Little format and how to speak with clarity and intention to set yourself apart with communication and after this, you guys will all be able to judge how I'm doing all those things and I hope our Speaker will actually judge me as well but to help us with this transition. I want you to have the chance to hear from someone who is a sought after teacher, a voice and speech and public presentation. Thank you for joining me today, Gina Rizzo, founder and CEO of Grove Voice a functional Voice. Speech consultant and also a classically trained singer which we will not ask to sing on the during this session, but maybe another time and degrees in boys performance when the University of Colorado and the University of Denver, Gina will share her knowledge and expertise on voice using digital formats and how to create authority virtually if you have any questions during our conversation, please use the chat feature or comment on our Facebook live video and we will get to your questions as soon as we can. if you are on Zoom just raise your hand because you will be muted and we will unused. in order for you to ask your question, so with that, I'm really excited to get into this Gina. please thanks for coming just tell us a little bit about yourself about your company grow voice your background being an opera singer and how long you've been in this line of work. Thank you so much for having me Ben. I really pleased to be able to come and speak with you and your constituency here on Facebook and over zoom grow voice is a company that's been around for about 17 years. Now it started as a voice studio in Colorado when I graduated from College. This is what I did, I taught singing to many people and at that same time concurrently, I was working as professional opera singer so the bulk of my impact in the world is on the stages of some of the most of fun reaches here in the United States and I was able to connect with people in a very real way with this operatic soundwave, which is the most ridiculous wonderful thing you've ever heard in terms of growth void. I transplanted my business to Boston six years ago and have been building it back up here with wonderful success. Thank you, Boston and now the voice studio features not just singers but mostly speakers and speakers and lots of different types of work. So what we do is make sure that people are connecting with how their voice optimally works in and how we can make sure that the communication actually is ending flu in professional development and making sure that point gets across in a. Impactful way I love it. I love it and before we get into talking about actually advice on people changing how they're speaking and I also want you to be very critical of my own voice and we'll let the viewers right away. Hear what your preliminary thoughts are. Let's just talk about your own business. I mean this is a difficult time for small businesses and you have a small business yourself so how much of the last few weeks really impacted your business? What is change? What have you been able to continue take us through that so one of the things that a lot of people who work in a coaching type environment have probably realized, is that the one -on- one environment can't happen right now and a lot of what I teach is physical alignment and how breathing is connecting in the body, and all of that tends to happen really easily one on one which completely dropped off. so all of those one -on- one clients that were already Proceeding with me online, so it's curve with having them adjust to how to do for themselves physically what I used to gently do with them in the studio, but also there's a lot of change in terms of how corporate clients are seeing me. Some of my corporate clients are putting this type of thing on hold and others are saying no no really we need more. So it's I think a change in paradigm to learn how to speak to people about what needs to happen virtually and why this is not one of the things that they can neglect at this particular point in time. Makes a lot of sense and what are you seeing that people are asking for the most that's different than it was before your clients. I mean, obviously how to speak in a virtual format, but you know going in a little deeper. What is it that you're is their biggest need under these type of formats well, Interestingly, people are still wanting to connect with each other, but now they have the hurdle of speaking over Zoom is one way only one person can be making sound at a time. How do you make sure for the voice that's being paid attention to in that moment? How do you make sure that your voice is coming through it all. Some people who had come to me because they were feeling invisible at work now, they're feeling as if they don't exist at all much less than visibility. they feel non existence in terms of how their voice and their presence is entering a space. We have a lot of nonverbal communication things that we counted on and I don't think people understood how much of it was going on until it was gone in this virtual environment. I think that's so important. I do I see it with myself too right. is there a virtual Physical queues I might use or physical things I might even do myself. So how are you getting people through that now that you actually have to coach them one on one through Zoom and on a virtual format yourself? What if you change in your own, coaching and consulting piece? Yeah. So it's made me more specific. I have to be more clear more clear with words, I have to be more clear with what examples I used and also I have to slow. A little bit in terms of giving people time to receive what I just said, and making sure that the adjustments are happening on their side. so there's a little bit more of space that is required in this environment and also I have to make sure that I train people on how this act works so that I can tell you where is the microphone on your computer? Where is the camera? How are you interacting with that and that I use those same tools so that they can see the effect. Doing that with speaking about space and I I said this to you right before we got on your space is so amazing. When I look behind you and I see a picture or I think it's a wonder woman and then also is it a violin or Viola. I think it's a violent actually to be all that is really awesome with the brick Wall and it makes me think about me stuck in the basement in the corner and an open room because my four kids are running around that I really need to work on my own space. what are you? what are you most worried about in the next few weeks or going forward now, both with your individual clients and with your business in general, well, they're they're related and two separate things with the business. I'm I'm hoping that things come to a new normal where people understand that virtual is where we're going to be for a while and that they embrace this new environment and try to interact with it in terms of what I fear for my clients I this. Of environment is not conducive for lots of physicality. We're all we were all sitting too much before and now it's gone on hyperdrive. We are just constantly sitting down so one of the things that that leads to is just a little bit of muscular weakness a little bit of muscular atrophy around movement and our bodies are the vehicle for the voice if the body isn't limber. if it's not connected the breathing isn't efficient and breathing is the whole ball game. If you're breathing isn't online, your voice isn't doing in the room. what you would like it to do so what I'm seeing already is people with little neck injuries like oh, I have a pain in my neck. My voice is cutting in and out I sound drastic. I feel like my I do. I have the virus my my lungs feel like they're not doing a thing and for the most part, these are healthy people. It's just at their bodies are responding to this kind of lack of mobility. Love it and we're gonna get into that. I have one more question about your business first, but this whole idea breathing you now have me thinking about my own breathing. Why I'm talking to you. I'm not sure I love my own breathing right now, but we'll get into that a little bit let's end with this last question before we transition into giving people some real practical tools, which is what lessons have you learned during this time with running your business that when we finally get back to normal operation, whatever that may be that you'll take to that. Be a more effective and successful business woman. I think that I in particular had thought that my business was a very niche thing only people who are in a certain level of management or a certain level of corporate life who really need to present to really need to impact the room who really need influence those people are my clientele. You know people who are in these professional settings and I think what's changed is as I'm doing more Facebook live myself and connecting with more people who perhaps would never have sought out voice coach and they're showing me how much of an impact this is. For them, how much getting their breath lined up to just speak to their kids to speak to their wife to speak to their family in this environment, how much that is improving their quality of life. So I think it's changed for me. My thoughts about what my role is as a functional voice coach. I love that and who your audience is right. I mean, we're all trying to figure out every business needs to figure out who's their audience and that changes all over time. So I love that and I love how honest you are in your answer. To that, so let's let let's now try to help our audience because I personally this is one of the most exciting sessions going in because many of us are on Zoom. We're on different platforms all day long and we're all looking for that competitive advantage across the board. How do we how are we gonna be more clear and with clarity and concise? How are we gonna have more authority in our voice so that I'm really excited for this next part. So Gina tell us what what? Are the differences for people when they're presenting in person versus now, presenting virtually other than obviously we're now doing it like this through zoom, But what are some of those general differences for that when they're presenting and also for just participating in meetings, Absolutely. So the first thing is to realize that there is a very fundamental difference between communicating in person and communicating digitally this format of going through a digital input that then has to process and come out of somebody else's device is very different. I'm in the room with someone and the difference there is that we are always communicating verbally and suburban at the same time. So if you're in the room with me when I take a really good breath and I send out my sound wave you hear me, but you also feel me it's on your skin. It's in your sensory background. Your brain is wired to understand interaction in person in a very specific way, and as someone hears you in that way their reaction. Box to your bubbles, There's this very organic thing that happens in the room. It's what we call feelings about how we're being received are all that some verbal stuff enter the device and suddenly you don't have your some verbal stuff is going out into the either. It's it's dying outside the space behind your device and the people on the other side aren't getting the benefit of that connection with you. Also you're not getting. And what about just purely for you know a lot of people are on these zoom meetings where they're not saying anything right. They're just sitting there. It's not even a one on one like you and I have, but we'll have abilities to present to listen, but they really literally are sitting in a in an hour to our zoom meeting and don't say a word. Yeah. So I think there's there's a little danger of becoming too passive in this environment if perhaps during the course of an inch. Meeting you might have had a quick aside or something to offer in the zoom meeting. People might not actually feel like they can say that like that joke is not appropriate or I'm not gonna say this little this little comment that might have United us in a group meeting, but over Zoom, I'm just gonna be the quiet person the problem with that is that of course over zoom you don't necessarily see everybody's picture. everybody's chosen a certain view if somebody has themselves in a gap. Review where they can see every face, perhaps they're connecting with you in that way, but that's only if you're sitting there engaged to camera the entire time so that when they look up, you're looking at them so there there's a little bit of interaction that has to happen in those meetings. so it's perhaps making sure that you do say the comment or the aside would have said in a normal in-person meeting. And that means also creating a pause after somebody else's speaking to start a comment, maybe by calling some. His name, so if I was gonna say something that I might have said at the table, I just blurted it out. There's a little bit of a lag in zoom, so you're gonna need to get the attention of the group by maybe saying something like Ben and then once you have the attention continuing your commentary, otherwise something that's quick. my completely get lost so someone's who's used to rapid fire quick little snippets of information might not actually be heard at all in a meeting, you have to pick mints and actually speak in a more intentional way, which for me, this is gonna teach us a lot about. Neck with each other better when we get back into the room together, I love that so and I think that really transitions into our next question cuz this is one of the answers is how else do people need to adapt their speaking style and presentation style in this virtual environment? Well, I think that one of the things that is crucial is to make sure that you know how much air you're putting out. so when you talk about breathing and I'm happy to teach a breathing exercise today because I think it's that important when we talk about grief. You have to breathe as if you're engaging with a crowd of people even though you're speaking to your phone or your laptop, I think we get into this position where we think I don't have to work verbally as hard or my physical body doesn't have to energetically work as hard, but it's the opposite. We have to work harder. now we have to put more energy output out now so that we are actually making that connection with the meeting. So that's the the primary shift right now is to realize that this is more involved and it's harder. Harder than being in a room and connecting with someone so making sure that your breath is working online, making sure that you know where the microphone is in your computer so voices directional. It's air particles going in the direction I work on a pro. The microphone for this device is left-hand side to the fold of the laptop, but on that because I wanna look directly at the camera, so I actually wear a microphone that is brilliant because I I I actually have issues with that right. I'm on a iPad. which is amazing. That's what I'm on. I have no computer anymore and my cameras to the left of the iPad. yet you know your picture is all the way to the right and I want to focus on you and your speaking. so I'm really trying to figure out. I wanna look at the camera but focus on you and I think that's a really difficult thing to do. Yeah so one of the tricks that I teach my clients is when you're speaking to someone look directly to camera and then if you're on a device where that's far away from where their picture is. When they speak to you, then change your focus, so I just looked at your picture more directly even though if I normally when I speak, I speak directly to camera. But if you were speaking and I wanted to show you that I was listening to that little adjustment is enough to build a little bit of report and communication. I love it. I love it. so we have a question that came in that we were gonna ask later, but I wanna ask it now because I honestly was on with two of my best friends last night, talking about this how much more were exhausted from being. Video all day long whether we're participating or presenting then we were when we were in person and are there any tips or tricks you can help with how do we help ourselves through that? So we're not as tired and that others can't see how tired we were or are because I've been on a couple of forums last night being one where at least five of the 10 people were yawning throughout the forum, and I think all of us wanted to yawn and you also know this when one yarn. it's a domino effect so any. On how do we not be as tired for being on the video and especially not showing others that were as tired? absolutely so in terms of fatigue, it's fatiguing because it's harder what we usually have in terms of communication is visual feedback and auditory feedback and all of the sensory feedback. We're now trying to put all of our attention into just full and auditory and the body doesn't know do with that. It's feeling plenty of I can feel my air purifier and I can feel. Air in the room and I can feel the sensation of the room. I'm in, but it's not related to the conversation. We're in, nor is it related to the room that I see that you are in so the those things are exhausted just the amount of sensory output. We're trying to put into this narrow band so in order to mix it up a little bit, you have to give your brain a novelty. one of the things you might not notice is that I am standing up so when I do these types of things where I'm teaching and talking about voice damn. Most of the time you'll find me sitting on the floor rather than a chair, and that's because it required a sitting on the floors a little bit more uncomfortable. It requires your your pelvic bones your pelvic muscles to stretch a little bit. It makes you move in your hips a little bit differently, and because of that, you can't stay in that position for more than a couple of minutes at the time, it makes you move more so one of the ways that our body actually keeps energy going is by this kind of static charge. In the walking in the breathing and in the moving around that we gain energy so sitting in front of a device in this very passive way is exhausting so finding those places to create a little physical novelty doing some sort of exercise for yourself is crucial her voice use so I I can't say it enough. I have a daily video dance cost. I've been doing every morning without that. I would not be the same person you see because my air wouldn't understand how to move anymore. I love that let's talk about. For one second, which is some people might be thinking wait a minute I need to work out physically in order for my voice to be better. I people will understand I need to be healthy for my voice to be good but actually physically working out helps tell us how those two things are. Related. Okay. So I'm gonna throw a little bit of science at that. I just want everybody to know and if you want more of a deep dive into this, you'll have to come find it elsewhere cuz there's a lot so voice is not the primary function of the vocal faults the vocal full tab men. Survival functions They're the airway they make sure you don't swallow things into your lungs that should be going down to your stomach. They make sure you can lift things and that you can build pressure in the body. Five primary survival functions before we get to speaking or singing before voice use is a thing because of that the body at maps the survival functions of the thyroid the noise of the vocal folds in a different place to voice use and actually it also maps speaking in a separate place from singing. So your brain has prioritized the survival functions of your vocal folds before speech. so in order for your brain to think you get resources to communicate with a power and influence, it's got to know that you are actually in command of the other things and when we're not moving very much when we're not at least thinking about flexibility, it's really hard to do that and we're I don't wanna say that we're ignorant of it, but we don't pay attention to how interconnected body. So there is facia tissue that connects your big toe all the way up to the base of your top. Wow if your feet are tired or if you're an uncomfortable shoes or if you actually haven't stood on your feet for a long time that's affecting the quality of your breath and possibly the tension of your tongue and things going on through your rib cage. If you're sitting a lot, we have a muscle called the SOS that goes from the back of the knee through the hip bone and connects to the diaphragm at the base of the spine and the diaphragm. To move out of the way for your lungs to fill if there's tension through the soul as cuz you're sitting too much, you're not getting a full inhalation. And again air is voice without air. We just don't have anywhere to go for all of these wonderful things we wanna do with our voices to be in factful in the space so movement is not just something we do as an aside for body health body is the voice. That's just one thing. Alright. I just learned more in that one and a half minutes that by itself could have been a Ted Talk. so that was huge, which gets me cuz you promise this a a breathing exercise. That you have so let's do that now before we go into some of these other questions on you know proper ways, people should be breathing and how to get them ready to breathe properly in a virtual digital format. Absolutely. so what I want everybody to do is depending on where you are right now, if you are seated, make sure that you're seated on your sits bones so that you actually feel those bones protrusions at the tip of your pelvis. If you're standing make sure that your feet are shoulder width apart and from either of these positions, we're just gonna shift our weight back and forth for a moment. So if you're seated this is gonna. Kind of a seat admitting a moment you're just gonna shift back and forth on your sits bone right to left right to left if it helps you to think that you have a partner in your meeting by all means about that for us who are standing. We're just shifting our weight from our right foot to our left foot right foot to left foot and what we're trying to do is just loosen up this bottom half of the body so that the soas that connected tissue from the bottom half of us to the top is a little bit looser So from this position we're gonna take in. Whatever you think is a good inhalation and you're gonna exhale just fully and you're gonna do it on a sound. so you're gonna inhale and then you're gonna exhale so you're out of breath on just to practice what they like so inhale. exhale. And you can keep on moving while you're out some of you will be going for a good long time. so just when whenever you get out of breath, catch up with us now, we're gonna try that again. but on the exhale, we're gonna help ourselves with a little bit of lower musculature. So we're gonna work the transverse abdominis. That's the abdominal muscle that goes from the bottom of your sternum all the way to the front of the pelvic bone. It's fairly long and it goes all the way around you like a cucumber bun. So what we're gonna do. I'm gonna squeeze just. The front of it and where the sensation is, if you've ever put on a pair of pants that were a smidge too tight that feeling of I'm gonna just suck it in a little bit to put the zipper up back. Yeah. that's that's been happening a lot lately. I need you to know so I know what that feels like well for some of you who are wearing pants. I I know that you know the jogging Jama pants are are raging right now. But for those of you who remember we're in pants that sensation of just sucking it in a little bit. So you put this zipper up. We're gonna breathe in and when you. Breathe out you're gonna zip at the same time that you're doing so that muscle in your lower abdominal is gonna actually come inward to support the exhalation. so we're gonna breathe in and then you're gonna zips and you're gonna keep that sensation of the muscle gripping until you're out of breath. We're out just let it go. Wow. So when you let it go is that you inhale so you can practice that a few. In a row where you contract to support and then release to let air enter organically does two things it helps you get in more air and it use more air in an active way, but also it helps start to rewire your thinking about breathing. We often think I'm gonna inhale because I wanna speak and it's because we think that inhalation is the active part but Exhalation active part the voice use. Is the exhalation so because we have the words inhale and exhale we get a little bit confused, so I like to use inspiration and expression so we need the air to come in to inspire the vocal chords, but we also need to express the sound. I love that is the act of working part. Alright. This is very how how how much more time before someone's going to get on a zoom calls for the day? should they be doing this and how long does it actually take for them to do these breathing exercises and and how many times a day. Should they be doing it? so I think this breathing exercise. Everybody should do first thing in the morning when they start thinking about getting into their work day, and I think they should have some sort of pause. They shouldn't roll out of bed, grab coffee and go to their to their desk and you know turn this work life balance into kind of a mutation. There should be a very clear transition from I'm in the kitchen, too. I'm going to work and in that transition this breathing exercise works really well. it takes three to five minutes. Very long, so if you do that every day you will start building up your availability of breath flow, but your awareness of how breath works. so what you'll find if you practice this is when you're in those meetings and you're about to say something important. You're gonna really give yourself a little bit of tuck that support from the abdominal muscles to say the thing you're trying to say that's so important and if you do that well when you're gonna be ordered with. Wonderful inhalation so that you have energy for the next thought I love it. Alright. This was amazing just by itself and I although we took a little more time on this piece, I think it's so helpful, so let's kinda jump into some of these other questions that I know people have been talking about in the next one that of several have already asked is how can you speak with more clarity and intention in these virtual formats than you did before? So, I think one of the key things is for you to think about who it is. You want to be in any given presentation, so one of the things I just did is I switched into a more formal speaking mode. What that means is that I am articulating language in a clear fashion. I have gotten I didn't mean or a little bit more serious than I was just seconds ago and I'm speaking slower so that as I speak, you have a better understanding of what it is that I'm trying to convey when we're trying to build authority in a room that is not the room we are present in we have to exit. Through the lens and that requires a little bit more pause a little bit more clarity and what it is that we are trying to say and also a slightly better articulation of language. So I'll go back to my goofy self again because that that was just an example of how you build authority in the room. If you really need to make an impact, you have to put that impact into your body, you have to create that gravitates within your body I. and let's talk about that more expand on that be creating authority with your with your voice virtually and setting yourself apart from others because of your clear communication any other tips or ideas around that. absolutely, I think one of the things that we are going to take out of this time is that clarity and intention of what you're trying to say is not optional right now and it shouldn't have been optional in the office so it means. That you have to be a little bit more careful about what it is that you were going to say where you going to make a comment because it seemed like a good time to because you wanted to be part of the conversation, or because this is actually something that adds value in this particular conversation and if it adds value, you don't need to actually be embarrassed about that you need to take a breath and insert yourself into that conversation again Ice the camera with clarity of what is that you're trying to speak. At this moment, also, one of the things we often forget when we're in a room with people is who it is that we're speaking to and why we're speaking to them. So when you're thinking about who your audience is is this a team meeting is this your boss? Who's now you know in sweats and in front of a messy backdrop, so you kinda get a little bit confused about what that level of authority that he's conveying or she's conveying at that moment. Is you have to really think to yourself? Who are these people even outside of their normal settings? What do they need to hear in order to hear me and is this important to say at this moment? I love it And now what about just harnessing the impact of your voice right the the your voice as a major impact and far more now than it probably did with everyone in the room with lots of other noise going going on around you are there different ways to harness that the impact of your voice virtually absolutely so. The things that I mentioned earlier is that I'm wearing a microphone. I'm wearing a road wireless go. It is a wireless microphone situation and I wear this one because I move around a lot and I end up teaching a lot of physical modality, so I need to be hands-free What most of us need isn't this involved. You can have for a very inexpensive cost a dynamic microphone that sits on your desktop capture your vote in a more impactful way. so if you're. To make local impact, you shouldn't really be depending on the microphone in your in your laptop or in your iPad. If you're if you really need to make an impact and you don't have an external microphone speak through your phone dial in as well as being video from your Mac from your MacBook or from your Samson, whatever it is dial in so that your voice is coming through the much better microphone on your telephone so just making sure that your voice is entering the room in the clearest. Most impactful way possible and not neglecting the air. so every time I speak to you that little exercise we did with the little contraction of the muscles. It's there every time it means that the way I speak has natural pauses in it. That is that are related to what I need to do to get more oxygen to do it again. I love it. So what about though are there are the tools that people have to help create authority in virtue? Environments that they didn't actually have in the physical environments other than what you've talked about right, which is you can have a microphone you can use it through your your phone instead of your laptop or iPad. are there any other tools that we should know that we now could use and have or tools we just don't have anymore so you can't rely on them. Well, you can't rely on anything that you were using to distract with your hands or the things that things that you used to do to present the slideshow in the background if you. A person who used slides you can use them in this virtual environment, but you might lose people's attention. so one of the things we're saying is if you're a person who's trying to present things to screen as in a slideshow or showing things from your device, make sure those images are much more image dense rather than texting and make sure they're moving faster. So if you would have done a slideshow with 10 slides, you might need 60 now. So it's just one of those things making sure that your environment is a little bit more dynamic. So it's not an accident that I'm facing this beautiful brick Wall. There are things that I'm doing that are actually balancing this room so that I am the Center of attention and they come from painting their. you know. this is something I learned from another colleague, you know having a light on that thing to do with lighting me just in an actual light in the room, framing myself between a painting and an instrument with another instrument in the background, Those are all things that create. Behind me, but put the focus on me. I love that I think that's so so important. It's almost like a camera right when we take a picture of the focus is either on the person or it's on the scenery but not everything else. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Let let's talk about scenery right, which is people are definitely dressing down in their zoom calls, and can you talk a little bit about that impact on virtual meetings? How you dress the physical you've already talked about the physical setting, but the the dress, especially and what people look. in terms of taking care of their health and showering and those things and how that portrays virtually and how that helps your voice as and connected, absolutely so our perception of other people has been narrowed again to this very specific way of seeing so we have the auditory input. But of course we have the visual input and if somebody is just gazing through who's in the windows on Zoom what they have is just the visual input. so if you're not actively. Speaking, they can only see you so things like okay. so if you really wanted to come to a meeting in your pajamas, they should be nice pajamas and you should still have brush your hair and your teeth and perhaps a little you know if not make up, maybe a little moisturizer so your skin actually looks good. so that you're you know, look like you meant to be some place and that you gave that person the respect of your energy to be completely physics. Present in exactly the same way as you would be in the office, so if you're not a person who would ever go to the office without makeup, why are you in your meeting with that makeup? If you're not doing whatever go to the office without combing your hair does of the things I mean, if you're a person who sometimes dresses casually in the office and they're nice casual clothes go for it. but if you're a person who would never leave the House for a professional meeting without your makeup and your hair. And a nice outfit in your perfume like me, I'm wearing perfume right now, you guys aren't getting the benefit of that, but the way my energy comes into the room shifts because I am my complete professional self. I like that I think that's really important. I think we all have to be our complete professional authentic self. I see two questions and it will get us towards the end here that are really interesting. One is just you touched on this, but I want to see if you had more to say on changing the tone and volume. when you're speaking virtually versus in person any differences things we should be careful about. I found myself always being louder than I was before and sometimes actually talking faster than I was before. so I wanna see what you thought about that. So I think a lot of us are speaking too loudly for the device given the amount of air that we're using so we're using less air flow because the computers right there the phones right there the iPads right there. The energy of the voice is not there. We're trying to increase our volume because we can hear that our volume isn't sufficient in if we're wearing headphones or getting feedback from the computer, we can hear. It's not like a loud enough, but we're not necessarily giving ourselves enough air to get louder. So what we're doing is pushing on this musculature to increase our volume. so it's more fatiguing to increase volume without airflow. I think you should assume that the camera that light. Your laptop is three people that distance away from you and try to really shower them with air and sound in the same way you would if those are the people in front of you, no more energy than that no less. If you wouldn't yell at someone who's ear was right there don't yell at your camera. just make sure you have enough air to create the impact and also slowing down. You're absolutely correct in that. most of us are speeding up because we don't feel the connection to the. On the other side, we're almost apologizing for taking up sound space. I those are really helpful tips. I think we're gonna end with this last question and then I had a personal question after that. but this last question, which is really around and I feel this, I have four young kids at home running around. We are being interrupted if you have kids, you're being interrupted constantly and even if you don't there's construction going on. if you're not in Boston and other cities in towns, it could be construction in your near your apartment or near your House. So we're hearing noises, we know. That they're distracting our kids are jumping in distracting us our significant others if you're living with any of them might be distracting as well. How do you deal with that while presenting and while also participating in these virtual formats, so I have a 22 prong system, I call it prepare and accept so the preparation, for example, my 10 year old is in her room watching a video that she doesn't usually get to see with headphones on. Herself because I knew that I needed that hour so my preparation was to make sure that she knew where my husband was that they set up how snacks were gonna happen if you know snack emergencies came up during the session and that there's this expectation that I'm not here and so that's how I prepared for it. However, she's 10 and I'm her mother so she could have gotten a hangnail or seen a spider and suddenly showtime my daughter's. Camera So at that point, it's acceptance. it's not feeling shame about it. It's not being overly concerned that it looks unprofessional. We are all in this boat and the most human thing you can do when your child enters the screen with either a real or perceived problem you interact with your child. now you're on camera so interact with your child in your best parent self so that you're that energetic way, but the more dynamic we're can be with that the more accepting we can be of that the better off will be in turn. Of how our breath and our voice works in the room for construction or things that aren't human interruptions, you might just have to wear headphones and again, except there's nothing to do about that. Alright. I love it. I love it. okay. So I said we're gonna do this at the beginning and now I'm gonna put you on the spot. Alright. don't hurt me. Ask you questions. you've now watched my own demeanor. What is it that I personally can do to be better with both my speech, my intentionality my clarity and also my posture and. On composure, absolutely so your posture is where I wanna start because the screen is lower than where your head is so right now. when you speak, you have to tip your head down, which is causing a little bit of tension in the back of your neck over the course of a day, it probably starts to hurt as you're going through your day and it's also taking a little breath energy away so figuring out how to get your so that your mouth are very least your mom. But your eyes are closer to where the camera is in my House. This is a music with a stack of things on top of it so that as I'm standing the computers add a level to take me in without me having to do anything with my spine love it beyond that. your posture isn't that bad When I get to sit up straight, you actually are it's just a computer. that's dragging you down. I do notice that you could breathe a little bit better for your voicing as you're in this type of environment. so if you have a straw anywhere. House you can grab a straw and you can practice thinking. I'm gonna speak the sentence taking a breath and blow through your straw. It just so happens because what's in front of me is my usual teaching set that I have so if you were gonna say you know hello, my name is Ben Siegel. You're gonna take a breath. and say it through the straw so that you get a tactical understanding of how much air that is so that then when you return. To speaking openly in the air, there's more vibrancy to your speaking. so for you, it's just a little bit more air flow and making sure that your device is higher so that you're not exhausting the musculature on the back of your neck. so helpful, I mean that is amazing maybe not as helpful to everyone else listening, but it definitely was to me. but I'm sure many are like me. you know I have an iPad and so in the way the view of the iPad is not exactly straight, but raising it up is it. A really great great point so Gina thank you so much. This was an incredible, almost 40 -. five minutes really helpful tips to give people I think honestly a competitive advantage in this virtual environment, and I think anyone who's listen to this should know right away to go to their employers to go and bring you in into their work to help the entire work wanna figure out their voice in this digital format. to everyone else listening, we have a few upcoming town halls tomorrow at 11. We have a town Hall on no time to plan, but the present opportunities Insurance under Cove at 19 with a Viva Safers, the CEO of Sabers and Wallet and her colleagues, and then on April 20, -eighth at 12 o 'clock. We have a presentation of Facebook live session on a glimmer of optimism during Covid- 19, creating a more fair and equitable society with Professor America's Barry Bluestone at Northeastern University. We also are going to have a session coming up in the next on May seventh I'm really looking forward to as well. Finally we finally can use digital signatures and so we are still collecting signatures to get on the ballot and I ask you to help me if you live in the fourth district in our registered Democrat or unrolled voter, Please help me collect those signatures and look for any other updates of any of the events. We're doing on Facebook at Ben Seagal for Congress on Twitter and on Instagram at Ben Seagal and on LinkedIn and also go to our Covid- 19 Resource page on Our website. Ben Seagal for Congress dot com. Finally, you all have heard me say this at the end, and it's true every single day is we are all in this together and we're only gonna come through stronger if we work together as a community and lift each other up because we the fourth are stronger when we when we are United, then when we are divided so everyone thank you so much. Gina Thank you so much please stay safe and continue your social distancing. Continue help us flatten the curve. And we'll see you all at the next Facebook Live session. Thank you. Thank you. Ben.