Welcome to Psychology of the Voice. This is the show, the concept, the methodology that holds the key to your next level of success. It is also something you've never thought about, known about, or even realized is exactly what you need. I'm so glad to have you here at episode one, and I want to introduce you to the concept of psychology of the voice.
Sounds, the size of a grain of sand, that are costing you and exactly how you are being processed in the subconscious of your listener, all created by your psychology of the voice. Welcome to the show.
Unlock the power of your voice and learn how to use it for maximum impact with psychology of the voice through this innovative methodology, thousands of entrepreneurs and professionals have connected more deeply with their audiences leading not only to greater influence, but also higher revenue streams. Don't miss out on Tracy Goodwin's transformational coaching as she helps you take your sound from good to groundbreaking. Tune in and find out why so many six, seven, and eight figure entrepreneurs call Tracy their secret weapon.
Welcome to the show. So glad to have you with me here on the psychology of the voice, podcast episode one, and in today's episode I'm going to give you a little backstory on psychology of the voice and what you can expect in this podcast, as well as who I am and why I’m doing this. My name is Tracy Goodwin and I've been coaching voices around the world for over 30 years.
But it's not typical voice coaching that I do, and this is, in my opinion, not going to be a typical voice show. In fact, in this show, I'm going to be bringing on people I've never met before and telling them how they're being processed via their sound in the subconscious of their listener, and why that's not working for them, why that is keeping them from going to the next level of success, whether that means the next level in confidence, whether it means the next level in retention, and definitely the next level in revenue.
But, let me back up just a little bit and tell you how in the world I can even do this. It's especially stunning to me that I can do this because I was raised in a generation and in a family where children are to be seen and not heard. In fact, I had an extreme version of this. I was often kept in silence. We weren't allowed to share any emotions, any thoughts, dreams, desires, goals, and certainly not the word no.
Because of this, there were some pretty significant challenges for me growing up and even into early adulthood. But, thank goodness at the age of about 13, I found stages and I was an award-winning actor and speaker from a young age, and I wanted to be an actor and I did become an actor. I actually made my living doing television commercials and then I directed plays all over the world.
But, it was stunning to me how people kept finding me to coach their voices. This was yellow page's days. This was not social media days. This was yellow page's days, and I knew that I could hear voices a certain way. I knew that I had the ability to use my voice in a really unique way. I knew that I could hear certain things about how actors should use their voice. In fact, all my awards are speaking, acting, and my directing awards are for my actor's voice work. But see, I couldn't get on board with that. I couldn't get on board with the fact that I was really good at voice and certainly, I couldn't recognize that I could process sounds the way the subconscious of the listener is processing them.
But relentlessly people sought me out to coach their voices, and I did, but I didn't want to commit to being a voice coach because I couldn't imagine how in the world people would hire me when I was raised in silence. I didn't get it at the time that that was really part of the whole plan. And I'm often asked the question, Tracy, “Do you think that your upbringing gave you the ability to hear the way you do?”
And I don't, you know, I don't know. I really think it's a gift that I was given. I cultivated it. I had an opportunity from a very young age to cultivate it, and now I teach it. Now, I shift sounds out of people's voices that are costing them the next level.
So, I became an actor. I became a director. People are seeking me out to coach voices, and my primary focus was on dialects in the early years of my career, I would teach actors dialects, and I would strangely enough take dialects away from business people. In fact, one of the first consulting jobs I had was at a company that was very like top five company in the world, and they brought me in to work with some of the C-Suite because they had Texas accents and they were concerned about their perception, how they were being received with these Texas accents, no criticism against Texas accents, I've got.
But I thought that was fascinating and I was really fascinated with dialects by this point. I had figured it out. Okay, I get it. I'm supposed to be a voice coach, and I really was enamored with dialects and I was good at dialects, so I taught them. But, I really became curious about why do the Irish sound Irish, and why do I sound Texan? I want to sound Irish. Now, back then we took dialects away and so that company that hired me to coach the C-Suite and some of the people in the C-suite, they wanted those dialects taken away. We don't do that anymore, but I was fascinated with that too. How is there a perception that these people running this massively huge company, how is that negative based on their sound?
Well, that was the beginning because I discovered in my dialect work, and why the Irish sound Irish and I sound Texan, is the subconscious is what actually tells the muscles of the face how to hold themselves. Now, I know that sounds crazy. Most people learn dialects by listening. I taught dialect by shifting the placement of the face, how we hold the jaw, where the sound is being sent to. So, I can just shift me face, shift me placement, and become Irish.
And then I thought, wait a minute, if the subconscious is telling the muscles of the face how to move and hold and create a placement, is there more? And indeed, there was more. And now I've spent the last 30 plus years researching the more. And I'm going to break it down for you just a little bit, what I now call psychology of the voice, but I really want to focus on why it matters so much, why it's so different than typical voice coaching, why the people that come on this show and have me instantly assess their voice and how they're being processed in the subconscious of the listener, how that is going to take them to the next level. That's the piece I want you to get, that you have sounds that are misrepresenting you and you have sounds that are not maximized. And So, if you are struggling in leadership in business, with retention, with revenue, anything, relationships, confidence, connection, certainly the ability to captivate the room, it's critical that you pay attention to what I'm talking about, because there's a whole next level. And you know, I've had the opportunity to work with some amazing people. I have worked with multiple eight figure entrepreneurs, taken them to the next level in revenue, best launch ever, six, seven, and eight figure entrepreneurs struggling with retention problems. We make one adjustment in the voice, solves the retention problem. One sound can change everything. I have worked with state Supreme Court justices, all kinds of celebrities, people in just about every business you can imagine. And no one is maximizing their greatest asset, even if they think they are, especially the people that think they are. This is way bigger than, “Oh, I'm an actor,” or, “Oh, I have a podcast.” That's a given if you have a podcast that you want to maximize your voice. But, I really want to dive into how you are being misrepresented by your sound and how that's costing you everything.
So, my study in my research continued around this. Okay, so the subconscious is putting the dialect in. Why? Sense of belonging. The Irish baby needs to fit into the Irish family. Okay. Is there more? Well, at this point in my career, I'm in New York City. I'm teaching for Mike Nichols at his school. I'm coaching a lot of actors, but I'm moving into business people and entrepreneurs, and this one particular man walked into my office one day. He hired me to teach him how to sound more confident. And he walked in and, big linebacker size guy, and I stood up and his name was Bill. I'm going to call him Bill. And, I stuck out my hand and I said, “Bill, it's so great to meet you,” and in this teeny, tiny voice, he said, “It's really great to meet you.” And I didn't know why at the time because I hadn't figured out psychology of the voice, and I certainly hadn't figured out that I can tell you how you're processed in the subconscious of the listener. In fact, I can tell you your whole backstory, but for some reason I said to him, “Bill, do you have siblings?” And he said, “I have six older sisters.” And in that moment, psychology of the voice was born. You see, up until that point, I had taught typical voice coaching. I was doing dialect work, but I was also doing typical voice coaching. Speak louder, put in a pause, slow down, and it was making me crazy. I'll be totally honest with you. It was making me crazy, because I could hear levels and layers in people's sound and I needed to an action on it, but I was afraid. Remember my background? You don't say anything that someone won't hear, and I was literally going crazy. I was teaching typical voice coaching that I knew wasn't working. I knew there was something more and I could hear it, but I couldn't say anything about it.
And so I quit. I stopped coaching voices and I was living in New York City. And I started a furniture refinishing business with the super of my building, who was my very good friend. And the phone rang, and the phone rang, and the phone rang and I wouldn't answer it.
And people would leave me messages about coaching their voices and I wouldn't call them back. And we would collect furniture and I would spend hours a day sanding away the layers of the beautiful furniture. I was getting it back to its original beauty. It had been painted and varnished and all kinds of different things over the years, and I slowly sanded away the layers that were keeping the authenticity of the piece and how it was designed to be. I was taking away everything that piece didn't need anymore, and then we were selling it and one day I was sanding away and I heard this voice in my head that said, “What are you doing? What are you doing? I didn't put you down there to finish furniture,” and in that moment I knew I had to maximize this gift.
And it was shortly after that that I met Bill. And it was shortly after that that I was teaching in a workshop in Texas and a young man did a role play for me, and I said to him, “Oh, I get it. You fell in love with some girl and you moved down here to Texas to be with her, but y'all broke up and she broke your heart and you don't really know what to do. You are probably going to move back to the East Coast, Maryland, I think, but you're not sure because you like it here.” And he looked at me and he said, “How did you know that?” And I said, “Oh, did I get it right?” And he said, “Yes, you did.” And I said, “I heard it in your voice.” And I looked around the room and of course everybody was a little dumbfounded at what they had just heard.
And I said to them, I asked them the question, “Did y'all hear that, what I heard?” And they said, “Now we do.” So, I spent the next 10 years studying is what I hear, and can identify how people are being processed in the subconscious of the listener. And I never missed it once.
So let me back up a minute. The subconscious is putting the dialect in and with Bill I started to discover, okay, the subconscious is also putting voice habits in protection sounds into the muscle memory, just like the dialect for Bill. His sisters, who he loved dearly, were saying, “Bill, you're too loud, Bill, get out of our room.” And Bill's subconscious went, “Don't worry, Bill, I've got this.” And little by little started shutting Bill's voice down.
The habit that was created and left in the muscle memory, meaning the way Bill would use his voice was a really small, lacking confidence voice. Now, Bill's a little bit of an extreme version, but what I started doing is I started creating psychology of the voice, the concept. As I'm researching and as I'm working with people, I really started to create the pillars of psychology of the voice.
Because, with every voice, habit, meaning sound, that was not working for someone, there was always a voice story behind it. A man came to work with me and he spoke fast and he said, “I know I speak fast. I know I need to slow down.” And I said, “Well, maybe, but I want to find out why you are speaking fast.” And he had a voice story from his childhood that said, “Dad's not going to listen. After about a minute, he's going to cut you off because he's been watching his watch and you're minutes up.” And now here he was many, many years later. He was still speaking very quickly because he believed in this voice story that said, “They're going to stop listening.” The subconscious before we're five years old, locks in a phrase that determines how we're going to use our voice the rest of our life.
You're too dramatic, you're too loud. Why do you talk so slow? Nobody wants to hear what you have to say. Why are you bothering me? And then we build story after story after story throughout our life, relationships, bosses, neighbors, teachers. Our second grade teacher, never intended to screw us up, but when she said, “You are too loud, stop talking,” the subconscious of that child, maybe it's you, went, “Don't worry, I've got this.” And now here you are at 35, wondering why people won't listen to you. Or maybe here you are at 26 or 42 and you can't seem to close the deal on the sale. Maybe, the retention isn't there. The following isn't there. We have to start with pillar one and find out what is going on behind the sound.
I can tell it to you. In fact, you're going to hear me tell it to you. With everybody that sits in the seat in front of me. What is happening in your head? Here is the manifestation of the sound. How do we shift it? Pillar two is all about connection. Pillar one is all about confidence. You can't sound confident, even though a million people will say, well, just be confident.
Oh, okay, why didn't I think of that? Confidence is about eradicating the noise, the voice stories, the core driver, and shifting where you're working from internally. All of that is in pillar one, and when we do that, you can stand in confidence, but even more importantly, we have eradicated the noise that is holding the sound that is misrepresenting you in place.
In pillar two, we look at those sounds. This is, are you foreshadowing what you don't want? Maybe it is speaking fast. Maybe it is something I call voice masks. This is something I developed and researched, many years, into psychology of the voice already being created. It's already, it had already been created, and it came out of a man that came to me and he said, Tracy, I want to hire you. I think I'm repelling potential customers. And I said, you are. And he said, how do you know? And I looked at him and I said, “What are you trying to prove?” And his face fell. And he said, “I spent my whole life trying to prove my worth to my father.” And I said, “Well, it's still in your voice. It's in the muscle memory of your voice.”
The habit is there. We have to move it out because they're hearing it and they are processing that sound. As they don't get to be a part of this journey, they aren't going to be heard. You are not going to listen to them because you have a lot to prove.
And all of this is going down subconsciously. I want you to know this show and this training, and this technique is not about typical voice coaching. It's on a subconscious level. What's going on in you subconsciously? How are they processing you subconsciously? And we can shift all of that because what is going on in you subconsciously is creating these sounds, like needing to prove, that are misrepresenting you and people are walking away. It was about this time that I discovered I can hear seven layers of sound.
I always, well, let me put it this way. I always knew I could hear the layers. It was at this time that I discovered I needed to tell people. Remember when I said I could always hear sounds? This is what I was hearing.
And I was talking to a coach and I was talking about the seven layers, and she had actually been a client of mine and now I had hired her to be a coach for me, and she said, “Whoop, whoop. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. What did you just say? Seven layers?” And I said, “Oh yeah, I hear seven layers of sound. And the seventh layer is your real voice. I hear it. It becomes the north star for me to uncover all the layers that are blocking your authenticity, your next level of success, your inner freedom, your confidence, connection, all the things.”
And she said, “You've never talked about that.” And I said, “Well, I just go in and I do it. The first six sounds are unraveled in pillar one and two, I'm not giving you things. I'm not adding on technique. In fact, that's the problem. The world told you how you were born with the most beautiful, perfect voice wasn't good enough and you need to be like this and add on this and read the room and say it this way and don't be so loud and stop being dramatic. I pull all that away because I'm chasing that North star, that seventh layer. I hear it.” And that was what I used to do with my actors. That's why they were so successful, because I was chasing their North Star and I didn't even know it.
And so I hear these layers of blocks and barriers that are uncovered in pillar two that are misrepresenting you. And then I get to you and that is pillar three, unleashing all the sounds that you are not letting us have, and I don't care how big you're playing. There are sounds you aren't revealing. I don't care how great you think you are when you get on stage, there is a sound the size of a grain of sand that is costing you everything.
In fact, one of my clients one time said, “Tracy, you hear sounds the size of a grain of sand.” And I said, “Yeah, but have you ever gotten sand in your eye? You'll do anything to get it out.” Another client said, “This isn't voice. This is identity.” And she was right. The voice is the orchestra of the heart. It is the sound of your soul, and it doesn't matter how great you think you are in the moment. There is another level. There are so many things I've learned in my research over the last 30 years and I have dedicated my life to this work. 30 years of research on sounds the size of a grain of sand and what is costing you and what will free you, sound aversions, your ideal clients seeking sounds that you aren't representing.
Blocks, barriers, insecurities, wounds. The definition of all those words we throw out in the world, like confidence and authenticity and vulnerability is found in your voice, if you let me have it, if you reveal the the experience of you. That's what I'm going to do in this show. I'm going to help people, spot on in the moment, understand what's costing them and why, and how, and what they can do to fix it.
I think this is going to be fascinating for you. And I know you're going to learn a lot. You won't hear this anywhere else. This is something that I am incredibly proud of to call my own, and I'm so honored to have you as a listener. I can't wait to hear your thoughts. I can't wait to assess your voice at some point, but get ready because you are about to discover, you are about to unlock the next level of your success, whatever that is, no matter who you are, where you're at, whatever is holding you back, it's going to be found in your voice. And I guarantee you, one of my listeners, if not many of them, I mean one of my people that I'm interviewing and assessing, if not all of them, are struggling with the same thing that you didn't even realize was keeping you in a prison, keeping you safe, because that's what the subconscious has been trying to do your whole life.
Keep you safe, keep you safe from judgment. Your subconscious, just like when you were born and it put that dialect in you is trying to protect your heart. Your voice is the orchestra of your heart. It is the utmost place of judgment. The stakes are really high in protection.
Well it’s time, your subconscious gets the memo that you're not five anymore and it's okay. And that's what I hope this show does for you, is gives your subconscious the memo and your permission slip to unearth, unmask, and unleash the absolute most vibrant, beautiful, perfect, expressive experience of you. Now, let's head over and do some assessing.
What an amazing shift. Hey, this is Sherry Qum Taylor wrapping us up today. If you heard this and thought, oh my gosh, is this what my business needs? Is this the thing that will attract more clients in 2023? Well, it is it. It was for me last year, and I continue to use this today to scale my own business.
If you want your voice assessed, just take a second right now and email at tracy@captivatetheroom.com. You will not regret it.
