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