The Voice of Change

[Music]

[Music]

so ladies and gentlemen good morning

i’d just like to share with you a line

or two of a very famous

poem by a man called walt

whitman

oh what is it in me

that makes me tremble so at voices

surely whenever i hear the right voice i

will follow him or her

silently with fluid steps

anywhere around the world

so in other words what i’m indicating is

that obviously to all of us we’re living

in a time

of monumental change and one of the key

features of this time of change

that i’m being requested of as a

corporate coach

as a coach of actors coach for actors

working with change leaders thought

keepers around the world

i mean for example at the moment i’m

working with the ceo of one of

one of europe’s leading banks about the

whole process of change that can be

instituted

through authenticity transparency and

integrity would you agree that these are

the words

that we’re hearing so much today and yet

it’s very difficult for us unless we

are oriented into really sharing what

the essence of authenticity

what the real quality of integrity and

what the substance of our transparency

is about

it it’s very difficult for us unless we

can find the right level of energy

in our bodies we all know that for

example great communication is based on

60 body language 30 voice

and 10 content whereas often we’re

taught

that content is all but in fact in terms

of

human intercourse or human communication

it’s not what we say

it’s how we say that’s important which

is why i began with

oh what is it in me that makes me

tremble so it voices

now i was fortunate as a child i was

brought up at a time

when there were still many great voices

around

voices that impelled voices that seduced

voices that inspired and voices that

enthused

today it’s often quite difficult to find

great voices on the public stage and

what we’ve been

uh conditioned and educated and

socialized into doing

is sounding very much from the head and

so

the voice that i’m normally hearing is

this sort of voice

okay now of course you can see where

this is coming from it’s very different

from what i’ve just been doing

and it’s actually to do with my

education and all about the programming

that i really want to impress you with

as far as your intellect is concerned

but there’s something sadly missing

and so what i’m suggesting is that if we

actually

can tune into our bodies if we can move

into the very core of the resonance of

our voices

we find a different sound from that

which begins to convey

the inner world of our authenticity

transparency and integrity so we have a

greater effect

on the people that we wish to

communicate with or to

whether they be our family or our loved

ones

our friends or indeed placing it into a

professional context

what’s really interesting about this

substance of

we each have a signature

note and when we find that signature

note

we harmonize the whole of our physiology

so that we bring our physical emotional

mental and if you like inspirational

spiritual energies

into complete coherence

but it is a note of our hearts

it’s not the note of the head

so if you put it into the context of for

example of the great actor

who aligns him or herself with

a truth of feeling statement because

that’s what great acting means

meaning if you’re watching a theater

performance or you’re watching a movie

on tv or a large screen if you

believe what they’re saying you stay

watching the story

if you don’t believe you switch off so

we have a technique as actors

of being able to tune into the very core

of what our experience is all about

which on camera or on stage

is mostly about the relationship that we

have

because it’s only exciting for you if

in your watching in your viewing is if

the relationship is absolutely real

so how do i draw you into relationship

well i could talk to you like this

but i think you probably feel repelled

but if i

if i draw you in like this automatically

you start to feel

that something very extraordinary is

taking place

so there’s a line or two from rumi which

says

if words arise from the heart they enter

the heart

if words arise from the tongue alone

they don’t pass

beyond the ears and so it seems

in the campaigning and the projecting

that i’m involved in the moment

as a vision of a number of great people

that i’ve worked with

over the years that at this time there

needs to be a re-tuning

in our bodies so that we find our voices

beginning to express a deeper

more profound more authentic more

transparent

more integrous

and so how does that feel

what i’d love to do now is say okay

let’s find your note but unfortunately

it takes a little bit of time and so

i’m just going to carry on sharing with

you

this substance that i’m sharing with you

is not

new to us and possibly you’re having the

experience right now of feeling

yeah that’s that makes sense

and what i’m referring to is that if we

go all the way back

into earlier civilization if we go back

to arguably the

origins of western civilization meaning

the greek roman

model of thought that there was a great

belief

particularly in rome of something called

persona

which we use of course is a derivative

for our word

personality so when we’re talking about

somebody’s personality

we’re talking about the whole vibration

of their being

and therefore we’re really talking about

their soul

persona means through

sound so really when we’re talking about

the personality of somebody we’re

talking about the way that we

can qualify the way that they speak

can you is is this helping to awaken

thoughts in your own being about how you

possibly can bring

a new resonance in to communicate the

sub

total of your presence

yes cool

okay so when we go further into this we

begin to realize that

sound in most cultures

is at the core of creation

so for example we know that in the

judeo-christian model

there is a belief in the fact that and

god said let there be light

and there was light or we read at the

beginning of the fourth gospel

in the beginning was the word and the

word was made flesh

and dwelt among us full of grace and

truth

and in fact having met an aramaic

scholar many many years ago who had

the right to read many manuscripts or

aramaic manuscripts in the vatican

library

saw a manuscript from the dead sea

scrolls

which said in the beginning was sound

and sound was made flesh and dwelt among

us

full of grace and truth when we go into

hinduism or buddhism of course we know

the prima mobile the great om

is a sound that communicates the real

presence of the divine it’s the calling

card of god

if we go into the navajo peoples

in the south west of the united states

we know that they said that the spider

woman sang

and brought everything into creation

including you and i so it seems that

deep within us

there is this belief this understanding

on a real atavistic core

activism meaning going back to original

purpose that there is an

understanding that we all came into

creation

through sad well can you remember the

moment when

you leapt out of your mother’s birth

canal

because there there was that moment

where you took a big breath in

and you breathed independently for the

first time in your life and then

the great call came off and there’s an

esoteric belief that that sound goes off

throughout the cosmos forever

and so you see it’s right at the very

core i could go on with all those

cultural examples

but it’s right at the very core of what

it is to be

deeply inspirational what it is to be

inspired to be moved into

genuine authenticity and into integrity

the word inspiration as we know in latin

means inspired inspiracione

of divine influence so in this time of

great change

what we’re doing is that we’re bringing

ourselves into

alignment with the fundamental aspect of

who we

are and how we can begin to experience

what

the voice of change is all about

so the voice of change is a voice that

is fully embodied

a voice that has weight and that has

gravitas

a voice that always speaks the

individual’s truth

a voice that moves just as

we are moved by the great voices that we

hear

in walt whitman’s poem there’s a young

man

in a play called the merchant of venice

called lorenzo who says

if there is music in a man

there is harmony within him if there is

no music

he is fit for treasons stratagems

and spoils let no such man

be trusted ladies and gentlemen i think

i’m being called to the close

so i will leave it there just as a

wonderful little tidbit for you

and we’ll pick it up on another occasion

thank you so much

have a wonderful day