Public Speaking – Interview with ‘How to be a D.I.V.A. at Public Speaking’ Audiobook Narrator Kristin Aiken Salada

This is an AI generated transcript so please forgive any errors and spelling mistakes.

I am so excited today because I have a wonderful guest here with me on today’s show, who has helped me no end to bring the message of How to be a D.I.V.A. at Public Speaking to the masses. So if you are watching this very close to the time of recording, then it’s around about where are we? We’re at the end of February in 2021 and International Women’s day is coming up in just under two weeks now.

A little while ago, I decided that I would find a wonderful voiceover or voice recording artists to help me to get the book, how to be a diva at public speaking out to more people. And I was very, very lucky enough to have come across Kristin, who is here with me today. And she did a wonderful job recording the book.

Public Speaking – audiobook release in time for International Woman’s Day 2021

The book came out in 2017 and Christine did a wonderful job of giving her voice to the book so that now it’s got this new lease of life. We’re in 2021, and it’s, it’s getting out there again in the world in time for International Women’s day, because I do feel with this year’s theme, which is choose to challenge the idea of being a diva at public speaking dovetails really well.

Shola:

So enough for me, I just would love to welcome today’s guest Kristin onto the show.

Kristin:

Thank you, Shola. It’s a delight. I love joining you across the pond. It’s great to be part of your project. And I love that you’re celebrating international women’s day and important day.

Shola:

Thank you. And Kristin, where are you today?

Kristin:

So I’m connecting with you from Denver, Colorado, uh, right in the middle of the United States and, uh, Shola and I had a good laugh earlier about whether or not I would bring any attempts at a good British accent to the book, or if I should just stick with my American accent. So that’s where I’m coming from the middle of the U S today. It’s great to join you.

Shola:

Fantastic. Thank you, Kristin. And I’m sure that there’ll be some of you out there who perhaps read the book or are interested in, well, why did Shirley you clearly operative? Why did you choose an American to help you realize the audio book version? And if I’m honest, I started out looking for a British artist because I thought that was the, the best thing to do to have someone who sounded a little bit like me at the very least. But if I’m honest, as I went through the various auditions of the various artists, Christine’s stuck out to me because she has a lovely voice, a rich voice, and it’s full of expression. And that voice was enough to make me change my plans completely to find a British artist and instead to go with Kristin. And the reason I share this is because first of all, I’m sure if you will, you wonder, well, she, she got some aspirations to be American, is that why he chose?

Shola:

But if it’s not that it, to me, it emphasizes the importance of being a pleasure to listen to. And I know that it’s something that a lot of women want to, uh, to do, to work on their voices so that they come across as more authoritative so that they sound like they have more presence. And Kristin had all about for me. So my first question to you, Kristin, is, is what do you do with your voice to have it sound so great? Or is it natural? Do you do anything specifically to, to have more presence because especially with so many people now speaking on camera, because during these days of, of, um, of COVID, we, we need everything that we can muster, uh, to, at our fingertips, to come across as more powerful, more punchy and to get noticed. So, Kristin, yeah. Tell us a little bit about your voice and is it natural? Did you pop out of the womb that way?

Kristin:

Well, I’ll tell you, it’s kind of an interesting story. Uh, my older sister was born deaf and she came out, she came out of the womb, having already lost a huge percentage of her hearing. So by the time I arrived and we learned that it wasn’t anything, uh, genetic, there, there was a huge amount of time her, she had to spend in speech therapy and learning to speak. So most of my childhood dinners involved my parents telling my sister to lower her voice because she couldn’t tell that she was starting to talk with me. Right. And so I got lots of messages throughout my childhood that having a low rich resonant voice was important. Now, whether that changed the way that I spoke or that was just something I kind of naturally came to the table with for me, I have a little bit about when I hear a very high pitched female voice.

Kristin:

Now I realize many of us come to the table with just a range of things, but I very quickly, um, was reminded that it’s easier for people to hear you, if you can catch the resonant lower tones in your, in your sound. Um, the other thing was, my sister would work to pronounce certain words and she would struggle with that. So my parents would spend time enunciating. And any of you out there that may know, someone’s, who’s hearing impaired, whether it’s an elderly family member, that’s lost some hearing or someone who is actually not had hearing, you know, that a big part of their understanding is reading your lips. So I spent much of my childhood being very articulate and speaking very clearly using my lips as a way for her to understand. So I, I expected that that’s a big part of why my voice is the way that it is and why audio books were a natural draw for me. Because when you speak as a you’ve shared with your, your listeners and your audience members and your readers, you’ve got to slow down from your natural speaking tone, just enough for the latency of people, hearing what you have to say too, to sit for a minute before the brain can kind of comprehend what they’ve heard. So I guess that’s sort of an odd and interesting way to tell you that I actually think that’s a big part of why I speak the way that I do,

Shola:

How interesting I’ve got Sebastian. I’d never heard that story before today. So that’s fascinating. And I love the fact that it’s something that you, not that you necessarily born with, but he just kind of absorbed it as you went on through these interactions with your sister and your family. So thank you for sharing that. And if somebody is interested in working on their voice, so to have that kind of rich and resonant tone that you had, do you have any advice for them? Because I tend to sometimes let my voice get a little bit high page. There’s a singer. I cause you do a lot of work to get your larynx down and that sort of thing, which naturally gives you, uh, a low pitched voice. But sometimes when I forget, I can end up speaking little squeakly, but a little coming that way. So is there anything that any tips or advice that you can give us, uh, as, as lay people who wants to work on our voices? Crispin?

Public Speaking – practice slowing down for a richer and more resonant tone

Kristin:

Yeah, it’s interesting. Shola I think what I would mostly recommend is I’ve noticed when people speak to someone who doesn’t speak their same native tongue. So when you speak to someone who’s visiting from another country or someone who lives locally, but as learning English as a second language, we tend to slow down our speech. And I’ve noticed when people speak to folks that are learning your language, we also tend to lower our pitch. So I often use as a tip and recommend to people that I’m working with on public speaking, that they actually speak at the pace they would, if they were speaking to someone who didn’t speak English as their first language. So sometimes when you’re up on stage, you can imagine your audience is a collection of folks with a mix of knowledge of English. And that will naturally cause you to slow down. And I have found it will naturally cause you to sort of hit on those more resonant tones in your voice, cause you naturally would want to make sure they understand you clearly. I hope that helps. I find that it does for me.

Shola:

Thank you. That’s a really good tip. And it’s interesting because quite often when we get on stage, we, we, uh, breathing spots to speed up and everything actually pushes us the other way to speak a lot faster and to have a higher pitch. So there’s a lot to keep in mind when we are presenting to audiences. But yeah, that’s a really, really helpful tip for me. I’ve always found that this idea that you’re, you’re not there for yourself, but you’re there to serve other people. So if those other people needed to slow down, you slow down. If they need to hear a rich voice, you find a way to have a richer voice because it’s not, it’s not about you. It’s about them. So thank you.

Kristin:

Good advice. It’s it’s if you combine that with the advice to speak to the person at the back of the room, right? You hear that a lot. Like we kind of get, cause we want to make eye contact with those that are closest to us. Even at a, a table in a staff meeting, we often can find ourselves just speaking, sort of to the people right next to us, as opposed to the one all the way across the table. And I think if you imagine the one all the way across the table is kind of new to English that will tend to slow you down.

Shola:

Excellent advice. Thank you for them to hear a bit more about you, Kristin. I know that you do some work with leaders in, in Denver and possibly even around the world. Now we’re working virtually, but I’d love to hear a little bit about your background and the, the, the corporate work that you do.

Kristin:

Sure. Yeah. Gosh, it’s been, I think 17 years now that I’ve been able to consult my businesses, new angle consulting, um, in combination with Kristin voiceovers and as a consultant, most of the work that I’ve been doing is as a facilitative consultant or a facilitative trainer, which essentially means working with a leadership team to help them get stronger and more effective at the work that they do. So it may be a two to three day offsite that we go and we say, how can we be more effective in the way we work so that we can create a better environment and atmosphere for our employees so that we can create the kind of culture that people wake up and say, I can’t wait to go to work. I feel valued. I feel that I’m doing my very best work. I feel empowered to do the work and this group of people that I work most closely with really support and make me feel good about the work that I’m doing.

Kristin:

And I’m proud to be in this company. There’s a lot of us that just sometimes wake up and sort of dread going to work. And wouldn’t it be a better world. If we felt rewarded, we felt valued. We felt inspired to work alongside those around us and that we were doing good work together. So I, my goal, it’s funny when, when someone it’s been forever since I’ve been on a plane, but my answer to what do you do for a living or what’s your purpose? When, when I was on an airplane, I would often say my goal is to make it so that more people are excited to get up and go to work each day because they feel valued on the team they work with. And therefore they come home as better parents that are family members that are neighbors. Uh, so it’s fun. And it’s wonderful. A lot of the work that we’re doing is helping those leaders have greater presence with one another, uh, being able to speak, honestly, candidly talk about the white elephant in the room. So a lot of the time we find ways for leaders and teams to talk about the things that everyone’s talking about at the coffee maker or kind of offline, but haven’t had an opportunity to comfortably and excitedly and willingly discussed collectively with each other. So it’s really rewarding work.

Public Speaking – sharing with transparency creates connection

Shola:

Fantastic. It sounds like it, you can certainly light up when you talk about your work has been, and I love what you, you have the talking about the accident and then this sort of transparency, this idea that people can share, they have presence and they have transparency. Cause I think that the two of those combined are really huge Palla full any, any leader so that they’re not, they’re not their energy, isn’t being drained by what they’re hiding or what they’re trying to keep away from people, but they stand proud in who they are, their authenticity and then the transparency of the message and the presence of the delivery. So, um, thank you for sharing that. And I think that kind of brings us nicely to this, that part of the message that’s in the book has to be the public speaking, which is how do you have that presence.

Shola:

And also how can it be founded on a basis of authenticity where you are truly being yourself rather than thinking, Oh, just because I’m in front of this audience, I’ve got to put on a different hat or be a different person. I can’t be me and still be successful as with, as a communicator with quite presence. So, um, th those of you who aren’t familiar with the books, a diva stands for being dynamic eyes for inspiring these valuable and a super important is being authentic. And that’s kind of the foundation of the book, but then on top of that, it layers. How do you prepare a presentation? How do you prepare yourself to deliver that presentation? How do you analyze that presentation afterwards so that you continue to learn and grow through your public speaking and just in general communication experiences? So, um, I’d love to hear from you and Kristin as somebody who approached reading that book and somebody who obviously has done a lot of work on her voice and uses of voice at the time and work on presence, leadership, I mean, for you, what was the, were there any stand out parts of the book, or what do you think was the most helpful perhaps to you as somebody who’s an expert in this game, but also somebody who might be new to having to do public speaking and communicating to groups?

Kristin:

Yeah. So that’s a great question. You know, I think more than anything, we, humans are wired as storytellers. So when I think of the idea of being authentic, uh, I just thinking about Ted talks that I’ve seen, the ones that are most compelling to me are those that have a really powerful human story. Um, so each of the great pieces of your diva framework really stood out to me because they invite someone to tell an authentic and wonderful story. Um, there are so many different kinds of ways that you can just be a bit vulnerable and share who you are and what you bring to the table. Um, when you are authentic and vulnerable, you tend to naturally be inspiring because I think it’s so natural for people to tell you their story, get to the important part, tell you kind of like the thing that really drove them to make a decision or get past a challenge.

Kristin:

And at the end of that, you naturally have an ability to just show up as yourself and to inspire people through your own words. So I th I like to think of, of public speaking as an opportunity for storytelling. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked with someone I was telling you before we started recording, working with a group of leaders in an organization that spent an entire year doing a big project. And then at the end have to give a group presentation to the executives. And while working with them, they would often stand up, say they’re a bit. And then as soon as they would stop, they’d say, Oh my gosh, that was hilarious. Did you see me do the following? And all of a sudden their personality comes out as soon as they’ve stopped presenting, right? And so we often talk about just be yourself, because those natural things that you naturally do when you’re chatting with a friend are a powerful part of who you are in the course of storytelling.

Kristin:

And your book does such a wonderful job of allowing people to kind of piece it out, look at each part. And when you put those divs parts together, again, your values, you know, how can you bring your values into the, into the conversation, but then also what’s, uh, what’s of use to others. I, when I think of all the people that I’ve met in my life, those that have offered me something wonderful, not, not something specific, but just their presence, their wisdom, their experience, their joyfulness brings me value. And it makes me want to continue to talk to them and hear from them. So that’s what I would say. Be a storyteller, just tell, tell from your own deep, authentic self and let yourself shine through.

Shola:

Thank you for that, Kristin. And yeah, it’s, it’s so important because that’s you say people often feel that they, they, they switched to this sort of robotic trying to be perfect, but they become a robot and all the juicy fun stuff disappears. So it’s really about how do you keep that while still giving people the best of yourself as an, as a communicator and giving them the information that they need. And, um, yeah, really interesting that storytelling as well, because one of my private clients that comes to me for one-to-one coaching, she came at the beginning and she said, well, I, I really want to be an inspiring speaker. And I said, okay, well, what, what, what stories have you got? And she said, well, I haven’t put any, I don’t have any stories. I said, well, how can you be inspiring if you don’t tell people anything about yourself?

Shola:

And then a couple of weeks later, we looked specifically working on storytelling and I want you to share her story because it’s personal to her. But she had a story that was so profound and not much makes me cry like in a session. But when she called that story, I was crying. Right. And then she’s not using that to help, to connect with people to grow her business. So I think everybody has got a story, at least one story that is moving and it doesn’t have to be this, somebody, you know, meeting a bad end or awfulness. It can just be something quite small, but that can still move the right people. And I think it’s so, so important to tap into that and allow yourself to tell that story in an honest way. And I think often it’s women as well. What we tend to do is when we, we, we share our stories, we try and gloss over anything that makes us look good.

Kristin:

It’s like, no, tell that part. That’s the juicy, good stuff. Yeah.

Public Speaking – why should women tell stories when public speaking?

Shola:

Oh, the frameworks in the book is called the dead, which over now, then how framework, which I had from Lisa Nichols, the, the, a motivational speaker in the space. And I don’t know if it’s something you recall Kristin, but it starts with where you are now. So typically something that you’ve done, some achievement, and then it talks about a challenge that you had in the policy you transition and you say, well, but it wasn’t always that way. And then finally you come out of the framework by sharing how you went from where you are in the past, the struggle to where you are now. And typically when we, when I use this in workshops with, with women, they will do the best that they can to make, to minimize the now. So they might have some great job or something wonderful is this happened? Well, I’ve got to do a nice job, but if I think about six months, we don’t get enough or the joy that they experienced in currently, or the achievements that they they’ve made. And we really want, especially the storyteller. We want enough contrast between the different situations you’ve been in that people actually sit up and take notice because otherwise it’s more, very mad, very bland. And then really stories is this sort of trivial bit of information that no one cares about,

Kristin:

But we do care. I think you, you raised such a great point. If anybody looks at how movies are created in Hollywood, right. They’re typically in three act and act one is kind of setting the stag