The work
The voice is the instrument every consequential room runs on.
Tips and formulas sit on top of that instrument. Voicework develops the instrument itself: breath, body, thought and feeling working as one, so what you mean is what the room receives.
I have spoken for a living where it counted.
The courtroom, the boardroom, the broadcast booth, the stage. Fitzmaurice- and Lessac-trained, I bring the craft of the conservatory and the judgment of counsel to the same room.
Practiced deliberately, so expression can arise spontaneously
Each guideline gives the conscious mind one more behavior to monitor while trying to communicate.
What if pitch, pace, melody, movement, gesture, expression and silence did not have to be consciously arranged? What if they could arise spontaneously from the thought, feeling, purpose and relationship alive in the moment?
Not performed. Not pasted on. Not borrowed from someone else’s model of effective presenting.
Spontaneity does not mean randomness or lack of skill. The capacities are cultivated through rigorous practice. But once integrated, they no longer require conscious choreography.
The Five Shifts
Our work is not to invent expression. It is to stop interrupting it. Over {{ weeks }} weeks, five shifts take place. Each one is a movement from effort toward availability.
From displaying the signs of effective speaking to remaining genuinely available to meaning, listener and moment.
From trying to manage every aspect of delivery to staying responsive to yourself and the people in the room.
From monitoring how you appear to relying upon capacities developed through experience and practice.
Not freedom from fear. The ability to communicate and act through and despite fear.
From being admired or remembered to moving hearts, minds, decisions and action.
Where the work begins
Applied presentation training and this work may sometimes look similar from the outside. They begin with profoundly different questions.
The outward behavior may sometimes look similar. Both speakers may pause, gesture or vary pitch. One is remembering what an effective speaker is supposed to do. The other is responding to meaning, intention, listener and moment.
What becomes available
The work is not defined by what stops happening. It is defined by what you gain access to.
A breakthrough is not yet a capacity
A shift can happen in a moment. You hear a new resonance, feel breath move differently, discover range you did not know was available. That is real. It is not the same as being able to access that voice months later, during a hostile interview, an unexpected question or a decision upon which something important depends.
Voice, presence and relational communication are not mysterious gifts. The capacities can be developed.
The learning process can be taught and practiced repeatedly. It does not depend on one flash of inspiration.
Through repetition, feedback and varied practice, the capacities become increasingly available as stakes rise.
Reliable does not mean flawless performance in every circumstance. It means you are no longer wholly dependent upon ideal conditions.
