tone at the moment to diagnose depression, or be one of the tools in use in diagnosing depression and mental state, and where people you know how they are and how they’re coping with some soldiers that were deployed in a particular area, they use voice recordings to try and actually track their mental health and their state of well being throughout throughout that time. So what we’re often hearing are lower tones, those tones lose that vibrancy, they lose that brightness, right, deeper, lower. And this, we’re talking about resonance quality here.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  12:10

So an energized, very and energized, I would imagine if someone’s depressed, that energy would, would start to leave the voice.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  12:20

That’s right, we lose that forward resonance, we lose that brightness, we might lose that clarity. That’s the other thing. Clarity is very common for energizing and motivating speakers. Now, not everyone, it’s always important to remember that these tones that we’re talking about, somebody may only have some of them, and not all of them. But they’re the tones that are usually sitting there. Often a faster pace goes with somebody who is energizing and motivating us, okay? They don’t tend to be talking at that slow, steady pace where they’re either trying to connect with us or show that authority is, you know, when we are excited, we are passionate, it’s that energy that comes through when we are being excited, and we are feeling motivated, that then speeds up the pace a little bit.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  13:13

So do I speak fast?

Dr. Belinda McMahon  13:15

I don’t think you speak super fast. No, but I do. I’ve noticed because I was listening to some of the podcasts. And I think when you’re really emphatic about what you’re talking about, the pace does pick up interest, and then you bring it back down again. And that’s that fluctuation, which I think is great. And, and a strong use of prosody, you know, the emphasis, emphasizing particular words, you know, accents, that sort of a fairly strong use there. Now, you can go quiet, it’s not not used, sorry, but sorry, people it can go quite extreme there. So, for instance, do you know, Brendon Burchard,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  13:54

I went to see him in. I went to Huntington Beach beautiful last year, spent three days with Brendon Burchard, in a room full of like, I don’t know, I felt I think there was maybe 1000 people. Yes. Fabulous.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  14:10

And how did you enjoy the event? Oh, I loved it. Loved it. Yes.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  14:14

Yeah. I’ve been listening to him for

Dr. Belinda McMahon  14:16

years. Yes. And I love his work as well. And yes, I think fabulous. But when you even speak, pay attention. He’s very clear. He has a lot of very broad, he has quite a brightness for his range for his pitch range. And that strong use of prosody is that emphasis on a word, and he particular uses very clear stops, he speaks and then he stops, you know, as he has strong use of pauses in what he’s saying or he says something and then it’s silent. And then he speaks. I grabbed some snippets of his voice and was running it through a spectrogram to analyze the sound. That’s sort of what I’ve been doing to develop all of these models, and you could really see it see in the spectrogram, these really clear gaps, very, very clear gaps, which is he’s very clear gaps between his word. Now, I don’t think we always notice these things when we’re listening to somebody. But when you pull it out and you start analyzing, you go, Oh, wow, that’s actually really, really very distinct. And it’s a strong use of emphasizing something. And then that strong use of pauses, you’re right, yeah. But all the time with quite a bright tone and a clear voice, and a faster pace. Now, we’re not necessarily saying it’s always fast, but just say faster than someone who’s maybe on the, the calming side of the spectrum, or where we’re talking about, say, a meditational. Speaker, or you know, a voice that’s being used in a meditation. Now, that same use of strong prosody, and and get some pauses is often used by politicians as well, in that when they’re being in that sort of authoritative speech, but the prosody seems and feels, it’s more controlled and purposeful, the pitch fluctuations aren’t quite as great because it’s not designed to be energizing, is designed to make us really feel a little bit more serious about what they’re saying, and trust that they are serious about it. So whilst they still have pitch variations, and they still have clear prosody, that pitch variations are just that little bit less, okay. And the prosody is, is more controlled, and purposeful. And the pace will be just that bit slower than somebody that’s energizing us. You know what I mean? So interesting. It is interesting. So we’re, I would say for you, Marissa, I think I think largely that I think a lot of the time your voice sits in the quadrant that goes between energizing, and then the authoritative axis down here. Wow, when when you’re speaking and you’re passionate about something, and you’re, you know, some of your work is really trying to encourage your listeners to really embrace a concept or to expose them to something new, but really open up something to them, especially when you’re doing your solo videos, and you’re not interviewing, and you’re really speaking about something that you’re passionate about. And you’re trying to share that passion with other people. And that goes a little bit more to the energizing, it’s up in that spectrum. And then you move more to the authoritative when you’re interviewing somebody, and you’re taking that leadership role in these discussions, because your job is to be the leader in these discussions. And so you’re moving into into that section. And I am sure that with your voice knowledge and your skills as well, that you also can pretty easily flip over to the collaborative space, which we spoke briefly about laughter last time, we’re in that collaborative in that space of connection, we’re doing a lot more matching. So it’s that pitch matching tone matching pace matching to the person you’re talking to. And while I haven’t been in a lesson with you, I would suggest that when you’re in a one on one lesson, you probably go into that space a little bit more, well, you’ve still got your element of authority, but you’re connecting. And have you ever noticed you may not have but it’ll be interesting to see if you notice now, if you sort of start to match that person that you’re with, you feel their energy, you hear their voice, their vocal tone, you start to match that a little bit. And the science behind this is that we all like what we’re familiar with. We connect to what we’re familiar with. So when somebody has a similar sounding voice to us, they’ve got a similar pitch, similar sort of volume, a similar pace, we feel at ease with that person, because it feels similar to us.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  19:22

That’s also interesting. I didn’t realize that that’s what my voice was doing. To be honest, I just because I’m, I feel that in all areas of my life, or I believe this to be the case, I am authentically me. And I’m in tune with my emotions and who I am. I allow myself to be vulnerable. And that determines how my voice sounds. So I have not been trained in any way to speak. I’m not a public speaker. In fact, prior to starting this podcast, I actually had a lot of anxiety around public speaking, a lot of anxiety, I would not speak publicly, everything I did was scripted, because I did not have faith in myself that if I just went for it, and I improvised that the words would come out the way they were meant to, and I would not be coherent. And so since doing the podcast, I remember the very first real that I filmed, it was, I was asked to do a minute real introducing the podcast and starting to do the countdown to the launch. So this would have been end of February 2021. It took me three hours to film a one minute reel. And I was getting so angry with myself. I was trying to be someone that I wasn’t I didn’t know if I was meant to be what people wanted or expected from me. And I was in that perfectionism mode. And it took me three hours to film a one minute real. I started by having it scripted, I then went into having prompt words, I tried everything and anything. And I still sounded like an idiot.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  21:44

But I’m sure you I’m sure you didn’t. But I think what you experienced then I think is completely normal. 100% None of us, although we, you know, we may train to be a better speaker, we may train to be a singer, it still is really confronting when we hear our own recording back. So I get it. I understand I was recording a new video for YouTube recently. And oh, it just took me forever, because I know what I’m talking about. But I stumbled over my words here and there. And, you know, I was like, Oh, well, I can’t have that. And I stopped it. And and again, it’s because we feel that pressure. And I think that is very normal. But what we then need to do is often and this actually comes into and you’re probably very on up with this, but this idea of polyvagal theory, no. Oh polyvagal theory. It’s a bit of a new love and passion of mine at the moment actually,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  22:47

it’s really interesting. It sounds like I need to have it intravenously, whatever it is, is there a drip for it?

Dr. Belinda McMahon  22:57

Maybe one day, we’ll get this. That’s right, it’s talking about the vagus nerve. So the polyvagal theory or it’s working with the vagus nerve. And actually, it’s where we realize how the vagus nerve as part of the autonomic nervous system is controlling so much. And that includes our breathing, and also our vocal fold closure. And this is why breathing exercises that we know we do all of the time with our clients, and we encourage everyone to do but this is why they can make such a difference to our vocal sound is because they can help calm our nervous system down if we’re moving into that fight or flight space, which is exactly where we go to when we’re starting to feel nervous, say about an upcoming recording that we have to do, or an upcoming speech or an upcoming performance. And I think we’d all be lying if we said that we didn’t feel that, that we didn’t feel nervous and we didn’t feel that feeling of that anticipation feeling building up in us before we did these things. And I like to try and remind myself that somebody once said to me that once you once you don’t feel nervous anymore for your about your performance, then maybe it’s time to stop. You know. I can’t really told me that but I think it’s you know, nerves or excitement. Nerves mean something matter to us. But yes, they do impact our vocal tone. They do impact our voice. And this is where we can use things like breathing exercises, and other vocal exercises that help bring us back into this place of authenticity. And bringing it back to who are we and who are you? And while I’ve got this model, and I know that absolutely if you’re sounding maybe too energized and energetic and you want to sound more authoritative I can certainly tell you what do you need to adjust in your voice to help you shift a little bit more to the right, you know, to that authoritative voice, there are clear things that we can do. But one of the most important things that I think we can all take away from this discussion and from anything, is that when we truly connect with our intention for that situation, when we truly connect with what is it that I want to achieve in this discussion, or in this meeting, in this lecture, in this presentation, in this video, when this media, release, whatever it may be, whatever, whatever it is that we’re doing, what is my purpose, and what do I want to achieve. And if we can connect with that intention, then our voice is you and I very well know our voice is a fabulous tool of expression, our voice will be more likely to actually represent us the way we want to be represented in that moment. Now, the only thing I will say, in relation to that is that you and I are blessed, we’ve been vocalists and singers for a large portion of our lives. And that means that there’s a fair amount of vocal flexibility, and intuitive work that our voice does, because we have trained it to be able to do those things. We understand breathing, we understand how emotion feels in our voice, and in our throat. We understand when somebody says the word resonance and bright tone, we understand what that is, and how we can create that. And this is where in my work with people that don’t have those skills, it can help the vocal training, vocal coaching is a mixture between understanding everything your voice is capable of doing, understanding that your voice is an instrument that can actually move you very nicely and very successfully throughout all of these vocal qualities, according to the situation you’re in. But then providing exercises to help people find that flexibility and freedom in their voice again, to help them be able to do it. Because mostly, we’ve lived in a society where we’ve been told we’re too loud, or we speak to hire, we speak too low, or we’re, so we speak too much, or we speak too fast, you know, largely, we’re always told what we’re bad at and what we do wrong. And we’re not encouraged to explore our, our voices, and enable our voices to be free to do what we want them to do.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  27:42

Well, if we want our voices to be sustainable, I feel that resonance is really important that forward resonance, because if you’re teaching, as a singing teacher, you’re doing eight hours of teaching, you need to have that Ford resonance. Even though I don’t do a lot of singing, I try to avoid singing in a lesson. Because I believe that, as humans, we’re hardwired to mimic. And I don’t want to turn out the studio full of students that sound like what I do, I want them to be authentically themselves. I only model when I have to. So I don’t do a lot of singing. And it’s not about me, it’s their singing lesson. It’s not my lesson. So that’s just my philosophy on on, teachers doing a lot of singing. But we may have to do a lot of speaking. And to, you know, while we’re working through a toolbox to find the right tool for a student, or while we’re in maybe explaining something to them, or we’re speaking through something with them. So we need to have a sustainable sound, and a sustainable instrument, whether for speaking or singing, and that forward resonance has been my savior. So I can do eight hour days of teaching days in a row. And my voice will still turn up the last day in the week, as reliable as that first day because of that. And I think that when I start to feel a little fatigue, I switch that resonance on even further.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  29:28

It’s exactly what I do, too. I agree. I think forward resonance is absolutely the savior of most of our voices. And I think it’s a real pity that more say classroom teachers, university teachers in lectures that aren’t, you know, voice specialists, and that you know that they’re not taught these skills, trainers,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  29:49

where I do Pilates. Every one of the trainers has some sort of Pathology at the moment. In fact, one of them couldn’t come into work on Monday, because her voice was was trashed?

Dr. Belinda McMahon  30:04

Wow. Yeah. No, I really think I think it’s a huge pity that for a lot of people in other industries, their voices are not considered a priority until they have a problem with them. And we know that forward resonance is absolutely a saving grace. And in my opinion, I think because that Ford resonance really does go alongside voices that are motivating and energizing, and engaging. And that’s what teachers are often trying to be that if they don’t know how to find that forward resonance, if they haven’t been taught that, then what they tend to do is they tend to go lower, and put in louder, and push more so and lower, and now they’re sort of leaning into the authoritative side of things. But they tend to overdo that because they don’t have the knowledge of the Ford resonance. And so this is where training becomes essential. It’s all very well for maybe for me to give somebody this model and say, Well, if you want to be more engaging, you need these things are more motivating. And if you want to be more authoritative, you want these things. If it’s not sustainable, none of that matters. And this is where exactly the same as with singing, this is where working with a coach actually is important. Because yes, there are overarching principles that we anyone can learn through reading about them or, or listening to a video, but then learning the techniques on how to apply them in their own voice. And then know, when do they want to really lean into that authoritative voice that might be lower, and louder, but not sustainable for a long period of time. And when do they then need to move maybe into a different vocal quality. And so and that is where it comes down to vocal health, vocal fitness, vocal, longevity, all of all of those sorts of things. And that’s what the tools and the techniques are for. So I guess, in my opinion, the voice coaching work I do is very similar to what we do with singers is there we’re teaching them and exposing them to all of these different concepts and ideas of what their voice is capable of doing. It can it’s a it’s an amazing instrument that can make a wide range of different vocal colors, sounds, volumes, pictures, and can do a lot of wonderful things. But then we need to understand how to look after the voice, and what exercises what tools do we need to help the voice then become a flexible and free instrument that we’ll be able to use the full range of colors and spectrums. You know that it has, because I think we all know when our voices are tired. And I know I’ve been here before, with a tired, exhausted voice, it loses all color, it loses options, it goes into this one little spot where I just either have to work really hard, and I just don’t get the options out of it that I want. Now, I’m feel very, very fortunate that I don’t, I don’t experience that much anymore, because of all the training I’ve done. But I will very openly and honestly say in my early 20s. My early 20s I was a well trained singer I had my A my saying classical singing, I was performing professionally in contemporary jazz musical theater. I was basically a cabaret singer. So I was performing professionally in a range of different styles. And I was teaching and I was a young teacher on the blog very young, I think I started teaching at 22. And I had an instant connection with it and loved it because I’ve always loved Voice Science. So I really connected with it well, but although I had great singing technique, I had never, ever thought about my speaking technique, or my spoken voice technique. And my spoken voice let me down, I spoke too low. I spoke too loudly. I pushed I didn’t engage in the forward resonance that I had learned as a singer. And so when I work with people, I can very genuinely say that I understand what it feels like to have to retrain your speaking voice because I have done it. I did it because my voice it conked out it. I had serious vocal health problems and concerns in those early two in my early 20s. It resulted in me having to take time off work from cancel on my gigs, canceled on my classes and lessons that I was teaching because my voice needed a break. And so I had to retrain my speaking voice because I had no other option. And you know, this is decades. We’re talking decades ago now. Yes, it’s taken me a long time to come full circle to start working back in that space. Again, I guess a lot of research, a lot of learning a lot lot of experiences, and I guess I’m now back in this space on the other side,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  35:04

that’s really interesting, because you just made me reflect on my own speaking voice when I was younger. And when I reflect on that, I think what I thought was I sounded very young. When I was young, like when I was 20, that I sounded like a, someone who was much, much younger. But I don’t think I worried so much about the sound of my voice, as much as what the way that I spoke. And by that, I mean, because Italian was my first language. And that was the language that was spoken in the, in my family home. We didn’t, we didn’t speak English. But then when, when I was surrounded by family members, and I had to speak in English, I was very aware that I spoke differently. To the rest of the family, they all had very thick, heavy accents, right? And I stood out. And then when I was amongst the English speaking community, amongst Australians amongst Anglo Saxons, whoever they were, then I was very mindful that I didn’t have an accent. Hmm, like an FE, you know what I mean? Like that kind of like, you know, if anyone’s watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding for the, the Americans or whoever is it is in some of those people when they speak. Well, imagine that I, they were the people I was surrounded with, but on steroids, in terms of accent, and here, I was speaking like this, and I felt really, really like, oh, my gosh, I just stand out here. And then put me in the opposite situation where they didn’t have accents. People were English speaking. And I had to be careful that I didn’t come across with that accent and that I saw I fit it in. So fascinating. Yeah, I didn’t want to stand out.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  37:23

Yeah, so, so fascinating. So that would all be tied up into your vocal identity, all of that, because that is all so many AI learning and belief systems being established there. In those early years of your life. Yes. Or surrounding your voice and the use of an accent or not using an accent and how you either felt like you fit it in or didn’t fit in

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  37:48

your sense of belonging. Yeah, it actually really highly impacted my sense of belonging. Where did I actually belong? What was my identity? Who was I? Who did I identify with? Which community? Did I fit into? Which one was I an imposter in? And that’s how I grew up.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  38:13

Wow. And do you think that impacted your voice and how you used to your voice in your early years?

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  38:20

I don’t think I was aware of it. But perhaps subconsciously, and you talking about your younger self made made me reflect on my younger self? And you talking about you worrying about how you sounded? Yeah, I worried about how I sounded, but not the tone of the voice. But how I actually spoke?

Dr. Belinda McMahon  38:40

Yes, yes. I don’t think I ever thought about the tone, or even the technique or what I was doing, but I think I don’t I don’t know, I think it was just more for me, it was my tool was my, sorry, my voice was my tool for my work. And, and I just kept going through and just kind of kept using it all the time. And I remember going to an EMT when I was trying to have problems. And the first thing he said to me was, why is talking so low and so loud. He said my end it was a lovely, lovely gentleman, and doctor, and I was like, I’ve never really stopped to think about it. But I also think that my identity had got tied up with being the loud, vibrant, energetic person, the person who talked a lot, always did things. So I never, you know, I never really had space to let my voice rest. You know, it’s very, very interesting how it all ties together. And then yeah, problem like I did. And I couldn’t keep going that way. It was not sustainable. Because it started to impact my speaking voice, but then it went into my obviously the impact of my singing voice because my voice was exhausted. did and I had to re learn so many different ways about how I use my voice, but might while still being me. while still being me,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  40:12

I think now I’ve kinda, I just had an aha moment. When I was, like working professionally. I always found it so hard to speak. Even introducing a song, I didn’t want people to hear me speaking. I had no problem singing, I could speak, speak, like, sing for hours. Like, that was my job. I was doing all these gigs, and I was fine. But net, don’t ever ask me to speak or even say Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, UFC.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  40:47

They’re absolutely. Now what I should have tweaked when you said earlier today that you didn’t like doing your first drill that you had to do for the podcast, that it took you a long time to do that, that probably all really ties back into this feeling of not quite knowing where your voice should be sitting to fit in. And so who are you yet? And so yeah, who are you when you’re speaking this during this real? And you want to be you, you know, you want to be yourself? I am now yeah. And so but when you’re doing that for the first time? Yeah, a really interesting challenge to find that, yes. So perhaps

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  41:28

this podcast has been really good therapy. For me, it’s like, because I have to I mean, I have to film all these reels during the week. And now how I do it is I just before I start a reel, I just have the first few words. You know, I don’t even know sometimes I, I just have those first few words. And I just have this little mantra and I go, just let the words come through me.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  41:59

And that’s fabulous. And go. And

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  42:03

at the end of it. I don’t even remember what I’ve said, to be perfectly honest, I’m just so in flow. I don’t remember what I’ve said. And then I listen back and I go, what that was actually good. I usually tell myself, even maybe bad for someone else. And I’ll say to myself, well, I made sense. And that was actually good content. It is

Dr. Belinda McMahon  42:30

it is and you know, what I think is just getting into that state of flow is a really, really good place. If you aren’t doing reels. If you need to create videos for a business, just get yourself into that space. And then you start speaking about it. Yeah,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  42:44

I just do one take. And I’m so proud of that. I’m so proud of the fact that I can get from start to finish on a one take without script just being in flow. When I watch other people and all the cuts, and I go, wow, I can do that in one take. Now that’s a big deal. For me, that is a big deal. For me, that in itself is something that I celebrate.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  43:12

And you absolutely should. And if you listen back to any of those, I think what you will find is you will hear all of these different vocal qualities that we’ve been speaking about, you hear that you will be moving from that energizing motivating sort of very passionate sound, and then you might just slow it down a little bit and go that little bit lower. And as I said, have that slightly more purposeful prosody, when you’re leaning in a little bit more to your, into your authority, that slightly more serious moment, or, you know, going into that more medium sort of tone, that collaborative, obviously, when you’re talking to your audience, you can’t do a tone and pitch matching, because you’re not hearing them. But I think sometimes when you take it to something that’s a little bit more neutral, that’s going into that space there and I absolutely would put money on it that if you listen back to those, you’ll hear that you’re moving through these different these different stages. And in my the model, it’s like these different quadrants, moving through them, according to what you’re speaking about. And this is because you’re really leaning in is because of two things. One, you are trusting the intention and the purpose and you’re you know you’re leaning into what is my intention here, what is my purpose, what do I need to say and then trusting that that will come through. And secondly, as I said before, you are a trained singer, your voice can respond to those intentions, because you do have an instrument that is flexible, that does understand vocal color and understands pitch contours. You know it understands resonance, it understand your you understand all of those things. So when you have a particular intention, your voice is able to match that intention, or is it that’s what sometimes what we have to work on with people is to help their boys get to that stage where they can number one understand, really understand and trust their intentions. And secondly, have an instrument that can then actually reflect those intentions and bring them forth. So

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  45:19

as a speaking coach, I’d like to ask your thoughts on a couple of different voices and sounds. So what do you think about? And I think this is a thing that’s more predominant in females, where there’s an upward inflection. At the end of a sentence, everything is new. I can’t even do it.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  45:45

It’s actually quite an Australian thing to do.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  45:49

I hear a lot of Americans doing it, too. Oh, really? Okay.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  45:53

I’ll have to go have a listen to that, then. Because I know I’ve Europeans and most certainly settle. It’s very Australian to me. But then that may be why with the Italian accent that you can’t, because I wouldn’t imagine with Italian that that would happen very much at the end of a sentence. Look, I catch myself doing it. Sometimes I actually have to tell you that I don’t like it.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  46:16

Give me an example. Give the listeners an example of what I’m meaning or what

Dr. Belinda McMahon  46:21

you’re going. So it’s like, so Marissa, thank you so much for having me here today. I’m really looking forward to speaking. I really, I think I think we’ve got some great things to talk about.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  46:32

So you know what that makes you sound? You

46:35

tell me I’d love silly.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  46:37

Yes. Really? and intelligent. And

Dr. Belinda McMahon  46:40

that’s right. Exactly. And obviously, that’s, I was obviously over exaggerating that then I actually have people do that, in all honesty, quite naturally. So absolutely. I think it lowers the level of intelligence at low. It doesn’t like deliver intelligence, but it lowers the perception of intelligence. It most certainly. And that’s definitely undermines your authority. And then because it makes us sound like we’re asking a question at the end of every word. Yes. Yeah. Too

47:11

many questions, people.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  47:14

That’s right. So the going up at the end of the sentence, I really dislike I’m not saying that we won’t do it. Sometimes accidentally, again, when we’re in low, and we are using our, our voice, like with pure intention and purpose. Maybe that will happen sometimes. And maybe in that particular instance, it might be okay. But mostly you we do want sentences to end downwards, not upwards.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  47:43

We want a downward dog, not an up sunrise. Exactly right. That’s exactly right. What about vocal fry? Because I know there’s a lot of controversy around vocal fry. And to be perfectly honest, it drives me insane. And if a student comes in, and that’s how they speak, I have to beat it out of them. Or, you know what, leave it at the door. I can’t deal. That’s probably my only bias. And it has nothing to do with singing. But it has to do with voice is that I can’t deal with vocal fry. When it’s there constantly.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  48:20

Neither can I. Neither can I really don’t like vocal fry. I do wonder if you and I both potentially have a bit of a vocal health alert or alarm that goes off in our head when we hear it. So sometimes I wonder, well, if somebody doesn’t have that vocal health alarm going off in their head, did they hear it the same way? But I would say how many people in say strong leadership and business positions. Do you hear speaking with vocal fry? You don’t hear a lot of them. You might hear the celebrity celebrities that are a bit too, you know, yeah, it’s

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  48:57

a Kardashian thing.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  48:59

It’s a Kardashian thing. Exactly.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  49:01

This is my Kardashian or I was so mad. I was so delighted. I was so sad. I was so bad. Everybody else those four words sum up their lives. Sad glad bad, mad,

Dr. Belinda McMahon  49:19

mad. That’s funny. Exactly. You can hear it. So to me personally, it’s low energy. Okay, it doesn’t sit anywhere on this on this graph and model that I have. It’s nowhere on there because I don’t see it as a anywhere on the positive voices. You know how I think I mentioned that if we go too far to within score extreme in any of them. So for instance, authoritative can be lower, slightly louder, clearer tone, but if you take that too far, it can start to sound aggressive. You know, if you lean too far into that, the calming nurturing voice qualities we’re on warmer, more breath tone, a bit of lower pitch, slower pace, slightly less pitch contours happening, that sort of calming, nurturing, if that goes too low down, if that goes to the extreme, it can sound depressed or disinterested. It can be you know, that sound. And this is where sometimes shy people get caught out, somebody might actually just be shy, yes, and not knowing how to engage, but they come across as disinterested, or horribly disengaged. And this is, again, where understanding how your voice represents you is very important. Because sometimes you might think, oh, they’ll just know that I’m shy and timid. But in actual fact, it gets perceived as disengaged. Oh, yeah, exactly. Somebody might be thinking I’m being strong, and we can come across as arrogant. Or we can come across as aggressive. Any of these voice uses going to the extreme contains because to a different point. And fry is a little bit there, for I is the ultimate in absolute no energy, absolute no energy, and whilst maybe some personalities that have gotten known with that voice can get away with it. That’s because once you’re in celebrity status, once you’re in that status of being a celebrity, there are certain things that you can still can you can do that may not necessarily align. So for instance, the Kardashians can use their vocal fry. We don’t like it, but they still have all these power and influence and status because of everything else that surrounds them. It’s already there. No,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  51:36

it was a sex tape. Right? Let’s not forget where it all started. Where it relates to sex type. Oh, that’s good parenting.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  51:49

Yeah, that’s right. And we don’t really want to be there. Do we know you know, but we have to remember that the average person who may take on those, that vocal those vocal qualities, it doesn’t necessarily mean the same to other people, when they hear that, so personally fry, I don’t like because it’s not a sustainable, vocal quality to use a lot. But also, for most for the average person speaking with that level of fry, for the average normal person, yes. It’s not going to come across as necessarily sexy. And you know, and that sex tape or any of that, or as having a status is potentially going to be disinterested.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  52:30

Yeah, negative connotations.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  52:32

Yes, that’s right.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  52:33

But I love I’m gonna pull you up on something. No, Belinda. And I, and I’m gonna do this with love. You said the average normal person off? Sorry, I shouldn’t say that. And no, no, but you know, what’s funny, is because we are the average normal people.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  52:54

That’s what I mean, I guess I should clarify.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  52:56

No, no, but I’m joking. That’s right, exactly.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  52:59

I’ve meaning basically, you know, once you’re a celebrity, and you’ve got so many other things surrounding your name and your energy, there might be things that you can get away with. But if we were just looking about how can we hire? How can we do better in life? How can we present ourselves better at a job interview? Or how can we record a better video? You know, the thirds of us, you know, like you and I, yeah, and the listeners

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  53:27

are more aware than normal people.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  53:29

That’s right, exactly. We are, and we don’t necessarily have celebrity status surrounding us. Yes. To mean that there are some things that we can get away with. So yeah, yeah, I think you understand what, you know what I mean, here is 100%. Yeah, yeah.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  53:46

I’m going to ask you a controversial question now. Okay. And this is for the people in the classical world, who back in the day, if you’re a classical singer, he used to speak up there as well. You know, back in the day, all the classical teachers, they all spoke up there. Yes, they all spoken into. So, boy, head voice, you know, not being a snob when it comes to terminology at all. So what would that tell you about that person? If you didn’t realize that it was something that they had been trained to speak that way?

Dr. Belinda McMahon  54:25

Yes. I think if that was to be transferred over to the world of business or a corporate world, or if they were trying to become an entrepreneur in the entrepreneurial space like you and I work in, it would not be effective at all. It would be it would be perceived as quite, number one be weak, it wouldn’t have authority to that tone. Again, when want that lower tone and that lower pitch and a clear tone. And worst case scenario. It could be be perceived as that person being a little bit silly, probably older than what they are, potentially an older voice, probably potentially, for the stereotype, say, of the dufry Old woman that may potentially have that weaker, higher voice that doesn’t have much substance.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  55:20

Yes, it could be someone to that’s very caring when you listen to Mrs. Doubtfire.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  55:25

Oh, well, that that is true, a much more nurturing role. However, I even think in today’s society, I do think maybe several decades ago, that higher pitched voice for women wouldn’t be seen in that nurturing capacity. But I think now we still tend to even like the nurturing voices to be that little bit lower because we are very used to voices being lower than what they were. And and I think it would, it would take you back and I think that’s a little bit why would take us back to that idea of it being someone older and from a different generation, or a different period of time. Certainly not an assertive, strong person in this in this era. And I agree with you, it potentially is controversial to say that, but I know the clients I work with are women, young women who have fairly, you know, good voices, who say in corporate meetings at executive level, they feel unheard, they are torqued down, they cannot they cannot be heard, they are not seen with authority. I think it is just the reality that we are dealing in a fairly competitive environment now. And hi weak, light female voices, that maybe once upon a time were okay, in particular environments. If those voices and women or men, some men can have quite light high voices as well, that’s grandad usually, yes. Well, that’s right. And that’s going into aging voice, which is another thing that I really do think that we can navigate and move against. So that you know, the risk of discrimination from a voice sound to sound, somebody’s starting to sound old, you know, we can get that little bit of instability and the tone, the thinner tone, a little bit unstable, just that little bit of that crack that can come in, that’s an eight, there’s some aging voice issues. And again, in my experience, vocal training can reverse that. So we’re looking at, you know, slowing down aging process or not looking, you know, moving backwards from all of that, and so many other areas of our life, we can keep a youthful voice. And you know, what that is, is keeping strength, clarity and brightness. Brightness is again, what makes the voice sound more youthful, and energized. And yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So while you know what somebody once said to me, that with the work I’m doing, there’s like, well, you know, could it be used negatively? Could somebody be using it to manipulate people use their particular vocal tone and a way to manipulate people? And I guess the sad, the sad truth is, yes, somebody could the voice is that powerful. In actual fact, that’s already been done. If you remember, Elizabeth Holmes, who was the woman involved in the blood scandal in Silicon Valley, she was the one who set up that big, big company, and it was I can’t remember all the details, but it was to do with it was to do with blood and that they could test things through the blood and diseases. It was, I’d have to look it up in more detail. As far as I’m aware, she actually is in jail now because she, she was a massive fraud. The entire thing was a massive fraud. There are books and movies about her Okay. And, and it’s Elizabeth Holmes is her name. And it was a Silicon Valley Valley fraud. And anyway, in her book, she says one of the things she did was she purposely lowered her voice. So she would sound more intelligent, to connect with these very, very wealthy people that she was trying, she was convincing that she had this amazing medical technology. And they all invested it worked. She did it. And changing her voice was one of the things that she actually did to make that credible

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  59:32

often, I’ll have to go and listen to some of the female CEOs that are around and listen to their voices. And yes, see, see what the tone of their voice is like. And then what about people like we’re gonna start wrapping this up, but I just wanted to ask a couple more questions. What about someone like Tony Robbins, Anthony Robbins. He has such a distinct voice now. I can’t Don’t listen to it to be honest. Any voice to me that is damaged. I, it’s like fingernails down a blackboard. I physically, am so turned off by a voice. Yeah, I can’t I just go, it’s a trigger for me. There’s something up with this voice. I can’t listen to it.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  1:00:21

Yes, I actually have the same problem. And And interestingly, I do know several people who say that they don’t like his voice. Now. I think there’s two things that are in play here with him. One is that his voice wasn’t like that wasn’t as bad as that when he started, you can hear clips of him where his voice was a lot clearer and not as gravelly. So again, we like what I mentioned before celebrity status, once somebody gets to a particular status, I think some things are then forgiven or overseen, you know, they don’t have as much weight placed on them anymore. However, if we look at an authoritative voice, lower pitch, clear tone, he doesn’t have clear time, but lower pitch, strong volume, that he has that steady pace, and we look at the motivating where he has that quite a lot of variations happening and strong use of porosity, he very much sits in that same quadrant between that motivating voice and the authoritative voice, with the exception of the clear tone. So he has a lot of the other vocal elements and attributes that place him in an oath, very authoritative, he is usually quite authoritative. But then he has elements of that energizing motivating speaker, as I said, that strong use of that of porosity, slightly faster pace when he is being motivating and energizing slow art slowing it down a bit when he’s leaning more into being serious and authoritative. So he has a lot of the other vocal qualities that can very easily place him in that quadrant. Now that huge vocal sort of rasp, and gravel sound that was really it’s a gravelly sound to his voice, you and I, and I think quite a lot of people probably find that uncomfortable to listen to, because we know that that must feel uncomfortable to him. And we know that it’s not a healthy vocal quality. But as I said, he didn’t necessarily have it at the beginning. And he does have lots of the other attributes that can still place him in those brackets. And then I think in his instance, as well, he’s also got the physical attributes such as his height, and his stature, that also go along with it is said, while I believe that voice is one of the most underlooked, or overlooked, and under recognized factors in our influence, and our ability to impact people and build trust. And I do think the fact that our bodies are on an autonomic nervous system level like so, below the level of consciousness, our voices are reacting to the sounds that we hear. And I think those factors mean that the voice really is a significant contributor, and in many instances, one of the strongest and best tools that we can really learn to use to help us with impact and influence and engaging people and collaborating connecting with people. But that doesn’t mean that other elements such as presence, and and gesture and stage presence, and in his instant stature and height, don’t still have an impact. I think they do as well. Yes,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:03:43

no, he’s amazing. He’s probably the opposite of Brendan, but the sharp is a little guy with a higher pitched voice and far more animated. Now we’re going to start wrapping this up. Belinda, is there anything that you wanted to add about your coaching program that we haven’t touched upon?

Dr. Belinda McMahon  1:04:05

Now, look, I think we’ve covered everything very well, I think basically, my, my overall philosophy is that I want people to understand and to really learn how much they can work on their voice, how our voices aren’t fixed instruments. Yes, we have elements that are, you know, we have certain elements of our vocal sound that I’ve fixed. And our voice is very connected to our sense of identity and who we are as a person. But that doesn’t mean that our voices don’t have a huge range of vocal color and pitch, variety and resonance ability. That means that we can through training that we can learn to use our voice in lots of different ways to actually make sure our voices are representing us the way we want to. Yes, because yes, Our voice is connected to our identity. But sometimes people say to me, that they, they feel like they’re a very confident person. But they know their voice doesn’t make them sound confident. So sometimes people find that there’s a disconnect between who they are, and how they sound. And I think that’s where voice coaching is really important that can really help that we we help each person individually connect with who they are, what’s the story of their voice? How did they want to use their voice? And what tools do they need to be able to do that? It’s all about empowering people, empowering people to be able to do what they want to be able to do with their voice. And I’m very, very passionate, that everybody can improve, or can learn to use their voice,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:05:50

you know, everything you just said, I was sitting here listening, and I thought, that’s the same as singers. It is, everything you’ve just said applies to singing as well.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  1:06:04

It certainly does.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:06:04

100% Yes. 100%.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  1:06:08

That’s right. It’s the same philosophy that I have with my singing clients. As I do my spoken voice clients. It’s just that sometimes they’ve got different goals, they’ve got, you know, the intention of why they’re here, training is often for a different purpose. And that’s, that’s what we work with.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:06:26

Thank you so much for sharing. So much of your time. On the podcast

Dr. Belinda McMahon  1:06:33

been my absolute pleasure. Well,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:06:35

we have spoken. For hours, literally, we have two episodes here. There was just so much to cover off on and it was, I felt like I was just hanging out with a with a friend. And we were having fun and chatting. And it was just such a joy. And I appreciate you sharing all your pearls of wisdom and all your knowledge that you have in this area. Very fascinating work that you’re doing. It’s incredible work, keep it up. And if anyone wants to find you, we’re going to share all your links in the show notes. So people can go to your website, they can go to wherever you want them to go to through those links to find you and to engage with you. But I really appreciate your time and your efforts, your energy and your voice.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  1:07:25

Thank you, Marissa. It’s been an absolute joy. It really has. I just really hope that your listeners enjoy these episodes.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:07:31

I’m sure they will. Thank you. Take care, my friend. Good luck with everything.

Dr. Belinda McMahon  1:07:36

Thank you, you too.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:07:37

Bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of voice and beyond. I hope you enjoyed it as now is an important time for you to invest in your own self care, personal growth and education. Use every day as an opportunity to learn and to grow so you can show up feeling empowered and ready to live your best life. If you know someone who will also be inspired by this episode, please be sure to copy and paste the link and share it with them. Or share it on social media and use the hashtag a voice and beyond. I promise you I am committed to bringing you more inspiration and conversations just like this one every week. And if you would like to help me please rate and review this podcast and cheer me on by clicking the subscribe button on Apple podcast right now. I would also love to know what it is that you most enjoyed about this episode and what was your biggest takeaway? Please take care and I look forward to your company next time on the next episode have a voice and beyond