Sally Prosser on unlocking your voice potential and overcoming insecurities
Hate the sound of your own voice? You’re not alone. And it’s holding too many podcasters back. In this episode of Wanna Podcast?, I chat with voice and speaking coach Sally Prosser about how to embrace your voice, speak with confidence, and use your mic like the powerful instrument it is.
Sally’s background is as colourful as her energy: TV journalist, speech and drama teacher… and now, author of the upcoming book Voiceprint. Her passion? Helping people fall back in love with their voice, stop overthinking, and finally sound like themselves behind the mic.
Why We Hate Our Own Voice (and How to Fix It)
If you’ve ever cringed at your playback, that’s “voice confrontation.” Sally explains it’s not your voice that’s wrong, it’s how we hear it. We hear ourselves through bone conduction (hello, inbuilt shower voice), but recordings come through air. The trick? Listen like it’s a friend’s voice and learn to love it.
Your Voice Is a Megaphone for Your Inner Voice
Confidence behind the mic isn't just technique. It’s a belief. Sally’s big takeaway? "Your physical voice is a megaphone for your inner voice." You can have all the vocal tips in the world, but if you’re still stuck in old stories (“I’m too loud” / “Nobody wants to hear me”), your voice will hold back.
It’s time to rewrite that story.
Her 3 B’s for Voicing with Confidence:
Belief: Give yourself a pep talk before hitting record. “You and me, we’re gonna slay the day.”
Body: Your voice lives in your body, not your head. Move, stretch, and loosen up.
Breath: Airflow powers your voice. No air = vocal fry = burnt bacon energy.
Cringe Mountain Is Worth the Climb
Think confident speakers never feel awkward? Think again. Sally’s advice: “Climb Cringe Mountain. Go on a dinner date with your voice. It’s meant to feel weird at first.”
Whether you’re a podcaster, coach, or business owner, using your voice well is not about sounding perfect; it’s about sounding real. Authenticity > polished perfection. And in an AI-saturated world, your unique voice has never mattered more.
Final Thoughts: Your Voice Is Your Legacy
Sally’s parting wisdom? If you won’t use your voice for yourself, use it for others. Every time you speak, you leave behind your “voice print.” It’s not just about podcasting, it’s about expressing who you are and connecting with people on a deeper level.
Sally’s new book, Voiceprint, drops November 25. It’s a must-read if you’re ready to find (or rediscover) your voice and finally sound like YOU. Pre-order yours now!
🎧 Listen to the full episode of Wanna Podcast? wherever you get your podcasts, and let your voice be heard.
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Maxene (00:01.216)
Now if you have ever recorded an episode and thought, why does my voice sound like that? Or you've stumbled over words, felt breathless mid-sentence, or panicked that you're just not sounding the part, this episode is for you. Today I'm chatting with Sally Prosser, voice and public speech and coach podcaster and the author of the soon to be released book, Voice Print.
Sally is known for helping people fall in love with their voice, speak with confidence, and stop overthinking how they sound. She is a former speech and drama teacher, TV journalist, and corporate speech pathologist, and now she's helping people find confidence in their voice and speak with impact. She's here today to help us unlock the full potential of our voice behind the mic. We're gonna dive deep into voice prep.
storytelling, connecting emotionally through audio, and how to care for your voice like the powerful instrument that it is. We're also going to dive into her own podcast journey and her upcoming book, VoicePrint, which is all about helping you discover the unique vocal signature that is already yours. Thank you so much for joining me today, Sally.
Hello, thank you for having me.
Can we start off by talking a little bit about your voice journey? Have you always loved speaking?
Sally Synced (01:21.592)
Yes, yes I have. My mum jokes that I was born microphone first. So ever since I was a young kid, I was asking Santa, can I please have a microphone for Christmas? And I was nine and I got this little red microphone on a stand. And I remember the first thing I did was say a thank you speech to Santa for getting me the microphone. So.
You
Maxene (01:35.057)
my gosh.
Maxene (01:41.334)
my gosh, I love it.
Yeah, I feel like I've always had a love for speaking and that's why mum put me into speech and drama at an early age and then I did public speaking and debating and all of those things. But I feel like because I had an interest from so early, I had a lot of years to make a lot of mistakes and have a lot of things go wrong. So it by no means meant that I was always good at it. But it definitely gave me lot of experience in lots of different scenarios to be getting out there and
using my voice. And then of course, when I left school, I went into TV and radio news reporting. So that was all about the voice.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's funny you say that actually because I also have a very memorable Christmas present where I was given a microphone and a little radio and I must have been preschool age like maybe four maybe five and it was still to this day one of my favorite gifts I've ever received
Yeah, and you you mentioned in the introduction, people not liking the sound of their voice. And isn't it interesting because when we're kids, we don't think about that. Even now, I guess, kids are more and more hearing their voice played back with, you know, iPhones and things like that. When we're younger, we like hearing it back. It's when we get older that we develop this loss of identity with our voice, our relationship gets strained. And that's something that I'm trying to bring back together.
Maxene (02:47.502)
Mmm.
Maxene (02:54.4)
Yeah, that's true.
Maxene (03:06.956)
Yeah, totally. It is a huge hurdle for a lot of people hating the sound of their own voice. Like I hear it a lot from my clients. And yeah, I think it is partly to do with the fact that like your voice sounds a bit different out loud when it's recorded than it does in your own head. And I know that like from my experience in radio, like the more you practice, the more the voice in your head...
kind of merges with that recorded voice, but do you have any tips on how people can like get over that hurdle and start to embrace their voice?
Yeah, my gosh, I joke that I have claw marks on the inside of my office door from people like, you know, not liking the sound of their own voice. And I'm like, no, I'm holding you hostage until you love it. This is my job. It's a thing called voice confrontation. And the reason we sound different is because when we speak, it's like it's inbuilt shower voice. know, your voice always sounds good in the shower because we're hearing it through bone conduction. Like we're hearing it through our skull.
Mm.
Whereas when we hear our voice on a recording, it's coming through the air. So we're hearing it through air conduction and it never sounds as good. So we always think we sound better, but you're right. A lot of it is that familiarity and learning to love your voice. You're a podcaster. I'm a podcaster. If we didn't like the sound of our voice, it would make the editing job quite horrific. So a part of it is listening to the voice and listening to your voice like it's not your own.
Maxene (04:26.049)
Absolutely!
Sally Synced (04:34.199)
You know, so record something to your phone and play it back and be like, this is not my voice. This is a friend's voice and listen with love. Because it can be at like psychological shock, can't it? Where we hear a voice and we don't feel that connection. We're like, my gosh, is that us? So learning to love our voice is closely linked to learning, learning to love ourselves and developing that self love relationship where we're not so hypercritical of everything we do.
Mmm. Mm-hmm. That's a good...
Maxene (04:50.348)
Mm.
Maxene (05:03.438)
I hadn't thought about it that way but that is actually a great point and I think in New Zealand definitely and possibly in Australia as well There's this thing called tall poppy syndrome where we're kind of conditioned from a young age to kind of hate on ourselves a bit and I think that as we grow older like you say as we were kids we didn't really have this so much
Hmm.
Maxene (05:25.026)
But as we've grown older, we've kind of been conditioned to like, why do you like the sound of your voice so much? You know, like you shouldn't like the sound of your own voice. You need to like be quiet a little bit.
Yeah, come to come down a notch. Absolutely. Tall poppy syndrome is a thing in Australia as well. And I've even had people in workshops. So I run corporate workshops and I often ask that question, you who doesn't like who likes the sound of their voice? And I once had somebody come up to me in the break and say, Sal, I actually really do like my voice, but I could not possibly say that in front of other people. So you're absolutely right. There's this feeling that we have to be self-deprecating and look.
Mmm.
Sally Synced (05:59.807)
I'm all for a bit of self-deprecation. If you read the book, you'll see that like most of it is self-deprecating jokes, but it has to be a joke. The thing is, is when the joke actually impacts how you feel about your life and the goals that you reach. know, you're in business and you know, I see so many business owners, especially women holding themselves back from doing what they want to do and making the impact they can have because they're like,
Mmm.
Maxene (06:23.182)
Mm.
Sally Synced (06:29.463)
You know, what will Jenny from primary school think? Or, you know, I don't want to look like I'm too big for my boots. And so I'll just, you know, hold back. It's like far out at the end of your life. These are not the things that you're going to regret. They're not the things that you're going to worry about. So there's definitely a difference between confidence and arrogance, between assertiveness and aggressiveness. You know, so I think that it's just us learning to find that balance and walk that fine line. So
we can absolutely be self-confident without coming across like we're totally up ourselves.
Totally. Now you say that practice is not always the best path to becoming a great speaker because there might be like a mental block or a speaking belief that's in your way. Do you have some tips that people can identify like what that mental block might be and work towards breaking it down?
Yes, love that you brought this up. It's the speaking story. Our physical voice is a megaphone for our inner voice. You you can learn all of the surface level projection techniques and body language and all of these things. But if inside you are holding this belief that you don't deserve to be heard or no one wants to listen to you or, my voice is disgusting or I'm too loud or too high pitched or whatever it is.
Mmm.
Sally Synced (07:48.331)
Chances are it is a story that is not yours. been implanted somewhere along the line, you know, and we are just reacting, replaying that story. It's also worth noticing, noting that some things that people have done for our benefit can actually have a negative impact as well. So for example, lots of clients I work with, they have had an older sibling speak up for them. So they say their whole life, my older sister spoke for me. And the older sister would be like, yes.
Mmm, true.
That's my little sister. I'm protecting her. I'm standing up for her. But in doing so, they've robbed her of her voice. And so then she's grown up always feeling like someone else is a better spokesperson for her than she is. So it's working through that story of learning that, okay, yeah, isn't it great that people advocate for you, but you know what? You could advocate for yourself as well.
Mm.
Maxene (08:42.444)
Yeah, absolutely. Actually, I remember as a kid, my mum, I'm one of four, I'm the third child of four. you know, as middle children, we've often had to find our way up. I remember from a young age, my mum was always kind of shy and introverted. And so she raised us.
I'm one of four too, I'm number two.
Maxene (09:04.364)
purposefully wanting us not to be like that. And so if we wanted to go return something at the shop, even at like age six or seven, she would make us go and talk to the person at the counter and be like, you can tell them like you need to return it because of this or whatever. And like she'd make us do it. And I feel like it actually really helped.
Yeah!
definitely. One of my favorite stories is Bill Gates, who in the documentary, his sister talks about this, how he spent lots of time in his room as a little boy, you know, doing, you know, genius computer electronics works. And she said that he hated even coming out for dinner. Like he just would stay in his room forever if he could. But their mom, she did a lot of philanthropic work and ran events and things like that. And she used to make Bill at the age of 14.
go to these events and stand on the door and be the person that greeted all the people like an introverts nightmare, right? So she had to stand there and do all of that. And he himself says that that is what enabled him to build Microsoft to what it was. Because if he didn't have those communication skills, that ability to speak and use his voice and interact with people, then he would still be in his bedroom and potentially never have brought those ideas to life.
Mmm.
Sally Synced (10:20.524)
So this is another reason why I'm so passionate about what I do, because it's not just about being a professional speaker. You know, some people I work with want to do that, but most people, it's not their goal. They want to use their voice as the vehicle to share their message. This is why people podcast and, and people do a lot of their training and coaching and speaking.
It's not the speaking itself they want to be known for. It's just, they want to be able to use the voice as that beautiful vehicle to share that message. Because when you hear someone's voice, it's the closest thing to touching them. It's like so much more effective than writing a note or an email because people can feel that vibrational connection. And we don't want to feel that, that block.
Mmm.
Maxene (11:01.422)
Mmm, tartelay.
So for the people who maybe are feeling like a bit shy or introverted or like maybe they are feeling like Bill Gates before his mum forced him out into that door, what are your tips on how you can gain that confidence and start speaking with purpose?
So start small. So you might be not even doing videos on social media yet having dreams to speak on stage. You don't want to go from zero to hero because that's going from the comfort zone to the fear zone straight away. And this is what happens with some people I work with as well is that they've
Mmm.
Sally Synced (11:50.04)
haven't built the skills and they've been thrown into some very challenging speaking scenario, like up in front of a massive audience. And maybe you've had this happen to you as well, where it's just been too much too soon. I remember this at year nine camp when I told the person I couldn't ride a bike. I know this is kind of an embarrassing story. I told them I couldn't ride a bike. wasn't even confident on, on concrete. just had never really done it. And next thing we're on this little mountain biking course, like I literally just kind of like,
Mm?
Sally Synced (12:20.202)
veered the bike and fell off before we'd even got over with the first little bunny hop. But it was like, was too much for me. And this is the same thing with speaking when people had not doing anything and then they're going, let's speak on a big stage. So I'd say, looked at where you're at and see what your stretch zone is. Maybe it is starting to send voice notes to people on Instagram. Maybe it is speaking on Instagram stories. Maybe it is going on a podcast with a trusted friend.
no.
Maxene (12:34.286)
Mmm.
Maxene (12:49.154)
Mmm.
You know, and work out what that stretch is and then just start using your voice. You learn through the practicing and do that little exercise I mentioned earlier, where you put the, put your camera up or you put your voice memos on and start speaking. And you can read your shopping list. You can read a little bit out of a book. That's a good idea. Like a book that you're reading, just read it aloud and then listen back. You know, we want to learn to love our voice. It's like we want, we need to wine and dine it.
Mm.
Sally Synced (13:21.29)
And if there's that feeling of, my gosh, I don't want to do it. There's that resistance. Then it's kind of like a pet. If we keep like not feeding the dog and pushing it away and kicking it, it's going to turn around and bite us.
Mmm. Yep. At least buy me a drink first, come on.
Exactly. Bring it in, wine and dine, get to know it, have a full blown love affair with your voice. Again, you don't need to make this public. This is all just happening in your energy and in your mind. And then start small. And if you're really feeling this block, like you're really feeling like, there's something with my throat chakra, or there's just some reason I can't do it. There's this fear of
I'm gonna need your YouTube in your mind.
Maxene (13:52.525)
Mmm.
Sally Synced (14:04.684)
what people think. And it's worth noting people aren't afraid of speaking. Some people are, it's called glossophobia, the fear of the tongue. But most people are okay to speak in certain scenarios. It's just particular areas brings up existing fears, the fear of being seen, the fear of being exposed, the fear of being judged, the fear of being rejected. You know, so that's why speaking is this beautiful invitation to work through fears that are inevitably holding you back in other areas of your life.
Mm.
Maxene (14:26.69)
Yeah.
Sally Synced (14:36.302)
So, you when the voice flows, so many other things in your life begin to flow because we're releasing the block that is affecting you in your relationships, your career, your health even.
Yeah, yeah, but you know, that's so true. And, and actually that was a technique that one of my radio teachers taught me at, at uni as well was when we were first starting out with voicing, to just like walk around your house with your phone and just narrate what you can see. and actually there was something that like the Plunket nurses told me when I first had my younger baby as well is just like, if you don't know what to talk to with your baby, just like narrate what you're doing.
And I think that starting small like that is actually such an actionable way. And you feel a bit like a dick at first sometimes. I'm quite a confident speaker, but you still feel like a bit of a dick walking around your house going, and now I'm going to make a cup of tea. I'm putting the kettle on. But it is that practice.
That's so good. That reminded me, did journalism with uni as well. And that's how they help you prepare for live crosses as well. That's how you learn how to speak by narrating what's around the house. But it will feel awkward. It will feel cringy, but that's part of it as well. There's a TikToker that talks about climbing cringe mountain. And I just love it. said, you've got to climb cringe mountain and then go on a dinner date with your voice. Like there is no world where it's not cringy. People go, oh, it's cringy. Oh, I feel awkward. I'm like, yeah. And?
Mmm.
Maxene (15:50.35)
Hahaha
Maxene (15:55.2)
Yeah.
Sally Synced (16:03.126)
I think people think that like confidence speakers, they, never feel nervous and they never feel cringy and they've just got some kind of magic gene that they weren't born with. It's really not like that. You know, you've heard, feel the fear and do it anyway. Well, it's like, be the cringe and do it anyway. So many of my friends and family like, Sal, you're so cringy. I'm like, yeah, well, that's what you got to do. You know?
Yeah, yeah.
Maxene (16:26.612)
Yeah, exactly. Push through the cringe. Be cringy and embrace it. Love the cringe. So, you know, there's that big, typical, like, booming radio voice, which I think even at a radio industry level, people are like moving away from in favor of a more like warm, relatable, authentic voice. So what are some of your key tips for being able to be warm and authentic when you're recording a podcast?
Hmm. I'd say it's breath flow for one. So when we have warmth in the voice, it's breath flow in the voice. So I know it sounds a bit disgusting, but we want people that we're speaking to, to breathe in the air that we're breathing out. Although with podcasts, you know, it's just into the microphone, right? And yeah, yeah. It's the virtual air. And if you're speaking, you can put your hand in front of your mouth. And as you're talking, you want to feel that beautiful hot air come out and flow out.
virtually air.
Sally Synced (17:24.822)
Like our windpipe is a garden hose. We don't want any kinks, any tension, just the air to flow out. I did singing lessons for four years and the teacher told me to stop coming because my pitch wasn't very good. So like, this is not a singing thing. When we down ourselves and we second guess and we feel a bit awkward, the air creeps back like this and we can somehow have a voice that's a bit croakier.
This is not a singing thing!
Maxene (17:50.626)
Mm-hmm.
It's not, hasn't got as much air in it and it's more strained.
Mm-hmm.
put the airflow back in and the warmth comes in. Second thing is to smile. Smiling while you're speaking adds so much beautiful warmth that it lightens, tightens and brightens the voice, I like to say. So light, and bright. Smile. And the most important thing is to not over-intellectualize what you're saying.
Because for our voice to sound authentic and be that organ of our soul, it needs to come from our body. The voice isn't in the throat and the head, it's in the body. It's from our solar plexus. It's where the diaphragm runs, which is sort of in the middle of our body, just below the brow, I like to say, you know, underneath the sternum there. And that's where that voice of authenticity comes from. When we think, well, I have to say the right thing and it needs to sound
Sally Synced (18:52.194)
this and I need to say that all of the energy gets pushed up into the neck and head and we get this kind of voice like this where we sound very nice and we sound very proper and we're going to do our first podcast and it's going to be amazing. But you can hear because of the position in the body it's not authentic because up in the head. So you imagine your voice like this beautiful channel that runs from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head and you want to be able to access all parts of that channel especially down lower.
Mm-hmm.
Sally Synced (19:21.11)
in that solar plexus, that sacral, that root chakra area where safety, sensuality, security, self-worth lives, where the organ of your soul lives. And when your voice comes from there, that's when you can get that sound of true authenticity.
Do you have any practical tips on how you can start speaking from that?
Yeah, absolutely. So you can put your hands on your upper abdomen or even around your waist. And as you breathe in, you want to imagine that the air is going into where your hands are. So you're breathing into your hands. If you're sitting down or even standing up, you can imagine that your buttocks are your lungs, right? So you're breathing into your buttocks, not out of them. That's an impression you'd rather not leave. So you're breathing into them. So it's really getting that air low.
And this can be challenging, especially with years of conditioning where it's like suck it in, sit up straight, you know, and you can see like if you want to look skinny in an Instagram photo or something, you know, you breathe nice and high, hold it in even Pilates, right? So if you do a lot of Pilates, you're often told to engage that core. For speaking, we want to relax that area, get the air nice and low. You know, we, hold so much fear and doubt in the body more than what the mind can even be aware of.
Mmm.
Sally Synced (20:40.458)
And I've definitely been in survival mode in parts of my life magazine. I'm sure you have as well, everyone listening, you know, you can feel when you're, just, your body is in constant survival mode and that whole area will tense. It will make it quite challenging for the air to go down there. So breathe nice and low. And then we're going to do an exercise called the angry librarian. So you're going to breathe out as though you're saying, shh, shh, shh, shh. And as you do that, you'll feel the diaphragm, that muscle push in towards your spine.
shh shh shh shh and that energy is nice and down low. So do a couple of those exercises and that will help the voice be down where it needs to be.
That's amazing. I heard someone once refer to our voice as an instrument and ever since then I just can't un-hear that because our bone structure, our diaphragm, the way that we position, smiling as you say, all of these things impact not only how we feel when we're speaking but also the sound of our voice as we're speaking.
100%. That's like my whole business. Absolutely. It's, it is an instrument. If we were in an orchestra, we'd be with the woodwinds. All instruments powered by air. So like any instrument, a guitar, our hand hitting the string is like our air hitting the vocal cords. And if you want to see something disgusting, can vote, can Google vocal cords while singing. It looks like something else.
Mmm.
Maxene (22:07.77)
yeah, actually, while we're on vocal chords, let's talk about vocal fry, because that is, I think probably more in the early 2000s was quite a trendy thing to have this like voice, know, Britney Spears, like the Kardashians, you know, but it's actually horrible for your voice. I remember at uni, our teachers like showed us a picture of what vocal fry actually looks like and my goodness. So how do you avoid that?
Yeah, my god. Yeah.
Maxene (22:37.272)
How do you look after your voice?
God bless life.
Sally Synced (22:44.14)
reason I don't love vocal fry is because of the damage it does to your voice physically. And it goes back to what I was talking about with airflow. So vocal fry, it of, sounds like bacon sizzling on a pan because there's not a lot of air going through there. It's just really like, it's, it's, yeah, it's throaty, but it's the airflow.
Mmm, it's very throat in the throat
Maxene (23:05.294)
Mm-hmm
So the way you do vocal fry is by kind of holding your breath a little bit like that, like you hold your breath and you don't breathe out while you're talking. Whereas we want the air to be flowing through like a beautiful fuel source as, as we're speaking. It's really common as well for vocal fry to creep onto the ends of sentences. So you'll start off nice and strong and then you'll finish like this. Or you'll be saying something really great. And then now I'm at the end. And
Mm-hmm.
Maxene (23:32.674)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
I work with reporters and that's so common where the vocal fray will creep in at the end. And some people will say, gosh, I haven't taken a big enough breath. And it's rarely that because our voice can sustain very long sentences. Normally it's because our brain is either already doubting what we've said before the whole sentence has left our mouth. Or because we're already thinking so much about the next thing we've taken the energy away from the sentence that we're on. So staying present with your words.
You know, don't want it to be in one ear and out the other. You want to imagine that your air is in one end of the sentence and out the other. So it's really, really sustained. This is where I do visualizations with, you know, a dart being thrown or a frisbee or like you're tossing something over a rainbow just to keep that energy flowing right through to the end because it is valuable. the more certainty we carry into the ends of our sentence, the more certainty the listener will feel.
Mmm.
Sally Synced (24:31.362)
when we speak. We certainly don't want to be doing this on every sentence. Like we're asking if it's okay every time we speak.
Another one similar to that is that last word stress where the last word of your sentence is the most emphasized.
Mm. Yeah.
think that, well first of all, yeah, that breathing obviously is a crucial part, but you also mentioned, you know, like having confidence in what you're saying or not thinking too hard about what you're gonna say next. So when you are voicing things, do you prefer to go off a script or do you prefer to kind of know what you're gonna say, have your talking points in front of you and kind of wing it to some extent?
Hmm. Yes. We don't really want to be winging anything. Uh, it depends. So things like this, I don't have notes written out for social media videos. Occasionally I will do a little script and that's just because you've got such a short attention span. You know, if you're scrolling and somebody's like, ah, okay. So just wanted to pop on and see, you know, and they're not really to the point straight away. You're going to keep scrolling. So I will sometimes write a loose script.
Maxene (25:40.387)
Mm-hmm.
Sally Synced (25:45.155)
to help me stay to topic, not go off on the tangent train.
Even with my podcasts, sometimes I will type it out loosely and that's a time saving thing because it makes the edit so much faster. You can do the whole thing in one go. It's a quick edit. The caveat is I have a lot of experience with scripts, you know, from being a reporter, from speech and drama, from everything I've done. So when I tell people I use a script, a lot of people are surprised. They're like, hang on. It doesn't sound like that because in the script, all right, yeah, you know, and.
yeah, also this just came to mind. Like I write different filler words and segues and nuances in the voice that you wouldn't write. If you don't do that, then you're going to sound robotic because if you're going directly off a script and not using any of the vocal nuances and phrases that we do in conversation, then it's going to sound unnatural because you're going to use a pace that you don't normally use.
Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Sally Synced (26:50.444)
words you might not normally use. You're not going to pause as naturally and you're not going to have any of those organic voice giveaways as I like to say the time when you go, someone's there. When I first started my business, I, this is about seven years ago. I did a webinar about
Might've been about breathing actually, come to think of it. I'm taking people through this exercise where you hang down like the rag doll in yoga and then you slowly build up your spine vertebrae bribe vertebrae bribe. And I could not for the life of me say vertebrae by vertebrae. Anyway, so I'm like, my gosh, I'm a speaking coach.
They're to think, I don't know what I'm talking about. This is so terrible. They're going to log off, ask for their money back. By the end of the day, the business is in ruins. I'm going to be on the street eating cat food out of a tin. Like it was like full catastrophizing. Someone comes off mute and was like, sorry, Sal, are you live?
Mmm.
Sally Synced (28:00.022)
Yes, hello. I'm here. And they said, you delivered it so perfectly. We thought it was a pre-record. We didn't know you were there. And they loved it. And it taught me such a great lesson. People don't want perfection. They want realness. Every time you would 100 % rather somebody made a little error or a little bit of something that
Wow.
Maxene (28:18.788)
Mmm. Yep.
Sally Synced (28:29.004)
in your mind wasn't perfect. Then the other way around. And this is one of those speaking stories that is so common and often it's from school, you know, where we're told that we have to speak slowly and speak correctly to get a good mark. And so then we speak, we're like, my gosh, I'm being tested. And unless everything is said perfectly, then we've done something wrong. And especially with the rise of AI, the chat GPTs and all of this.
Mm-hmm.
Maxene (28:51.214)
especially
Sally Synced (28:56.054)
We want to more than ever know that we are hearing your voice. More than ever. The AI is getting so good. It can, I've tried it. It moves your mouth in time with what you want to say with your voice. It's really crazy.
Yeah.
Maxene (29:04.366)
Mmm.
Maxene (29:10.135)
Wow.
So with that in mind, yeah, like, I'm sort of, know what I'm trying to say. Like I, I want to put these things in.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's something that I talk to a lot of my clients about who are maybe just starting on their podcast journey. And I know that when people aren't experienced with speaking and they're reading from a script, either it can like sound super robotic, or it can sound like it can can trip them up because if they read as they're reading it, if they get a word wrong,
they start to like kind of freak out and be like, oh shoot, like I need to start again. Whereas, so I kind of like to tell people like to have some talking points and know what you want to talk about and just go with the flow and go with where your voice wants to take you. So if people do stutter and stumble while they're speaking mid-sentence and they're struggling to recover,
Yeah, absolutely.
Maxene (30:18.734)
Do you have any tips on how to get through that and how to move on?
It totally depends on the context. So if you are recording a podcast, say for example, and you get the stumble gremlins and you're just like, I don't know, the more I try to get this sentence out, the less that it's coming out. Or if it's a pre-recorded video on social media and it's the same sort of thing, that's where I would say, put the microphone down, stand up, walk out of the room, walk out of the house, go and get yourself a cup of tea, know, change, reset the energy, reset the energy and come back to
yeah.
Sally Synced (30:53.748)
If you are in situation where there is no going to get a cup of tea, like it's alive. So it could be a.
live speech, I suppose live presentation. I'm even thinking in terms of podcast guesting, but most podcast guests, well, I know when I do my hosting and you've said the same thing, Maxine, if there was some kind of disaster, you'd just stop the recording and we'd just carry on. know, but here's what I'd say. So you're in the moment. You can't start again. You have to keep going. Like when I've been live on TV and there is no
Mm.
Sally Synced (31:33.518)
cutting, I had been on radio a couple of times and just hit the ads button. Which is like the, sorry, technical difficulties. When really it was like the Australian Open and I was just like stumbling so badly over all of the names and I was like panic. That only happened once and then I learnt my lesson.
Ha!
Maxene (31:47.936)
no.
This is where what it means is so important. So if I stumble, that means what? And if you start going down that path of that means I'm terrible. That means I don't know what I'm talking about. That means that they'll think that I don't know what I'm talking about and I'm not competent. Then that will trip you up further. If you go, okay, if I, so it's swapping the what if for the if I, so rather than what if I stumble, so if I stumble.
Yeah.
Sally Synced (32:20.514)
That's fine. I will go to the next slide, carry on, get a drink of water, make a joke about it. Like it's, it's really what it means to you. If you can make it mean nothing, then you'll continue. means you're human. It means you're not AI. It means you're live in the room. It means you're so passionate about something. You're getting a little bit quick. It means I need to take a pause. And then when I take a pause, what does that mean? It doesn't mean it's awkward.
Yeah.
Maxene (32:44.622)
Mm.
Sally Synced (32:49.688)
doesn't mean I've lost my place. It means I'm gifting the audience this beautiful opportunity for them to breathe in my ideas. I'm allowing myself to breathe in. So this is the thing, the whole thing is, is a story of what something means. I've got an exercise called this means that, and ask my clients to fill it out. A pounding heart before speaking means blank. And this is where I learn where people are at.
Mmm, yeah.
Sally Synced (33:18.146)
So if you're interested, I've actually got part of it in the book, which is coming out later in the year, but this is what we do. And so if they say, my gosh, it means I'm so nervous and I'm going to stuff it up. Okay. Right. We need to change that. A pounding heart before speaking means I'm alive. Like it's a lot better than no heartbeat at all. It's great. People are like, Sally, don't you get nervous? I love getting nervous. To me, nerves are energy. If I don't have energy to give my audience, I have not got a gift to give them.
Mm.
You
Maxene (33:49.005)
Yeah.
Nerves are amazing. Who said nerves were a bad thing?
Mm. Yeah, totally. I love that reframing. And I love that it's gonna be in your book, which is coming out November, isn't it?
It is, it's coming out November 25th. Pre-sale will be available a couple of months before that too.
very exciting, we'll pop the link down in the show notes so you can make sure that you are in it because you don't want to miss out on what's going to be an amazing book, I'm sure. Now you also talk about the three B's that you can do when you're starting off. To start off on the right foot before you push record, can you talk me through what these three B's are and how they can help people get started with confidence?
Sally Synced (34:31.256)
Yes. My favorite topic. Your sound is sabotaged or supported before it's even made. So you're sabotaging your sound or supporting your sound before you even start talking. So much of it happens in the background and all of these three B's are there. We've spoken a lot about one of those B's. The first one is actually all of them. The first one is belief. Belief. So your beliefs will drive your thoughts.
is actually all of them the first one is belief. Belief so you're
Sally Synced (35:00.174)
Your thoughts drive your words. It's like the Gandhi quote, the words drive your actions, you know, it's all linked. So the first thing you need to do is give yourself a little pep talk inside. I've got this, I can do this. People want to listen to me look in the mirror, say you and me, we're going to slay the day. Today I choose an ally and not an enemy. So it's really like getting yourself in that frame of mind, do what you need to do. Listen to the music you need to listen to, know, wear the sexy underwear. I don't know, whatever, whatever you need to do.
Love it.
Sally Synced (35:29.334)
to just get yourself in that yes queen kind of feeling. The second B is body. We talked about this as well. Maxine, this is bringing the whole thing full circle perfectly. It's not in our head. Our voice lives in our body. And so for us to really harness that energy, we need to be in our body. So you do a body scan, you feel your feet, you rub your thighs, you squeeze your buttocks. That's a good one because it's a big muscle group, but people can't really tell if you're doing it. And then
You go up, you twist through the middle, you're rolling your shoulders, you're stretching your arms like you're about to go out and run some sort of athletic event, you know, so really getting into your body. And that's why I mentioned if you're getting snagged on the stumbling, get up and move. It's also like your teacher how they said, walk around the house narrating because when your when your body moves, your voice will move.
Mmm.
Maxene (36:19.182)
Mmm.
Sally Synced (36:25.996)
This is why everyone can relate to this, how great they could, it feels talking to their friend or their mom or someone walking around on the headphones. Like it's so much easier than being stuck to one place. Yeah. So it's moving that body. Yes. Then the third B is the breath.
Yeah.
Sally Synced (36:45.422)
getting that beautiful oxygen in oxygen fuels our voice and breathing in is also known as inspiration. So if we want to inspire others, we must first inspire ourselves. So see how we haven't even hit those vocal cords.
Believe in yourself, get in touch with your body and fuel your voice with beautiful breath. And that is the foundation you need for any speaking scenario to make sure that you go forward. Best voice first.
Yes, love it. So say you have a voicing, maybe a speaking gig. Let's just say you have a speaking gig tonight. Run me through how your day is going.
Well, the speaking gig, when it starts, imagine that is the aeroplane taking off, right? That's departure time. So you wouldn't get to the airport at departure time. If you're even cutting it a bit fine, I don't know if anyone's been like this with the airport, but it's like, it's hectic, trying to get through. It's much more calm if you've got time. So you're going to backtrack your day just like a flight.
I'm sorry.
Maxene (37:50.638)
Mm-hmm.
So things like, it's, it depends on how important this gig is. If it's a big gig, don't schedule things during the day. You know, I've heard people who had to speak at an event, but they've had a client up until right before they had to leave. I'm like, what are you doing? Or big executives I work with, they've got to present to the board and they have people filling out their calendar right until their board meeting time. Imagine it's travel time. If you had to get to that airport, no one's booking in that time in your calendar.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Sally Synced (38:22.912)
And if you're ever feeling like this is a bit over the top, Tony Robbins, his preparation is about eight hours. Starts with cold plunging, hot plunging, voice warmups, jumping on the tramp, this and that. So you work out what it is for you. And that involves what are you drinking? What are you eating? You know, timing your eating. Cause you know how people say, I can't, I can't eat before I speak. Well,
Mm-hmm.
Sally Synced (38:49.494)
Yeah, you might not be able to eat like three hours before you speak, if you are speaking at night and you haven't eaten all day, you're to pass out. So it's like, it's timing the eating. is timing your movement, really try to get a workout or a walk in. And the content preparation comes early, but right before it, you do not want to be looking over your notes. That is telling yourself that you don't know your content.
Mm.
Sally Synced (39:15.49)
And it is taking away the trust in yourself. So confidence means trust. Confidence means to trust. And right before we go on, we want to prepare our energy and our voice, not our content, because we know our content. We trust that we've done that preparation. And that's why right before it, it's like the three B's. The belief, the body, the breath, the voice, the energy, because your energy will always speak louder than your words. And we've seen this play out.
Mm.
Maxene (39:33.729)
Yes.
Sally Synced (39:42.966)
Some, you you've practiced and prepared and gone over a million times and got up there and it's frozen and flopped and it's just been a bit of a disaster. All those people that just waltz on in no preparation time, they razzle and dazzle. Everyone thinks they've just shared the best ideas since sliced bread and you go, how on earth did they do it? I'll tell you, it's not a secret. It's because they know how to prepare their energy.
you
Maxene (40:00.716)
Mm.
Maxene (40:06.124)
Totally.
So their preparation is focused in the right direction.
Totally. And I guess also bringing it back to our voice being that instrument and that diaphragm being one of those key role players in breathing and speaking. How can we prepare and look after our diaphragm before we go and speak?
exactly the exercise we did before, the angry librarian. So it's getting the air down there and it's just engaging it. So shh, shh, shh, or ha, ha, ha. It's feeling it down there. It's mainly the breath. You'll find that if you're feeling nervous and anxious, like there's lots of different breathing exercises you can do. I'm running a call in my community on breathing this month. I know with the recording time, it might be in the past, but it's really important to do these exercises.
Yes.
Maxene (40:42.623)
Yes.
Sally Synced (41:01.642)
often just remembering to breathe is the best thing you can do. So don't worry about, my gosh, is it four in, four out, this, that, just getting that breath low is really going to help. And also if you are someone that gets a pounding heart, so I often get a pounding heart, bringing a bit of air into the chest can also be quite helpful. So I stretch out my arms like a butterfly.
Mm.
Sally Synced (41:28.93)
Breathe into my chest. gosh, I'm wearing a button up shirt right now. Hope I don't. my gosh, that has happened to me once. I wore a shirt, did a big gesture. The button popped out, almost took someone's eye out in the front row. This is what I mean by all the things that have gone wrong. Once I was lip syncing into my hairbrush doing this, like I do pretty crazy presentations.
Your mic's in the way, it's perfect.
Maxene (41:41.548)
Thank you, Lord.
Sally Synced (41:51.086)
through the hairbrush dramatically off to the side stage, it hit my laptop, knocked my laptop off the stand and completely cut the music and cut the presentation.
Sally Synced (42:02.91)
God. yeah. So it's just, it goes back to getting that energy into the body before you speak and doing a speech warm up. This is something we haven't spoken about as well. So you want to warm up, especially in Australia and New Zealand, our jaws are quite tight. You know, Hey mate, how you going? What have you been doing? I'm surprised we haven't got more ventriloquists from Australia and New Zealand because we don't open our jaws. So we really want to do that. So massaging your jaw or it hinges to your skull and going like,
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Maxene (42:17.035)
Mm-hmm.
Maxene (42:22.868)
Yeah
Sally Synced (42:32.854)
and warming up your lips. So a little...
Kids love this sort of thing as well. So.
Yeah, well my five month old is doing that already so he's gonna be a pro speaker, I know it.
I love that. And babies do this because that's their way of strengthening their organs of speech. And if you are listening to this, I have my own podcast and there is an episode called the ultimate voice warmup. So if you're interested, just get in touch and I'm sure we're able to share that link.
Mmm.
Maxene (43:01.708)
Brilliant, we'll pop that link in the show notes as well because I'm sure that will be super helpful Another thing that is an obstacle for a lot of people is feeling like they sound too boring or too monotone or too scripted and I guess this comes back down to that knowing your content and breathing but voice can also be such a powerful tool to share emotion when you're speaking. So do you have any tips on how you can
be emotive and take your listeners through like an emotional journey.
Absolutely. It is so much more than just being prepared and breathing. And if we focus too much on that content, we strip away that emotion. Our voice is this powerful emotional channel where you can heal your own blocks. This is why I a lot of work through, you know, chakra clearing and that kind of work. Because when we speak, we heal ourselves and we also heal others because we're sharing that emotion.
Yeah.
Sally Synced (44:07.958)
Yes, we do not want to get on the train to monotone town where everything is the same pitch and the same pace and we're saying the right words, but we're putting people absolutely to sleep. And this is also out of alignment. want our voice to match the meaning of what we're saying. I remember working with school leaders and the sports captain stood up and said, I would be an excellent sports captain because I am extremely motivating.
You know, it's like, the, yeah. And this is the, is really important for business communication and also in corporate, because if you've got a leader saying, you know, I really believe in everyone, we can do this. know you can do it. It doesn't sound like they believe that because of where it is in the voice. So we want our voice to match the emotion. That's how we can bring the emotion through. And we do that by changing our pitch.
Yeah. You sound it, mate.
Sally Synced (45:08.696)
So high, low. So again, not singing, but you need to be able to go one, two, three, three, two, one.
Sally Synced (45:19.16)
I'm not sure how detailed we want to go into again. This is, this is in the book, but if you imagine you've got like your head, your heart and your solar plexus or your gut, your head, your heart and your gut. And if you use your head on the things that you want people to think about, like, let's think about this. I've got an idea. Thoughts up there. I'm also, sky high rain vision, you know, like the words will tell guide us. The words guide us what we want to say. That's all up here.
Mm.
Then we go to our heart and we want people to feel something. And this is where our passion lives. This is the heart center. So if we care about something, we talk about it here. And then if we want people to do something, that call to action, we go even lower into our solar plexus. You you've got this, you can do this. And also low is like, you know, deep down the details decrease. And then you use them all to match. you might say,
Yeah.
Sally Synced (46:15.22)
I'm really keen to get your ideas because I care about what you think and I believe that we can make this happen.
Yeah, that's, that's, I haven't heard of it that put that way before. And I think that that's actually so true. And I think also our body language and our facial expressions, cause I could see as you were, as you were like talking through those different emotions, your, body language and your facial expressions changed as well to match that. Would you know if people are listening through to a podcast and not necessarily watching, they're not going to see what
body language or facial expressions you have, but they can hear it in your voice.
Absolutely. He's a thing. can't separate it. If you want to be integrated and aligned, it all works. I know that people are listening, but I would not be able to get this sound in my voice without moving my hands, moving my face. It's all one. It all is this beautiful aligned, authentic message. You know, I had one client who she was concerned about her crow's feet, like her wrinkles. And so she was just like,
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Sally Synced (47:23.756)
didn't want to make any facial expressions because she's like, no, it doesn't look right. And it's like, well.
no.
Sally Synced (47:31.31)
This is another example of these little things in our mind that prevent us being as closely aligned to our voice as we need to. know, pitch is one of the expressions. We've also got pace. I find that people are afraid to change their pace and we get into this speaking situation that's like a metronome. And it's partly because in school we were taught that speaking slow is good.
Speaking fast is only a problem if people can't understand you. So if your articulation is really good, you can use pace to sound excited. You know, if I'm really keen to share something with you, I'm going to speed up. If I'm sharing with you about one of my favorite animals, the sloth, three meters a day, a sloth moves three meters a day. True story. And it's...
Mmm.
Maxene (48:21.886)
Mmm, yeah.
Something that would not work if I was like, the sloth moves three meters a day. You'd be like, hang on, no, it doesn't sound very slow. So you're trying to match it and same with volume. If I'm to tell you a secret. And this is really good for podcasting because the microphones are so sensitive. So if you want it, podcasting is already very intimate. You know, you're in people's ears and you're in their homes. If you want to get even more close, you can go quieter. And then you can contrast this with, Oh my gosh, I have an announcement today.
Yeah.
Maxene (48:32.598)
Mm-hmm.
Maxene (48:49.868)
Yeah.
Sally Synced (48:55.234)
Just make sure you bring your voice back from the microphone, otherwise you're going to get some sort of crazy level shift.
Yes. Let's bring microphone technique back into that one. Absolutely. I think also another good one is silence. Now my background is radio and radio folk are definitely scared of using silence because it can be like dead air. You don't want anyone tuning on. But it can also be such a powerful tool. So can you talk me through how you can use silence in a storytelling context and do it wisely?
Dead air is the devil. Yeah, yeah
Sally Synced (49:28.12)
Yes. Here's the thing with radio, Maxine, we can, we are on the same page here. It was drilled into us because if people hear silence, the first thing they do is change the station. But with podcasting, there has to be a pretty.
Exactly, exactly that.
Sally Synced (49:45.518)
a length of time for the person to even go and look at their phone and wonder what happened.
Is it still going? Like, did I push pause?
No, I'm still here.
Yes, you're on. Okay, we're still going.
Good. It's very ironic that that happened while we're speaking about pausing. with a podcast.
Maxene (50:05.727)
no, I was joking. I was joking, I was going along with it.
my gosh. my gosh, Maxine. I absolutely love that. And I was completely just not in the...
So funny. That's so good. okay. Yeah. Miss that one just flew straight over my blonde head. Okay. So without pausing, we can do it. I'll share with you a little technique. I don't know how many legally blonde fans we have out there, but forget the bend and snap. Meet the tease and land. This is what I would say. Right? So the tease and land is a way that we can use pause to keep our audience waiting.
yeah.
Sally Synced (50:49.87)
for what I call the mic drop. So it's like we tease it and we land it. And so we want to sort of keep our reveal for the end of the sentence. And you don't want to it over and over because like anything, if it's done too much, it loses its effect.
Mm-hmm.
Sally Synced (51:06.168)
But if I want to share with you the most important thing to remember when it comes to your voice.
Sally Synced (51:14.301)
one thing for you to take away.
Sally Synced (51:19.63)
It'll be this.
Sally Synced (51:24.192)
Your voice matters. Now I'm just sort using that to show you the technique. So it didn't really need to be, but it is true. Your voice matters. But you see how I kept the rising inflection and I held rising inflection held. So people are waiting going, what, what is it? Tell me.
Mmm.
and then drop the mic at the bottom.
You have your audience shaking with anticipation.
Yes, that is exactly right. So, tease land and holding that pause a little bit longer than you feel comfortable. Here's the thing, a lot of people, a big piece of work I do is the relationship with the pause. And a lot of people say, well, Sal, the quicker I get through it, the quicker I can get off. And if I stop, I freak out, you know, but if you can hold that pause on a pod...
Maxene (51:54.732)
Tees Inland.
Maxene (52:05.356)
Mm.
Sally Synced (52:16.046)
past or in front of people and remembering that you're only holding your voice, you're keeping that energy. People are with you and you can get that connection in the silence. Silence is golden. Love it.
Mm.
Maxene (52:28.68)
Absolutely and you know what if it is a five minute pause you can edit that down in post
100%. I'm, I'm, I leave lots of pauses in my podcasts. Sometimes when I'm thinking about what to say next, sometimes I'm just having a very dramatic pause and I listened back in the edit and even myself, I go, Ooh, that's a little bit too long. And so yeah, you can always cut it out.
And then the opposite effect as well, if you are talking too fast or move on too fast, you can edit a pause in as well. It's the beauty of podcasting.
Absolutely.
Now while we're on podcast, talk me through your journey of your podcast. Like, did you have any challenges along the way of starting to create your podcast?
Sally Synced (53:14.338)
Well, not really. And the reason I say not really is because it's actually pretty easy. And I run what I call a very low drag podcast in that I have a system similar to yours where I can have the guest and my audio separate, which helps me in the edit. It means if somebody coughs or we speak over each other or something, you can, you can.
Mm.
edit which makes it easier. And then I just made the tile in Canva.
And then I just planned out the first five episodes and then I just started posting and started putting it out. And if the question was, have I learned a lot of things during the podcasting process? Definitely around the types of content, the, my interview technique, the, the titles, you you learn all these things, but I feel like it's something you can only learn by doing. But you have to just start putting it out there.
Love it.
Maxene (54:14.25)
Yeah.
Maxene (54:18.216)
Yeah, absolutely. And on interview technique, used to be in radio and TV news. Has your interview technique changed from journalism interviewing to podcast interviewing?
Sally Synced (54:34.254)
It's a bit of a different style. don't, I wouldn't grill my podcast guests as much as I'd grill people when I was in the news. Fair enough. Cause they're doing me a favor by coming on. Journalism really taught me the power of open questions.
I'm like, real people, not you.
Sally Synced (54:50.988)
You know, tell me more about that. So what happened next?
Mm.
Sally Synced (54:57.314)
And where did that come from? And what made you do that? Like, so really open questions can be really great in podcasts because you get the person talking. And so that's definitely something that I've taken away.
Yeah, absolutely. Open questions and knowing when to listen and take the lead of your guest as well. think that's another really important one. I remember in my radio career one time we were interviewing these big American rappers that came to New Zealand and it was their first time here. And we interviewed them.
I believe after the gig had performed and they dropped a really cool bomb which they were releasing a new album and we didn't know this. This was the first time we were hearing about this and I was producing this interview and my colleague, my friend who was conducting the interview, unfortunately she had her, what's my next question, what's my next question on
She was in that sort of mode rather than into actual listening mode. And so she like let it fly. And it just really reminded me the importance of actually engaging in the conversation and going where the conversation leads you and not necessarily.
Yeah. What a great example. What a great story of the dangers of being too rigid. You know, I always say with anything speaking, especially podcast interviewing is you prepare in the masculine and you deliver in the feminine. So you prepare your structure and your outline and your parameters. But then when you're delivering, you need to be fluid.
Maxene (56:42.625)
Yeah.
So it's like you build the house and then be the butterfly that flies within. Because if you deliver too rigid stuff like this happens, you lose moments of gold. As soon as you true up the tiniest part, you're off kilter and, and lost. So yeah, really good story.
Yeah.
What has podcasting taught you about your own voice?
Sally Synced (57:06.958)
For me, it's that I need to verbalize my ideas and thoughts in order to clarify them in my own head.
Mmm.
So my podcast has been such a great way to clarify my own approach and thoughts and feelings and understanding of the world.
And that's why I feel like I would continue to do it. And I do continue to do it.
Even without having a massive audience, you know, I hear some people, maybe you do as well, maxine people going, well, I want to monetize it. I want to monetize. want to get this big podcast and I want to be really popular. Sure. If that's your, that's a great goal. Go for it. But there are so many other advantages to sharing your voice and. And putting it out there on the podcast waves and also being able to meet people. You know, a lot of people, and you can, I speak for myself here as well.
Sally Synced (58:05.996)
I'm not going to just have a random catch up with everyone, but if somebody says, I've got this podcast, I'd like you to come on. Then I'm more likely to say yes. And so I've been able to reach out to people I've wanted to meet and get to know and be able to say, would you to on my podcast? and be able to create connections with people that I would otherwise not have been able to meet. So podcasting is a fantastic, powerful networking tool.
Mm.
Maxene (58:32.256)
Yeah.
And I think that's something not a lot of people talk about.
It is absolutely. also on that, like with, with people saying, I just need so many downloads so I can monetize it. The thing is with podcasts is that because it's so intimate, we're right in their ears. We're creating a one-on-one relationship with their listener as well. And so our audience is so trusting of us. If they're going to come back and listen to more episodes, they trust us to give them what they're here for.
And so when you're building that relationship and you're building that community with your audience, as well as with guests and networking, you've got this powerful little hub that you've created. And, you know, it's not necessarily about the numbers. There are other success metrics that you should be looking at, like how many connections have I made and how engaged is my audience?
Mmm.
Sally Synced (59:28.206)
Absolutely. And also how you can use the content. So in my business, I sort of have the podcast as the hero content and out of that comes my LinkedIn newsletter. My, I have a podcast page as well. So lots of social content comes out of that. I also do a little blog that comes out of the episode as well. So that's a really great way that the podcast can be repurposed and then every other bit of content can lead back to the podcast and.
It's our own channel, like, like your email list, your podcast, it's ours. know, Instagram could be gone. TikTok could be gone. LinkedIn could be gone. Whereas podcasting platform is yours and it's, it's a very powerful thing to have.
Mm-hmm.
Maxene (01:00:11.126)
Yeah.
Maxene (01:00:14.964)
Yeah, absolutely. So what advice would you give someone who's thinking about starting a podcast?
do it. Like, like do it honestly, what is holding you back? I've had somebody say to me, well, I want to start a podcast, but I'm a bit worried about my voice. I'm going to get voice lessons first. And I say, no, I am not in the business of enabling your own blocks. I'm not. I said, I said, okay, great. Come back to me when you can send me your first episode to listen to, you know, and she'll be like, Oh no, no, no. I want the voice lessons. And I say, I am very selective with who I work with.
Love it.
Sally Synced (01:00:54.092)
I am very clear on what my role is and I am not going to be another excuse for why somebody doesn't do something. Maybe you're listening to this going out, she's getting into like the tough love kind of area, but it's true. Are you somebody, if you are constantly finding reasons for why you can't, I need microphone, I need this, I need that. You don't.
A friend of mine who ran one of the most listened to podcasts, it was actually sponsored by radio network Nova over here. She interviewed me on my front table in my living room full of hard surfaces with her iPhone on the table between us. Now the audio person inside me is like, Ooh, should we move into like at least the bedroom or something with soft furnishings? But it doesn't matter.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Sally Synced (01:01:45.752)
Do know what I mean? So if you are finding reasons, there are no reasons. If it is, if you technically are going, look, I do not know what to use, then Maxine, I'm sure you're able to give information. There are other people who can tell help. Honestly, if you jump in my DMS and ask, I can send you what we use. It's not, it's not hard. And the only thing holding you back is yourself.
Yeah, 100%. I totally agree. The main things that I hear, I really want to start a podcast, but I just don't know if I can listen back to myself. I just hate the sound of my own voice. Like that is one of the biggest blocks that's starting people from stopping people from podcasting. And like you say, like our phones actually have such good technology these days. Obviously as an audio nerd, it's not.
the best thing that you could be recording on your phone. But it's actually pretty decent and you can get away with quite a bit recording on your phone. So if it's technology that's blocking you, there are so many things that you can do that's free and really accessible. But if you just can get over that first hurdle and just get started, you know, that is, you can improve, you can upgrade as you go. But if you can just get started, that is, I think, really key.
It's so key. you know, how can you expect your voice to have influence if you don't feel like your voice has influence? Like if you don't love your voice, you know, can't listen to my voice. Well, if you can't listen to your voice, then how are you then wanting other people to listen to your voice? You know, the top five regrets of the dying, which is a great book by Bronnie Ware. She shares, she interviewed hundreds of people on their deathbed and asked what they regretted. And the number three top regret was I wish I had the courage to express myself.
Mmm.
Maxene (01:03:31.723)
Wow.
The first one was I wish I'd lived a life true to me, not what other people expected of me. So that's kind of with this as well. Number two was I wish I hadn't worked so hard, but number three is I wish I had the courage to express myself. You know, you're not going to be there going, I really hate that I started that podcast because I had to listen to my awful voice being like spoken back to me. And it was a really terrible traumatic experience. Like, you know, it's sort of, you know, if these blocks are holding you back.
Yeah.
Sally Synced (01:04:02.178)
Find someone. This is the coaching I do. I sort of see myself as the, the, you are the most amazing website. I'm like a plugin just helping you release the voice, clear that blockage, express what you're here to express. Because how much longer, how many more days, how many more weeks, how many more years are you going to have these stories that stop the world hearing what you want to share? That's going to stop the people you can help accessing.
Yeah.
Sally Synced (01:04:32.266)
message you have, where you're going to stop yourself from having freedom and income and leaving that job or leaving that person or setting an example for your kids. Because this is what it's all about. It's about using your voice for those moments that really matter. You know, there are people who don't like the sound of their voice. And when they die, their family has no voice messages from them or no recordings of them. Because of that.
Yeah.
Maxene (01:05:01.333)
Yeah.
And I've been in that situation. You know, so.
Sally Synced (01:05:08.11)
If you won't use your voice for yourself, use your voice for others.
Yeah. Yeah.
You've got that gift to leave behind.
So, so important, such an important reminder. And honestly, I think, you know, we've all got stories that are worth sharing. And if that is something that's preventing you like, maybe like, does anyone even want to listen to me? Like, you know, we've all got these self beliefs that can be holding us back. But we've, I think it's easier said than done sometimes to be like just
do it, you just need to take that first step and just do it, you're not going to regret it. But sometimes I think that's what it is as well, you need to just get into action.
Sally Synced (01:05:57.294)
Yeah, you need to get, you need to get some perspective. There's that song I used to love where it goes, if the world was ending, you'd come over, right? I don't know if you know that song, but it's like, if the world was ending, if somebody had a gun to your head, if somebody was threatening your children, you would stand up on that microphone and you'd give the best speech you've ever given. You would. You know, self doubt. This is why I say for Australia and New Zealand, especially self doubt is a privilege. Self doubt is a privilege.
Generally people can have employment and they can live their lives while hating their voice and being scared of speaking and not doing what they say they're going to do. In many parts of America, people say, oh, Americans are so confident. I've, tell you why it's survival. If you were in America and you don't go in there and you don't sell yourself and you don't share like what you have to offer. Oh, I'm getting emotional with this because it's, I see it. You don't have a job. You don't get employed.
It's speaking for survival.
Mm.
You know, so it's like in parts of the world, they would just wish they had the internet and they wish they had social and they wish that it was legal to use their voice. There are parts of the world where it is not legal for a woman to share her voice.
Maxene (01:07:13.836)
Mm.
Sally Synced (01:07:19.182)
How's that for a wake up call? You know? So this is how I think, if I have an opportunity to share my message and I have the technology and the privilege to be able to do it, then God damn it, I am gonna do it. I am gonna get to my little soul council when I die and I'm gonna say, guys, I did it. I went for it.
Yeah. Yeah.
Maxene (01:07:32.012)
Mmm.
Maxene (01:07:42.034)
Yes. We're in there with the tough love today. just I love it. just need to... Anyway, before we wrap up, tell me about your new book coming out, Voice Print. What inspired it?
well, so much of what we've spoken about today shares the story of why I do it. We have a fingerprint, we have a handprint. You also have a voice print. It's this invisible mark you leave on the world every time you speak. And the goal with the book is for people to value their voice and know that it matters. And we've spoken a bit today and a lot of the time, the focus is on the negative of, you know, what?
Yeah.
Maxene (01:08:21.409)
Yeah.
Sally Synced (01:08:29.742)
was that thing that happened in my life that, that stopped my voice. What was that relationship that, you know, made me go into my shell in the voice, like in the voice print book, I call for people to share their find my voice moment. You know, what was that positive moment where you did speak up, where you did step forward, where you did post the video and then share lots of beautiful techniques for how you can have that impact. Like the teas and land.
Mmm.
Sally Synced (01:08:58.806)
like those different parts of the body that we spoke about. And then it finishes up with this rallying call to leave your vocal legacy. Because when we speak, it's not just speaking for us, it's speaking for those before us, it's speaking for those after us.
Yeah.
Sally Synced (01:09:16.138)
And when we can put our voice forward and change not only our own lives, but the lives of those around us, it is such a powerful thing. So you have to read this book.
Absolutely. The link will be in the show notes. It's coming out November 25th, did you say?
sure is and Presale will be open before that.
Amazing. my goodness. I cannot wait to get my hands on it. Thank you so much for joining me today, Sally. It's been such an insightful conversation, which I'm sure is going to help so many people embrace their voice or at least start the journey and get on that road where they can feel confident in their voice.
Thanks so much for having me.
Maxene (01:10:00.948)
Thank you.