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Joe: This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 354. Well, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. I’m Joe Sanok, your host and I just love this so much. I was just talking to this guy who is looking at joining next level practice. And it never gets old when people say, “Oh my gosh, it’s so cool to hear your voice, and it’s not on a podcast.” You know, I think back when I was doing this in, it wasn’t like an attic. It’s sort of like a finished attic, but it has a bedroom.
So, I guess the second floor, but it’s kind of like tall in the middle, but then has a slanted ceiling kind of things and there’s probably an official name for it. But I remember doing the podcast when my wife was pregnant and, no, she wasn’t pregnant. She had already given birth, so she was super tired taking naps, and our baby was taking naps, and I would go up there often on Sundays and just record this podcast, and there’s just a handful of people listening.
Joe: And you people who are listening still, thank you. You’re awesome. You are the heroes of this story, and I just love all you’re doing. In today’s podcast, we’re going to learn some things. We’re going to learn about how to speak differently. We’re going to learn how Joe gets made to feel a little awkward sometimes and how I don’t mind putting out that awkwardness into a podcast.
So, we’re going to learn about, how do we speak correctly in a way that makes us stand out? I mean, the guy we’re talking to you today, Arthur Joseph, he’s trained Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery, Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey. I mean these are like A-list people, A-plus list people. Maybe not in your mind, maybe you don’t like them all, but there are people that have really rocked out life, and he helped them. So, without any further ado, I give you Arthur Joseph.
Joe: Well, today in the Practice of the Practice podcast, we have Arthur Samuel Joseph. He’s the founder and chairman of the Vocal Awareness Institute. Arthur is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost communication strategists and authorities on the human voice. His Voice and Leadership Training Program teaches communication mastery through a disciplined regimen of specific techniques designed to cultivate an embodied and enhanced leadership presence and personal presence. He’s coached Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery, Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey, Jerry Rice, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Welcome to the show, Arthur.
Arthur Joseph: Oh, Joe is such a pleasure to be here today. Thank you.
Joe: Yeah. This is a topic we haven’t covered on the Practice of the Practice podcast. So, when I heard about you, I was so excited to invite you onto this podcast. Let’s first start with just a little backstory of how did you get into voice training?
Arthur: I have a Masters in Voice, and a classical singer by training and I also have what I often refer to as a knowing. When I hear a voice, I get an immediate imprint I call a perfect pitch though these days I can’t really recognize b flat from d so easily. But when I hear a voice, I hear who you are, and it’s a perfect imprint. And this is my 53rd year of vocal awareness, and it’s my life’s work. And vocal awareness is actually a paradigm shift in communication. I, among other things, teach communication mastery, empowerment through voice, and the whole goal is sovereignty. And I think about your audience and what a perfect theme for your audience because, in a manner of speaking, you heal. You work in an industry, in an area of society where people really count on you being trustworthy, insightful, caring, genuine, etc.
Arthur: And when people asked me years ago, “What’s your target market?” And I say, well, we all have to breathe, and we all have to communicate. You have significant training. Your audience has substantial training, but nobody learns how to really communicate in a way that perhaps does the greatest good for the greatest number. Am I making any sense Joe?
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. I feel like in the same way that in grad school we learned these clinical skills, but we don’t learn the business skills of running a practice. The idea that we can do things with our voice or our pacing that will enhance our therapy. I can’t ever think of a professor that really said, “Here’s how to breathe, here’s how to speak.” Maybe they talked pacing a little but I know you’ve coached therapists and counselors. What are some things that you see that maybe the average therapist wouldn’t consider? They might do wrong, that they could amp up to have kind of a better emotion in their voice?
Arthur: I often, one of the first things I do is when I’m speaking with you as I’m speaking right now, I’m being a little perhaps over the top and a little stereotypical, but I’m using what might be referred to pejoratively as my therapeutic voice. And I understand that part of the practice sometimes is in certain methodologies. We don’t want to get too personally close. Yet the root of the word intimate is a Latin root word intimus which means intrinsic or essential. So, energetically to really be of the greatest value, offer the greatest connection to our patients, to our clients, putting the sort of veil on my voice does them and me a disservice.
Arthur: So, what I do instead is allow a conscious loving breath. And let me have you experience this for a moment, Joe. Is that all right?
Joe: Yeah, that’s great.
Arthur: Joe. Sit up nice and tall. Sit at attention, please.
Joe: All right. Yes, I’m standing. I have a standing desk so, I’m standing at attention.
Arthur: And notice you hold your breath.
Joe: I did well. Yes.
Arthur: Now, relax, and this time, I want you to pull a thread literally with your hand slowly and gracefully, from three inches below your navel to help you embody a man of stature, claiming the value, the care, the genuineness of who you are. And we’ll slowly pull that thread. Watch your neck and shoulder tension taller, taller, right up through the middle of your crown chakra. Tall. One last little bit. You put your arm down. And did you observe Joe, that the first thing you did was inhale?
Joe: Yeah.
Arthur: And do you notice your internal and external space are suddenly quieter?
Joe: Yes.
Arthur: So, we stand at attention, we hold our breath. We embody ourselves as men and women of stature. A body’s first impulse is to inhale. Then I say to you, “May I use the word God with you? I have other worries [crosstalk].”
Joe: Sure, whatever you’re comfortable with.
Arthur: The first of the seven rituals of vocal awareness. One can be an atheist or agnostic. We can simply say, “Thank you, thank you to source. It’s a moment where we identify something outside of our corporeal selves, and we take into the first ritual. Don’t say it aloud, just within yourself. Say, “Thank you to God” and embrace the thought as you choose and let me know when you’re finished.
Joe: All right.
Arthur: And once again, you inhaled, correct?
Joe: Yeah. Yes, I did.
Arthur: Hear the pitch of your voice is also lower. Do you hear that too?
Joe: Yeah.
Arthur: And you sound a little bit more relaxed. A little bit more centered, correct?
Joe: I do.
Arthur: And once again, your internal and external space are quieter. So, what’s just happening is, the second ritual is something called love and let go. I won’t go with you today. Yes, I will.
Joe: All right.
Arthur: Now, do you have a chair in your room?
Joe: I do. It’s several feet away from me though.
Arthur: Okay. So, for a moment, just kick back and relax on your standing position. Just feel relaxed. Forget all this stature nonsense.
Joe: All right.
Arthur: And let me know when you’re relaxed.
Joe: I’m relaxed.
Arthur: Cool. And you feel the room, feel your space correct?
Joe: Yes.
Arthur: Now turn off your left brain. Don’t try to empirically understand this. Just hear the words, “Joe, love and let it go.” Simply feel what it might be like to love and let go. And did you happen to notice if the first thing your body is already done is inhale?
Joe: Yeah, I think I took three or four deep breaths.
Arthur: Yes. When you relaxed, you didn’t. You just relaxed. So, what does all this got to do with what you’re asking me about? We put ourselves in stature. We thank source, we love and let go. The body’s first impulse is to breathe. It’s the body’s way of saying, “Thank you for giving me permission to be who I am. I breathe to acknowledge that.” But it also brings up something really important beyond that, the root of the word spirit, spiritus, means to breathe.
Arthur: Before our call, you wanted me to say something inspiring at the end. Inspirational, you actually said, but I hope that this whole call is inspiring because inspire means to breathe into. A Hebrew word Neshama means both soul and breath. So, it’s all about the breath. I’ve written five books. My next one is going to be a business book and partway through, but then I want to write a book called Breathe or Breath, or it’s all about the breath because it’s all about the breath. So, —
Joe: Yeah. And I feel like that’s often missed in the business world and even in our clinical work.
Arthur: Absolutely.
Joe: We do an event called Slowdown School in the summer where we bring therapists to the beaches of northern Michigan and hang out for a couple days on the beaches, and then we work on the business. And it’s amazing to see how people clarify so much when they slow down and breathe. We bring in yoga teachers and massage therapists to genuinely help them just slow down for a couple days.
Arthur: Bring me in and I’ll do vocal awareness.
Joe: That sounds like fun. And I feel like people will run full tilt towards their business without taking those breaths. And I love that you start with the breath and kind of the mental exercises and physical exercises before we ever actually talk about how do we talk.
Arthur: And you just said taking a breath. So, I’d like you to take a nice deep breath — and exhale. Now allow a slow, silent, loving breath. It will take five to seven seconds. Do not rush. Allow it slowly, deeper. Relax your neck and shoulders. Deeper, and exhale.
Arthur: You may recall that when you took a breath, your chest rose, you didn’t recognize that you’re learning some tongue flex. When you allowed, you notice how the intercostals expanded, and you’re more relaxed, more centered, and once again, your space quieter. I’m I correct?
Joe: Yeah,
Arthur: And it illustrates we don’t want to ever take a breath. We want to allow breath. It illustrates that breath is not only physical, it’s also emotional. We know when your patients are in trauma, the first thing they do is hold their breath.
Joe: Absolutely.
Arthur: They hyperventilate or something else. So, this breathing is a healing tool. I have a dear woman in my practice. She studied with me for 10 or 12 years and she’s been with me about 20. She’s an assistant now. She’s 70 and in the sixth year of remission from cancer and she sent me one of the handfuls of most poignant notes I’ve ever received the other day because a couple of months ago she was really struggling yet again physically. And she had all the tests, saw an array of doctors and nobody could find anything wrong with her. And she went back into our work. One of the things she did and I would counsel her, and we would discuss things, and because she is so rigorous and committed to this work, she really did what I call the capital W work. The big work. And in her letter to me, she spent two days focusing on her breath
Arthur: And she realized that she had been protecting others from her illness and that blocking was harming her and the vocal exercises that I’ll show you in a moment contributed to her healing, and she’s emerged. She’s had her subsequent tests. All is fine. But it was, this letter was so stunning because it was so personal, so real, and it helped my dear friend and student heal herself through her breath in this work. I don’t want to overstate it, but this is a conversation that we don’t traditionally have in therapy, and so, I’m saying to you, Joe, I hope, I hope that I’m making sense to you. I think is what I really want to say.
Joe: Yeah. I think the application is much deeper than I expected for this podcast, which is great. I love when I’m surprised because so frequently when–
Arthur: [crosstalk] with you, joe, and you remember where you are so frequently.
Joe: Okay.
Arthur: As you continue, just allow a loving breath. Before you continue and at the apex of the breath, please continue so frequently.
Joe: Yeah. So [crosstalk]
Arthur: Slow in silence, five seconds … and begin when you’re ready.
Joe: I think so frequently we think about how to speak and just the content and hearing this backstory of it and knowing how many people that you’ve worked with that slowing down, allowing the breath when we’re excited and when we feel like we’re connecting with someone, breathing tends to be with like, back of mind. And so, the idea of, “Let’s get some air in there and slow things down a little bit,” I think will help people connect differently, but also, it’s just a skill that I think many people miss.
Arthur: And when you listen back to this, you felt that rather formative difference just in. Did you not when you returned, after the breath?
Joe: I think yes. There’s a difference, but I think there’s also that it’s a new skill and so, there’s also, like a people pleaser, “I want to do it right.” You know, for the vocal coach that’s worked with Tony Robbins. [crosstalk] So, there’s definitely this isn’t your typical podcast interview, which is great. It’s very experiential. They say, do it right side that’s coming in as well.
Joe Sanok: Hey practitioners, I want to take a second to tell you about the Killin’It Camp retreat. If you would value connecting with a community of like-minded and like hearted practice owners who want to deepen their sense of purpose and meaning as business owners and to talk about and share the best practices and strategies for ultimate business and life success, then this event might be for you.
If you add value being around high performing practitioners without the big egos, clinicians that believe in living life to the fullest while also growing in amazing practice, you might enjoy Killin’It Camp. Once a year, we’re getting together in person, in small groups with the best guest experts and so much more in Estes Park, Colorado. We’ve done these focus retreats multiple times. They’ve sold out every single time. If you’re excited about it, make sure to check it out at killin’itcamp.com where you can sign up for the next Killin’It Camp therapist retreat.
Joe: One of the things you might be wondering is, “Is leaving my business actually going to make me a better business owner?” For many of you, you work really hard, but at this retreat, we’ll be helping you to know exactly where to spend your time and where to say no. To speed up, you have to slow down. You have to learn from experts and grow a community of like-minded supporters.
We have to step back so we can go back into our practices to rock it out. This is the same concept as going to therapy, a weekend intensive, or a church retreat. You take a moment to reconnect with what really matters. You plan, you strategize, you work on your business so you can be better in your business. If that all sounds good, check it out at killin’itcamp.com.
Arthur: But what I also want you to notice when you listen back to that one moment, Hoe, is how different you sound out here, how it feels, and all I did was ask you to breathe differently and you’ll notice we heard a different level of authenticity. One of the things that you spoke with me about before the call was many of your members do public speaking. And so, one of the goals we have in this work is what’s called choosing my vocal and presentational persona. “How do I want to be known?” The root of the word persona is [inaudible 22:46] report which means through the sound.
One’s identity is largely conveyed to the sound of a voice and opinion created in three seconds. Perception of reality. So, they walk out on that stage, and we’ve been told you got to bond with your audience, etc., etc., balderdash. The goal is to embody the integrity, the sovereignty of who we are on that stage, on that podcast, on that call. Not to hope we’re being liked, but to be in the integrity of how we want to be known.
The roots of the word integrity and integration have the same root source. They mean wholeness. So, we want to be in the gestalt of our calling, the gestalt of the healing arts. That gestalt of what our personal vision is for our life’s work, for our practice. And then practice embodying that. If we’re using slides and we have X number of PowerPoint slides actually write up script and memorize that.
Don’t just simply go up with bullets and wing it. It is a performance, not a presentation. The root of the word present, presentation means to introduce formally. To bring before the public. The root of the word performance means to carry out, fulfill, to do. So, performance is what it’s all about because someone is watching or listening.
So, learning how to embody who we are takes real practice at home and a mirror on our video camera. Ten seconds, 32nd soundbites. Putting ourselves in stature. If I say to you right now, “Joe vocal awareness is my passion, and I love helping human beings change their voice by owning the power.” No, that’s bogus. We don’t know why. It’s just bogus. Joe, vocal awareness is my passion. I love, love helping human beings change their voice by owning their vocal power.
We don’t know that the first one was a little too high and too fast. All we know is we don’t trust that man. The second one, we don’t know that I breathed. We don’t recognize my pitch might be lower my voice a little slower. We just get there’s more authenticity in that man. All because I changed the pitch and the pace. Right now, I say to you, “When one of my mantras, when you give me your voice, you give me who you are.” That relationship is sacrosanct. Now I’ll say it again. “When you give me your voice, you’ve given me who you are.” That relationship is sacrosanct.
Arthur: Do you perceive the second one is a little better than the first one?
Joe: Yeah, I think so.
Arthur: And the only difference was everything was the same except the first time my eyes were dead, and we’re on a podcast not seeing each other. It’s the second time I’m using my eyes right now to communicate because the mouth is where the words come from, but the eyes tell the story. So, it makes my voice more alive. It makes my storytelling more expressive, and you didn’t even know what I was doing, but you felt something in the narrative.
Joe: So, Arthur, if you were to say, coach me or another counselor in some steps that would just help with pacing, help with that breathing, what are a couple quick tips that would help a podcaster, for example?
Arthur: Well, without sounding like I’m selling my stuff, one of the things I would strongly encourage people to do is to look the offering you’re going to tell them about in a moment. It’s an important piece. A number of elements in vocal awareness are actually trademarked, and one of them is making voice, visual, visceral language. It’s a video course with a study guide that I created a few years ago that teaches us how to make voice visual. You saw that last word just underlined, correct. That teaches us how to make voice visual.
Joe: Yeah. I think it was emphasized for me. I’d have to think if I saw it as underlined.
Arthur: Well, I’m doing it a third time now.
Joe: Now I see it’s underlined.
Arthur: In vocal awareness, we learn to make voice visual. You see that, correct? Yes.
Joe: No, let’s keep going. I know I didn’t see it that time either. I was just kidding.
Arthur: I think you did it, but you were humoring me, but you heard the emphasis regardless.
Joe: Absolutely.
Arthur: And so, take the word absolutely and underline it.
Joe: Absolutely.
Arthur: And put a period after the end of that word and see the period.
Joe: Absolutely.
Arthur: No, write the word out. Do you have a pen for that?
Joe: I do.
Arthur: Write the word up and put an accent gorav over the “u”. Underlined the word and circle the period at the end and please read it.
Joe: Absolutely.
Arthur: Hear the difference?
Joe: Yeah. Yes.
Arthur: Now the word sounded like the word is intended to meet and so visceral language teaches us how to communicate visually, even extemporaneously, as I clearly do, and you’ve just experienced. So, one tip is visceral language. Another is the old Henny Youngman joke from the early fifties, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.”
And so, taking 20 or 30 seconds, writing it out, putting it in visceral language, marking breaths strategically in, et cetera. And then putting it on video and practicing. Three, really practicing what it is to allow a conscious loving breath. In practice have, it’s like I train gazillions, gazillions of broadcasters, a lot of great athletes. And they have in the booth what’s called a flip chart.
They have stats and identification about the players and teams. And on it they have vocal awareness reminders. So, maybe in somebody’s notebook, or on the desk, a posting which says, “Stature. Thanks, source. CLB. Take my time.” Ways to remind us to be present in the moment.
Arthur: Am I being helpful?
Joe: Absolutely. When someone’s preparing for a talk, do you encourage them to do the underlining, put your breaths in there?
Arthur: Oh yes. I have 20 among other sports. I have 20 students in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And if you were to look at some of the more recent ones, three years ago, I had the LaDainian Tomlinson, Terrell Davison, Kurt Warner being inducted. And I write their speeches with them and help them perform them and they’re all written in visceral language. And they are annotated. They have hard copy in visceral language that’s also annotated in the prompter and visceral language.
Joe: I was going to ask that if on the teleprompter it had that as well.
Arthur: And, if you were to, for example, tun into LaDainian, (his went viral) and you tune into the last eight or 10 minutes where he speaks about this, “If this was my last day on earth.” And he speaks about his great, great, great, great grandfather being brought over on the slave ship from East Africa and you see the impact of speech has, you’ll understand the value of visceral language.
Joe: And we’ll embed that in the show notes so people can watch that.
Arthur: Lovely. How has our time been today?
Joe: Good. I have a couple more questions in regards to when people are in the moment, they’re excited about speaking. This is new to them. What are some things in the midst of a talk to keep in mind? So, they’ve done the prep work, they’ve annotated, they’ve put the breaths in. Any other quick tips for people when they’re in the midst of that anxiety and nervousness?
Arthur: One of the fundamental concepts of vocal awareness is conscious awareness. Not just awareness, not just consciousness, but it’s 360 as we can be interpersonally. It’s all about the breath. So, on their notes, on the podium, written on their hand, I’ve seen it all. I’ve been quite serious about writing on the hand. COB, S for stature.
Anything they can do to trigger a new behavior. Back in my Tonny Robbins days, Tony would refer to my seven rituals as pattern interrupts. Then he would clearly say to create a new pattern, you have to exaggerate behavior to break an old one. So, because speech is habit, nobody thinks about any of these things. We have to be quite mindful and one of the things I teach in our work, Joe, is that we are not our behaviors; may rub some people the wrong way, I hope not, but the point simply is, that may be how I behave, but is that who I am?
Arthur: So, because speech is habit, I want to help us do communication mastery, another trademarked aspect of this work. How to really be in the mastery of who we are moment to moment and to overcome that anxiety, not to allow ourselves to continue being the corks on our own bottles, but we’re here to surrender to you or to give back, to serve our vision, to serve our patients, to serve the practice, et cetera, et cetera. So, it really is about being audacious. Bold. That word means bold and intrepid, fearlessly daring.
Arthur: There’s a chapter in my last book called A Champion Does It Differently. That is not a sport-centric concept? Because that word means dazzlingly skilled in any field. It’s the idea of claiming our power, claiming who we are without approbation. You, I’m sure, all your listeners have heard that ridiculous [inaudible 32:29] the greatest fear in society is public speaking. Bogus.
The greatest fear in society are two fears, fear of abandonment and ownership of our power, claiming who we are without worrying about what others think of us. That’s a no. So, this work, the constant tweaking but taking our time are ways where we gain the upper hand. Does this make pragmatic sense? Not just philosophical and theoretical?
Joe: Absolutely. If every private practice owner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?
Arthur: Our responsibility is to be in the sovereign and the sovereignty, the excellence of what we’re called to be not only called to do and in vocal awareness taking our time to honor that commitment.
I know that I don’t know if many of your colleagues record sessions or not, but if you do, listen back, not just for the information but to yourselves as to how are you communicating. “Am I safe? Does my patient feel safe?” We’re discovering the sovereignty of who we are through how we communicate. And that’s not necessarily going to happen tomorrow by five, but it is a very, very worthy pursuit because you’re all in the healing arts.
And through vocal awareness, this is how I make a difference because, in my way, I too am in the healing arts. So, the other thing I would say to all the people listening is listen back to this recording and take notes because I make a great deal of intellectual, philosophical sense. But the angels in the details, it’s about really learning how to do the work.
Joe: Wow. So much information. I love that idea of going back and taking notes. Arthur, you’ve got a course that I’m going to have you kind of share a little bit about. We set up a unique link for that course. Folks, you can go to practiceofthepractice.com/voice. Again, that’s practiceofthepractice.com/voice. Arthur’s offering $100 off the course. Just use code 100. So, that’s one zero, zero off VVP and we’ll have that in the show notes as well for you. Arthur tell us a little bit more about the course.
Arthur: Well, I chose to offer this visceral language course… It’s me teaching aspects of the work, including visceral language and providing your listeners a 50 percent discount on the work because my vision is to change the world through voice. And I’m traveling the globe enlisting people in what I call the human achievement movement. And so, this course is one way I strive to help people be what is possible. And in this offer, it’s me teaching you just in the privacy of your space, and it’s the work. So, that’s —
Joe: Well and you have coached so many people that are just pillars of our society that are known for their public speaking, to have access to you and your content. Thank you so much for giving that discount again. We’ll put a link in the show notes. That’s practiceofthepractice.com/voice and 100 off VVP is the code. Arthur, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast.
Arthur: Thank you, Joe, for making it possible.
Joe: So, go out into the world with more focus, feeling grounded in how you speak. Push yourself to try new things and a huge thanks to Therapy Notes, our sponsor this week. Therapy Notes is such a great platform to help you stay organized in your practice. Therapynotes.com, use promo code “Joe” to try it out for free for two months and if you are thinking about coming to Killin’It Camp, I really think that it would work for you. If you want to be the kind of practice owner that hangs out with other high achieving people that are really doing it well, head on over to killin’itcamp.com for that as well.
Next week we have David Shriner Kahn who has been on the podcast in the past and he is just amazing. He’s going to talk about how we can smash the plateau, get more done, and to live a life that has a lot of purpose and focus. Thanks for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great week.
Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. We like it a lot. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate, authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It was given with the understanding that neither the host, the guests or the publisher are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.