EP 230: Public speaking - How to use your body as an instrument with Lauri Smith
In this podcast episode, public speaking and leadership coach Lauri Smith shares her insights on how authenticity and charisma can propel individuals up the corporate ladder. Throughout the discussion, she underlines the importance of staying true to oneself, tapping into personal charisma, embracing silence, and using breath to manifest one's core message.
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Description:
In this podcast episode, public speaking and leadership coach Lauri Smith shares her insights on how authenticity and charisma can propel individuals up the corporate ladder. Throughout the discussion, she underlines the importance of staying true to oneself, tapping into personal charisma, embracing silence, and using breath to manifest one's core message.
Lauri’s unique conversation-based approach emphasizes the value of treating speaking engagements as a two-way interaction. She strongly believes that passionate and genuine communication isn’t about copying someone else's charisma but rather unearthing one's own authentic voice. Weaving personal stories with expert tips, Lauri provides a comprehensive roadmap for those wishing to improve their public speaking skills and executive presence, regardless of their cultural background or speaking style.
Moreover, Lauri and I explore the applicability of her coaching methods to different age groups, particularly underlining the importance of empowering young leaders.
Timing:
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
00:13 Understanding Charisma and Leadership
01:11 The Role of Charisma in Personal Development
04:03 Impact of Cultural Background on Public Speaking
05:31 The Power of Authenticity in Public Speaking
06:28 The Journey of a Public Speaking Novice
07:08 Overcoming Bad Habits in Public Speaking
10:07 The Importance of Breathing in Public Speaking
15:12 The Role of Energy and Volume in Public Speaking
17:17 The Influence of Theater on Public Speaking
30:09 The Art of Storytelling in Public Speaking
33:57 The Power of Intention in Public Speaking
38:49 The Role of Coaching in Leadership Development
44:26 The Importance of Authenticity in Leadership
47:57 The Speaker's Studio: A Space for Growth
50:26 Conclusion and Contact Information
Guest Links:
Voice Matters: https://voice-matters.com/
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Lauri on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauri-smith-voice-matters/
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Lauri on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/voice_matters_llc/
Lauri on X: https://twitter.com/LauriSmithLLC
Lauri on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh91RFKkYB7WF83p4_DG9Ug
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Transcript:
(This Transcript is AI generated)
[00:00:00] Lauri Smith: and his boss said,
frankly, I don't think he has it in him.
And I don't remember what I said in the moment because it was like, I have 25 minutes to finish this 360 interview. I can't stop and say, with all due respect, you're wrong.
This is my zone of genius.
There is a way of being charismatic that's unique to each person. So some speakers are quieter.
And some are louder and everyone looks at them and thinks, Oh, I'm going to imitate Barack Obama. Cause that's charisma. No, that's Barack Obama's charisma. And I love this story because that leader eventually got the promotion
[00:00:37] Jens Heitland Podcast: hello and welcome to the human innovation podcast, the podcast for innovative leaders. I'm your host Jens Heitland and today my guest is Laurie Smith. Laurie is an intuitive public speaking and leadership coach. She helps visionaries and empaths on a soul driven mission stand in their power, speak their truth and lead. In this episode, Laurie and I talk about public speaking, breathing, using silence, being present, and how to use this as a leader. Please welcome to the show, Laurie Smith.
Everyone is born with charisma. Then the world teaches us to cover it up. Tell us more about that.
[00:01:19] Lauri Smith: When we're babies and small children we're completely present in the moment. We're in our bodies. We're not thinking about the past or the future. And then eventually people tell us consciously or unconsciously things like, don't be too big. Don't be too much. Don't take up too much space. Don't be too emotional.
So we start to suppress mostly the emotions. A little bit of taking up space, but mostly we suppress our breath in order to suppress our emotions. And then that creates all kinds of physical, mental, and energetic habits that are what to me covers up our innate charisma.
[00:02:11] Jens Heitland Podcast: have a five year old daughter right now. And obviously when they're in this age, it happens. Naturally, at least where I grew up here in the Western European, world. No, you should not do this. You should not do that. Be a little bit more quiet because of the neighbors.
Like the obvious thing, I guess, which will lead towards that, what you just explained.
[00:02:34] Lauri Smith: Yeah and, even the be a little bit more quiet because of the neighbors, there's a way that we start trying to pull in our energy and pull in our volume so that we don't disturb anybody else. And it's not a problem there. I worked with a client at one point a couple years ago who did not immediately respond to the word energy when I would say it. He was a, he was a CFO. It took him a long time to get it. And then when he got it, he said, Oh, you're asking me to be intentional with my energy. And I said, yes, mostly because of the aha I can see on your face. And also, may I borrow that going forward? That's sort of the thing that I feel like we're missing as kids.
If someone said right now, Be intentional with your volume. Be intentional with your energy. And then there are also other times where you're allowed to let it ring out both your energy and your volume.
[00:03:37] Jens Heitland Podcast: Yeah. It's fascinating for me I have lived now in six countries and it's different from an educational and parents perspective, how people are raised from a loudness perspective. We just take that example. For example, when we lived in Spain, it didn't matter at all.
People are just louder comparing it to Sweden where we lived as well, or now in the Netherlands, quite interesting to see. And if we use that to go towards speaking, do you see that when you work with speakers from different cultural backgrounds, that there's a tendency that it's naturally to them already?
[00:04:17] Lauri Smith: Yes, certain cultures seem to be quieter and those are the ones that I Probably about 70 percent of my clients are quieter from a culture that's quieter. And then they find themselves, here in the Silicon Valley. And in order to move up the corporate ladder, they're told that they need, uh, an executive presence coach.
Here in the United States. And to some extent across the world, there's almost always like One speaker or a couple of speakers that everyone thinks are great and they're all trying to mimic them and this quieter leader got executive presence coaching and I was doing a 360 interviewing other people and his boss, who was a much more extroverted
louder leader, as was most of that company's culture said, frankly, I don't think he has it in him. And I don't remember what I said in the moment because it was like, I have 25 minutes to finish this 360 interview. I can't stop and say, with all due respect, you're wrong. This is my zone of genius. And with all due respect, he was wrong.
There is a way of being charismatic that's unique to each person. So some speakers are quieter. And some are louder and everyone looks at them and thinks, Oh, I'm going to imitate Barack Obama. Cause that's charisma. No, that's Barack Obama's charisma. And I love this story because that leader eventually got the promotion that his own boss said, frankly, I don't think he has it in him.
And there was a moment. Around the cultural upbringing that he had had, where I saw him have the aha that in this culture, in this company in particular, the rules are different than they are, you know, it's not rude to let your voice ring out in a meeting.
[00:06:28] Jens Heitland Podcast: If you take a couple of others that you have worked with, are there often these aha moments especially when you have someone who is new to the speaking environment, someone who wants to learn public speaking and they have never done anything in that direction.
They just believe that they have it in them and they want to figure out how they can get better. How would you take a person that's just getting started in that direction?
[00:06:55] Lauri Smith: If someone is just getting started, I tend to work with people in some ways. in the same way, and in other ways, it's completely tailored to the person. If someone is just getting started in public speaking, I would hope to catch them before they create bad habits. And bad habits sometimes mean, logging a lot of years of speaking, being what they think they should be. So it's almost like they put on the mask of a leader, or of a speaker, and if they've logged ten years speaking in that way, they actually have a lot more bad habits to break. If they're brand new, there's a chance to catch them before they get habits of trying to do it like someone else. And really have them understand why are they being called to speak in the first place and keeping that why alive and setting an intention related to that for what they want the audience to experience.
And then getting their body, their breath, and their energy to be vibrant and alive like we were when we were all babies and you could hear us crying on the other side of the room. And then creating a dynamic ride for the audience and actually listening to the audience's non verbals while speaking. So seeing it and treating it more like a great conversation rather than I'm monologuing.
at you and I'm doing it based on what I think I need to be in order for the audience to take me seriously.
[00:08:41] Jens Heitland Podcast: So you mentioned a couple of times already, something in the direction you are mimicking, you're playing a role. Rather than being yourself, what are the things we should be doing naturally that we are not doing.
[00:08:58] Lauri Smith: One thing that might be helpful is to figure out if you have any should thoughts in there, like I should be smart. Or, I need to be smart in order to be taken seriously. I have to entertain the audience, or they'll lose interest. To notice those kinds of thoughts, because that might mean that you're grabbing for a sort of protective mask when you're speaking.
That is actually probably drawing on a part of your personality that you're good at. So, if I'm passionate, I might grab for a mask that is, I have to work hard in order to keep people's interest. It's drawing on my passion, but then it's sort of like I'm not giving myself credit for everything else that I have to bring to the table besides my passion.
And I start working too hard and end up with kind of a hardened way of being when I'm speaking. I think the other main one that I would say is to breathe. more when speaking than our bodies might want to if we're teetering on fight, flight, or freeze. And if we're breathing in the way most of the world is breathing with all of that suppressed emotion, we don't have as much life in our voice as if we know how to take nourishing inhales, and then how to have all of that air support the sound of our voice instead of sort of muscling our voice. And then with that breath comes some moments of silence. Which then allow the audience to have their non verbal half of the conversation in those silences and to emotionally and mentally digest what we're saying as speakers.
[00:10:56] Jens Heitland Podcast: Let's go further into, to breathe before we go into voice. I think that's equally relevant for people like us who are doing videos on social media, which is not everyone, but quite a lot of people these days.
From a breathing perspective, I have learned breathing because I was playing an instrument, which was Like a trumpet and through that I learned deep breathing and it, I just grew up with it, playing it 25 years.
So I guess it's somehow a little bit from that, but I'm still not sure what is the right breathing patterns. I just do it naturally and try to figure it out from your perspective. What are key things we should be aware of and how could we train it?
[00:11:38] Lauri Smith: The, the biggest thing to become aware of is your breath while speaking. So if someone is just kind of listening to us and starting out, the first step is awareness. And I'll often Introduce breath in programs and then give people an assignment to notice their breathing during the course of the next week. Where do you catch yourself holding your breath? Where do you catch yourself breathing and speaking effortlessly? Where do you catch yourself maybe inhaling and spitting it out? Before you speak what's going on with your breathing because from there you can then shift it And two of my favorite Skills that transfer really well to breathing for speaking are yoga So if anyone has done yoga for an extended period of time, there's a rhythm of inhale and then exhale to move and inhale on a move and exhale on a move.
The thing missing in that is you're not making any sound, but it means your body knows this flow of breath. And then wind instrument, like you said, is actually a big one because the breath is like the gasoline for the voice. Or the battery for the voice. And I've never played a wind instrument, but I have to imagine that it would be very hard if you don't have the breath to even get the instrument to make sound at all with the human voice, we can do it because we've actually got kind of, until we leave this earth, we have some air in our lungs until we're gone.
So we can have very little air and kind of keep on pushing it out and talking a little bit more so than a wind instrument. So wind instruments also really teach the body inhale and then make some sound using the air that you just inhaled. Then inhale again, then make some more sound.
[00:13:41] Jens Heitland Podcast: I Played, like I said, trumpet for quite a while. I haven't done it the last almost 10 years now due to different circumstances, mainly moving across the world. But one interesting thing for me was always, I have disconnected the breathing when it comes to the instrument to the breathing when I'm using my voice, because I was, I'm still introvert, which a lot of people don't believe, but it's.
It's still that, I was having such a strong voice and loud voice as well when I'm speaking, for example that I was so unsecure in using this breath with the loud voice that I didn't want to do it. for a long time. Like I wasn't singing in church, just one of the examples. I was just not doing it. And it took me a while to get used to the power of that breath, at least for myself. Now that we're just talking about it, I've never even consciously thought about that, but it took me a while to find out how to use it. And then still, it took me quite a while doing that more in a public speaking engagements or now on podcasts and videos as well, honing that What I've learned for such a long time in over 20 years to utilize that.
And then, yes, then it's maybe a little louder than someone else's voice, but that's my voice and that's my way of talking and just being secure with myself has switched quite a lot of things.
[00:15:12] Lauri Smith: Yes. And when people are in that phase of whoa, like realizing if they inhale and they make sound and they energize the space and allow their voice to ring out, it can be really uncomfortable. We can feel like it's not us. And it can feel unsafe and giving yourself time and permission to get used to letting your voice ring out in that way is the best way to go.
I was working with a client once. Who, I saw the moment where he let his voice ring out and he stopped in the middle of making sound and said, I just saw the image of my father yelling, children should be seen and not heard. And I asked him to go off and play with it and kind of take the reins back of how loud he was.
Like, not from me saying, you can do this, be louder. But just allow it to stretch this much tiny, tiny little increments, like an inch or less every single day. And I thought, I don't know, it might be five years before he comes back, letting his voice ring out. And he came back two weeks later from the permission of take the power back from your dad.
Like, don't give the power to me, you decide how loud you want to be and when, and play with it. And he came back two weeks later and was willing to let his voice ring out. And the other thing I want to say for people listening out there is sometimes to introverts it sounds louder in our own head than it actually does bouncing off of the walls.
in the room. So it's a little freaky at first because we're hearing ourselves in our inner ear and we're hearing a little bit of it bouncing out and back to us.
[00:17:17] Jens Heitland Podcast: You are a professional actress. You have learned, if I have researched right in a theater, how does that help you? And how do you help people with that background going into public speaking, using the voice in different ways?
[00:17:36] Lauri Smith: Theater has helped me in so many ways and they may seem somewhat surprising. So I am a character actress. I like to play a lot of different types of characters, and there's a way of actually releasing all of my personal habits, personal masks. The best metaphor I ever heard for it is in theater.
They call it neutral. Um. It's like, I'm letting go of all of my stuff so that I tap into almost the pool of what humanity is capable of, and then channel that into the various characters I will play. And the best metaphor I ever heard is that it's like, if I walk in in jeans and a t shirt, And just try to put the outfit of a queen on top of the jeans and a t shirt, but you can see the t shirt sticking out and the jeans sticking out.
Actors learn to let go of all of their own masks, which is the equivalent of putting the queen's outfit on top of the naked body, instead of on top of jeans and a t shirt. I believe that speakers can use that skill too, where they're letting go of any masks of what they think they need to be, and actually show up as themselves.
And then from theater, I've also learned body, Breathing and energy techniques because I'm a theater actress, more so than film, I know how to hold an audience of people energetically to have a moment. That might be an intimate love scene that you can also hear at the back of a 500 seat theater without mics.
It's 1 of my running jokes. They have mics in the floor these days. And when I was studying from like, you know, 19 to 30, even they didn't have those fancy mics in the floor. You needed to be able to say an intimate, quiet sentence and actually have it come out of you in a way that the little old lady in the back of the theater could hear it.
And the little old lady in the back of the theater who didn't wear her hearing aids was also my mother a lot of the time. So it was important to me to learn how to do that.
[00:20:03] Jens Heitland Podcast: How do you teach people getting into that because they will not have the time if it's executives, like you mentioned, or the willingness to do a real education, to be an actor or actress. How do you get people into that direction that they can get step by step into that?
[00:20:22] Lauri Smith: Yeah, well, the good news is I went to theater school, so they don't have to. And, they don't need to then learn how to learn lines, how to layer on a character. So, there's actually significantly less than you would need to learn if you went to theater school. So, I feel like I've spent my whole life sorting out the good from the bad in the world of theater.
And then help meet people where they are so that they know how to let go of their masks. What, what particular inner critic or soul sucking voices they have in the background. So how to release those soul suckers from being in charge. And even in small groups, I have an ability to see what is it that's going on with each individual's body.
What is it that's going on with each individual's breath? So, most of my programs are small groups. I also do work with executives, where most of the time is one on one, and then toward the end, we're gonna use their company to create a group, so that they have to then also do what we've been doing one on one in a group with me there watching, and seeing what happens when they have three other executives in the room.
[00:21:51] Jens Heitland Podcast: That's interesting. So there's one foundation. If I understood you right, which is breath, the energy, and then as well, the voice, if we go towards tactics, what are different ways talking about speaking that can people use to get better and speaking? So, yes, they work on their breath.
They work on their voice. They work on their personal energy on their mindset.
Are there more speaking techniques we can hone in getting better and speaking?
[00:22:27] Lauri Smith: I would say that the breath, the mindset, the energy, the body, the voice, those are all kind of the foundation. And then once you really have that and you're able to be present in your own body and use it like an instrument and connected to the audience, then you can start to play a bit more, moving into mastery of when and how you use silence.
And variety in your storytelling. Um, I, I'm a fan of a more inside out path to variety. There are speaking coaches out there that will tell you to raise and lower your pitch on certain sentences. I'm not a fan of that because it feels like it sounds inorganic when the person then does that. So I'm more of a fan of Set the intention for what you want the audience to feel.
And then if you're present in your body, and your instrument is functioning at maximum capacity, your voice is going to do all kinds of things while you're telling a story or teaching something in service of that intention. And here's a mini story. I was leading a workshop in a, like a women's retreat.
And I focused a lot on people being quiet. And toward the very end, a woman raised her hand and said, what do I do if everybody tells me that I'm too loud? And I said, well, it really depends on your intention. If you're leading a meditation and your intention is to calm people down, you might want to listen to the feedback about being too loud.
If on the other hand, you're giving a speech and your intention is to wake people up, then no offense, but. The feedback of you're too loud is not appropriate in that moment. So let it go and be as loud as you want to. It really depends on what is your intention in the moment, and then is your voice able to support that intention.
Another thing that I've done with people has to do with speed. Some people tell me I'm too fast. Some people tell me I'm too slow. Speaking can be like music, where we each have a range of pace. And what we want to do is make sure that we have moments of rest within our fast pace or our slow pace. And years ago, in the theater, Um, there's a, there's a bad habit.
I was working with one of my favorite directors, and the bad habit of some directors is to wait until the night before the play is going to open, and then tell all of the actors that they're going too slow, and do something called a speed through. And this one director that I loved years ago said, that's lazy direction.
You can't wait until the night before. It's your job as the director to feel what moments Need what pace in order to feel full. And I took that and I work with speakers and I do exercises where they do a run through really fast. Like, you know, somebody hit the 2. 0 button on an audio or the 1. 5 on the TiVo and then do one that's really slow and then feel, huh, even though it was really fast, there might have been some moments where it felt alive at that speed.
And even though the other one was really slow, there might have been some moments that felt very alive. And then do a third version that's their blend, where they're now playing with pace, and they've felt where is it alive when it's faster, where is it alive when it's slower. And then it becomes about filling each moment, rather than someone said you're too slow, speed up.
Or someone said you're too fast. Slow down.
[00:26:40] Jens Heitland Podcast: Is it then as well dependent, like you mentioned already the reaction of the audience if you're more experienced where you time this, then as well, where you see how they need a little bit more speed, then it needs a little bit of loudness to wake up or whatever
[00:26:55] Lauri Smith: Absolutely. That's really mastery of the conversation. So if you're treating your audience like they're the other half of the conversation, and you're very comfortable in silence, you're comfortable fast or slow, you're comfortable loud or quiet, then you just start to feel from day to day, from audience to audience, from moment to moment, what's needed to make this, um, a dynamic, Experience of transformation or of learning
and it's part of what makes it really fun to coming from the theater.
So in the theater, we might run a play for years and when you tap into what's going on with your scene partner that day, as well as in the audience, that's what can make it different for 365 performances. In speaking, the audience is both your scene partner and your audience so it can, you can give the same speech 500 times and have it feel different every day because of tuning in like you mentioned.
[00:28:02] Jens Heitland Podcast: And I guess sometimes it's also depending if you're the first speaker, the last speaker, if you have had someone who was extremely energizing before or the other way around someone who basically slowed down the pace of the whole room.
[00:28:16] Lauri Smith: Yeah, or I saw someone speak once when there was a huge rainstorm and everybody was getting there late. They actually had the speaker start 45 minutes late and the, that like,
[00:28:30] Jens Heitland Podcast: Hmm.
[00:28:31] Lauri Smith: Oh, that kind of energy was going on in the audience. And she walked out in silence and took about a 10 second pause before she said a word.
And you could feel the audience calm down and get grounded. I also remember speaking once at a conference. I was on the second day, and I went to bed early with earplugs in my ears, but I could hear how much and how late people were partying the night before. And when I spoke on the second day, After lunch, everyone was hungover.
The vast majority of the people were hungover and they were digesting their really large lunch. So I walked out to speak and I'd say 85 percent of the audience was like slumped in their chairs and looking at me through droopy eyes. And fortunately, I have been told that if I'm vibrant and alive from head to toe, it can feel like little lightning bolts, little energetic lightning bolts going off underneath people's seats. And so I met them where they were, which was not too loud because of the hangovers, but kind of a steadily increasing energy. And then a regrounding at the end. And 97 percent of the audience sort of burned through their hangovers and looked vibrant and inspired and alive.
[00:30:05] Jens Heitland Podcast: Brilliant. Storytelling. I think you have a fascinating way of storytelling. Do you bring that into the conversations with the executives and the people you help as well as part of the speaking preparation?
[00:30:21] Lauri Smith: I do. There's many, many, many people have a formula for storytelling. Um, I have an outline or a structure that is based in centuries of theater. That's what I share. And then I help people feel it's like the, the structure is an outline. I'm making like a mountain, sort of like a mountain shape where there's act one, and then something happens to turn the world upside down and then. The conflicts build and build and build to some kind of a climax, and then things kind of resolve, and there's a new equilibrium or balance in the world. That's the spine to begin with. I will share that with people, and then I also work with them on what's the theme that's going through the whole story.
To help them or us figure out what details don't belong in this story, especially if it's a story about them, it's really hard to tell if you're looking back on your life and telling a story, it's hard to tell what details belong in this story and which ones are part of a different story. You might tell another time and then help people to not just tell us the plot points.
But to also use vivid details, which help bring it to life for the listeners. And then after that, they can start to futz with the formula. I just had a wave of people doing a program where once you know it, you can start at a different point. So if you've ever seen a movie or a TV show that starts like right before the climax, and they give you a little bit, and then they go 72 hours earlier.
Once you know, sort of The arcs of storytelling, you can then go off and futz with the formula as a speaker and you can start at the end or start in the middle or start with something 20 years before the beginning and just kind of flash forward.
[00:32:34] Jens Heitland Podcast: I love that. This, this is one of the things I'm still trying to figure out for myself as well. How much do I tell? What do I tell? And it's kind of, I'm just doing it with experimenting to find out what is the right way and what feels right for me at least without having someone like you teaching me.
Maybe that's something we should talk offline later on.
[00:32:57] Lauri Smith: sure. I'm happy to,
[00:33:00] Jens Heitland Podcast: Let's get into leadership. I want to start with something I have seen on your website again, leadership was about being fully me. All the time, anywhere. How did you come to that conclusion?
[00:33:14] Lauri Smith: I went to a leadership program and that helped and it's very aligned with the being seen. And, you know, it's one of the themes going through my life being me all the time. Anywhere. So one of the key moments that happened in the leadership program that I was in, even though I was already a speaking coach, even though I was already helping other people to know this, there was a very high stakes moment where I ended up not really being me.
Um, we had to speak and I remember the feedback that I got was the words that you chose were great. But it didn't really feel like you. Something felt off in the way you were saying them. It felt protected or numb or shut down, something like that. And I was kicking myself because I already knew that was sort of what I was helping other people with.
And yet when they gave us this really high stakes, like, life or death feeling moment, I didn't do it. And that seed was planted. And then during the course of the program, every time I was me. And I trusted my intuition and I said what I felt needed to be said in the way I felt that it needed to be said.
Those were my strongest leadership moments. And I, in this program, we would each, you know, lead from the front of the room in pairs at different times. And I kept feeling this urge to raise my hand and say, I'll lead right now. Every time we were in the middle of like the messy muck, this is a make it or break it.
Like maybe it's all going to Explode and end from here. I kept being called to lead in those really chaotic, challenging moments. And then I would just be me once I was leading. I wasn't looking for perfect. I wasn't trying to be like a leader. I was following my intuition from there, and then outside of the program, also doing that out as a teacher of theater, out as someone leading speaking workshops, and learned to trust more and more and more that that was actually working better than any time I tried to do it the way I had been raised.
To do it.
[00:36:05] Jens Heitland Podcast: That's an interesting perspective because I've had something similar. That in the end, we are better if we are just ourselves and not trying to be someone else and not trying to fit in. And one of the realizations I've had in my life was I was just in the wrong environment where I wasn't allowed to be myself a little bit.
Like you mentioned with your client who is working in, in a different environment, and then maybe he adjusted to it. For me, I just have found myself not fitting in and that was limiting me. And I was kind of feeling like in a cage. And that limited my leadership capability to a level that I wasn't feeling like I'm a leader at all.
[00:36:51] Lauri Smith: And the irony is that oftentimes it's the person who is the most unique, who doesn't fit in the most, that actually holds the perspective and the wisdom that's going to move whatever that group is forward. Um, I've had, you know, many of my clients become the quiet leader who speaks one time and 10 words or less in a meeting.
And when they do it at full volume and full energy, everybody listens. And that's the moment that the stuckness shifts to now we can move forward. I also believe it's part of what we need on the planet. We've been hearing from certain voices too much and other voices, not enough, which is why humanity is like.
Banging their head against the wall and not getting anywhere.
[00:37:49] Jens Heitland Podcast: I agree. How do we teach this to kids? Because like if we, if we loop this back to the beginning where we are, we as parents or I as a parent, we suppress that worst case. So how do we teach one part of us? As leaders already, how do we teach leaders, but as well, how do we give this as a present to people who are growing up or young leaders that are just evolving in organizations?
[00:38:18] Lauri Smith: Yeah. So on one answer, I think you almost said in your question, which is if we give it to us and then we're modeling it, all that unspoken stuff that kids are picking up on. That half of the equation is now taken care of all of the unconscious messaging, the stuff they're mimicking instead of mimicking quiet and don't take up too much space and don't be emotional.
They're mimicking. Oh, be myself. Be myself. Um, there's a piece where I. believe it is not my calling, which is something needs to shift in our educational system. And I've met people where it's like, Oh, it's your calling to work with kids in a different way. It's not my calling up to the age of. Like when reason and the prefrontal cortex starts to get to a certain level at like 15 is probably the youngest I've worked with with young adults from 15 to 25 and what I feel like we need in there. One solution might be life coaches for young adults. Someone, I taught for several years, um, college theater courses on high school campuses. And when I first went in, I had never taught that age of children before. And they said, just treat them like you do the adults. And at the end of the first semester, we had a meeting and speaking of like speaking the thing you know to be true.
And just, you know, trusting it. I was afraid I was going to get fired when we had a meeting about it. When I said, you all told me to do that and that you need to stop giving that advice to people. Teenagers are different. Their brains are not finished developing. They're testing. How far can I push the line before the boundary is set?
There are all kinds of ways. They're different than adults. What we need is to weave in a little bit of coaching, where we ask them questions like, What do you want out of life when you graduate high school? And then watch the neural pathways start to form for that question. Because up until someone asks them and really wants to hear the answer, all they've been hearing is, you should do this, you shouldn't do that, from parents, and from their teacher, and from their advisors, and the principal of the school.
So, when we go in and weave in a little bit of coaching and say, what do you want at the end of the year? Okay, if you want that at the end of the year, what do you want at the end of this semester? And if you want that at the end of this semester, what do you need from this assignment that we're doing right now?
And watch them actually figure out how to learn visioning for the future and consequences of actions with that central question of what is it that you want, you as an individual. That is a huge missing piece in the world that would help instead of kids doing all the shoulds, this is what I'm supposed to be in order to get approval, or I don't know who I am, but I'm going to rebel against you telling me everything I need to do.
Neither one of those emerges into the full, I'm going to be me, fully, person in the world.
[00:42:04] Jens Heitland Podcast: what is interesting, there are a couple of parallels to the corporate world as well, because this coaching now it's a little bit more usual. But I think it's still far away from being implemented in an organization where, I give you an example, when I moved into one of the larger corporates, that was like early 2000s, I got a personal coach that helped me onboard into the organization as a leader. it was fascinating. It's very long time ago now, but it was the best onboarding ever because I've had someone who has. taken me not from a functional expertise perspective, more from a human onboarding perspective. This is the way how we lead with values in this organization.
And it's so fascinating what happens with you if you have someone though, saying this, a lot of organizations don't have coaches inside of the environment. And it's not like you mentioned as well, modeling as leaders. For me, every leader should be a coach from a leadership aspect, which I know it's different in different cultural aspects as well, but I think it's, we need more of that in a environment where it's high stakes, where it's corporate direction, where it's.
Politics, I think, in the same way, where we need to do things in a different way to be able to change the world.
[00:43:33] Lauri Smith: Yes. Yeah. I love that we're trending upward in terms of having coaches and doing that more and more. I believe in any system, what we think we need to do is we need to all be the same. And if my eyeball cells and some cells in my spine decided they all needed to be the same, my system would fail. In an organization, the same is true.
So your differences from me are part of, when we own them, what could make that system, that team, that organization, function even better? That the eyeball cells and the spinal cells are working together to have the system function?
[00:44:19] Jens Heitland Podcast: Yeah, that's it. I think it's a huge challenge. Maybe not our calling, like you said,
[00:44:26] Lauri Smith: Yeah. I've, I've done, I have done some of it, and with the right organization, I would do it again. It was a Longer term program where the company had a lot of young leaders. So they recognized. We've got all these young talent coming in. They don't know who they are. So it wasn't onboarding every new person.
It started with a specific team to help the young talent understand who am I? What are my values? What do I stand for? Then what's our team's role in this organization? What's the team's why, and then how does that fit within the uber large? organization. It was one of my favorite experiences ever.
And if every organization had coaching like you mentioned on the way in, they wouldn't have needed a program like that because everyone would have been getting it.
[00:45:23] Jens Heitland Podcast: Yeah, 100 percent agree. Let's use that to go into the last part of the podcast where I'm asking you a couple of questions that are maybe related, maybe not related to. What we have discussed so far. First question is if you could work with a project that is impacting every human being on earth, what project would you like to work with?
And why would you like to work with that project?
[00:45:52] Lauri Smith: Ooh, that is such a huge question. A project that exists or a project that I'm making up in my own mind. I think it would be a project that doesn't currently exist that is a project targeting young adults, helping young adults to make the transition from in, in this country, it would be from being in high school to either being in college or going out in the world. And I would be there. Speaking coach and speaking being broadened to everywhere that a leader would use their voice.
So, dynamic meetings to being on stages. I would be involved in there to help them understand who they are and let their voice ring out fully.
[00:46:49] Jens Heitland Podcast: Love that. Speaking about young people, what advice would you give to a young innovative leader that's just getting started?
[00:47:00] Lauri Smith: Mmm. Be you. And if you are a young, innovative leader, there are going to be times where you're the only one in the room.
Who sees what you see. When you share it, if you don't get an immediate response, it doesn't mean there isn't value in what you said. It means they haven't caught on. They literally may not even understand what you said. Because you're the innovative leader who sees it first. You need to kind of describe it and share it and explain it a few more times to have the rest of the room catch up with the vision or the innovation that you're seeing first and sharing first.
[00:47:50] Jens Heitland Podcast: Brilliant. Before we go into. Getting your contact details and so on. You have an interesting project that you work on right now, which is something like speaker studio. Tell us more about that.
[00:48:07] Lauri Smith: It is called the Speaker's Studio, in fact. As a child, I grew up watching the TV show inside the Actors Studio. Which was about an actor's studio formed here in the United States that revolutionized acting worldwide. Three actors got together and created a safe space for actors to go deep into the work and get better that wasn't in front of the Broadway casting directors, wasn't on camera.
It was private. And then when I was in my late 20s and early 30s, I studied in a space called the Sideways Acting Studio. And then as I started doing speaking coaching, it's been over 20 years at this point, people kept asking me, where can we go to practice? And I kept looking around for a space like the Actor's Studio, small group experiences where people could get tailored feedback in intimate groups and do this deep work.
And I never found it anywhere. So I've Built little, you know, small classes and programs. And finally I had the, Hey, wait a minute. I think maybe I'm supposed to create the speaker studio, a space where loving rebels, ambitious empaths, and sensitive visionaries can come together and work on their speaking that's safe so that their body Their mind can understand that they can show up that way.
And then the leap to showing up that way out in the real world is an easier leap to make
[00:49:50] Jens Heitland Podcast: And is that a physical space and or digital space?
[00:49:54] Lauri Smith: The ongoing is a digital space. And then there are things that happen within the speaker studio that will be coming together in person in a physical space.
[00:50:05] Jens Heitland Podcast: sounds exciting. Where can people find more about the speaker studio?
[00:50:10] Lauri Smith: If they go to my website, voice dash matters dot com.
[00:50:20] Jens Heitland Podcast: I will put that link into the show notes as well. So people can find it. where can people find you? How can people reach out to you?
[00:50:31] Lauri Smith: I think the easiest way to find me is actually to go to any page of my website and then scroll down to the bottom to get the socials. So voice matters. com and then I am on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and all of those links are at the bottom. You can pick your favorite if you go to the website.
Yeah.
[00:50:49] Jens Heitland Podcast: Or you do it like I do. I follow you everywhere,
[00:50:52] Lauri Smith: Yeah.
[00:50:53] Jens Heitland Podcast: which is, which is always good. Now, thank you very much, Laurie. It was a pleasure having you on the show. I have learned a lot. I took a ton of notes, really looking forward to follow you further on social media because I believe you do a lot of good and valuable content where we can learn from.
Thank you very much for being on the show. It was a pleasure having you.