Getting to Midlife Means You Have a Lot to Say. Public Speaking Coach Casey Erin Clark Helps Us Find Our Words + Wow Audiences
Show Snapshot:
Getting to midlife means recognizing that your voice, your body, and your ideas deserve to take up space in the world. Public speaking coach Casey Erin Clark of Vital Voice Training offers three tools to express yourself with confidence, clarity, and charisma. Casey is a singer, actor, and public speaking coach who knows that powerful public peaking is not just for Broadway; it’s a key skill for work, board meetings, PTA meetings, Zoom calls, for wedding toasts, and beyond. Bonus! We hear about her role touring as Fantine in Les Miz!
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty 00:03
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. Beauties, buckle up. We have a show packed with so much juicy, juicy goodness, I hardly know where to start squeezing. My friend Casey Erin Clark is with us today. How to introduce her? Should I start with her job or should I say jobs? She's a singer, actor, recording artist, singing coach. She's toured with Les Miz, she's done TV, film, she sings in Broadway Inspirational Voices, a choir of Broadway artists raising money for charity. Casey is also a co-founder of Vital Voice Training, which offers public speaking and communication coaching. You don't need to be a singer. You don't need to be an actor. She helps the rest of us express ourselves with confidence, clarity, charisma, because guess what? Expressing yourself with confidence, clarity, charisma is not just for Broadway, not just for the stage. It's for life. It's for work, for board meetings, PTA meetings. It's for zoom calls. It's for podcasting, book tours, client pitches, wedding toasts, birthday roasts, it is for life. KC believes your voice, your body and your ideas deserve to take up space in the world. And if you believe this to stick around as she shares tools and ideas to help you express and connect. Welcome, Casey.
Casey Erin Clark 01:23
That was overwhelming and lovely. And I'm gonna have to hire you to do my intro every time I go speak somewhere.
Katie Fogarty 01:31
Oh my God, I am truly thrilled. Casey and I have known each other for a bunch of years. She's a total blast. She's incredible. I've gotten to see her sing with Broadway Inspirational Voices in the city. I am so excited. This is gonna be so much fun. We're definitely going to dive into all your public speaking coaching because I know you help people take big stages and deliver TED-style talks and prep for press events. Yes, we're gonna get there. But first I wanted to some stage setting and you know, I cannot resist that pun. This is serious stage setting because you are probably the what you're definitely the first and you may be the only guests I'll ever have who collected a paycheck as Fantine in Les Miz. So I would love for you to tell us a little bit more about how you got this start because assuming they did not find you on LinkedIn.
Casey Erin Clark 01:31
Oh my goodness. I have been singing on stage, well, I've been singing since I could make noise. I've been singing on stage since I was four. That was the the first solo I did in my church. I grew up singing with my family. I knew I think in high school that musical theater was calling me I have a BFA in singing and dancing and acting like it is it's ridiculous. I'm a total theater nerd. And I love to perform, like using my voice brings me so much joy. Even now as I've stepped out of the, let's call it the full time pursuit of this. I jokingly refer to myself as a semi recovering professional actor. Because occasionally I fall off the wagon and do it off Broadway show like I did in 2018 while also running my company, but it all comes back to the joy of using the voice, like I was the girl who sang that was my thing. It was what I was known for being a people pleasing eldest child type A perfectionist, recovering perfectionist, you know, that comes with its own stuff wrapped in it, but it still does bring me enormous joy to use my voice in the world and to help other people use their voices.
Katie Fogarty 03:38
Yeah I love that. And I I'm so happy you brought up that you're recovering perfectionist, because we have that we have that in common as well, because and I guess I should say like, I'm not even sure if I've recovered. Like I am still really working on it. I'm working, I'm a work in progress, recovering perfectionist, but when I was on your website prepping for this, this conversation, I was very excited to see that you have you share language about how a lot of your coaching work is helping clients when they're trying to become you know, better and more proficient public speakers, that you help them release perfectionism to give a present performance instead of what you call a boring quote, perfect performance. Because you know, as an actor, that there's no such thing as a perfect performance. So walk us through this idea.
Casey Erin Clark 04:30
Sometimes I explain this as you can't be the director and the actor at the same time. The inner perfectionist for me so often in my performing career showed up as the tiny voice in my head saying, you know, do it this way. This is when you should do the big arms or like, you know, this is where you're going to crescendo this note and look see they like it. Do you think that they like it? Make them like it? You know what I mean? It becomes increasingly I think loud and desperate as you fall into people pleasing. And my, I mean, I'm still in it, I still go to acting class a couple of times a month, because it's such good practice for me. And I've been working with the same acting coach for a lot of years now. And she she's like this tiny, white haired lady with these bright blue eyes, very bird like, and she sees just right through my BS, like, she can tell when I am, when my inner director is activated, as opposed to when I am fully present in the story that I'm telling. And I'm living it and breathing it. And this is one of the the deep, profound gifts of theater training is that you get to step into someone else's shoes and walk around and explore and take actions that you'd never take in real life. And, you know, not many people, as far as I know, are walking around singing their lives, like we do in musical theater, but we get to explore size and extremity in a way that most people never get to explore. So so there's that aspect of it. But knowing that live performance cannot be recreated. You can't do something one way, one day in rehearsal and go, oh, yes, I totally want to do that exact thing again. Because the next day, you might try to do that exact thing, and it's gonna fall totally flat, or it's gonna feel different. And you could take that as a sign of failure, or you could realize that that's just the nature of the beast. So for me learning how to turn off that inner director or at least, you know, send her out of the room for a while, like, go take a break in the lobby, I will, you know, I will bring you to the rehearsal process at some point, but I do not need you with me on stage, I have a job to do. And we ended up working a lot with our, with our business clients about that, too. Because guess what, everybody's got an inner director and inner critic, whatever you want to call it.
Katie Fogarty 07:03
Yeah, we all do. It's a very crowded, we all have very crowded heads, you know, because we have like inner critics, we've got inner coaches, and we've now we've got inner directors. And I totally get that because I feel like I've had all of those and I, so how do you how do you harness somebody's inner coach, you know, to really or enter sort of authentic, you know, actors, you know, to when you're working with a client who wants to take a stage or who wants to be better public speaking, because maybe they're simply giving a toast at somebody's wedding that's really important to them. And they really want to convey like all their love and excitement and share like hilarious, fabulous stories and really knock it out of the park. But they're afraid, you know, because, as you know, Casey, a lot of people are very, very fearful of public speaking.
Casey Erin Clark 07:54
Yes, and we could spend the rest of our time together on this very juicy question. I want to keep it tight. I'm going to practice what I preach here and give you three ideas here. So idea number one, fear, nerves, stress, etc, around expressing yourself in front of other people is the most natural thing in the world. It has to do with how our nervous systems see the risk of falling on your face of saying something people don't like of being ostracized by your tribe, right? That activates us. It is so natural. So we got to de shame it. That's step number one. De shame it? It's natural. Nerves are natural. It is not a sign from the universe that you're never gonna be good at this?
Katie Fogarty 08:43
Yeah, no, it's smart. Because, you know, some people might think like, I need to feel comfortable and confident to be an amazing public speaker. And luckily, you know, and just recognizing that even very, very practiced public speakers are still often nervous when they got on stage is going to make you feel better when you have your own bout of nerves before you open your mouth.
Casey Erin Clark 09:03
In fact, our friend Kelly Hovey who, oh my gosh, where you haven't had her on the show, you should definitely have her on the show. Kelly Hovey's fierce. She said to us on our podcast that the day that she stops being at least just a little nervous before she takes the stage is the day she knows she needs to quit. Because it's the day that she knows that she doesn't care anymore. You're nervous because you care. And that is a good thing.
Katie Fogarty 09:25
That's great. Number two, yes. Number two, hit us up.
Casey Erin Clark 09:29
It's not the only thing that's happening in the story. Right now. The nerves don't have to be the main event, they can ride along with you and you can concentrate on them as an energy source, and then channel that into what you're actually there to do. The big transition that we have to make expressing ourselves in the world is a shift from how am I doing to what am I doing and why am I doing it? Like the clarity of the what it is your there to do and the why you're there to do it is the thing that will overcome that inner critic because it gives your very busy brain, something to focus on. Our brains are dying to focus on something. If we don't give them something to focus on, they're gonna focus on, oh my gosh, how am I doing? Do they like me? Is this going well, I hate this. I'm terrible at this, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Katie Fogarty 10:23
I love that you brought this up, Casey, because I've actually worked with a speech coach, I've worked with several speech coaches, but one that I absolutely adored, and I continue to work with because she was so smart, always said to me before, when I was freaking out, because I was always freaking out, before I was about to do something really big or major, she would say, just remember that you're there to be of service, like you are the and it took so much pressure off me because I was feeling like I had to be amazing, or I had to be funny. And what I had to do was be of service to my audience. And it really made me relaxed. Because I think that women particularly are good at being of service, we are helpful, we want to like, share ourselves and like ease the burden of the person that we're working with. And when I put the audience as center and not me, like when I cared more about their needs than mine, it made it so much easier for me to go in there. And I've repeated like a mantra like I'm just here to serve. I'm just here to serve. I'm just here to serve. And it worked every time. We are heading into a quick break, Casey but when we come back, we're going to talk about tip number three. Casey, we're back from the break, we talked about tips one and two, which I really loved, you know, nerves, nerves are natural, into like nerves are not the center of the stage, you know, the audience's and what you're communicating why you're there is. What is tip number three?
Casey Erin Clark 11:40
Tip number three is, we have to learn how to rehearse and rehearsal being about, not about, again, creating adherence to a perfect idea of how this is supposed to go, but rehearsal as play. Rehearsal as figuring out all of the different tools that you have in your toolbox to accomplish this moment. And then here's the real tip that's inside of this, we have to learn how to move from prep brain to performance brain. So prep brain is that rehearsal brain, that's where we, you know, we problem solve ahead of time, you know, if you're giving, say, a pitch at work, you're pitching your idea at work or something, you maybe you do want to think ahead of time about what are the possible objections that they might have in the meeting? And how might I respond to those objections? You're going to think about your given circumstances, the who, what, when, where and why of your scene, and you're going to get creative with those. You're going to rehearse your content, of course, but then when you get in the room, you have to let all of that go and move to performance brain. Because if you stay in prep brain, then anything that happens that deviates from your perfect plan becomes a problem instead of just a thing that happened, because guess what? Other people don't know their lines. Yeah, no, we're all in a play all the time. But like, you might think you have an idea of how this is supposed to go. Other people don't know their lines, and you can let that deeply frustrate you and make you angry, or you can respond to the beautiful, messy humanity that we're all a part of, and get to activate your creativity and your problem solving skills in the moment.
Katie Fogarty 13:25
Yeah, absolutely. And that was another conversation that I had with my speech coach, you know, because every once in a while, I'd be you know, doing a rehearsal with her. And then I would forget something and she would say, Katie, no one in the room knows what you're going to be saying. Yeah, so it's okay. Just figure out what you're gonna say next. It doesn't have to be like it was yesterday, and this probably doesn't apply if you're on the stage on Broadway andnd people are like, wait a minute, like we want Little Orphan Annie maybe doing like whatever. Fantine does something specific and we're expecting that. So that's like, a high level of stress. But for most of us who are listening to this, you know, podcasts many of us are not delivering TEDx's but we do want to communicate for impact. So I think recognizing that things don't always go according to plan is okay, because other people don't know what the plan is you can kind of improvise as you go along.
Casey Erin Clark 14:18
I have a story about that, actually. So I was on tour with Les Mis for 18 months, 21 months for the show ,totally. And I was most of the time in the ensemble, and I understudied Fantine gotcha player a bunch of times, which was such a gift. It's such a fun role. The first time that I ever got to open the show in a new city and reviewers were out in the audience, which was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get a review. This is huge. So this is something that folks who are not theatre people might not know. We wear microphones of course, there are these, you know, little tiny microphones that live on our foreheads. And they're wired microphones because wireless microphones are not good enough yet for Broadway purposes, and so you have to wear mic packs underneath your costumes well, because of the corset that I was wearing as Fantine, the mic pack had a strap around my thigh. And that was underneath more layers of costumes. So they're very hard to get to. And I was wearing two microphones in fact, because principals on Broadway there are two microphones in case one of them goes out. So we get to the factory fight where the factory girl who was the part that I was normally playing, beats the crap out of Fantine basically and outs her big secret that she's got a bastard child that she has been sending money to to everybody and Fantine gets fired. During that fight scene, the velcro holding my microphone onto my thigh undid itself and my microphones, proceeded to sort of fall down on the inside of my 18th century bloomers and swing around in between my legs. So I had to sing I Dream to Dream because I don't exit the stage I saying I Dream to Dream with these mic packs like literally swinging between my thighs, hoping to God that they weren't going to unplug themselves or like pull out from under my wig and slide down and crash on the stage. incredibly distracting well the thing about Fantine's experience in act one of Les Mis aas you may remember if you've seen the show, she really doesn't leave the stage until she dies. So like I went off stage very briefly basically to get rid of something and grab a shawl but like I had like 10 seconds offstage so I couldn't fix it then. So then the the next offstage thing, well, there's the wig change on stage, which thank God, my microphones stayed on my head, I think it was really my corset that was keeping them on my body because it sneaked underneath my corset. So then I went off stage to take the dress off, because you know, Fantine is a fallen woman right? Back on stage, these stupid mic packs are still swinging between my legs throughout the entire very dramatic scene of like Fantine getting beat up by the the man who's wanting to have sex with her and then like my God, arrested and everything and I'm just I talk about the inner director in your head and interfering with your idea of the perfect the perfect performance because like, here's my big chance to get reviewed,
Katie Fogarty 17:33
Oh my gosh, this is hysterical and you, you survived. And that, that I think is actually another secret to presenting and public speaking effectively is like you do go through some speed bumps and you learn that you can, you know, you can be on stage with the mic packs in your bloomers, you know, and it can be less than perfect and the next time you get out there, guess what those mic packs are like double velcroed on and you're gonna you're gonna be a little bit better. And I've had that experience myself, I started on smaller stages, I've had some times where I'm like, you know, it was just okay and you get better and get better and get better the more you do it.
Casey Erin Clark 18:11
The happy ending to that story is that I did get a couple of great reviews. Oh, that's good.
Katie Fogarty 18:16
That is very happy. I know that people are like this woman knocked it out of the park. She had an unusual bloomer situation and still she triumphs. Oh my God, I love it. I know, we, you know, the way out is through and you did it. But so this is actually maybe a really good time to talk about when things sort of go sideways and and sort of what what is a, you know, there's no perfect performance, but I think a lot of people myself included at one point felt like when you look at public speakers, there's like a certain way of doing it. Like there's like a style of being a public speaker and if you don't have that you're not really it, and I think a lot of people myself included wonder about things like sounding human, you know? Do we have to make sure we never say like or um, you know, what is your take on that?
Casey Erin Clark 18:59
Well, hopefully everyone listening to this podcast has heard me say um, and like.
Katie Fogarty 19:05
I have a like, I have a like problem. I say like a lot.
Casey Erin Clark 19:08
We have a very deeply held belief at Vital Voice Training that ums and uhs and likes and you knows are not, in fact, the death of your gravitas. Like neither is vocal fry, and neither is up speak. I mean, we started our company in 2014 at the height of the great moral panic over vocal fry and everyone was talking about how annoying and unserious women's voices were and we were very angry at that conversation and and how that conversation was happening and the advice that women were getting and all that advice basically boiled down to, you know, maybe ladies if you learn how to do your most credible imitation of a middle aged white man, maybe people will take you seriously. It was like we don't want to teach people how to like put on their serious voice so people will take them seriously. We want to expand the idea of what the world sees and hears as leadership, as as charisma as confidence, all those big words, right and even dare I say, as authenticity, you brought up the word authenticity. It's such a buzzword,
Katie Fogarty 20:22
it is a buzzword. And by the way, like, at its root at its core, it's a fantastic word, right? We all want to be authentic. But it's such a buzzy buzzy word that we really, you know, we sort of reject it now. But I think it's, for me, it's like less that, you know, BBB can place replace off authenticity with just being human. You know, because some of the most engaging speakers that I've had the pleasure of being in front of, you know, either on a stage or I see them on TED talks or in zooms, or people that open their mouths, and they share themselves, and, you know, they're sharing like, or their vulnerability, or they're presenting as human or they're, you know, swearing, they're slightly off kilter. They're saying ums and likes, and yet they're, they're connecting, because you so deeply feel what they're saying, and they're really bringing their whole human to their, to their conversation. To me, that's so important. What's your take on nonverbal communications? Because we we receive somebody who's presenting an idea or sharing a story or giving a speech beyond simply the, you know, the auditory and the words, what role should we, h ow should we think about nonverbal communications when we're thinking about presenting?
Casey Erin Clark 21:37
This is such a good question, particularly now, you know, as we step into this unknown future where, you know, the robots are taking over a lot of things, you know, we thought the robots were going to be built to do the things that we didn't want to do. It's a little discouraging that now, the robots are coming for the things that we do actually, like.
Katie Fogarty 21:59
Right, they're making art, they're writing creative copy. They're writing songs,
Casey Erin Clark 22:04
But you know, what the robots can't do, they can't feel. And I mean, literally and figuratively, they they don't have a body that experiences the world. And this is me swinging back to nonverbal communication, our bodies, and our emotions that are housed inside those bodies, and those brains can feel really messy and really inconvenient to us. I mean, this brings it all the way back to the conversation about nerves, right? If you're somebody who experiences you know, flushing or sweating or shaking, or feeling like everyone can tell that you're nervous because of your body, we often see that manifest in in tension patterns, right? That that like thing where your elbows get glued to your sides, and you get like Tyrannosaurus Rex arms on stage. But here's the thing, your body, and especially now, is an asset, not a liability. Your body is for you to sense the world and respond to the world and your emotions are part of that sensor. When we learn to see our bodies as an asset and not a liability, even in all of their moments of being very inconvenient to us, then we can actually bring them on stage with us. I mean, everybody wants to ask, you know, what do I do with my hands on stage?
Katie Fogarty 23:33
What do we do with our hands on stage, Casey?
Casey Erin Clark 23:36
Well, first of all, you reject the idea that there are appropriate hand gestures like steeple fingers, and like, being very symmetrical and like, whatever I don't know, that stuff is that stuff is lame. You know how to talk with your hands. I'm saying this to every single person who is listening to this podcast, you know, how you talk with your hands, when you're comfortable. When you're with your people, when you are feeling as you just said, 100% human, when we sort of start to check those impulses and try to direct those impulses, that's when things get awkward. When you are concentrating on again, what you're doing and why you're doing it the hand gestures will follow. You just have to invite your body onto that stage with you and let it enjoy the ride.
Katie Fogarty 24:29
Yes, I think that's so it's so tricky. But when you when you're when you're excited and enjoying the the opportunity to present or share it really makes such a difference. I also think that there's there's, practice plays an incredible role in this too. And I know that Vital Voice Training really rejects the notion that public speaking can be taught through like a 123 step approach. But, you know, one of the one of the sort of like steps that's really worked for me is that I have practice and I often practice by myself, which sounds very weird. I'll just the act of saying something out loud. And this is this is important. Even if you're never going to take a stage or never, you know, you're never going to be the one to do the wedding toast because you just really don't want to do this. We all have to have uncomfortable conversations, we all have to like ask for a raise, we all have to like, explain to our spouse or partner that they're like really pissing us off, you know, we all have to, we have to ask for things you know, which can feel uncomfortable. And if you have practiced having those words come out of your mouth, by yourself, it makes it so much easier to have them come out of your mouth, when you're saying it to the audience that you care about. And I've even gone as far as to particularly when I'm presenting or if I'm leading workshops, I will video myself with my smartphone, which feels so weird and uncomfortable. And you know, I'll do it over and over and over again until finally it's not weird and uncomfortable. And then by the time I'm ready to walk out in front of the room or walk out onto the stage, you know, I feel like the materials are kind of, you know, they're in, you know, embedded in my brain and they're able they're able to come out more easily. What's a, what's a tactical tip that you might offer to somebody who's listening right now who's thinking, you know, my tactical tip would also be to hit Casey up for coaching because she doesn't virtually but what's something that you might share with our with our listeners?
Casey Erin Clark 26:21
Oh, okay, so Katie, I'm going to tell you something, I don't think videoing yourself is helping you. I don't want to tell you why. Because this is really important.
Katie Fogarty 26:29
No tell me, yeah.
Casey Erin Clark 26:30
A lot of people have been told by coaches or, or get this idea that, you know, practicing in a mirror, or videoing yourself and watching it back is is a way to rehearse. It's a good way to rehearse, right? Because then you can see what you're doing and you can make adjustments. What that is doing, unfortunately, is creating a closed feedback loop. It's now just you and your talk, and you and yourself. And again, that that causes us to go in that place of how am I doing? It's not terrible. I'm not saying that you're like ruining yourself by doing better, I think there are better ways to do it. And what I would suggest is using your imagination, first of all, and imagining an audience, I would also suggest that when you rehearse something, don't rehearse it the same way several times in a row. Here's where dramatic imagination can make a huge difference for us. And we just wrote about this this week in our newsletter. Playing with opposites is a really great tool. So let's say that you are doing a really high stakes presentation at work. And to a board room full of I don't know old white dudes. What if instead of rehearsing that it like you're doing it for that boardroom of old white dudes over and over and over again? What if you rehearse it like your Tony Robbins on the stage of 1000 person conference, and then you rehearse it? Like you're speaking to a kindergarten class, and then you rehearse it like your like announcing a prized fight or something? There's so many different ways.
Katie Fogarty 28:05
Oh my God, I'm cracking up. I'm like, literally picturing me talking about LinkedIn, like a prizefighter.
Casey Erin Clark 28:11
It's so much, because again, this is where we activate our fun instincts and our creative instincts. And we remind ourselves that there is not one right way to say this, and not one right hand gesture, or one, right blocking move, or whatever. Particularly when it comes to stressful and emotional conversations I think.
Katie Fogarty 28:36
I love this idea, I can't say I'm definitely I'm definitely going to try this. Here's something else I want. Now, I wanted to like fact check this with you. So the same coach who I, by the way I loved and this, this didn't, you know, it served me well, and it made me be a little bit better. But I'm gonna try this. And sort of imagine that, you know, imagination for different kinds of audiences, I can see how that so much value but one other thing that she suggested, which I do use, and I want to hear your thinking on it, as she said, Imagine that you're talking to a particular person. And I've used this tool for me really effectively. Like, often when I'm nervous. If I'm maybe recording a podcast where I've never met the guest, and I'm feeling a bit anxious, or even if I'm walking into a room, I imagine that I'm explaining the information I'm giving it to my friend Brooke. And I'm imagining it's Brooke because she's an incredible listener, she's very curious so she wants to hear new things and be introduced to new ideas, and she's very empathetic. And she is somebody who is always curious about hearing from other people. And when I bring that spirit to like my audience, I'm like, of course they want to hear from me. They're Brooke you know, Brooks, Brooks a good listener.
Casey Erin Clark 29:47
That is a gorgeous tool. I love that.
Katie Fogarty 29:50
Oh, good. Okay. I trust your opinion and I want to hear.
Casey Erin Clark 29:55
And and on this note, I think especially when you're walking into a difficult scenario again, whether that's a conversation with your partner about how they need to step it up around the house exactly, or a, you know, a pitch meeting or a TED talk or whatever it is that you want to do when you are entering a space where you have to communicate in a way that stresses you out, we call this your imaginary entourage. I love it. If you've ever seen the music video, Cream by Prince,
Katie Fogarty 30:26
I'm like, I'm testing my mind back. I'm like,
Casey Erin Clark 30:29
I mean its worth a YouTube search, it's worth a YouTube search because this tiny, tiny man he was like, he was like five two or something enters this music video with his entourage and gorgeous women behind him. Like he's like 10 feet tall.
Katie Fogarty 30:45
This is what this is coming back to me. Now it's coming back to me.
Casey Erin Clark 30:48
So freakin fabulous. So imagine walking into a room with your invisible entourage behind you. And that entourage includes every person who loves and admires you, every person who's ever had your back, every person who thinks that what you're doing is really special and important. Every person who you love is there you carry them with you, you carry their energy with you in the room and they're there to cheer you on. Oh my gosh, like that way of walking in the room is so much better than walking in the room going oh God, please let them like me and take me seriously.
Katie Fogarty 31:24
I'm smiling ear to ear right now because I love this notion and when you first had an invisible entourage I like pictured myself walking around with like a marching band behind me with like feather caps and and symbols and you know clanging gongs and stuff. But now I'm like, I love this idea of being surrounded and supported by all the people that that cheer me on in my regular life. And I'm gonna use that also, Casey, we're kind of near - we all want a marching band - we're nearing the end of our time. But I do want to explore something before we head into our speed round, actually, maybe two things. So let's talk about how to present with impact when it's virtual. Because you know, the bad news is zoom is a big part of our lives these days. I've had to do during the pandemic, a lot of my workshops that I used to lead in person, classes I used to teach in person moved online. We interact with, you know, family meetings, you know, I've attended zoom funerals. There's, there's a lot that's happening. Our lives are somewhat hybrid these days. And so, yep. Is there something that we need to be thinking about when we're presenting virtually that we might that might be different from when we're in real life?
Casey Erin Clark 32:33
Hmm. Because we don't share an atmosphere with our audience literally, right? Like you don't know if they're cold. You don't know if there's loud noises around them or they're distracted. It's time to give yourself abundant grace and stay in the mode of curiosity about your audience and not judgment. And here's why. Because when we get nervous when we're feeling stressed about anything, human beings start to read neutral faces and neutral body language and neutral tone of voice as negative. It's a protective thing, right? Like we're protecting ourselves. Makes sense that our brains would do that. But it's kind of crappy when you're, you know, in a Zoom meeting, and you notice that your boss is giving you resting bitchface. And you're like, Oh, God, they don't like me, this is going so poorly, right? Well, first of all, not everybody knows that they have resting bitchface. And especially when they're in their office, doing their fifth Zoom meeting of the day or whatever, right? When we can make a generous assumption about our audience. It can help keep us in that state of flow where we're actually reaching out and we're staying curious and we're staying present as opposed to judging them or ourselves.
Katie Fogarty 33:53
Such great advice because when you are presenting live, you get laughs You get you feel the energy from the audience, you see people kind of looking up and being alert, and that does not translate on Zoom. So that's such a terrific piece of advice. Give your audience the benefit of the doubt, assume they're interested in you. What, okay, number two, what is a public speaking myth that currently exists that you would like to bust? What's, what's the biggest thing that gets in the way of people being successful because they're hanging on to this outdated notion of what it means to be a good public speaker?
Casey Erin Clark 34:23
Oh, there's so many, right one is that just just the idea that public speaking is only for certain kinds of people, right, only for confident people or only for cool people or only for people with amazing qualifications or only for people who have super interesting stories and I don't have a super interesting story. No, communication is for everyone. And, and particularly when it comes to speaking about yourself and your own experiences, I have yet to meet a person, a client or a person in the world who doesn't have something deeply interesting to share, love, some story, some aspect of themselves some bit of knowledge that they have that no one else in the world has. I want to democratize public speaking. I want more voices and I want people to know that just because this scares you, doesn't mean it's not for you.
Katie Fogarty 35:26
I love that. I said at the top of the show that public speaking is for life and I'm going to say now at the close of the show, public speaking is for everyone. Casey, this was fabulous. We're heading into our speed round. This is one to two word answers. Let's do this. This person is a masterclass in public speaking, watch her or him for inspiration:
Casey Erin Clark 35:48
Oh, I'm going to say Uzo Aduba.
Katie Fogarty 35:51
Is she the actress What does she talk about?
Casey Erin Clark 35:53
She, I'm just thinking of the speech where, that she gives, where she's talking about her name being Uzo Amaka and her asking her mom as a young girl. If she could be called Zoe instead because no one could pronounce her name and her Nigerian mother being like, if they can learn to pronounce Tchaikovsky and Dostoyevsky they can learn to pronounce Uzo Amaka and I was like yes, so good. Worth Looking up.
Katie Fogarty 36:17
Fabulous. I will put that into the show notes. Okay, nervous before a public speaking gig, think about this pre speech ritual to calm your nerves.
Casey Erin Clark 36:26
Dance Party, get those nerves out.
Katie Fogarty 36:30
Yeah, shake shake shake. Right, get all the, that nervous energy released. Alright, switching gears here, favorite role you played on stage?
Casey Erin Clark 36:40
Oh, Joe March and Little Women.
Katie Fogarty 36:44
Nice. Biggest pinch me moment as a performer.
Casey Erin Clark 36:48
Performing on the Oscars.
Katie Fogarty 36:50
Love it. Love it. Love it. Where can we learn more about Broadway Inspirational Voices and see your singing in action.
Casey Erin Clark 36:59
Go to my website www.caseyerinclark.com You'll find links to BIV, links to other singing videos and audio as well as how to work with me via Vital Voice Training and of course you can also go to Vital Voice Trainings website www.vitalvoicetraining.com
Katie Fogarty 37:19
I love it. Okay, finally your one word answer to complete this sentence: As I age I feel:
Casey Erin Clark 37:25
Bigger.
Katie Fogarty 37:28
Casey this was so much fun. I love seeing you singing. I love hearing your thoughts on public speaking. I so enjoyed this conversation and I so appreciate your being here with me today.
Casey Erin Clark 37:39
Thank you so much Katie this was a blast.
Katie Fogarty 37:41
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. Before we say goodbye a huge thank you to everyone who has taken time to write an Apple Podcast review. I see them and I so appreciate you. Creating this podcast is an absolute blast but it's a ton of work and I love seeing reviews that hype the show up. You are the best truly. Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then, age boldly beauties.