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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 358, How not to lose your voice. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Linett. Your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business to. Sets. Here’s your host, Jason Linett. Hey, funny story. Do you remember a couple of episodes ago, like 10 or 11 ago?
We actually put out for the first time ever some encore episodes of the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast. Somewhere around like 3 48 and 3 49 or so, we did some replays of some classic episode. Why? Because I kind of lost my voice. And this is actually a topic I’ve talked about a number of times over the years and things were a little, let’s say, scraggly, and we just decided let’s just keep things easy and replay some episodes.
However, that replay of the fully booked hypnotist got several thousand downloads all over again, which was pretty cool. So this is a real issue that pops up from time to time, and actually the inspir. For making this into a podcast episode came directly from our free work smart hypnosis community.
Someone asked the question, How do you not lose your. I shared a book as a resource and I went, Hey, that sounds like a good podcast episode. So here we go. Uh, and by the way, as soon as you have your voice back, you’re gonna be able to see a lot more clients and, uh, because you’re gonna be able to see a lot more clients, you’re gonna wanna make sure that your schedule is actually full, which is why in addition to heading over to the show notes for this episode, which will include a bit of a checklist.
What I’m about to share with you, this is episode number 358, so simply head over to work smart hypnosis.com/ 3 58. That’ll bring you over to the show notes. And while you’re there, of course, check out hypnotic business systems.com because now that your voice is gonna sound so much better, and now that you’re gonna have that vocal stamina, let’s go ahead and pack your office while we’re at it with wonderful, motivated paying clients.
Happy New Year. Am I right? Check that out. Hypnotic business systems.com. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel model what has been proven to work not only in my hypnosis business, but also by practitioners around the entire world. And by the way, look on that page. Toward the bottom, there’s little floating, uh, footer that actually invites you to a free on-demand presentation with some strategies you can put it into use right away.
Check all that [email protected] and with. Here we go. This is episode number 358. How not to lose your voice. So I really don’t want to gloss over this. This is a real issue and this is best illustrated by the fact that one time I had a chiropractor as a client, and at the end of the session he goes, Wow, you can’t phone this in, can you?
And I go, What do you mean? He goes, You like you talk all day, right? I’m like, Oh, I’m putting the story together. I’m like, kind of like the days that you don’t feel like doing adjustments and you teach people exercises and stretches. He goes, Yeah, exactly. Um, you know, the school teacher showing the students the videos that day.
So the reality is we wanna make sure that we can preserve our voices cuz we have heard those voices that sound as if they’ve kind of been through a bit of a train wreck to say it politely and your voice is your greatest instrument, figuratively and literally in terms. Hypnotic suggestion. So before I kick things off, let me give credit where it’s due.
An incredible book by Kristin Link later. The book is titled, Freeing the Natural Voice. Imagery and art in the practice of voice and language. If you remember back, Yes. My career previously was working in professional theater. I was not an actor, I was not a director or designer. I was the stage manager and there was a bit of a skill that I had one time where were in rehearsals and the shows about to open and I mentioned the management that we needed to get an understudy for that one specific actor and they responded, We don’t have it in our budget to hire an under.
And I said, he’s losing his voice. We also don’t have it in our budget to cancel three shows, and they insisted we don’t have the money for that. And I was wrong. We didn’t cancel three shows. , we canceled five. And the reality is it’s as good as you take care of it. That’s how well your voice will work. So I’d kind of kick this off by encouraging you to kind of think like an actor, because the reality is you’re gonna be speaking throughout.
Most of the day, and for many performers back to the old career in management, they’d often go on a bit of what’s called vocal rest, that they’d kind of be mindful about what they were doing outside the theater time. You know, if the show went live at 8:00 PM and we wrapped up around 1130, they’d make it a point because that was a relatively late.
they weren’t necessarily the person then waking up at five 30 in the morning and going and working a full-time job or getting on a phone call all day. So just that care in terms of being mindful as to what else is going on throughout the day, kind of the same way that I could only say experiment to you, you might figure out that there’s certain foods that make things kind of tacky, certain foods that make things.
Kind of horse. Uh, I make it a point I can have all sorts of carbonated beverages. Uh, however, if I’m doing a full day of teaching, if I’m seeing a full day of clients, that’s probably not going to be until the evening just because personally that affects me. It might not necessarily affect you the same as dairy.
Things that are, you know, cream based or milk based, or especially cheese. This is not a, you know, absolute statement here. It’s one to say simply experiment for yourself. You might find briefly a bit of an elimination diet. You know, does something to kind of. Clear the voice, give you better clarity, um, temperature as well.
I mean, one of the biggest things I can highlight here is consistently staying hydrated. This is where I would have my big purple now, gene water bottle in my client sessions with me or by my side if I was teaching or doing sessions on Zoom and making it a point to stay hydrated the entire day. And.
Indeed making it a point to, uh, have bathroom breaks throughout the day. Otherwise, it’s the classic Jerry Kind story. This technique works even better when I’m not in the room. Fill in your imaginations there. But I mentioned temperature a little while ago. This is part of why, if you’ve been around me, I’m the one typically at a restaurant ordering water.
That’s room temperature. Or if someone’s offering the bottle of water and it’s been sitting in a refrigerator, I’ll ask, is there one that’s room temperature? Because having something is just kind of that, that room temperature degree, which is very specific, and remember the riddle. As long as you’re indoors, it’s always room temperature.
Sorry about that. But the reality is that’s something that by having it at that regular sort of, you know, not quite cold, not quite hot, not even warm. A temperature you don’t even notice really becomes a big thing that tends to help to carry it. So, so far, this is a pretty quick episode admittedly about, you know, identifying what are those behaviors around what you’re doing?
Uh, I gotta throw a big credit to something that was reiterated by Richard non guard. And he’s made no secret to the surgeries that he’s had over the years in terms of his voice. And it’s where from working with him at times, gaining a real respect for everybody goes on the lunch break and we all kind of disappear up to our own rooms just to kind of chill, give the voice a bit of a break, have something to eat, and not necessarily spending that time.
You know, going to the restaurant with everybody, it’s always great to be social, but then again, it’s also not great to be there on the last day of a training and completely horse and not being able to actually teach what the people have signed up for. So I can think back to early years, Let me get specific here, because I now treat going to any event in Vegas, whether it’s a convention or whether it’s a training, uh, a little bit more like surviving the zombie apocalypse.
Because my ritual has become making sure I’m breathing through my nose. If I’m walking through the Smokey Casino air, making it a point at least twice a day to go outdoors and breathe regular, non recycled air, making it a point to continue, again, water, once again, drinking lots of water throughout the day to stay hydrated and really giving my voice the break that if we’re going out to a restaurant, perhaps making it a point to ask the.
where could we sit? You know, that’s a little bit quieter because if I’m spending the evening shouting over people and you know, having to project my voice in. Let’s say non-healthy way, you can imagine the effect that’s gonna have. So this kind of falls into a category, like some of the other things that really your preventative care is going to be your best bet.
So identifying problem behaviors, it might be extremely hot beverages, it might be extremely cold beverages. Those are only suggestions. Little bit of scientific method test. See what works best for you. Are you putting yourself in smokey environments? Uh, does alcohol affect you in some ways in being mindful of that?
I will refrain from telling you the details of the opera singer we worked with who would do a shot glass of olive oil before going out and singing her hit song. Let’s not get into those behaviors here, , but there might be certain things that it’s just time to kind of. Uh, I had a student one time who actually, this was his motivation to quit smoking.
He goes, Not only am I gonna be helping people to quit smoking as a hypnotist, but also it’s really wrecking my voice. I sound like he’s 60 year old smoker, and he was in his early thirties now with him of all things, and this doesn’t affect me the same way it did him, He would sometimes freshen the breath throughout the day with like sugar free chewing.
And I can do that in lieu of perhaps brushing my teeth and it’s. Quick, easy fix, and I’m okay yet with him, as soon as he got rid of the sugar free gum, chances are because of whatever sugar, like additives were actually in there, he found a much greater level of comfort throughout the day and just made it a point if he had something to eat, he brushed his teeth, uh, rather than chewing the gum.
The sort of bigger picture things to address here, and this goes back to that book, Freeing The Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater, which I’d highly recommend it. Again, going back to the title of that book, Imagery and Art, in the Practice of Voice and Language, realize that your voice comes from several different places.
And if you really take a few moments and do this in the safety of a place where you can appropriately close your eyes and just kind of play with your voice, play with bringing your voice all the way down to the bottom of your stomach. Play with bringing your voice up to about the mid chest. Play with what happens.
If you imagine bringing that ball of energy that is your voice up until your throat, and you can even imagine how you can actually bring your voice all the way up into your nasal cavities and you hear how my voice automatically changed by simply bringing that imagery into that area. Because what you might begin to realize is that perhaps you’re speaking from a place that.
Unintentionally causing some strain. And I’ll tell you one of the biggest things for me was this many years ago, uh, where I was having to make announcements in large rehearsal halls. I was having to make announcements to organize a big crew of people backstage. And by really learning how to isolate my voice, and even in the middle of a sentence, bringing my voice all the way down.
To around the belly button, where now it’s a matter of just putting more breath behind the voice and now I’m projecting even louder as a result and my voice carries even further. So there’s a bit of a game that we can play thanks to our gift of hypnotic imagery and even language patterns to begin to play with the voice and see where we can kind.
Throw it, not quite like the quis, but throwing the voice almost as if like we’re tossing the voice to different parts of our body. And this reminds me by way of a metaphor of a marathon runner who was a student one time, uh, who would actually run what’s called super marathons, which is where you do two of them, one after the other.
And someone in the class asked her, How do you run 50 miles without your feet getting. and she responded. What do you mean? Of course my feet get sore, but what I do is I shift my focus whenever I’m noticing part of my body becoming tender, and now I can run and focus on my shoulder blades to keep myself in proper form.
Then I can move my attention down to my abdominal muscles to engage my core muscles and kind of fall into the. If you’ve read the book Chi Running, it’s amazing. Check it out again, fits into the theme of everything we’re talking about today, using the body appropriately, but even this runner, using the strategy of throwing the attention of her thoughts to different parts of her body, and by doing so, was able to reduce the strain and run 50 plus miles.
And I’ll tell you, if there’s ever a time where my voice is kind of going, this is my go to strategy immediate. To begin to try to organically address it. Uh, I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on the internet, nor on podcasts. I can only speak from my own experience. Um, but some people would swear by like the, uh, chlor septic sprays for the back of the throat.
That caused even more harm for me because it fooled me into a false sense of comfort because it numbed the area that felt sore. I kept talking over it, and I probably ended up losing my voice for more days than I should have. So again, your mileage may vary. Part of this lecture here is a bit more about doing your own research and finding what’s best for you.
I would say that the same as many of you have joined me inside of hypnotic business systems. Many of you have joined me inside of our training events. Look at your ability. Look at your skill to invest in your self. It may be worth it to do a search, reach out to a local university and find a vocal coach.
Work with someone who works with singers and explain what your goals are. Ask for a few warmups. Uh, I’ll say that, that, you know, to give myself a bit of a mental and a, as well as a physical warmup really helps to get the voice ready so I’m not going out cold and I can have a day where I see a full slate of clients teach a full class and then record to podcast episodes as I’m actually doing.
Right now. So really the message here is to identify problem behaviors and begin to eliminate them also to identify solutions to the puzzle that is your voice, and begin to lean into those strategies. Stay hydrated, be mindful of what you’re eating, and again, if necessary. Reach out for help though I will encourage One other quick thought here, which is that in the age of 2021 and 2022, as this podcast now releases, I did eventually move over to using a headset system in my office, and the benefit of it was was that, first of all, for the client, it felt as if you were in a vacuum of sound in the middle of the session, and for in-person.
that was incredible. Now that all of my work in terms of client work is all online, I have a microphone about maybe six to eight inches away from my face, and I will point this out with the microphone that close, I actually get away with only using about 50% of the voice that I used to because I don’t have to project any further than six to eight inches away from my face.
It gives me a much more dynamic deliver. It gives me a much greater sense of range. So in addition to taking better care of your. Consider if it fits within the context of the work you do. A bit of technology could actually go a long way. I’m using a Yeti microphone for my online sessions, and I use that now after going through thousands of dollars of other equipment to settle on this one.
And for those of you inside of hypnotic workers, the whole in-office setup is explained there. However, once again, play with the focus of your voice. Move it to different locations and find your greatest vocal comfort. Jason Lenette here once again and Happy New Year everybody. And here’s to an entire year of not losing your voice and sharing your voice in wonderful ways to leave a positive review.
See how we did that of the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast. Anywhere you can find online as well as sharing it in your social media streams. Head over to work smart hypnosis.com/. 3 5 8 for the show notes of this episode. And while you’re there to check out hypnotic business systems.com because now that that voice is gonna sound, oh, so good.
Let’s pack your schedule and yes, indeed, make it rain. Happy New Year. I’ll see you all soon. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.
