EP 57: How to Find Your Confident Voice with Special Guest Susan Murphy
If you're smart and work hard, but just aren't where or who you want to be welcome to your podcast, Real Confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver, and I'll be sharing a bit of brain science, some surprising social secrets, and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So let's get to it.
Alyssa:
I always say that I am excited about these podcasts cause I am. And today we've got a real treat, not just a treat in terms of the content, but you got to listen to Susan Murphy's voice today because I am so in awe of somebody who can speak literally the word, anything that comes out of her mouth sounds confident, and she's going to teach us not only why and how to do it, but she's going to even maybe use me as her beta test, guinea pig today. I love it.
Okay, a little bit about Susan Murphy. She's been in the broadcast industry for over 40 years, and she's been a radio news director, TV news reporter and a weather girl and you put that in parentheses, because that's what it was called back then. That's right. She's a talk show host and producer for all kinds of radio, public television producer on air personality, college dean and instructor and a voice over artist. I don't think a lot of people know what that is Susan, so we're gonna have to talk about that, too. So, but these days, you make a lot of people very, very confident because you're a broadcast voice coach, so we'll also talk about that. But thank you for being here.
Susan Murphy:
I am delighted, Alyssa. I have so enjoyed listening to your podcasts, there's so much energy, so much good information. So I said I have to be there.
Alyssa Dver:
Well, you are so great for saying that and for being with us today. Let's start with some of those questions that I just threw out as even part of your bio. Voice over is what voiceover artists is what?
Susan Murphy:
We audition for commercials, we do narration that's what a voice actor does. It's mostly narration. I narrate for Time Magazine. For six years, I was the TV voice for Fixodent denture cream. I've narrated some documentaries for public television, that's what a voice actor or voice artist does.
Alyssa Dver:
Oh, awesome. So for those of you who may have even interested in that, that's cool. And now you coach people, which is really interesting. So let's talk about not just what you do, but who and why you do it. Like why do people come to you? What is the issue that they're trying to fix?
Susan Murphy:
Oh, sure. So many young journalists today, when they're going through journalism classes, and J school, whatever, the focus is always on the technology. Now back when I came through school, we didn't have that much technology to learn. Plus, we were often given camera people. Nowadays, journalists are mmj's, multimedia journalists, so they have to do the camerawork and the editing and the voicing and the writing, and they have to do the whole thing. So the burden is much greater. So I've listened to many TV channels in my travels. And what has always struck me is sometimes I see young people who can shoot well, they ask the right questions, the writing is okay. Not great, but okay. But their voice is just not in tune with the stories they're doing. And I came up through radio and that's what most TV people did back in my day, you always did a little stint in radio. And that's, of course, where voice is very much emphasized.
So what I've done is I've literally created a recipe that is a combination of what I've learned, singing lessons I've taken, plus what I've learned in voice acting classes to help young journalists find their authentic voices, most of them just don't use it, particularly the men, they'll like, sound like what they think a reporter or an anchor should sound like some women too, they get and I call them anchor ladies. And if I call you an anchor lady, oh, that is not a compliment. So what I do is I draw out or draw up from them beautiful, natural, authentic voices that make their storytelling so much better. And the first thing it does, is it allows confidence to bloom because you are speaking and coming from an authentic place.
Alyssa Dver:
Wow. All right. So I know and I respect and I love that you're focused on journalists, broadcasters, but everything you're teaching applies to anyone really, right? It doesn't matter if we're doing a pitch of a product or service, that's a story. It doesn't matter if we're presenting an idea, right? It's a version of a story. It certainly applies if we are presenting anything in a corporate or other capacity that I always tell people, it doesn't really matter what you say or even what's on the slide. It's how you say it.
Susan Murphy:
Correct.
Alyssa Dver:
So you use the word authentic, and I a little bit of a hang up with authentic because a lot of people use it. I think in the little bit that we've exchanged before this podcast recording, I know that you look at it differently than most, and I appreciate it. So let's talk about what that means to you what's authentically, what does that really sound like?
Susan Murphy:
It means they are using the range of pitch that is natural to their body. Now your pitch comes from the bottom of your diaphragm, which is a muscle that sits at the bottom of your ribcage. Most of us, babies are born, we're all born knowing how to do this, how to breathe correctly, and most of us when we sleep we breathe correctly. But somewhere along the age of about four or five, when we're toddlers, and we're walking, talking and taking direction, we sort of forget how to breathe into our bellies. And what we do is what is called conversational breathing, which means we kind of breathe to hear to about the middle of your chest, it's enough to get air down into your diaphragm and then back to your lungs and oxygenate your blood. But it's not enough to bring up beautiful sound. When you are talking too fast, when you are breathing shallowly, when your shoulders and muscles into your neck and face are all tense, the pitch of your voice rises. And I don't mind it for a few seconds at a time, but I'm not going to listen to it for two minutes at a time, and certainly not half an hour at a time. So what I do is, I just help you find that beautiful voice that everybody has. And everybody's is different. And I don't change anybody. I just help you discover something you didn't know you had.
Alyssa Dver:
Alright, so let's go even a little deeper. Is it when you say tone, I have a friend who has a very high voice like this.
Susan Murphy:
And that's, that's not tone. That's pitch.
Alyssa Dver:
So tone. Describe tone a little bit when you hear a pleasant tone, what does that usually sound like?
Susan Murphy:
That means that person is speaking in the range of pitches that they are meant to. And tone is what language does to color those pitches. It's how you say the words. It's how quickly or slowly you go. It's, it's literally coloring the pitch. That's what tone is.
Susan Murphy:
Beautiful. Now you also are demonstrating something that when we do our confidence workshops, we do touch about communication and speaking and you are a beautiful example there's no ums or uhs, you speak at a nice cadence. And I know this for a fact I was gonna say I think but actually know this. People like to talk like this like this. And we both can we said before we're New Yorkers from Long Island, we talked like this when we grew up. That does not make somebody, sound confident little and feel confident. It also invites the ums and ahs to give your brain some time to catch up. But more importantly, I say to folks, when I speak like this, I sound smarter. Yes, not dumber, smarter. So how does that play in with tone, pitch and breathing? Does the speed and how do you factor that all together?
Susan Murphy:
It does all come together because what do news people do? They tell stories. And you're right about how literally what I can teach you. I've worked with ministers. I've worked with nurse practitioners. I've worked with financial advisors. I've worked with the CFO in Australia. Anything you talk about has to be done with great passion from your side, which engages your audience. It also has to be done in a manner that allows the other side to not only hear it, but to listen to it and absorb it and that's where the pause comes in.
So few people use a pause because we're all afraid of dead air. We're all afraid of silence. And we shouldn't be. Two reasons. One, as the speaker, when I take a pause, I can reset my breath. It also gives my brain a chance to work a few sentences or a sentence ahead. But the most important thing a pause does is it allows your audience your listener a chance to absorb and get what you just said, if I hear a reporter going a mile a minute, not taking breaths, just trying to cram in information into that story, you lose me. So I'm gone. Plus the fact that for most reporters, and this is just a tiny little thing is that when they cover the reporter’s voice with what's called B-roll with a video, I can't watch your lips. We're talking on a podcast where we, we you and I can see each other's lips, but our listeners cannot. Watching lips is so important to understanding what we hear. How about all those years we spent in masks, muffled sound, and not being able to watch lips. Ministers have to recognize that people in the back of the church can't see their lips. Professors have to realize people at the back of the lecture hall can't see their lips. So I'm a big fan of intentionally speaking, which slows you down. Makes you thoughtful, therefore, smarter and use simple words and short sentences. Easier for you, easier for me.
Alyssa Dver:
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love what you said and preach and practice as best I can as well.
Susan Murphy:
We all think because we wrote high school and college papers with lots of prepositional phrases and fancy words and all kinds of adjectives that that made us sound smart. No, it just made us take up space. Come on, we all would like okay, is it enough words? Have I typed enough words? And that doesn't work in a speech or a doesn't even work in a conversation? Or in a newscast? Everything has to be very pointed, very factual, very intentional, so that you get your story across.
Alyssa Dver:
Yeah, I agree. Agree. Agree. And I was giggling a little bit inside before because there's a lot of schools of presentation that will teach you how to stand and this than the other, but they don't give you these very basic concepts that again, apply to anytime you open your mouth is slow down, be intentional, as best you can with what you want to say. Take your time to think about it. Give the audience some time to process it. Yes. I love it. Very basic.
Susan Murphy:
Yes. Now should do it. in our conversations with spouses and you know, our children, how, how much better will we be heard? If we speak like this, as opposed to yelling over each other?
Alyssa Dver:
Yelling or just a lot of waste words? And I'm not just talking about the opposite of, you know, as your likes, I had an event last week as a matter of fact. And the speaker came on and spoke like, you know, uh huh. You know, like, literally like that. And I watched the audience fall off, it was a zoom that I watched them, and I didn't blame them. I had to stay on. And I was literally, deliberately not listening. Because it was, I was like, I all I wanted to say is just stop, figure out what you want to say. And then say it.
But I want to come back to your earlier kind of center of expertise in getting people's tone to be authentic. Is that really is something new for me anyway. And I'd like to really understand how do you achieve it? Usually, if it helps to demonstrate, and let's really kind of, show them what it looks like and the difference it makes.
Susan Murphy:
Absolutely. I know you talked a minute ago about um posture and to stand. And the posture I always recommend is the one that came from my singing teacher, which is to lean slightly forward. So the weight of your body goes down through the balls of your feet, literally rooted like a tree. And every time she would say that my eyes would roll, yeah, rooted like a tree Elaine. But there was a method to that madness, because it does give you a place of purpose and a place to literally root yourself. So lean forward weight of your body down through the balls of your feet, not evenly spread across the soles of your feet. But here's the big key. If I could take you through the whole thing, but the simplest little thing I could teach you with regard to finding your natural pitch, your authentic voice is literally drop your shoulders.
Relax, drop your shoulders, make them heavy and loose. No holding in the muscles across the top of your chest or across the top of your back. That automatically reduces tension. Hello, where do we carry tension in our shoulders. We have lessened all the tension in our necks and into our jaw. Those muscles are relaxed. As speakers, drop your jaw slightly, put your tongue behind your bottom teeth. Be mindful of the shoulders are heavy and loose, and breathe in through your mouth out through your mouth, into your belly.
I always recommend, count four breaths in and six out to completely release all the air that's down in your diaphragm. As a reminder to you that you're not going to run out of air in that speech, it'll be fine. A lot of reporters think I'm going to run out of air. Well, this is a little trick for your brain. I'm happy to show you that. But you lower the shoulders. Breathe into the belly. Always start your sentences on a belly full of air, don't exhale, and then speak. Inhale and speak boldly, not loud, boldly, as though, project you know if you've done theater projection a little bit, let your voice hit the opposite wall, little of that and you'd be amazed at how surprised you'll be at how commanding you'll sound. It kind of does work for everybody.
And what I've learned is women tend not to use that voice.
Alyssa Dver:
Why?
Susan Murphy:
From what I've learned, and let me tell you, I didn't see it coming. high pitches breathiness vocal fry, you know where it's just no, no air support, and I talk like Kim Kardashian, or squeaky, girlish voice Barbie doll goes back to their childhoods because those voices helped them then to deal with a dysfunctional family, to deal with overbearing parents or teachers. Some cases, it was a romantic partner. We are taught, girls I think are still taught, but certainly girls of a certain age we're taught.
You are not brash, you're not loud. You can't be bigger, better, bolder than the boys, you have to be. You have to be feminine. And that's just stuck. And it's not true. It isn't true. So when I help these young women who are in their mid 20s, most of them, step out of that. And they hear back in their own ears. What kind of pitch and tone they can produce. Sometimes their eyes welled up with tears. And after a while they say do you know how healing this is?
I was blown away, but honored to take that journey with them. If I can help them move forward. past those things that have held them back. And let me tell you, a girlish voice in television is gonna hold you back.
Alyssa Dver:
A girlish voice in anything thing. So you know, again, I love the fact that you have this beautiful focus in some cases, ability expertise, that anyone who's listening in any capacity. Now, there was one last thing I want to cover because we're almost out of time. I know. This is so interesting to me on so many levels. You said bold before, and I think sometimes it is another one of my pet peeves. Forgive me audience who's listening because you've heard many of my pet peeves? Is that badass is not. Not. I don't think it's a good thing. I think badass is this whole message of being a badass is actually backfiring in a big way. So when you said bold? Where's the line between bold and badass? And how does bold actually work in your favor?
Susan Murphy:
Where's the line between assertive and aggressive? Same line? By being assertive, by being bold, you are standing in your truth and you are communicating it to another person or a group of people. So what you what you also have to engender to is confidence in what you're speaking about. I tell my reporters remember, you spent all day on this story and they're giving you less than two minutes to tell it to me. You'd have to be the expert in the story. You have to be solid in your information. Same thing for anybody who's giving a speech or presenting an idea between the excitement, the knowledge, the
the mental picture that you're an expert really does allow you to bring out that bold. Listen to me, I've got you on this. I've spent all day tracking this story down here. Let me tell you about it. I've got a great idea. I've spent years thinking about this, let me tell you about it.
So it's a combination of a little psychology and believing in what you're speaking about. Along with the breath, the lowered shoulders and just a little bit of projection. And I always tell my reporters I want your first sentence to literally be head turning. Say something at the beginning of your speech or your pitch. That's gonna make my head turn. And then I got you
Alyssa Dver:
Yeah. Words of wisdom with beautiful tone to back up so thank you so much for being here. I want anyone who is like I gotta talk more learn more about Susan where's the best way or where can they find more information?
Susan Murpy:
You can find me on LinkedIn. It is a million Susan Murphy's just type Susan Murphy voice coach, or my website is Susan MurphyVOSOT which is broadcast shorthand for voice over sound on tape. SusanMurphyVosot.com.
Alyssa Dver:
Beautiful. We'll certainly put those in the show notes. Anyone who has any questions about this show or any please reach out to us [email protected] But today right now, Susan, I feel like I've met a wonderful new friend.
Susan Murphy:
Me too.
Alyssa Dver:
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and by all means, keep doing the beautiful work and helping women and men find their authentic voice .
Susan Murphy:
And anytime you want me back I'm here.
This podcast was sponsored by the American Confidence Institute. ACI trains smart, hardworking people how to use basic brain science to more effectively coach themselves and others. ACI is endorsed by top universities, The strategic HR Management Association and International Coaching Federation. Learn more about ACI is uniquely empowering keynotes workshops, e classes, and coaching certification at ww.Americanconfidencinstitute.com.
So before we completely wrap up, I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other episodes can be found on the website, www.AmericaConfidenceInstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again, that the best way to get confidence for yourself is to give it to others and you can do it so easily just by liking and sharing this episode on your favorite social media channels. You can even give me some confidence fuel by sending in any comments about the topics I've covered, or ones you'd like me to consider for the future. So for now, this is Alyssa Dver. Thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.
This podcast was produced by Mindful Media All rights reserved by Alyssa Dver and the American Confidence Institute. Music written and performed by Jeff Weinstein.
