The Resonate Podcast with Aideen

Leadership is an Acting Skill with Vocal Coach Ekaterina Kardakova

• Aideen Ni Riada • Season 1 • Episode 72

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Opera singer and vocal coach Ekaterina Kardakova shares powerful insights on how voice techniques from the stage can transform business leaders' communication and presence. She reveals her journey from performing at prestigious venues like La Scala to helping executives harness their voices to build trust, credibility, and influence in the corporate world.

• Most business professionals underestimate voice's crucial role in communication and influence
• Voice training isn't just technical—it's deeply connected to emotions and self-expression
• Creating a "Future Self" avatar helps clients envision their potential and make small daily changes
• Voice reveals our true emotions, regardless of our words
• Confident voices typically sound deeper, slower, and clearer, instantly signaling authority
• Allowing yourself to make "loud and ugly" sounds is the first step to vocal freedom
• Body consciousness—awareness of how your physical instrument produces sound—is essential
• "Leadership is an acting skill"—knowing when and how to embody leadership qualities

Start exploring your voice today—it's a diamond waiting to be shaped into something brilliant and uniquely yours.


Connect with Ekaterina 

LinkedIn: @EkaterinaKardakova

Website: www.ekaterinakardakova.com

Youtube: @EkaterinaKardakova

Support the show

Thanks for listening! To book a free consultation with Aideen visit https://www.confidenceinsinging.com/contact/

Aideen Ni Riada:

Welcome. This is the Resonate podcast with Aideen. I'm here today with Ekaterina Kardakova. She is an accomplished opera singer, vocal coach and presentation coach. From an early age, she immersed herself in music, following her passions across Europe and Scandinavia, gracing prestigious stages like La Scala in Italy. Over the past decade, ekaterina recognized the power of voice coaching to elevate trust and credibility in business. Drawing on the vocal techniques used by top performers, she now empowers executives and leaders in the corporate world to harness their voice and make a lasting impact. And I'm so excited to share you with my listeners, ekaterina, because I know from my own work as a voice coach how valuable the voice and understanding of the voice can be for building confidence and for expansion. And I'm really curious about how you figured out and discovered that you would be valuable in the business world, not just on the beautiful stages around Europe.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

Well, thank you for the question and thank you for the invitation to this podcast. Basically, it was pretty unplanned. I just, you know, I started to think how can I start my workshops? And I found a bar where they, you know, did different things workshops, concerts and I just asked if I can do my workshop there. And pretty many people came and we had lots of fun, because I always do all my workshops in, like you know, like what we do on stage or usually how we do our workshops for opera singers, it's not only singing, standing, doing exercises, but it's a lot about acting. And I did all these acting exercises and people loved it. We had a lot of fun. And just one guy came to me after that and said you know what? I'm an engineer and I think my colleagues would love or really need your training. And this is how it started oh, that's so amazing.

Aideen Ni Riada:

So you were basically invited to do it through through one of your clients. I was actually quite surprised when one of my singing clients said I'm coming to singing because I want to be a better speaker for my work and because at that time I had just set up my business teaching singing. I knew it would build confidence, but I hadn't quite joined all the dots. How did that come across to you? Like?

Ekaterina Kardakova:

did you find that surprising that the impact that you were able to make with people in business I think it's surprising for them not for me, because as a professional actress I do understand how influential is the voice, how much you can do with your audience on an emotional level when you know how to use your voice. It's very powerful. So for for people, of course, vocal training is mostly time. They think they come to my trainings and think like they will work on their voice. But we will work not only on muscles but we work a lot on emotions, how to speak so people listen to you, how can you express your emotions through the voice. So it also has a lot to do with acting, with muscle training I mean voice, muscle training, etc. So for people from business, it might be something new because they never think about how important the voice is for communication and for influencing other people, for sales, for career, for promotion etc.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

So the voice is a big part of self-presentation. And when they start working on voice and first of all, also knowing more about themselves, about their talents, about maybe some struggles, inner struggles or limiting beliefs because voice and limiting beliefs, you know, play very, very close together they do understand how important it is and they immediately see the result. So as long as they start working their voice and they sound differently, they feel differently, they express themselves differently because they just know consciously how to do that. They see immediately the impact and the difference and this is the goal. They feel that they are more heard by other people. They see that people more listen to them while they're presenting or doing some reports, especially now online, where you only basically see the upper body and listen to people. So you be, you have to be very precise how you use your voice, not only words, because people basically don't listen to to the words. They listen to the emotion you you're saying, you are giving to them and this is very important ah, I love that.

Aideen Ni Riada:

I'm curious was this something that you had to cultivate yourself, or did you instinctively, as a young person, put a lot of emotion into your performance? Was it something that you had access to early on?

Ekaterina Kardakova:

Yes, I think so, Because for me, from very little, it was very interesting to play different roles, because all of my protagonists, all the roles I'm playing, they're so different from me and when I create a role, I think how can I do it the best? Or who is this person, why is she doing this and reacting on this situation Completely different than I would react. So I create this avatar from the very beginning and of course, I think about the emotions and the music which I'm singing. It helps a lot to to to understand all these causes and results. So it's easier to express emotions. And because I'm very emotional person, it's easy for me to express emotions. But for my work, I know that for many, many people it's pretty hard to express emotions. That's why they sound monotonous, quiet, you know. They kind of hide themselves and when we start working, I explain that it can be different and people start again. I repeat, people start to learn about themselves more the.

Aideen Ni Riada:

There is an impression sometimes that in the business world, we have to be maybe more formal or to fit in in some way. But what I loved about what you said was that when you were working with new roles, you would try to get into the mind and the why, like why are you, why is that person acting that way? Is that something that you also draw out when you're working with your clients, like are you trying to find out more about what their reasons are for, for sharing?

Ekaterina Kardakova:

um, yes, actually, I always start my trainings about where you wouldn't be. What's your future you? We always create this avatar future me where you want to be. What's your future you? We always create this avatar future me where I want to be. After 10 lessons, after the training ends, where is the be like we are in? Here's the start. This is the finish what you want to learn and who you want to be when you finish. And here also I ask lots of questions like what's your goals? It's not only about the voice, by the way. People come to the voice training and think that they want to work on the voice, but actually, while the training, we dig deeper. People understand that they want to have a new job, they want to have a promotion in the career, or they want to have a promotion in the career, or they have to want to grow the business, or they want to show themselves in a different role, differently, etc. So there are so many things which come up and, of course, the beginning is who am I? Where I want to go?

Aideen Ni Riada:

I love that you do it as a visual a when you're. I mean, is that something that we could even do with our listeners right now as a little exercise? I'm kind of wondering how you make that, how you help people embody that new future version of themselves. Can you tell us a bit more? Maybe give us a little sneak peek into that exercise for anyone listening yeah, I you know.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

A couple of years ago I did a course at mind valley. Maybe you know mind valley yes by vision.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

You know this course um was called the book of life, but by butchers this is a couple of butchers they created this course Future Me how to Create Future Me and basically they say imagine or allow yourself. First of all, allow yourself to imagine that you have everything you want and allow yourself to dream big. Where will you be in 25 years? Like really allow yourself. This is also a very important thing. People don't allow themselves to dream big. They always limit like okay, I already have my apartment, a house, I have my car, I have a job we just paid. End of dreaming.

Aideen Ni Riada:

No.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

It can be even more and even big and even better. So, and then, when a person or my client allows him or herself to dream where he or she wants to be in 25 years, then we do the decomposition 15, 10, 5, 3, 1 year. Decomposition 15, 10, 5, 3, 1 year. And then the task is to think about what can I do, with little steps every day, to achieve this goal where I want to be in one year, step by step, with little steps, 10, 15 minutes per day. Yeah, this is the technique we just called the book of life.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

Create your future like future me.

Aideen Ni Riada:

This little small steps, but daily steps that must feel amazing when someone actually allows themselves to to really dream that, because I know, I think each of us nobody actually knows exactly the full potential of what they are becoming like. We can guess, but there's so much more possible. We don't know what opportunities exactly are going to come our way and to imagine in a very expansive way um, must, uh. Maybe for some people could create some anxiety, but it could create a lot of excitement and a lot of positive emotions as well of course, this is the.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

This is the idea, because when people start dreaming, they gain so much energy. Yeah, they gain so much.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Uh, this power of imagination and this power gives you lots of energy to do things, to act, to achieve goals yeah, and that brings you really very clearly to why you would take on some of these techniques, like why you can use your voice in a way that maybe is a little more serious or is a little more direct or a little deeper. So what do you think? What's the? What kind of clients do you find you need, need your help the most like? Are they like squeaky high speakers that need to deepen their voice? Or are there? What kinds of people do you do you like to there? What kinds of people?

Ekaterina Kardakova:

do you like to help? Well, any kinds of people who would like to develop themselves. This is, for me, the most important thing, because I can help them with techniques, but they do the job. This is the most pleasant people who are conscious about that. They have to do their homework.

Aideen Ni Riada:

If they don't do, nothing will happen, because I'm here just to help, but they do the job is there anything you'd like to say about the process of how you work with people over the course of those 10 weeks that you think might give an insight for our listeners?

Ekaterina Kardakova:

yeah. So my course is 10 weeks, 10 lessons, and I usually also have a like pre-conversation with the person to understand why this person is here and why what kind of goals he or she has. And at the beginning, usually people, as I said before, don't have a clear vision why they're here. They just, you know, have something, want something, and they think that the problem is the voice. But actually no, not. And I, in these 10 lessons, we tell, so I explain how the voice works, how the body works.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

We work a lot on body language. We we work a lot on creating this new avatar. I call it avatar because I always say leadership is an acting skill. So leadership means that I show myself in public and I'm confident, I love what I do and I share my love with other people. So we create this avatar and during this process, lots of different topics come up. Some people, for example, say I would like to work more on creating this avatar. I need help on creating this avatar, like a new role. Some people say I want to learn more about body language because I feel that I'm very good in speaking but I don't know what to do with my hands, with my legs. I mean my body is so disconnected. Some people say they want to work more on emotional intelligence to sound less monotonous. So the voice is by itself is growing and getting strong, powerful, but also more emotional. Lots of different topics depends on what really people want that's fascinating.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Tell us a little bit about your own um, your own journey with your business, because I know that there are many stages to developing this kind of an offering. Can you tell us a little bit about how your journey came from that first workshop where the engineer comes up and says my colleagues need you. What has it been like for you as a business, as small business owner?

Ekaterina Kardakova:

like for you as a business, as small business owner. Yeah, there were many up and downs and in this, uh, in these 10 years, basically I really liked that. I started it because when I was singing the opera and I was singing until the covid came, because here in europe everything was closed and somehow intuitively, I understood before a couple of years, before five years before, that I have to try something else. I have to try something else because I love singing. However, if you're not Nitrepko or a very big star, it's not always easy. So I thought, like, okay, I will start my business and I will learn about business. I mean, it was a really journey from an opera singer to a business owner.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

Yeah, I bet I learned a lot, because I didn't have a clue about, firstly, what else I can do except singing, playing piano or conducting or making music. And then I figured out that I actually can do many other things and I love to learn. So I learned fast and I did some courses and also went to some classes about marketing, about how to create a business or business plan, how to make analysis, so all this business stuff Also, and then I started my business somehow in, I don't know how. But I feel all these tendencies, I feel what people need and how to package it. And then I also did my second master degrees in marketing and business development and, during COVID, did completely only online business.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

So I I gained more and more experience and now I have to say that I love having clients and I love teaching speaking, but I also love this business side because I learn every day so many new things and it's all about people people basically, business is all about people, helping people. Yeah, how I can sell my service with my helping people, with voice and public speaking and confidence, and how to package it. Basically, it's all about working with people. It's interesting. It's interesting. It's like again on the stage, I had all of my roles and now I just communicate with so many different people and this experience on stage helps a lot Just to understand people, because I created so many different roles.

Aideen Ni Riada:

What would you say to someone who's just starting on their journey with their voice or they're feeling a bit stuck at the moment?

Ekaterina Kardakova:

I think that the first step should be allow yourself to be loud and allow yourself to sound ugly, not beautiful, that's okay. It's just the beginning. Because this is where people think like, oh, I cannot sing because I don't sound perfectly, that's okay. I mean, everyone can sing, because singing is just knowing your body. Vocal cords are just muscles. If you go every day to a gym, you train your muscles, the muscles are growing. The same is with singing. So you practice, you're getting better. Just you know, don't expect too much immediately. It's a process and just enjoy the process, that's all.

Aideen Ni Riada:

I love that idea of the loud and ugly because I have one of the techniques I used a lot when I was teaching singing. Mainly was the primal sounds. And the primal sounds are sounds that you would make as a child, like yelling or screeching or doing animal noises and all of those, those primal sounds, and they're quite instinctual and when we use them and when we as an adult, and especially as an adult perhaps who doesn't use their voice freely yet, it can be so liberating to make a loud noise that when you haven't maybe made a loud noise in decades, absolutely, absolutely.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

And the most interesting thing is that when you haven't maybe made a loud noise in decades, absolutely, absolutely. And the most interesting thing is that when people uh, allow themselves to be loud and ugly, they're also getting oh, is it me? Can I really produce such big sound? Is it okay? Yes, it's okay. It's very good, keep going definitely it is.

Aideen Ni Riada:

It is okay. I think it's sometimes um, when when you learn, say, fitness, they talk a lot about you know if you're, if you're um, you know a certain type of uh, an athlete, for instance a javelin thrower, so you just throw the javelin. None of those athletes only train that one part of their body. They always train the whole body. And I feel like that with the voice, that, even though you may want to just do speaking, that you need to explore your voice and find out what it's capable of at the high end, at the low end, at the soft end, at the loud end. And by exploring it, then you have more. The word, I guess, is more knowledge of who you are and what you are. It's a different feeling of competency when you've tried many ways of using your voice well, I call it body consciousness there is a good way yeah, basically you learn about your body because opera singers are also athletes, otherwise you cannot.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

you have to train your body so much and be so conscious about every single move. You have to know about your body so well and this is also a very interesting journey to discover what kind of potential has your body. It's very interesting for many people.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Tell us more about that. I'm not sure if I know exactly what you would mean by that.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

No, exactly what you said before. When you practice and you explore your voice, how high you can sing or how low or how powerful you can sound, it's all about observing your body. It's all about what am I doing or what is happening in my body right now that I can produce some beautiful, loud sound. What muscles are working? So basically, I call it the inner eye is observing my body and tries to remember the good things. That's what I mean.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Yes, so there's a kind of an awareness growing. Yes, so there's a kind of an awareness growing. There's something that I speak up to a lot is the idea of presence, and presence is a way of being, you know, having, as you said, the inner eye, that you're conscious. You said body consciousness, but it's like being aware of who you are, how you feel, while also being aware of what's outside of you, which is a real skill, I think yeah, and it helps a lot, not only for vocal training but also for any kind of physical activities.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Yeah, and even for public speaking, anywhere where you have to express communicate. Yes, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah and I'm finding this so interesting. There's something that I thought we could touch on as well is this idea of accepting. You know, when we do that kind, those kind of loud noises, and we play with our voices a little, we start to accept ourselves more deeply, and to me, I feel like self-love and self-compassion are very important in order to fully step into your power. Would you feel the same?

Ekaterina Kardakova:

Yes, but I think that from my experience, this is already the advanced level to express love and et cetera.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

The first is that allow this to fight or to embrace your fears, and the first step is anger. So just be loud and ugly and then, when the you know person is used to this ugly sounds like now let's form it. I will say that every voice is a diamond. Imagine that the diamond is just raw diamond and now we have to make a form for this diamond. And then comes love, because at the end is something very beautiful and shiny and warm. You understand.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Let's all go on a journey to explore ourselves, explore our voices, explore what our potential is. And that's, I think, what you were saying about having that avatar of who you are becoming in 10 years time, in 25 years time. It's potential, right. It's like we can stay where we are and some people are like, well, I've got the job, I've got the car, I'm pretty happy. But if we can explore and maybe dream a little, then we can be inspired to take those small actions on a daily basis that could dramatically change the trajectory of our lives yes, and I also think that, um, it's important to have in mind that working on voice is also working on yourself, on your mental self, on your emotional part.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

so when people start start working on the voice, they understand that it's not only about physical body, it's also a lot about the emotions, because the voice is the most powerful instrument of emotions and we people, we communicate and we understand information while communication through these emotions. We remember not the words which people say, we remember the emotions or the pictures these words created, but the pictures, you know, have also very something, a lot to do with emotions. So, how to express clearly, clear, clear, big emotions through the voice? For example, if you want to sound confident, how the voice sounds, usually confident voice is deep, slow, clear. Yeah, so this beautiful big voice and, uh, when people listen to this voice, they always say, oh, this is a voice of a authority person, the person with a high status or the trustful person.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

immediately, yeah, right and and if, for example, if we hear um, um, loud and kind of shrill voice, people think like, oh, this is not so pleasant, so this person might be, you know, doesn't feel well, you know something like this. So my idea is to work on the voice doesn't only mean that you work and train your muscles, but it also you train. You also train your emotional intelligence. This is also important. You train how to express emotions through your voice. For example, simple example, when you call someone and ask how are you? And the person says good, you understand that the word good is okay, but how it sounds is not good and you start asking, yeah, what? You don't sound so well, what happened? And this is exactly what I'm teaching for executive business people you should sound confident, with authority all the time, because we everything, what we hear, we immediately pursue subconsciously. You cannot, if you're not a professional actor, a professional opera singer, you cannot hide that something is not good through your voice, how you speak so if you want.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

For example, if you want to have a promotion but but you don't feel well, something had happened or you had a bad conversation before. You should be trained. You should be very good prepared and you should know how to use your voice, sound confident, in any stressful situation. You understand what I mean.

Aideen Ni Riada:

And I think very important for leaders as well that when a business has a big problem, that they infuse that confidence into their employees that they don't reveal and I think parents as well have to do this. You know that you don't want to share. You know financial stress with the children that you have to keep things a certain way, really a financial stress with the children that you have to keep things a certain way, and they are listening to the tone, um, on the emotions in the voice. I think that's a. It's a really lovely uh focus for for how you work. Um, I think that's so powerful. Before we finish up today, is there anything that you would like to say to the listeners, any last gem, little piece of wisdom that you'd like them to remember?

Ekaterina Kardakova:

um, today I was thinking, this morning I was thinking about that. So many people think that they can communicate like what it's like. We all communicate, we just have conversations, but in reality, how many people can really communicate, meaning that, how many people can use the voice correctly to be heard, the use there are not words, but non-verbal communication to express themselves, like them, immediately like them and listen to them. So I just want to give the idea that if you want to be successful, think more about how you communicate, because success is all about people, business opportunities is all about people and the key is right communication starts not only with words, but first of all with sound of your voice the other thing that I think it's worth reiterating is what you said about people in business and in leadership, that it's almost like they are in a role.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Is that? What was it you said about that? That they have to be in a performance.

Ekaterina Kardakova:

I say leadership is an acting skill, so it's all about acting, because you cannot be a leader all the time. You go home and you sit down on the couch. You're not a leader, you just want to relax. But in some situations you should show your leadership skills.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Yep, I like that. Leadership is an acting skill. Yes, I love that. Thank you so much, ekaterina, for coming on the Resonate podcast today. I love how you think about voice. I think it's so valuable and I encourage our listeners to connect with you, and there will be some links available to connect with Ekaterina. And if you have anything you'd like to say about today's topic or anything you would like us to advise you on, please get in touch. We would love to hear from you. That's it for today from the Resonate Podcast with Aideen. I'm Aideen Urieta and I look forward to having you join us on another episode soon. Bye-bye.