Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Anouska Taylor:
You know, if you go into a pitch and no one can understand you, or you're talking really fast, you know, you lack that presence or power in your voice. You may not get the business because our voice is communicating so much.

Roberta Ndlela:
Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I'm your host Roberta. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, This is the podcast you should be tuning into. And by the end of this episode, please log on to iTunes and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review. Let's get communicating. Now we all use our voices not just for speaking, but for singing as well. My guest today, Anuska Taylor, hailing all the way from London, is here to talk to us about feeling our voices. And before I go any further, please help me welcome her to the show. Hi, Anouska.

Anouska Taylor:
Hello, lovely to be here.

Roberta Ndlela:
Welcome, thank you for being here. Please introduce yourself.

Anouska Taylor:
My name is Anouska. I'm a executive voice coach and I work with professionals around the world to help them improve, enhance, maximise, optimise their speaking voice. I still do a little bit of singing teaching. That's where I started my journey. I'm also a Jungian life coach. So I bring in the psychology of the voice and also I'm a professional singer myself.

Roberta Ndlela:
Mm-hmm. And how long have you been doing this? For nearly 15 years. What got you started on it?

Anouska Taylor:
So initially through the sort of singing channel, because I was a singer myself, I've always loved voice. I started very young in the acting, drama, speaking, Toastmasters, all of it. You know, anything that you could put under the voice umbrella I was interested in. And it seemed like a natural progression to go from singing myself to training to become a singing teacher. And then that's where I started. So now I do work with some singers, but predominantly it's speakers, but it really gives me a very sort of thorough understanding of the voice having had that training as well.

Roberta Ndlela:
When it comes to singing, let's think of someone, Simon Cowell, for a second. Are some of us born with really good singing voices and we are gifted? Or even if my voice is not that good, can it be trained over time to be a good singing voice?

Anouska Taylor:
Yes, I would say yes. I think there's a few caveats. So we're drawn to certain things very naturally. So if you're forcing yourself to be interested in singing, but you don't really want to do it, you probably won't progress. Even if you go through all the exercises and you tick the boxes of what you're meant to do. But if you have a passion for it and you do the training, absolutely. Because I've seen it myself. I've worked with people who without being rude and they would say this too, that they didn't come with the greatest voice, but they were so determined and so passionate about singing that they were prepared to do whatever it took. And sometimes actually I think those people actually achieve more than the people that just think they've got a talent and they don't actually need to do anything.

Roberta Ndlela:
That's interesting because the reason I asked that question, it then brings us to the question of The voice I'm using now, was I born with it?

Anouska Taylor:
Okay, big question. So, okay, this is a big, big question. This is a big part of my work. So yes and no. Of course, elements are that there's certain things. So from a biological perspective that are kind of set, we could say, so the size of your larynx, the shape of your skull, your jaw, the length of your vocal tract, the size of your lungs, all of that, just giving those brief examples. biologically a kind of set once you get to adulthood. And they are gonna shape the tone and the power and the size of your voice. But there's a lot that can change through what we call the resonance chambers in the vocal cavity, like the mouth, the nose, and the throat, those can be modified. And that's how we really change our voice. The reason I say that is because most of us, by the time we get to adulthood, have been conditioned to shut our voice down in some way. And usually it's, I mean, I see this all the time, particularly, you know, with women, they'll be sort of talking at the back of their throat or talking really fast, or they have a very quiet, meek sort of mild voice. And they think it's just the way their voice is, but it's not, it's just they've been conditioned. And this is where the Jungian psychology comes in because it's very complex. I mean, there are so many different possibilities for each individual. So it's got to be looked at on an individual basis. But, you know, for example, if you grew up in a big family and you were sort of always trying to get attention, maybe you developed a big loud voice just to get attention. Is that really your true voice? No, but equally it could be, maybe you were always talked over as a child. So you learned to be quiet. Is that your true voice? No, your true voice really is you feel free to express yourself. in whatever way you want, loudly, quietly, fast, slow, really expressively. You're not afraid to express yourself, but really importantly, you can express yourself. So if you want to speak loudly, you can. If you want to speak quietly, you can. And for a lot of people, the voice is so shut down in ways that they're not even aware, like the tongue is tight, the jaw is tight, the throat is tight, they breathe really high in their chest. So they're never gonna get the full power. and expression and dynamics in the voice. So this is where the psychology comes in because the voice is highly conditioned. Like my psychologist friend always says, go back to your childhood. Yeah, we probably have to go back to your childhood. So even a very childhood conditioned our voices? Absolutely, absolutely. And it continues. I mean, we're social creatures. So everything for us, whatever our community is, our culture, it's about fitting in. It's about what do I need to do to fit into this environment? Sometimes it's being loud, sometimes it's being quiet. Sometimes it's talking really fast, talking really slow. It just depends on the environment that you've grown up in. So that's why we all use our voices differently. And even within a family, even as siblings, like I've got a brother and a sister, I mean, I'm a voice coach and they're not, but even so we still use our voice differently because it's also your perception of that upbringing. and what that meant to you and then how that is translated into your voice.

Roberta Ndlela:
So when you bring in the psychology part, you're a Jungian life coach. Can you explain to us what that means?

Anouska Taylor:
Yes, so Jungian life coaching, so for anyone that knows the work of Carl Jung, he was a psychiatrist. I don't use any of this work within a clinical model. You can use Jungian psychology within a clinical model. So this is very much within a coaching model. And my voice training as well is within a coaching model. not a clinical model. I think it's really important just to differentiate that. Yes. Because you might have listeners that are, you know, on the other side of the fence. And for me, the difference between the sort of clinical and the coaching is really, coaching is about going from sort of ordinary to extraordinary and clinical is really just getting yourself to a base level of functioning. So if you've had a major head injury, the part of your brain that is responsible for speech has been interrupted. then you wouldn't come and work with me. That would be a sort of speech therapist, speech pathologist, that's very specialized. So there's some kind of trauma or pathology and that's not what I do. And most people, to be honest, don't have any trauma or pathology on their voice. It's just, they just don't know how to use it. It's quite different. So that's the difference for me. And the same with the sort of psychology is we all experience a range of emotions and just because you're feeling sad or angry or... anxious doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. It's just a normal human expression. So obviously there are shades of that. And there's people that really do need therapy and really do need that deeper support. But I think for a lot of people, it's really connecting them to the power and the truth of who they are. And most of us are conditioned to believe we're powerless, we're small, you know, we can just sort of, just try and get through life and make the best that we can. We're just trying to kind of function essentially, I think for a lot of us, just survive, get through the day.

Roberta Ndlela:
Speaking of power, because this is how it's perceived at least, do you think that a deeper voice has this perception of power, authority, and if you have a higher pitched voice, especially, and this is where society kicks in with the stereotypes, if a male has a high pitched voice, we judge them very differently. What do you think of that?

Anouska Taylor:
Yeah, and it causes a lot of problems actually for people. I agree, I mean, if you think about in the wild, with animals in the wild, the ones with the bigger, deeper voices, like a lion when it roars, it's a deep sound. That is authority, that's power, that's don't mess with me. If it had a little high pitch, you know, no one would probably take it that seriously. So from an evolution perspective, absolutely. I think the challenge for this... is as a voice coach, and I see this all the time, is people will then artificially try and deepen their voice. That's where the issues come in because everyone's voice has its own sort of optimal pitch, has its own range that it wants to function in. And actually when you speak from that pitch, the voice just works really well. When you try and artificially lower it, because you've read somewhere, as you so rightly said, because I hear this all the time, then you actually create more problems. And my work is really about, if you use your voice the way it's naturally intended to be used, then that's where your voice really has power, not artificially trying to deepen it, for example. Back to with the authenticity, where exactly is my voice? How am I supposed to sound? Because that's where also the confidence picks in. If you feel that your voice is being judged. whatever pitch that is, you go, like I said, if they judge males with high pitches, they judge us women with deep voices sometimes. So if your voice is being judged, it's gonna affect your confidence when you communicate, when you speak in front of an audience. What would you say to that? Well, I think this is where the sort of the deeper work comes in, because I think when you really start to connect to your true voice, it will be naturally powerful, expressive, open, free dynamic. when you are connected to that, that's where real confidence lies, not in trying to sound like someone else, to tick some boxes or to fit in. That's where I believe we get into this state of anxiousness and worrying and lack of confidence because we're trying to fit in, but we know we're not really being authentic, we're not really being real. Whereas if I just own who I am, and I really show up fully in my voice, not only will my voice work better, but that confidence, what I would call a true confidence, then starts to shine through because you can't be anyone else but yourself. And it's when we're trying to be someone else to fit in. That's when we start to feel anxious because we know that we're not really being real. Especially when you're speaking, if you're trying to be too polished and too perfect and there's something that people in the audience feel like something is missing. Yes, they are really good, but something feels like it's missing. Absolutely. It's being able to connect to yourself. And by that, I mean, connect to the truth of who you are, connect to how you really feel. And so, you know, we're all again, coming back to conditioning. Most of us are conditioned to not feel, to push away feelings that are a little bit uncomfortable or maybe unacceptable. I'm not allowed to feel that, so let me push that away. I think for a lot of women, and certainly I've experienced this, we're not allowed to feel angry.

Roberta Ndlela:
We're not allowed to be angry. It's more acceptable socially for a man to be angry than a woman to be angry. And at work as well, they're gonna call you all kinds of names.

Anouska Taylor:
Exactly, exactly. So there's all of that societal conditioning that we're sort of working with as well with our voice. And so then if we feel like, well, I can't express anger, we've got to stuff that. It's going to be repressed, suppressed in the voice. The voice is gonna shut down. It's going to go somewhere, even if we don't express it. This is where I think connection to self is so important. for true confidence and true power when you speak. You know when we send voice notes and then we play them back, why are we not fans of our own voices when you're listening back to them? Yes, I hear this all the time because one of the things I will get my clients to do is listen back to the sessions. And a lot of the time, oh, I don't like listening to my voice. Do I have to do this? I'm like, yes, you do. I think it's because what we hear in our head is not what anyone else hears. So if you're not used to listening to a recording, then that is going to be a shock because you're not used to hearing your voice in that way. What you hear in your head, obviously you've got the skull and the bones in your skull. So it sounds different to you. Like my voice sounds different, your voice sounds different. The only difference is if you're used to listening back to recordings, you get used to the difference in the tone. But if you're not, then you're like, what is this? Is this really what I sound like? And then it's a bit of a shock. But the more you start to listen to your voice, the more the two start to sound the same.

Roberta Ndlela:
Those clients of yours, are they mainly the public speaking ones? Do they think, oh my goodness, I've never heard that this is how I sound to audiences when I speak. Absolutely. I mean, you'd be amazed at how many speakers don't listen to themselves back. Wow, this is so powerful. Like you said, we sound different than how we sound to ourselves, like I'm speaking now. If I played back this recording, actually when I started podcasting, I thought, I sound horrible, nobody's gonna listen to this voice. Can't I get Siri to do this for me? I thought my voice was kind of okay, but when I played back my first trailer recording, I'm like, no, this is not good. Somebody stop it. Yeah, it's so common. So common. Your motto is, your voice is the inner world being expressed in the outer world. I know I'm butchering that, but can you explain that and say it properly?

Anouska Taylor:
Yeah. So your voice is an outer expression of your inner world. That's right. So you can't hide. Well, you might think you can hide what you're really feeling about yourself, but you can't. We can always hear stuff in voices. I mean, a lot of the time, as listeners or an audience. We perceive so much through a voice, but a lot of it's very unconscious. So we're absorbing stuff, but we don't even know why, why I don't really like that person, or I don't really connect to that person. And maybe we've just listened to a message on our phone, or we've been listening to them speak, or we just don't really feel it, or we're listening to someone present, and we just don't connect. And a lot of it is very unconscious. Sometimes we can say, well, I think it's this. but a lot of the time it's because we're picking up on subtleties in their voice that they're not even aware of. They don't even know that they're doing because they think they're able to cover it up. The conscious mind's like, oh no, I feel worthy of being in this meeting, but the voice is saying something completely different. The voice is saying, I don't know what I'm talking about. Don't listen to me. Everyone just talk over me. Just ignore me. That's what the voice is saying. But consciously they're like, no, why is no one listening to me? So I work with people all the time on this. There's this inner battle, this inner conflict, which is revealed in the voice. Is that where the nerves and the fear when speaking, because you coach a lot of your clients with those, is that where that kicks in as well? Yes, I think, again, coming back to what we were saying before, on some level, we are aware that we're not really being authentic, but we don't really know what to do about it. So we're like... there's this little part of us that's like, I don't feel worthy of being here, but I'm gonna pretend that I do. But that little voice is like, hmm, who do you think you are? And then that starts to come through in the voice. And then that starts to eat away at our confidence and the nerves and what do people think of me? Are they gonna think I'm stupid? I don't know what I'm talking about. Who is she to be up there? Or who is he to be talking about that? So all of this is kind of going on, but a lot of it's going on, you know, unconsciously.

Roberta Ndlela:
Hmm, speaking of public speaking, right? So you have an audience. When you want your voice to connect with people, you want people to feel that this is authentic and you believe in a message, is there any exercise or something you can do before they introduce you and bring you to the stage to start your speech?

Anouska Taylor:
I'm not really a fan of quick tips, so I would... I'm probably like the worst guest if you want. Yeah. So I would say if you want to start to prepare yourself a few days before at least, when you get to the moment before, from my perspective, the best thing you can do is just breathe deeply. Really breathe, like allow the belly to go in and out, really drop into your body, drop into your breath, allow yourself to kind of calm your mind. Yawning is really good to kind of open the throat. Breathing deeply, really good to stimulate the vagus nerve, which is very important for voice, but also really good to calm the nervous system. I think when you're in that more calm state and your throat is opened, do some warmups, get some blood flow around your face, your jaw, your lips, your tongue, get things moving. I think then from that place, if you can really get yourself centered and grounded, that you have the best chance then of actually delivering the most authentic speech or presentation, the most powerful speech. I think it's when we're in our head that we're actually not very effective. Yes, no cryptics indeed, but is this something we can also practice at home? The breathing, how often should we do that, do you suggest? Just first of all, I mean, I did a training yesterday. I take people through a sort of three-stage process. I think the first stage really is First of all, become aware of how you're currently breathing because again, a lot of us, just like we're disconnected to our voice, we're disconnected to our breath, including myself. I do a lot of work now around that, but I didn't used to. I had no idea how I breathed. I just let it get on with it. And first of all, just become aware, where am I breathing? Like, am I breathing into my shoulders, into my upper chest, into my neck? Or is it deeper? Is it into the lower ribs and the belly? Like, where is... predominantly the movement. So the awareness is really important, first of all. And this isn't about beating yourself up. This is purely for information. But then see if you can more deliberately and more intentionally breathe into the belly. So we speak on the exhale, really important. As you speak, you always wanna be pulling the belly in and then allowing the belly to pop out as you inhale. I don't know if that makes sense. It's usually the opposite to what most people want to do. So you're speaking on the exhale and then you're allowing the belly to expand on the inhale. And then from that, you can practice that and you don't have to put any speaking on that. Just get into that practice of allowing the belly to move in and out, allow the belly to kind of expand and then pull in, expand, pull in, because for most of us, we don't do that. Depending on where you are, perhaps practice it. If you do a few rounds before you go to bed at night. you go to sleep because it will help you sleep anyway.

Roberta Ndlela:
That's a really great tip. You talk about feeling your voice. What does that mean exactly? Feeling your voice?

Anouska Taylor:
Well, most of us, whether we're on the professional speaking end or the singing end, when we're using our voice, we're more concerned with what we sound like. So whether it's what we think we sound like, so we're listening to ourselves in our head, or we're listening to a recording, we're like, oh, I don't like the sound of that, or I like the sound of that. I always say to clients, and this is anyone that I work with on their voice speaking or singing, you've got to start to feel your voice first, because it's always gonna give you every bit of information that you need. Your voice can't sound great if it feels terrible. And a lot of the time, when I'm working with people, you know, they might be talking at the back of their throat like this, they might be talking like this. And they've got so used to talking at the back of their throat, they totally disconnected to the feeling that is actually really uncomfortable. And it's only when they start to lose their voice or something else happens, they start to get a sore throat all the time or a dry throat that they start to actually do something about it. So I'm like, okay, I want you to just shut your eyes as you're speaking to me when it's speaking like that. I just want you to feel that. Feel it, feel where do you feel those vibrations? Because it's probably not very comfortable and it's in the back of your throat. So we wanna get the voice out and forward and that feels good. It feels free, it feels open. The other reason I say this as well is because, I don't know, let's say you're speaking at a conference or part of a big presentation or something and there's a lot going on and maybe you can't always hear yourself particularly well. The best gauge is always how it feels. And it's very easy when we're in these situations, perhaps we're relying on a mic to project our voice that we just completely disconnect to our voice and just try and push it out. So as soon as you're sort of pushing your voice in any way, you know you've kind of lost that connection.

Roberta Ndlela:
Would you say that screaming helps, because let's say you're frustrated and you feel like something really needs to come out of your chest. When they say you must scream in an empty room when there's no one in the house, because it's the feelings, but does it also affect if you hadn't screamed how your voice is going to project if you have this thing in your chest that is literally making you feel congested just because there's something in there that's hurting or you're angry about?

Anouska Taylor:
I mean, it does. I wouldn't say it's not good for your voice in itself. I think if there's other ways you can relieve the tension. from a vocal perspective, that would be better. The screaming is pretty brutal on the voice. And if you were to do that over a sustained period of time, you'd lose your voice. Oh yeah, so it's not something to encourage? Not really. I mean, once every now and then is fine. I mean, if someone's kind of coming into your house, wielding a knife, do whatever you need to do. But as a general rule, you probably don't want to go around screaming, no. And you will know about it because you'll lose your voice or it will come very... sore or croaky or tired or...

Roberta Ndlela:
It does feel painful, that's for sure. And then what are some of the considered ridiculous requests that some people have come to you for when it comes to their voice coaching? What are some requests that they've had that you think, oh, that's not what I do?

Anouska Taylor:
Yeah, well, because I mean, there are voice coaches out there. So my, as I said, my work is really true voice being expressed and reconnecting to that. It's not about making you sound like someone else. And some voice coaching out there is targeted at people that want to change how they sound. They want to sound different. Sometimes, and I don't get a lot of these requests anymore, but I had one relatively recently, a woman wanted to sound like Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales in the UK. Yeah, I know her. I'm just wondering, why would that be her goal for coming to you? Well, because she perceived that voice as a voice that might elevate her career, because she thought that if she sounded like Kate, then she might be taken more seriously. That's interesting. Not to bring out her own authentic one. She thought she needed to sound like the Princess of Wales. Absolutely. And I said, look, that isn't what I do. But if that's really what you want, there's plenty of people out there that can help you with that. Not to completely shove that off the side, but Even me, I might not think of one right now, but I know that sometimes we do have people who you think, oh my goodness, if I sounded like that, people who take me more seriously or I'll be respected more, whatever it is, whatever we think would tell us always. Yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, whatever we perceive in someone else, it is available to us. I like that you say that again. So we're seeing ourselves in everyone. And often when we put people on a pedestal, It's just, we're not allowing ourselves to receive that within ourselves. So that voice, maybe not sounding, for example, identical to Kate, but having that kind of authority, whatever she perceived in Kate's voice was missing in hers is available to her, but she just can't see it. So it's projected onto someone else. And that's what I say to clients all the time. It's like, whatever you perceive in other people, these people you've put on a pedestal, you're just seeing a part of yourself that you've just pushed away. And it's there, you just need to tap into it. It's already there. Maybe not in exactly the same format, but an aspect of that, whatever you perceive that's gonna give you, you can get for yourself. All right, so we were talking earlier about accents and how sometimes you would have a request of someone saying, I want to change my accent. This one wants to change their voice. What about an accent? And is it important for you to change your accent? From my perspective, no, because I think that wouldn't be authentic. I mean, if you came to me and said, I wanted to sound like I was from Birmingham, then I'd be like, why do you want to do that? I'm a second. That's what it's like. I mean, obviously the only exception to that is if you're an actor and you've got to be able to access different accents, that's completely different. But I'm talking about here, speakers, professionals using their voice. Why don't you want to use your authentic voice would be my first question. Therefore, If you're from a particular part of the world, why don't you want to just actually celebrate that accent and enhance it and maximize it versus try and push it away? So that's really my work. I think the challenge with accents, and the UK, we have so many distinct accents in a very small country. I mean, you can literally tell where someone's from immediately by their voice. You know, like we were saying with the kind of the, what we call RP, right? Receive pronunciation. It's like the old fashioned sort of way you were meant to speak in the old days when people first started broadcasting on TV they all sounded exactly the same because they all were taught this kind of RP accent. So I think sometimes it's come from that sort of historical this is an accent that's going to be taken seriously this is an accent that's not. But I think now the most important thing you can do is as long as your accent is clear, as long as people can understand you, and you've got power, strength and clarity. People love accents. I think the challenge is sometimes when an accent is very, very thick or strong, that the only people that can understand you are people in your tiny village or your tiny town, for example. I'm thinking the UK here because we've got lots of accents like this. Then your accent almost excludes people because it's only people in your community that understand you. That's why I say really it's about freeing your voice, opening your voice, regardless of accent, then everyone can understand you. It's not just the person that you grew up with next door, but it's the people on the other side of the world who may not have heard your accent before, but they can still understand you because you've opened it, you've freed it, you've allowed it to be expressed. So that was a long-winded answer to say, I love accents, but you do need to be understood. You need to be understood, but stay on.

Roberta Ndlela:
I think everything you've talked about today goes back to be who you are. Yes. What are your last words of wisdom for someone who wants to improve their singing voice? Well, I think it depends on where they are right now. So if they've never done any singing. Their singer, they're passionate about it and they probably sing locally, but they feel like I need some work on my voice in order to take my career to the next level.

Anouska Taylor:
So I think first of all, I mean, start to become more intimate with your voice, start to notice coming back to the feeling, because you will feel it. Like where do you feel your voice kind of stops you? Where do you feel like you're contained? I find this a lot with singer songwriters, particularly, or even singers, but singer songwriters, because they're writing their own music, they will write music that fits the voice that they think that they have. So it's like, okay, well, I can only sing these notes, so I'm just going to write all my songs in the same part of my voice. And that's an issue for me because again, it's like, well, you're not really exploring your voice. So first of all, I think really start to pay attention to where you, you stop yourself, where your voice, you perceive your voice to stop you. And this is going to sound really weird, but just start to make some sounds, just start to allow the voice to come out in whatever way it wants to. Well, maybe not screaming, but you know, allow the voice just to come out. Cause I think a lot of the time, and I see this a lot, we say, I can't sing up there. So I'm not even gonna try. So I'm just gonna write all my songs down here and I'm gonna stay in this little comfort zone. So start to explore the edges of your voice, even if it doesn't sound very good, even if it sounds terrible, it doesn't matter. Just start to explore the edges. But really and truly you need to have lessons because... And I know this sounds self-serving, but it's so hard to teach yourself for the reasons we've talked about, what you can't hear yourself, what you really sound like, and also because most people are not really connected to their voice in the first place. So a losing battle, and you really need someone that can understand what they're hearing in your voice and then help you start to kind of free it and open it. Even bigger for a singer because the range, the dynamics, the expression is so much greater than for speaking. So it depends on how serious the person is, but I would say get some coaching because very hard to do it yourself.

Roberta Ndlela:
Would the same advice apply to speakers as well?

Anouska Taylor:
Yes, yes. If you're serious, yes. I mean, you know, most people will go through their life and never have any coaching, but it depends on what you want to do. If you really want to find real freedom in your voice and access the truth of your voice and what's really possible, yes. But if you're happy to just sort of get through something, get by, probably don't need to worry about it. It depends on what, again, what you want. But from my perspective, as I work with a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners and people in quite senior positions, their voice is their tool for leading teams, for running meetings, presentations, pitches. It's make or break. You know, if you go into a pitch and no one can understand you or you're talking really fast, you know, you lack that presence or power in your voice. you may not get the business because our voice is communicating so much. So if we are stepping into leadership roles, we want the voice to say leader, authority, power, strength, you know, not, don't listen to me, don't look at me, don't talk to me.

Roberta Ndlela:
Which we emphasize a lot, especially because you talk about business presentation skills and leadership from this podcast as well. We usually go the vocal variety route so that you don't sound monotone. But I think you've added an extra element to that about the authority and having people believe in your message.

Anouska Taylor:
Yes. And I would also say that absolutely that variety, that modulation, that prosody in the voice, really important what you're talking about. But I would argue that to really access the fullness to that, you need an instrument that's functioning really well. So if the instrument's not functioning well, there's always gonna be limitations to that. So for example, if you're talking at the back of your throat but you don't even know and your tongue is really tight and your jaw is really tight and then you're trying to modulate and intonate from that place, it's always gonna be limited. Whereas when you really free the voice, then the sky's the limit, you know?

Roberta Ndlela:
For sure. And then I believe you have a gift for us, for our listeners if they want to learn some things from you today.

Anouska Taylor:
Yes, so I am a big proponent of taking care of your voice. I'm very hot on vocal health, very important to me. And so I created a voice preparation guide to take you through the four main stages of preparing your voice, because your voice is a full body instrument. So it will just take you through a few exercises. Now you don't have to do everything on every page, but just to give you some ideas. And if you can try and spend sort of even five minutes before You start your day, if you've got lots of meetings, lots of speaking, get your voice prepared. It will make a massive difference to how your voice feels and how your voice sounds.

Roberta Ndlela:
Excellent. And on which website can we access the voice preparation guide?

Anouska Taylor:
So it's not actually on my website, but I will give you the special link which you can put into the notes for this.

Roberta Ndlela:
Yes, for all our listeners listening today. If we want to reach out to you on social media or the internet, would you like to give us your website and all your social media handles?

Anouska Taylor:
Yes. So my website is anuska-taylor.com. Most of my social channels, so YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook are at Anuska Vocals. So that's the handle for all of them. But I'm also on LinkedIn as well. So you can just find me under Anouska Taylor on LinkedIn.

Roberta Ndlela:
Thank you very much, Anuska Taylor, the voice coach for public speakers and singers, and a Jungian live coach. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom about our voices to be on the show with us. No problem. Absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. My pleasure indeed. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a rating and a review on iTunes and Spotify, and stay tuned for more episodes to come.