Change Your Voice, Change Your Life

I love those special moments when I'm teaching and I get chills because I just witnessed someone make a huge transformation right before my eyes. It happens most often when I'm working with someone on their voice. It happened the other night as I taught a small class at Fashion Institute of Technology. I often do an exercise where I have students/clients read and interpret a short speech from a famous movie or by a famous politician. As I worked with a very shy young woman, I coached her to use her diaphragm, and feel the words of Martin Luther King. On her second or third try, the soft, timid, monotone was replaced by a strong, solid, passion filled oratory. We saw her body fill with confidence, her eyes begin to shine and I knew that she had suddenly touched a part of herself that she didn't know she possessed. It was priceless. I love that a simple physical shift can have such a profound effect.