Born With It: Speaking With Charisma

What if charisma isn't something you learn, it's something you were born with that got covered up?

In this off-season episode, Lauri Smith joins Kelly Myerson on what was then the Mystic Nerd Squad Podcast (now Bridges and Beacons) for a wide-ranging conversation about authentic speaking, the soul suckers that drain your energy before you open your mouth, and why imitating Martin Luther King Jr. or Lady Gaga will never unleash your charisma (because that's theirs, not yours.)

Lauri shares the acting class moment that changed everything, how the Speaker Alter Ego Quiz was born, and why speaking is a spiritual practice, not a performance skill. Kelly brings her own journey from holding back on stage to fully embracing a speaking style that's more maternal than commanding and more connected than controlled.

Listen if you've ever wondered why your message isn't landing the way you know it could. 

Topics covered:
•  Why charisma is not one-size-fits-all
•  The Seydways Studio moment: jaw tension, oneness, and the first time Lauri truly let go
•  Soul Suckers: what they are, where they came from, and how they show up in speaking
•  The Speaker Alter Ego Quiz: how it was born and why it types the resistance, not the person
•  Silence, temperature checks, and why slowing down isn't the answer
•  Speaking as a spiritual practice that raises consciousness

🎙️ Originally aired on the Mystic Nerd Squad Podcast with Kelly Myerson (now Bridges and Beacons)

🔗 Find Kelly: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bridges-and-beacons-podcast/id1603063964

1. Charisma is not one size fits all, and imitating someone else's will never work.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s charisma was his. Lady Gaga's instrument is hers. Copying the style, the gestures, or the delivery of speakers we admire doesn't unleash our charisma, it covers it. We are each born with a one-in-eight-billion version that only comes through when we stop imitating and start transmitting.

2. Charisma isn't about being emotional. It's about befriending sensation.
The most compelling speakers haven't suppressed their emotion or let it run them, they've befriended all of it. Sensation, feeling, energy: all harnessed in service of the room. That's what moves people from "I understood you" to "I felt you."

4. The mask is like carpal tunnel: an innate trait overused into a habit.
If you're naturally funny, you can be funny. If you're naturally peppy, that's a gift. The problem isn't the trait, it's when that one trait becomes the only one available, hardened by repetition into a reflexive protection. Jivin’ Jokester, Peppy Pleaser, Deranged Manikin. They're not flaws. They're innate gifts that got stuck.

5. Don't slow down. Take breaths.
Telling a fast talker to slow down doesn't work. Taking one breath more than you're comfortable with does. Silence isn't a gap, it's a temperature check. It's how you read the room, let the audience integrate, and decide what to do next. 

6. The audience is not your adversary, and picturing them in underwear is insulting to both of you.
Fight-or-flight training makes us walk in assuming danger. The truth is the people in your audience are there because someone they trust said you were worth hearing. At worst they're neutral. At best they're leaning in. Start from there and actually look at them.

7. Speaking is a spiritual journey, not a nerve-wracking obligation to survive.
Most speaking training stops at fear. Lauri's work goes further and deeper. Speaking, like relationships or health, is a path back to your true self. And the more people speaking soulfully, from their actual resonance, not a mask, the more consciousness gets raised.

The Speaker Alter Ego Quiz

Take the Speaker Alter Ego quiz to find out which protective mask hides your natural radiance so you can learn how to get present, connect deeply, and share your vision when it matters most!

https://voice-matters.com/speaker-alter-ego-quiz/

If you love this show and you’re looking for some new shows to fill your queue, head over to feministpodcasterscollective.com to explore everything FPC has to offer. 

Transcript

Off-season series, Mystic Nerd Squad / Bridges and Beacons

Lauri 0:32

Hello, hello, and welcome back to Untamed Leader. It's Lori here with another off-season conversation where I'm the guest on someone else's podcast. This one is from Kelly Myerson's show, which at the time was called the Mystic Nerd Squad Podcast. It's now called Bridges and Beacons. Kelly is one of those hosts who brings her whole self to a conversation and it really shows. We talked about what authentic charisma actually is and why it has nothing to do with imitating the speakers we admire. We got into the soul suckers, which is my name for the inner critics that drain our energy right before we open our mouth. And we explored what happens when we stop trying to perform our way into connection and just show up as ourselves. I also talk about my own journey from someone who hid behind intelligence and good girl conditioning to someone who finally let the wilder, truer parts come through. If you've ever wondered why your message isn't landing the way you know it could, this one goes there. Here's my conversation with Kelly Myerson.

How the speaking passion started — dancing on the coffee table

Kelly 1:39

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Mystic Nerd Squad Podcast. I am your Mystic Nerd, Kelly Myerson, joining you this evening. Evening for for me and for my guest, Lori Smith, but for many of you, you may be catching this at a different point in time. If you're at all like me, you're probably commuting or you could be washing dishes. But I can guarantee you, no matter what time you're hearing this episode, it is the perfect time to hear it. My guest tonight is Lori Smith. And I was telling her before we came on that I am a total fangirl, and I'm really excited to speak with her, and you'll understand why very soon. Soulful Speaking Coach Lori Smith is a speaker, author, and podcast host who treats speaking as a spiritual practice that raises consciousness by healing old wounds, guiding us home to our true selves. Her mission is calling forth open-hearted leaders to help change the world with authenticity, creativity, and courage. Lori, there is nothing I don't love about that. Welcome and thank you for being here. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. Yes, and you are a phenomenal podcaster. I listen to a lot of podcasts, so I can say that with confidence. And one of the things that I love about your podcast is it's so beautifully curated from start to finish. The transitional sounds, your pivot pivot at the end. I find myself just like I'm often commuting when I'm listening. That's my podcast time. But I feel like I would love to be curled up with a blanket and a cozy cup of tea because it feels like such a guilty pleasure podcast.

Lauri 3:35

Oh, I love that. I love that. It's raining here now. So the image of, you know, curling up with a cup of tea and a blanket is really kind of fits the mood. Yes.

Kelly 3:46

So how did you get your start with a passion for speaking? Is this something you were born with? You know, five-year-old Lori was standing in front of the living room. Like, let me tell you my perfect TED Talk for today.

Lauri 4:06

Not so much TED Talks, but when you said standing in the living room, I do have an image of myself like dancing, playing make-believe when I was alone in our living room on the coffee table and like doing something with salt and pepper in our living room, and my mother walking in and catching me, like, you know, I was I still had a little of the push-pull with being seen, I guess, because there was no one there to see this dance routine that I was making up. And there I was doing it. I love that.

Kelly 4:39

I I can relate to that being a young child. For me, it was uh narrating everything going on and uh creating like an entire song about whatever was happening, and um just like freely free flowing it. I could just go on for days and days.

Lauri 5:02

Yeah,

Sensitive actors, introverts, and verbal processors

Lauri 5:03

yeah. And then I did find myself in theater, and I have always been kind of the sensitive one, and for a long time there, into close to 30. Some people would be shocked when they found out that I was an actor, because in normal life circumstances, I was like the quiet person in the corner at the partner's family gathering, or the went to a party with my friends and spent the whole time either connected next to them or next to the plant in the corner. So it it has been shocking for some people who don't know that a lot of actors are introverts or sensitive folks. And I'm a verbal processor, so I really confuse people.

Kelly 5:52

Yeah, uh, yes, I relate to that very much so. And I didn't know for a long time that I was a verbal processor. And I'd be hearing myself like, oh my God, you're literally telling the same story again. And then at the end of telling, I'd be like, wow, I really understand that now.

Lauri 6:11

Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't until coaching school that somebody said, Lori's a verbal processor. Make sure that you know she's getting something out of this, that she's not kind of entertaining you with the story. If she's getting something out of it, it's her verbal processor deepening the understanding of her own life from verbally processing.

Kelly 6:34

Hmm. That was a beautiful gift that somebody gave you.

Lauri 6:38

Yeah, lots of them in my coaching studies.

Kelly 6:42

Isn't it funny? We we go into those kinds of trainings expecting to be better able to serve other people and learning more and more about ourselves.

Lauri 6:52

Yeah. Yeah. It's such a gift from I'm a massage therapist, massage practitioner, excuse me. I haven't done it in a very long time, but both the coaching world and studying massage. It's like, well, I'm gonna learn how to serve others by giving a massage, and I'm also gonna receive a massage laying on the table and kind of putting together. Oh, it's the receiving of the thing that is probably even more important in teaching me how to do it than what the instructors are saying and sending us off to do, because you feel the impact of the thing and then go do it yourself.

Kelly 7:33

So

Why picturing the audience in underwear is a pet peeve

Kelly 7:34

true. Being able to have that reciprocation. Um, and I think even in one of your recent podcast episodes, you talked about that reciprocation between yourself and an audience. And I I loved you, I can't quote it verbatim, but you said something to the effect of it being a little bit offensive to take that route of like, let me envision the audience as being in their underwear. And that, like, why would you insult them by putting them in that kind of a position when really when you're in a speaking engagement, it's a back and forth.

The Sideways Studio moment: jaw tension, oneness, the birth of a speaking coach

Lauri 8:16

Yeah, yeah, it's a back and forth. And you reminded me of probably the foundational moment in me making the leap from being an actor to being a speaking coach. If we're seeing them in their underwear, we're not really seeing them unless they actually are in their underwear, but most audiences are not. And there was a moment in my favorite acting class ever, the Sideways Studio in San Francisco, intimate groups, 12 people or less. And I was up there all by myself on this particular day. Usually you'd be up there with one to three other people. And in between these little vignettes, it was improv, but not improv to be funny like we see on Saturday Night Live. It was improv to stretch our capacity and our range as actors. And I kept putting on the like, I'm fine, I've got it all pulled together thing that I'd spent years doing in corporate. And he stopped me, like he did lovingly over the years, and said, Whatever that thing is you're doing in between, stop doing it. And I said, I'm not that comfortable having everybody's eyes on me. And he took off his glasses and he said, Then you've picked a strange set of careers for yourself. Part of you wants this, part of you knows you're meant to be here. So even though at five I was dancing on tables, I do think we come into this world with a wisdom. And I knew that I was here to bring something and then kind of lost my way. And by that point, he held such a safe and sacred space that even all of my inner critics and protectors and resistors were willing to take the leap. So I jumped back into the exercise and was actively releasing my now infamous jaw tension and all of the tension and armor in front of my heart. And it felt like decades of protection was part burning, part melting away in like a fire and ice energy. And I would be laughing hysterically one minute and crying the next when it was not appropriate, appropriate air quotes to the scenes that was were happening. And when the exercise was over, I looked out at all of my classmates and I could see and feel what kind of day, what kind of emotional state every single one of them was in. And I had had flow states before that, being utterly in the moment in sports. And while playing a character, I would kind of sneak it in there from time to time. This was my first moment of oneness that I remember definitely as an adult, that there was no acting, there was no basketball game. And a whole bunch of other circumstances happened. And when I looked at, oh, this is why I've been drawn to voice. This is why I've been drawn to work with actors and then to transition or expand that to working with people that are here to change the world. Because charisma, it is not one size fits all. It's not about what you wear or what you say or the gestures that we make. We're all born with it. And it's that act of letting people see us truly that unleashes that charisma and then also allows the audience to feel seen. It's this interesting when I let you in truly and connect with you, you feel seen more by me as an audience than if I don't. So underwear, no. Big pet peeve.

Kelly 12:20

Yeah.

Charisma is not one size fits all — it's innate and individual

Kelly 12:21

Oh, I love that so much. And I I love what you said about charisma not being one size fits all. And I think we were sold that for such a long time that that, and you know, created our own masks and ways of being in order to suit that when in fact what an audience really wants is somebody in their authentic state. They want to feel you, they want to see you, they want to hear you, they want to know that they're connecting with the true person and human. Um, and it's funny to me because I I love speaking in front of big groups, particularly in trainings and teachings, because I live for those moments where you're feeling like you said, that whole audience feel, and the individuals and where they are and who's having a bad day, and understanding as the person who's in charge in the moment and cultivating the experience, that I can hold space for each of those individuals and you know, challenge and excite the person who's looking for that and draw the person out who's feeling like they might not want to be there. Um, and getting them to feel compelled and connected. And to me, that is like there's nothing juicier than that, than being able to be in that. I don't even care what I'm talking about. You know, whatever those slides are saying behind me, I just love that piece of being so connected to the people you're speaking to.

Lauri 14:04

Yeah, it's about the connection and the transformation, not the information. Or the information is supporting the connection and the transformation rather than the other way around.

Kelly 14:17

Yeah. Yeah. I've gotten to the point where sometimes I just don't even want that big screen back there because it's like distracting from us having this real moment together.

Lauri 14:28

Yeah. Yeah. For a long time I would not use any technology at all. Now I kind of trust my intuition about it. And I'm absolutely the person I gave a speech workshop just a little bit ago. And they messaged me the day before, oh my God, the heat is out in one building. So we have to move out of that building so people can use it to work. And we're going to be in a different building and there's no projector. Should we reschedule? Uh no. I'm good. I'll give a little handout so that they feel like they're visually, you know, they can take notes on the handout. I don't even need to hold the handout. I'll I'm, you know, I love this. I do it all the time. I'll have a little thing of notes and we'll go for it. And it'll have a lot more connection. They'll get to come up from their screens and not just stare at another one. So I've learned to weave it in because some people love to have that kind of visual in addition to my body in a space. And for years, I completely was anti any slides. I'm going to come into an event where every other person is using slides and I'm not going to use them.

Kelly 15:46

Yeah, I love that. I love that little rebellion too. Like you can't, you can't tell me what to do. And why soulful speaking? Why did that become such an important piece for you? You could have just stayed a speaking coach. Why is it the soulful piece?

Lauri 16:06

Yeah.

Why soulful speaking — and not just speaking coaching

Lauri 16:07

I believe authenticity is really important. And I also believe that we are capable of more resonance with our voices and more vibrance in our energy than most of us can even comprehend. And the first time someone used soulful speaking or speaking soulfully in relation to me was 10 years ago. I was writing my book. A friend of mine did a round of editing on it, gave me huge gifts in his feedback. And one thing he said was, I'm going to give you a phrase, speaking soulfully. So the number of times that you're saying speaking from the soul, or however I was trying to describe it, he gave me that. And I kept trying to explain to people that there's this world of resonance and energy and vibrance that is beyond most of our wildest dreams, and landed on soulful speaking because it feels like the best way to describe it. One of the metaphors that I've used lately is if you imagine our instrument for singing and for speaking is the same instrument. If you imagine the difference between Madonna singing and Lady Gaga singing, whether you like their music or not, Lady Gaga's instrument is the kind that will make your hairs stand up on end. Conscious speaking could have been the direction that I went, which someone even suggested, and I went no, because that sounds like it's just head. I under I'm aligned with conscious things. I'm aligned with conscious speaking. And soulful speaking means that we're connected to a sense of purpose, and our instrument, our body, is creating a sound that can make people's hairs stand up on end. And I don't mean pretty.

Kelly 19:05

Yeah.

Lauri 19:05

Yeah. And the same can happen with speakers when the shift happens for a speaker. Instead of people in the audience pointing at their head and saying, I understood you, they'll point to their body and say, I understood you, or they'll say, I got you. I felt that one. Their heart, their gut, their toes, they're actually feeling it and they're reflecting it in how they describe the change.

Emotion, sensation, and befriending the energy so it serves the room

Kelly 19:33

Yes. And honestly, when you get up and speak with a group, you're looking for a change in hearts. You're looking to influence, you know, whether you want to persuade them, whether you want to inform them, you want them to walk away feeling compelled in some sort of way.

Lauri 19:57

Yeah. And and like you were describing, feeling transformed. When you were talking, I hear, you know, we are taught that you shouldn't be emotional if you're going to be a speaker. And yet everybody is wondering why some people have charisma and others don't. To me, it's because they have befriended all of the sensation and the energy and the emotion so that it isn't running them. That does not mean I'm not talking about people who have become almost like stone because they've pushed the emotion down. That's not going to move anybody. And I don't mean that somebody who's channeling all that sensation and all that emotion might never tear up. It's that they can take all of that stuff and harness it in service of the people in the room and feel the vibe in the room and the individual people shifting. And that is much more likely to lead people to leave the room after they hear you talk and go do something different in their lives.

Kelly 21:11

And I think about the legacy of it too. You know, um, when I was in college and studying the great speakers and the great speeches that have been given, and thinking about speeches that have resonated time after time after time, because people felt something from the speaker. It it made them feel a certain way and want to be a different way. Yeah.

Lauri 21:43

Yeah, absolutely. It's not their style, it's not what they were wearing, it's not how they moved. Yet the thing that has created confusion from year to year and decade to decade is that we've thought Martin Luther King Jr. gave this amazing speech. I have to do it like him to unleash charisma. No, that was his charisma. It is very different from my charisma, which is different from your charisma. Yeah.

Kelly 22:21

I

Women in speaking: releasing masculine conditioning

Kelly 22:22

love that so much. Because I also think, you know, coming up as a woman who loved public speaking, I think. I think there was so much expectation or normalizing speaking, gesturing in a certain way that was really more from a masculine perspective, you know, dressing in a more masculine way, you know, moving in a more masculine way, commanding in a more masculine way. Um, and it's only in the past few years that I feel like I've embraced that sense of I can move an audience, and there is very little about it that's commanding or masculine. It's so much more about appealing to people and finding them where they are and taking them on a journey with me. So much more connected to my emotionality and my probably more maternal than anything else, like a strong female energy that's coming through.

Lauri 23:37

Yeah, I totally I'm like, I'm having a if it were my podcast, we would be diving into that right now. Think maybe I should bookmark that and have you come on my podcast and let you have your podcast right now.

Kelly 24:57

You can you can take us wherever you would like to take us because I think it's it's probably hitting a chord somewhere.

Lauri 25:07

I find myself very curious about what led you to shift that and how you shifted that for yourself.

Kelly 25:18

I think it really was all of the work that I did to heal myself, mind, body, and soul, and developing so much more acceptance of myself, less comparison, um, and really appreciating the instrument that I have. I was born to speak. I was born to have a voice that was heard. And when I was little, I never I never treated it like it should be some different way than it was. I I loved it. I mean, I used to do, you know, before there were podcasts, there were Fisher Price recorders when I was little, and I would record my own radio shows on my little cassettes. And so, like, I'm like, okay, so so no, no surprise to me looking at little Kelly that I'm now somebody who does a podcast. So all of that healing work that I did made it feel so much more possible for me to remove all of the masks and conditioning around speaking, all of the, you know, strategic expectations and it should look this way. And you're, you know, you're I'm like, no, I don't want it to look, I want it to just look my way because that feels so much easier than trying to be like, wait, when am I supposed to, you know, move in this direction and backpedal? And instead, I get to be present in the moment. And I there is no greater joy for me than speaking to a crowd. Um, and being able to be in the moment and not in my head at all, which is way better for me to be acting from my heart. So I think I think that's what it is. It's like all that work that so many of us have done has a ripple effect and finds its way into other parts of your life.

Lauri 27:30

Yeah, I was just thinking sometimes it would start on a stage for me and for clients that I've worked with and ripple through life. And other times it's

Healing ripples both ways — stage to life, life to stage

Lauri 27:41

been more like, well, I'm focused over here on healing things and transforming and doing the spiritual journey that we're here to do, and it's rippling back onto the stage because we're human. So it's gonna ripple throughout our lives.

Kelly 27:58

Yeah. What it makes me really wish, you know, I'm a theater kid, loved doing theater in college because it was just so like next level. You could really just commit so much more to it. Um, I would love to go back and play roles that I played that I know I held back on and like really just like let it rip and like just to dive into it and go to the extreme without being so guided, guarded and like trying not to be too much of anything for everyone. Yeah, or trying to get it right, or yeah. Yeah, yeah. I can I can still feel like that feeling of holding back just that that little bit at the end and not fully opening up and revealing. And I can remember the difference of my peers who were able to just let it go and like how you were just enthralled because you didn't know what they were gonna do. Because they didn't know what they were gonna do because they would just take it there.

Lauri 29:09

Yeah, I know there were a few that I had in my earlier life. Like I played Abigail in the Crucible. No one thought I was gonna get that part because I had this incredibly angelic, angelic looking, innocent face, and I wore big baggy clothes all the time. And they were calling back all of the blonde-haired and red-haired young women who were not able to do it. I was hearing about these callbacks that were like two hours long. And I went in and I was sort of in the middle between a Mary Warren character who's the more reserved, uh, scared one. She gets ousted for anybody who doesn't know the crucible, kind of ousted by all of her friends. And I went in reading for that because I looked like a mouse. And I was doing my best job at Mary Warren. And then the stage direction said, She stands. And at that point, if I went into an audition, I was going to do what it said in the script. And when I stood up, the act of standing caused a much more Abigail, rebellious energy to come out of me. And the director said, Stop. I want you to go away. I want you to look at both Mary Warren and Abigail and come back on Saturday prepared to read for both and understand that they are complete opposites. I went away on the inside. I've got this huge desire to let it loose, to play Abigail, like I understand it if somebody would just believe I can do it. And I walked in there and she said, Which would you like to read first? And I said, I'd like to read Abigail first. And I did Abigail, and the cartoon image in my head is that it was like her jaw was on the ground. How did this kind of overweight, mousy, brown-haired young girl just do that? She went, Okay, now read the other one. So I read a Mary Warren scene, and then she just started handing me Abigail scene after Abigail scene that I was not expecting. And I had my own, you know, inner critics and saboteurs and soul suckers. When I exited, she didn't give me any direction. She just watched with her jaw down. And when we got out in the hallway, I looked at the graduate student who was the assistant director and went, um, if there's a question, I'd really like Abigail more. And she went, I don't think there's a question. And I spent, you know, until the cast list went up. This was in the 90s, so it was like a paper cast list on a wall that y'all had to courageously go check. Right. I spent days thinking I didn't get it. I didn't get it. And somebody in the green room, I came out and they said, How did it go? And I was like, I think it went really well. I really hope they give me Abigail. And this other graduate student looked at me and went, Yeah, but you're really much more of a Mary Warren. Well, I got Abigail and I let it loose with that role. And then there were a lot of roles in between where I was still doing the version of like, but if the script says she stands, I must, I'm like looking for perfect. And another huge breakthrough on the road, my parents met in Alcoholics Anonymous and had me. So I'm the AA baby. And I was being directed in a play, Wonder of the World, playing Lois, the raging alcoholic. And the first day of rehearsal was two co-directors actually like telling the other character, great job, and just like, Lori, try this, Lori, try that, Lori, try that. And I'm like sitting there going, Oh my God, they never should have cast me. And on the way out the door, one of the directors said, You need to allow yourself to be everything that you have spent your entire life trying not to be. And it was like, kaboom. Okay. Right. Because my parents needed me to not be everything that they were and everything else that my siblings were. So now I'm gonna let that out on stage. And I was also working with Richard's side at that point. So the like,

Soul suckers, masks, and how the quiz was born

Lauri 34:05

oh, I get it. It's a really about like just going splat, how does this choice feel? Splat, how does that choice feel with this complete and utter freedom that then has translated over into the speaking and teaching and leading world also?

Kelly 34:22

Wow. Wow. It's it's so incredible, you know, to hear the journey that you've been on. And I hear so much self-awareness that has come through. And one of the things that you talk about, one of your strategies is to talk about the soul suckers and the masks that we put on and the different roles that we play. And so, where did those come from for you? How did they show up in your life?

Lauri 35:00

The soul suckers, when I was writing my book, I was still using the word saboteur, which comes from the type of coach training that I did. The same friend who said I'm going to give you a phrase, soul suckers, said, There are a few places in this book where you're using the way that someone else would say a thing. And I really want you to see if you can come up with your own. And I went, Well, if I made it up, I would call them soul suckers. I mean, yes, they're an inner critic, they're sabotaging us, but they suck the soul out of our voices if we're really looking at voice and speaking. So I went with soul suckers. And then for years, I wanted to create a quiz. Everybody had a quiz. I wanted to create one, but every time I would try for about three years, I couldn't do it because I was trying to create a quiz where I was typing the people. Of course I was blocked because I've said a gazillion times if there are eight billion, if there are eight billion people on the planet, there are eight billion different flavors of charisma like fingerprints. So it's totally obvious that it's like I was pregnant with a quiz for three years, but I couldn't deliver it because something was blocking it. And I did somebody's five-day challenge at one point. And she made like an off-handed comment of instead of typing the person, you could type the resistance. And I went, oh, well, I've been calling myself the deranged mannequin when I'm not really in charge, when the I'm really passionate about something, but I don't some part of me feels like I'm not enough. I've been calling myself the deranged mannequin. And when I was in my late 20s, early 30s, I was more of a porcelain doll. And there's this peppy thing that's been happening with some clients, particularly women who have been told to smile more. So let's call that the Peppy please. And I the quiz was born, the whole thing and all of the answers within two weeks. Once I realized it's in alignment for me to type the things that we've been told to be that are blocking us from being the one in eight billion person that we are.

Kelly 37:35

And I I love it because I can see myself in the past, oh, deranged mannequin, yes. Have for sure, you know, when like the lights go off and you're like, whoop, let me put this mask on and feel a little more comfortable, recoil, get back inside myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh. So I love that you have that quiz, and that's something that you offer to people, and they can kind of figure out what is their flex if if they're in those moments and the soul suckers show up.

Lauri 38:15

Yeah, yeah. And it's it is not us. It is a little bit like carpal tunnel. So I love to tell people one of the types of protective masks is a Jiven jokester. I have never really channeled a Jiven jokester because I'm not that innately gifted at being funny. I am innately passionate. So I would go, if I'm working too hard, the deranged mannequin route, where the passion meeting the not enoughness is kind of hardening like carpal tunnel in your wrist because you're not moving it a different way. So we're taking something that might be an innate trait and only doing that, only showing the world that until it hardens and becomes our only choice, our only habit, the only choice we have available. So if somebody out there is listening and thinking that they're really funny, it's great. You can be funny. If you're naturally peppy, you can be peppy. That can be one of your flavors. It's just, are you making the joke for you, for your own comfort, because you need the audience to be laughing in order to be comfortable? Or are you making the joke to shift the space? If you're making the joke to shift the space, it's in service of them and you're you don't have your driving jokester max mask on in that moment. Hmm.

Kelly 39:47

So for the person that's listening and they're totally intrigued, and they're like, I think that I potentially have have this as a flex. And I don't think I have a well-placed joke. I think I am the driving jokester in moments where it makes me feel more comfortable to kind of shift the tension that way. What is a great way

How to start taking the mask off: intention, breath, one pause more

Kelly 40:10

for people to start to take that mask off and really get more into a soulful speaking?

Lauri 40:20

A couple of things, which probably will help a Jive in joke store or anyone. Start before you begin. Set an intention for what you want to be creating in the room so that your soul suckers aren't playing defense and not in the NBA championship-winning way, the like bad kind of defense. Set an intention for what you do want to happen. And then for Jiven'j jokesters, my experience has been that they're not comfortable in the silence. So a next step after that intention would be to take one breath more than you are comfortable with. In silence. In out. And for a lot of us for various reasons, drive and jokester or other, one breath more at first is one breath. For other people, it's receiving a compliment. Someone gives me a compliment. Inhale, exhale, then say thank you very much. I love your shirt color too. Rather than somebody gives me a compliment and I go, thanks, I love your shirt. Jiven jokester, have a moment, take a breath, then move on to the next one. And the funny thing is, when you do that, you will actually get more laughs on your jokes. I swear to you, because you give them a moment to process the thing that you said that might have been serious before the joke. And then when the joke comes, they will need the release from that silence that you had them sit in. But first you gotta do it. Yes.

Kelly 42:04

Speaking and having silence is sometimes really challenging for people. But I think what I've learned to love about it is first of all, the audience needs a breath. I'm from New Jersey. We tend to speak

Silence as temperature check — reading the room in the pause

Kelly 42:27

a little faster. It probably thrown a lot of information out at people. Um and I love to use that silence to take a temperature of my audience. Like, where are we? How are we? Do I need to shift my approach right now? Like, have I had you for five minutes and you've been like really good and really with me? And now I'm seeing you start to fade into your uh to-do lists and daydreaming. And can I find a way to bring you back with me again? But if I don't pause and take a temperature, I don't know how we're doing.

Lauri 43:04

Yeah, I I got full body full body chills when you said take the temperature check in the pause. And one of the many things, as you know, that I don't always love about other speaking coaches is just telling someone to slow down isn't right, isn't effective, doesn't work. It's what you just said. Talk at your speed with moments of rest. Just like in music, there can be really fast, upbeat songs, and there are moments of rest. Otherwise, it's not music. And there can be very slow songs that also have moments of rest. So instead of feeling like I have to go slower it, it's not that. It's talk as you talk and take breaths and take the temperature check of the audience in those breaths.

Kelly 44:03

Sometimes I like the temperature checks more than I like the speaking that I'm doing because I think I'm just a feeler. Like it just you get to just feel everybody, and how special is that? And it's sort of like you know, the difference between um watching a live music performance and listening to uh a recording, being in a live experience, it just has so much possibility. And um just to be in it for a minute, breathe and be like, this is amazing. This is I love this. This is the this is why I do what I do. This is why I love speaking engagements, because I get to be here with this audience at this date and this time about this topic, and it's it's never gonna be this way again. Yeah, yeah. So fun. So tell everybody how can they connect with you? Um, tell us a little bit more about your podcast, the soulful speaking podcast, and um how they can find you.

Lauri 45:15

Yeah. Best place to find me is my website. It's voicehyph-matters.com, and you can click on podcast on the menu up at the top to go to the podcast. The Soulful Speaking podcast is something that eventually, just like that quiz, eventually, I was intuitively, I became curious and kind of called to do. And I did a little research, and there wasn't anything out there that was exactly like it. There were some things that aligned. And once I made the artwork, I was in. I went from artwork to recording an episode, and it's really to change the conversation around speaking from everyone. Being focused on and stopping at that whole fear thing. Yes, studies show that we fear public, we humanity fear public speaking more than death. There's a funny Seinfeld joke about it. And most of the other training programs and podcasts and things out there sort of stop the conversation there, or they see it as a nerve-wracking obligation that you need to mask up, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, and survive. And I believe that speaking just like relationships, just like money, just like health, is a spiritual journey that can bring us home to our true selves. And the more people that are speaking soulfully, where they've got that different resonance, it's the speaking part of raising consciousness on the planet.

Kelly 47:01

Yes, ma'am. That to me, that is the thing. That is why it matters. Um, and I love that it's voice matters because um, I don't know if I told you this when we first met, but um one of the things that we had to do for my uh master's degree in communications, we had to get up and we had to just give an extemporaneous speech. No, no, like prior planning, no cards or anything, just speak. And as I was thinking about what I wanted to speak about, I was like, I was like, okay, I think like the core theme is it's really the people that matter. And it I went through like this whole like people are important, people matter. And finally what I settled on is like my core theme is people matter. And that is what I gave my speech about, about just boiling it down to like that was the essential piece for me, whether it's your family, whether it's the people you're speaking to, whether it's the people you're leading, it's the people that matter. And when we have that focus, it makes such a big difference. So I I loved that you had that voice matters. And it's just, it really resonates with me. And I I love the work that you're doing. I think it's such an important time in history, and I hope we look back and we say, thank goodness for the people who believed that voices needed to be heard, and that we inspired others to be willing to embrace their voice, to use it to lead others, to inspire others, to inspire change, because it really ultimately comes down to changing the planet in as many positive ways as we can while we're here. Yeah.

Lauri 49:02

Yeah. Again, full body chills. I hope you're right. I am so grateful that I met you. We are soul sisters, we are allies in the same work. You're a void or aligned work, slightly different, because you know, 8 billion people, 8 billion different paths. I'm grateful that I met you and I'm grateful for the work that you're doing, particularly at this time in history. And same as you. I hope, you know, past our 100th birthdays, we're looking back and we feel like we gave it all we could. And I also hope that things have changed.

Kelly 49:46

They're changing right now, baby. We are changing the world, one conversation at a time. And um, I really encourage you, listener, to check out Lori's podcast, to follow her on LinkedIn. And if you are someone who is looking to improve your speaking skills, you'd like to be a more soulful speaker, um, I encourage you to connect with Lori because she is the real deal. And uh I appreciate your time. I appreciate your work. Thank you for geeking out with me on you know these topics that we find just so delicious and fun. Um and I wish you all the best. And I totally believe that um you're making a big difference, especially for the people that you're coaching. Um, I feel like every person who embraces their voice and starts to use it more frequently and with more people is spreading a message that's going to really change the world. So thank you. Thank you. All right, everyone. On that note, I'm going to thank you for being here. Thank you for enjoying the podcast. If you felt really moved by this conversation, I encourage you to share it with somebody else. And of course, everything you need is in the show notes. I want to encourage you to use your voice, embrace that authenticity within you, and we'll see you next time. Bye for now.