Whether you’re working with people one-on-one, an executive working with a team, or you’re a parent who wants to the best come out of your kids, you’ve been tasked the challenging and rewarding work of helping others find their voice.

In this episode, I’m talking about what it looks like to help others release their voice. Some topics discussed are how my son’s cub scout troop was the perfect reminder of how amazing it feels to help someone find and use their voice, why so much of how people express themselves has to do with what’s inside their mind, why it’s important to give immediate positive feedback when someone begins to share their voice, how doing so allows you to challenge them later, and more!

 

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

Hey, hey, it’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Today, I’m going to help you become a better coach, whether you are somebody who is working with people one-on-one, maybe you’re an executive that wants to help your team do better to bring out their voice and that sort of thing.  Maybe your parents who are looking at your kids going “I want to see the best come out of them.”

If you are someone who is in that position where you know that have the opportunity, the ability, the responsibility even to draw out someone else’s voice to help them to become more of who they are, to help them step into who they are to use their voice and make a difference in who they are then you have a special, special place in my heart.

I totally know the amazing opportunity that you have, both for yourself and for them, because it is transformational work to be able to encourage others and to see them change, to be a guide that comes alongside someone, to encourage them, and to bring them out and challenge them and help them reach the next level.  It’s so exciting.

But one of the biggest, biggest challenges that people have is that they are very intimidated by others.  We’re very, very often…I mean, everybody I think, but definitely when you’re in a position, when you’re specifically are in a position and there’s somebody who looks up to you, who is looking to you to help them, looking to you as a leader or as a guide, most likely they’re wanting your approval.  They’re wanting your nod and they’re wanting to know that you like them.

And so in a sense, you kind of just buy the fact that you’re in that position, you’re kind of intimidating, which makes it difficult for someone to come in and feel comfortable with you and to really be able to warm up to you and that sort of thing.  So today, what we’re going to talk about is when we talk about what it looks like to help others really release that voice.

OK, and as usual, I have a kids’ story for you.  I told this kids’ story.  This is totally part of who I am and part of my brand are all these kids stories because I have kids and I think that when we bring it down to that level of just really simple level of children, I think everybody can relate because we were all kids at one time and many of us have children or you know children or you love children.  And so I love to use these examples in order to make it so that everybody can kind of relate.

So we’re going to go to the kid story now.  Recently, I have started working with my son’s Cub Scout troop because they’re going because they’re going to be singing the national anthem at a college basketball game.  And they’re so excited; I mean some of them are excited.  I think the older ones are having a harder time probably getting excited, but the younger ones, oh they’re so excited about this opportunity because they love to sing.

So the first thing that I do is I have them gather around me while I’m sitting down at the piano.  Now, if you don’t already notice about me, I was a music teacher and I taught music lessons and voice lessons.  So when I’m talking about this, this is the background that I’m coming from and I make all kinds of connections between how people use their voices in a singing sense and how they use them in a more figurative way or that voice of influence kind of way.

So I have these boys standing around me and we’re doing these scales and the more that they sing, they more excited they get.  And then we go and we started singing the actual anthem and we do some call backs and echoing and things like these so that they can really learn it.  And by the time we’re done, it was so fun.  I had such a blast and one of the little boys looked at me and goes “I wanna be a music teacher when I grow up.”  And I _____ “Oh yes, steal my heart, take it now.”  I love it.  I love it when they get so excited.

And that whole experience just reminded me of a couple of things that I want to share with you today.  So number one, it is an amazing experience to be able to help people find their voice, to help them find joy in expressing themselves and help them find joy in singing.  Number two, singing and sharing your voice in the world, a voice of influence or singing, either one of them.  It’s 10 percent talent and probably 15 percent practice and the rest of it is all in the head.

Now, that is totally my own statistics.  They’re actually not statistics, this is my estimation.  But this is after years and years and years of working with people and helping them and what I’m saying is that so much of what people or how they express themselves has to do with what’s going on inside of their minds.  You see this is a music teacher, when kids are bout in 4^th grade, they start to really pull back until 4^th grade, kindergarten.  Earlier, I worked with little, little kids and going on up to about 3rd grade, they are very enthusiastic.  They’re not afraid to sing.  They enjoy it.  They smile and they get into it.  It’s so much fun.

And then about in 4^th grade, they still kind of do it but they’re starting to pull back and you see a consistent pull back on that voice throughout the rest of their adult lives up until about the age of the late 30s maybe.  At late 30s, at least women, I’ve seen this from women more than men, but at least in women in late 30s, they start to care less about what other people think about them and so they start to share more.  They start to sing out more.

And then they hit 40 and there are some sort of like _____ in people and it’s amazing to see how much more comfortable they are with just who they are and they start to really share.  They start to really sing.  They start to really let their voice go.

So that desire to impress people, I think really start to hit around 4^th grade, that desire to not just impress people as a younger child who want to impress people as well.  But there’s more hesitation because the older you get, the more you realize that other people don’t necessarily adore me like I thought they did and the world is a lot more harsh that I thought it was.  And some people don’t like my voice, some people aren’t going to just smile at when I sing, when I share it.

And so, so much of what goes on in the other person or maybe in yourself has to do with this head game.  It’s a head game.  What is going on inside of the other person that you’re working with?  OK, let me give you a couple of tips based on both.  I’m going use the example of working with these Cub Scouts little kids, but it absolutely applies to the way that I work with adults as well in just helping them communicate and find their voice of influence.

So when I have these little boys stand around, I have them stand around me at the piano and I’m playing these little scales and the very first thing that I do as soon as they open up their mouths and they started singing is they get immediate feedback from me.  They know right away that I am so proud of them for opening up and letting sound out.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, because when someone first shares their voice, when someone first comes up with an idea, oftentimes it’s not the best one.  Oftentimes, it’s a far cry from the best thing that you want from them, but if you affirm their voice immediately then they had a sense of OK, so even if that wasn’t perfect, at least it’s wanted.  They want to hear more from me.

So what I do, when I’m working with these boys here, I was going up and down the scale and I was singing with them a little and they would call back and we work together and then I hear it and I go “Oh, let’s just listen to that sound.  I wanna hear more of it,” and that sort of thing.

And in encouraging them as they saw the joy on my face because they were producing that joy by singing, when they could see that they had the power to make me delighted, to delight in them then that give them more confidence to sing out louder when I wanted them to sing out louder.  It also give me more room and buffer to be able to correct them when I needed to.

So if they did something that’s wasn’t quite right, I could say “Oops, let’s hold on a second, it wasn’t quite as good as you did it last time,” or I could say “This little line right here, let’s take a look at this more closely and pick it apart a little bit because _____, isn’t it?”  And of course these are little boys and at the same time, guys, people appreciate it when you appreciate them.

If you really want to help somebody else, if you want to help them by coaching them and that sort of thing then one of the biggest gifts that you can give them is encouragement.  And I’m not saying that to ever, you know, give a challenge because I talked about this before but I think people need to be safe, celebrated, and challenged.  They need to feel safe, they need to feel celebrated and then you need to bring in the challenge.

And I absolutely believe this, if you provide that atmosphere where they feel like their voice is wanted and that you are for them, you are here to help them, this is about them then when you are ready to celebrate something about them, you can do that, you can say “Wow, that was actually really great.”  And then when you need to bring in that challenge, you can bring it in powerfully.

And they know, “Look, this person is my coach, my mentor, my parent, my manager, they care about me.  They are for me.  They are so for me that they are putting so much energy into this.  They believe in me.  They believe that what I have is special and that that’s worthwhile to hear even if I need to keep working to refine that, I’m willing to put myself under their tutelage in order to get better because I know that it’s not about shame, it’s not about feeling bad about myself, it’s about revving it up and feeling like it matters and that I can do something about it.  And because they care about me, I have the confidence to keep going even when I get tired.

So these boys, I tell you what for 20 minutes, we were singing like crazy, and like I said, I have them around me in the piano.  I’m constantly giving this feedback and then we turnaround and I look at them in the eyes.  They mirror you.  You guys, people mirror you and of course you’re going to really see it in a young child when you smile at them, they smile back at you.  When you frown at them, they feel crummy and so they frown back at you.  But it’s not unlike when you’re adult, when you’re an adult and you’re doing this.

When you’re encouraging people, they might not smile back at you right away.  Because, I mean think about high schoolers, when I was a high school music teacher, it would be so funny because, you know, I would share my enthusiasm for them and the whole group.  And with the whole group, they would just sort of like they were still very stoic a lot of times, especially when I first started, they didn’t know me and feel comfortable with me yet.  But when I started to work one-on-one with people, when I could work one-on-one and I could hear them then I could give them immediate feedback and they started to really believe in themselves and they started to smile.

It’s the same thing when I’m working with folks one-on-one and they’re talking about how they’re dealing with a problem, how they’re working on a situation, or something that they’re struggling with.  It is absolutely important.  I absolutely believe that that is so important for me to start out with an affirmation of some kind.

I love how you are working towards this with this person, even if I totally disagree with the way that they’re approaching it, I can come back to that but I need to start with “What can I affirm in them first?”  What can be celebrated?”  Because they need to know that I care for them, I care about them and I’m for them then when I come back with a “You know what, this is really an important what you’re doing here.”  And they recognize that in themselves and they see that in themselves and they start to realize “Yeah, this is important.  I am important.  My voice here really does matter.”

But then we get to the point of saying “Alright, so let’s take a look at this a little more closely.”  “Why do you think that?”  Or “How do you know that?”  We need to take a look at though then we get to bring in the challenge piece then people don’t want to just be safe and celebrated.  They don’t want to feel of all sense of affirmation from you.  They want to know that you are here to help make them better.

So you’re not only here to be for them, with them, to celebrate them, to make them feel comfortable, or to help them find their voice.  No, no, you are also as a coach, you are also here to challenge them, to bring in that extra effort, that extra beat of advice or help them think through things so that they can improve and they can feel more confident in who they are and who they are becoming as a person, whatever they are, or whatever they’re trying to become.

So much of the coaching relationship is about this head game.  It’s about voice.  It’s about the head game of voice.  It’s about what’s going on inside of people so that they can feel comfortable enough to actually sing, to actually let their voice be heard.

I find that this is through with myself.  When I start to question my abilities, when I start to become self critical or I let a criticism sink in and then I think “Oh my gosh, I do stink.”  “This doesn’t work.”  “I’m not going a good job,” whatever it might be.  When I start to do that, if I do that before I’m about to step on stage or if I do that before I’m about to approach a group of people with an offering of some kind to help them in some way, I’m not able to offer as freely as when I want to feel like I actually have something that’s of value to offer.

So in order to help other people find that voice of influence in themselves, we need to help them connect with the fact that they are valuable, that they are worthy, and that they have something important to share.  And so once you get to that point then you come in with some additional ideas about how to improve that will help them really find and release their voice.  In helping them do that, you will find your Voice of Influence.