Episode 13
Think No One Listens to You? Listen to This! With D’Arcy Webb | UYGW13
D’Arcy Webb is a speech and voice coach committed to helping people be heard.
She began her journey when a director she admired told her that her performance was wonderful…. If only she could have been heard.
D’Arcy worked for years on her own vocal strength and power, and what she learned became her passion.
D’Arcy knows that unleashing your voice is critical to finding your truth.
Join us as we discuss:
Why it matters that you have a clear, strong voice that you own as yours
Why people are always crying in D’Arcy’s studio
Why D’Arcy loves the phonetic alphabet, and how it helps us find our true voice.
About the D’Arcy:
For over two decades, award-winning voice and speech teacher and performance consultant D’Arcy Webb has been helping actors, performers, corporate executives, authors and speakers use their voices to connect with audiences around the world with power, eloquence and heart.
As former Associate Professor of Voice and Speech at the University of the Arts, D’Arcy has worked with hundreds of new and seasoned performers to make their words resonate with clarity, precision and confidence. She has also served as voice, speech and performance coach for TEDxCambridge, and was the Head of Vocal Training for Heroic Public Speaking from 2016 to 2020. Now D’Arcy coaches and teaches in her private studio all those who want to speak with not only clarity but brio. The creator of a wacky online series called “Tuesday Morning Two-minute Tune-ups For Your Tongue,” D'Arcy is in constant pursuit of ideas that will enrich, renew and deepen her students’ knowledge and skill, awakening in them a love of language and the passion to speak their truth. Keynote speaker and retired TEDx Cambridge Executive Producer, Tamsen Webster, has called D’Arcy’s work “magic. She produces instantaneous yet lasting effects.”
Connect with the D’Arcy:
darcywebb.com https://www.darcywebb.com/
LinkedIn and Facebook: @thespeechdiva
Instagram-: @darcythespeechdiva
About the Amanda:
Dr. Amanda Crowell is a cognitive psychologist, speaker, author and coach changing our perspective on the world of work. It IS possible to do Great Work-- launch a successful business, make a scientific discovery, raise a tight-knit family, or manage a global remote team-- without sacrificing your health, happiness and relationships.
Amanda is the Author of the forthcoming book, Great Work: Do What Matter Most Without Sacrificing Everything Else, and the creator of the Great Work Journals. Amanda's TEDx talk has received more than a million views and has been featured on TED's Ideas blog and Ted Shorts.
Her ideas have also been featured on NPR, Al Jazeera, The Wall Street Journal, Quartz, and Thrive Global.
Sponsored By The Aligned Time Journal
The Unleashing Your Great Work podcast is sponsored by the Aligned Time Journal! The Aligned Time Journal is here to answer the question "But HOW?" How can we figure out what our Great Work is? How can we get started, stay with it, and finish our Great Work so it can go out in the world and have an impact?
Click here to learn more, and try it out for yourself!
For more information about the Unleashing YOUR Great Work podcast or to learn more about Dr. Amanda Crowell, check out my website: amandacrowell.com
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Transcript
Welcome to unleashing your great work, a
Dr Amanda Crowell:podcast about doing the work that matters the most to you.
Dr Amanda Crowell:I'm your host, Dr. Amanda Kroll, a cognitive psychologist,
Dr Amanda Crowell:speaker, coach, and the creator of the aligned time journals.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Every week on this podcast, we are asking the big questions.
Dr Amanda Crowell:What is great work? And why does it matter so much to us? What
Dr Amanda Crowell:does it take to do more of your great work without sacrificing
Dr Amanda Crowell:everything else? And how does the world change when more
Dr Amanda Crowell:people are doing more of the work that matters the most to
Dr Amanda Crowell:them? Whether you're great work is building your own small
Dr Amanda Crowell:business, or managing a remote team at a multinational company.
Dr Amanda Crowell:You'll find insight and answers here. Welcome, everybody to
Dr Amanda Crowell:unleashing your great work. Today, I could not be more
Dr Amanda Crowell:excited to welcome Darcy Webb to the podcast. She is an award
Dr Amanda Crowell:winning voice and speech teacher and performance consultant. And
Dr Amanda Crowell:she's been helping actors and performers, corporate
Dr Amanda Crowell:executives, authors and speakers to use their voice to connect
Dr Amanda Crowell:with audiences around the world with power, eloquence, and
Dr Amanda Crowell:heart. Welcome to the podcast Darcy.
D’Arcy Webb:Oh, thank you. I am so glad you asked me to do this.
D’Arcy Webb:Amanda, I'm really happy to talk.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Yay. I'm glad you agreed to do this. So we are
Dr Amanda Crowell:we're in good company. So Darcy, we start every podcast with the
Dr Amanda Crowell:same question. Tell us a little bit about your great work. Well,
Dr Amanda Crowell:it's so funny when you say that to me, because I never think of
Dr Amanda Crowell:my work as great work until I listened to the first episode of
Dr Amanda Crowell:your podcast, and then I kind of shifted my thinking a little
Dr Amanda Crowell:bit. Really? Yes, I thought my work was my work. It was what
Dr Amanda Crowell:brought me joy. Hmm, brought me great joy, to be able to teach.
Dr Amanda Crowell:And I just never thought it was great until I had my little mind
Dr Amanda Crowell:shift. Well, Darcy and I met at a program a public speaking
Dr Amanda Crowell:program. And she was my voice coach. While we were there, I
Dr Amanda Crowell:did even an individual session with her. I was so impressed
Dr Amanda Crowell:with her help she and for my TED Talk, actually, as I was
Dr Amanda Crowell:preparing to do that she helped me get my vocal presence in
Dr Amanda Crowell:place. And so I know for sure that the work that you do is
Dr Amanda Crowell:great work, in part because I know that it made my work so
Dr Amanda Crowell:much greater. But tell us what that great work is now that we
Dr Amanda Crowell:both is great.
D’Arcy Webb:I teach people to own who they are through their
D’Arcy Webb:voice. I teach people to tell their truth, their whole truth.
D’Arcy Webb:They're with their authentic sound. So that's really what I
D’Arcy Webb:work on with people. Almost all the time. When I first started
D’Arcy Webb:teaching, I was teaching college sophomores acting majors in
D’Arcy Webb:musical theater majors. And I was teaching them using the
D’Arcy Webb:International Phonetic Alphabet, which is well it's it's a, it's
D’Arcy Webb:a series of symbols. Sometimes they look like letters.
D’Arcy Webb:Sometimes they just look like squiggles. But they're like the
D’Arcy Webb:music notes to speech. So there's a sound attached to
D’Arcy Webb:every symbol. So there's a symbol for ah, and there's a
D’Arcy Webb:symbol for and there's a symbol for and all of the other sounds
D’Arcy Webb:that we make. And so what they had to learn to do was
D’Arcy Webb:eventually once they learned them, those music Gnosis speech,
D’Arcy Webb:they had to learn to put them together, they had to learn how
D’Arcy Webb:to transcribe what it was they were saying, whether it was a
D’Arcy Webb:monologue or a practice sentence. And so it seemed like
D’Arcy Webb:it was kind of mechanical, and it seemed like it was a pretty
D’Arcy Webb:academic. But in the end, it was always about discovering that
D’Arcy Webb:they had this true voice inside them. And it was just from being
D’Arcy Webb:able to make music with their vowels in their consonant
D’Arcy Webb:sounds.
Dr Amanda Crowell:What is it about gaining full access to
Dr Amanda Crowell:your voice that seems to transform people?
D’Arcy Webb:I think it's that for so many people, they have
D’Arcy Webb:tamped down their voices because they thought that they sounded
D’Arcy Webb:bad. Or they you know, if you grew up like I did, you weren't
D’Arcy Webb:allowed to talk. You know, get out of the way you're standing
D’Arcy Webb:in front of the TV. melodramatic. I don't want to
D’Arcy Webb:hear from you. Why are you crying?
Dr Amanda Crowell:That was like pulling back of my child,
D’Arcy Webb:I'm sure they did the best they could do. We all
D’Arcy Webb:do. Yeah. But it really took a few years of therapy, and voice
D’Arcy Webb:and speech work, not only learning it, but teaching it,
D’Arcy Webb:you know, when we have to learn so often. So I really discovered
D’Arcy Webb:my true voice by teaching that when when I started working on
D’Arcy Webb:my vowels and consonants with my students, I would began to take
D’Arcy Webb:the cork out of my vocal passageway and started
D’Arcy Webb:expressing my true sound, that I wasn't trying to sound like
D’Arcy Webb:somebody else. And when I wasn't trying to sound like somebody
D’Arcy Webb:else, then I could truly be who I was. Then I had more
D’Arcy Webb:confidence in front of my students. And then when I could
D’Arcy Webb:teach other people how to do that, they began to have more
D’Arcy Webb:confidence. When they spoke, they began more confident
D’Arcy Webb:standing up to their father or their mother or in front of that
D’Arcy Webb:board room. Hmm.
Dr Amanda Crowell:You said that we teach what we need to learn,
Dr Amanda Crowell:did you struggle to vocalize?
D’Arcy Webb:I was cast in a very prestigious Theatre
D’Arcy Webb:Company, alternative Theatre Company in Pittsburgh many years
D’Arcy Webb:ago, in my mid 20s, in a new work, and it was called a
D’Arcy Webb:lyrical opera made by two which was written by Gertrude Stein.
D’Arcy Webb:And I played Gertrude Stein, I had my wife with me, Alice B.
D’Arcy Webb:Toklas. It was beautiful music. There were, you know, there was
D’Arcy Webb:spoken word there was singing, there was great. I had the best,
D’Arcy Webb:just got a lot of feedback from my director and my music
D’Arcy Webb:director. There were a lot of important people in the audience
D’Arcy Webb:on opening night. And after the show was over, one of the people
D’Arcy Webb:that I wanted to impress, came up to me and said, Darcy, you
D’Arcy Webb:were wonderful. If only I could have heard. Yeah, that was just
D’Arcy Webb:a kick in the gut. Yeah. So it isn't like I started, you know,
D’Arcy Webb:I started working on my voice and speech right away. About It
D’Arcy Webb:was just, I was so confused. I was stunned. It took me a while
D’Arcy Webb:to figure out what that was all about. It wasn't just being
D’Arcy Webb:vocally heard, it was being it was being able to connect with
D’Arcy Webb:the audience in a truly authentic way. And if I had been
D’Arcy Webb:able to truly unleash the true sound that was in me, instead of
D’Arcy Webb:trying to sound right, instead of trying to sound pretty,
D’Arcy Webb:instead of worrying about doing the right thing. Everyone would
D’Arcy Webb:have heard me.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Interesting. So I'm not sure that this will
Dr Amanda Crowell:work on a podcast, but I'm wondering if it will, is there a
Dr Amanda Crowell:way that we can feel the difference between sort of like
Dr Amanda Crowell:a suppressed voice and one that's kind of unleashed? Like
Dr Amanda Crowell:is there a way that we can do an example of this?
D’Arcy Webb:I can, I can try. A lot of times what happens when
D’Arcy Webb:we are tamping down our sound is we stop breathing. We don't
D’Arcy Webb:really stop breathing, because you know, we're alive. We're
D’Arcy Webb:breathing, we're getting some oxygen in there. But we will
D’Arcy Webb:hold our breath. And we will hold it in the upper lobes of
D’Arcy Webb:our lungs. So you hear what I'm sounding like right now it
D’Arcy Webb:sounds a little tense. And I'm actually speaking from my
D’Arcy Webb:throat, because I'm holding my breath. Hmm. But if I release my
D’Arcy Webb:belly, if I release that area in my you know, my solar plexus,
D’Arcy Webb:which that area, ribs, that's where a lot of us, that's where
D’Arcy Webb:a lot of people carry their tension. If I can release that,
D’Arcy Webb:then the air flows more freely. So you hear a difference between
D’Arcy Webb:my talking now. I can talking now, this is when I'm holding my
D’Arcy Webb:breath. Hmm. I've actually done it on stage before where I and I
D’Arcy Webb:have taken nanosecond where I could, I could just feel the the
D’Arcy Webb:tension building and building and I just, I couldn't get my
D’Arcy Webb:breath anymore, because I was only breathing using the upper
D’Arcy Webb:lobes of my lungs. As soon as I released that area just took a
D’Arcy Webb:second no one saw me no one knew released that. Suddenly the air
D’Arcy Webb:was flowing again. And my sound my words, were riding on that
D’Arcy Webb:voice just like a magic carpet.
Dr Amanda Crowell:No magic carpet. I love it. That's so
Dr Amanda Crowell:interesting. And when you say that, I think like I've always
Dr Amanda Crowell:had a very loud voice. And it's I think it might be a deeper
Dr Amanda Crowell:voice than maybe some people have. I'm not sure like I've
Dr Amanda Crowell:always been an alto instead of a soprano. And, you know, it was
Dr Amanda Crowell:always surprising to me when people had really soft voices,
Dr Amanda Crowell:because I think I just always had the ability to be like very,
Dr Amanda Crowell:very loud. But I think part of it is, and when you were
Dr Amanda Crowell:mentioning the sort of like everybody carrying their tension
Dr Amanda Crowell:in their lower abdomen, to a certain extent, I think part of
Dr Amanda Crowell:that might just be about all of our fears about not being thin
Dr Amanda Crowell:enough. Like we're trying to hold all that in, is that true?
Dr Amanda Crowell:Or am I making that up?
D’Arcy Webb:You that is true for some people, some people
D’Arcy Webb:actually cannot release that part of their body because
D’Arcy Webb:they're so concerned about being fat. And I have, I've actually
D’Arcy Webb:stood in a private studio with somebody and worked with that
D’Arcy Webb:person to get them to release that. That bit of flesh, because
D’Arcy Webb:they thought it was, you know, making them look as thin as
D’Arcy Webb:possible. And really, I mean, if we were on camera, I could show
D’Arcy Webb:you it doesn't make the least bit of difference. All the time.
D’Arcy Webb:I know it really doesn't. And, and dancers have a tendency to
D’Arcy Webb:really hold there, I have to remind dancers to let that go.
D’Arcy Webb:It is also an emotional thing. And I was years ago, a few years
D’Arcy Webb:ago, I was taking a workshop up in New York City with the great,
D’Arcy Webb:scary, the Great, the scary, Patsy Rodenburg.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Great, the scary, scary, many calls me the
Dr Amanda Crowell:greatest.
D’Arcy Webb:And there were 30 people and she's in the big
D’Arcy Webb:studio, and she was taking us through this exercise a bout
D’Arcy Webb:identifying in the body where our tension was. Now, mind you,
D’Arcy Webb:I've been working on this stuff for years and years and years.
D’Arcy Webb:Suddenly, I felt area within my solar plexus release, like two
D’Arcy Webb:steel doors opening. And I fell to my knees and burst into
D’Arcy Webb:tears. And she spun around and looked at me and said, What is
D’Arcy Webb:it? And I said, I don't know. I just all of a sudden remembered
D’Arcy Webb:all of my family saying get out of the way. Shut up. Stop being
D’Arcy Webb:melodramatic. And she pointed her scary finger at me. And she
D’Arcy Webb:said they were afraid of your power. Ooh. And I think what
D’Arcy Webb:happens is, when we tap down our voice, whether we are
D’Arcy Webb:constricting our throat or holding tension in our solar
D’Arcy Webb:plexus, sometimes we hold tension in our rear ends. We
D’Arcy Webb:pull up on our rear ends. It's it is about controlling
D’Arcy Webb:ourselves. It is about being appropriate. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. It
D’Arcy Webb:is about not offending people. Fascinating. So now
Dr Amanda Crowell:it's interesting because you think
Dr Amanda Crowell:like, oh, I'm going to release my voice. I'm going to like do
Dr Amanda Crowell:some mechanical things and like, make my chest a little less
Dr Amanda Crowell:tense. And then I'm going to be able to project and everything's
Dr Amanda Crowell:gonna be fine. And then then you're like, Oh, God, I'm child
Dr Amanda Crowell:a trauma and yeah, and raise my power. Like, what a what an
Dr Amanda Crowell:unexpectedly powerful thing you do.
D’Arcy Webb:Yeah. Yeah. So and really, I'm working largely on
D’Arcy Webb:mechanics. I remember I was standing by one young woman in a
D’Arcy Webb:studio, and she was doing her monologue and I was side
D’Arcy Webb:coaching her, which means I stand at her side, and I talk
D’Arcy Webb:quietly in her ear. And I said to her, open your mouth. And she
D’Arcy Webb:opened her mouth a little bit more, she was speaking and I
D’Arcy Webb:said, open it more. And she opened it a little more. And
D’Arcy Webb:then she stopped. And then she began to cry. And I said, keep
D’Arcy Webb:talking and she cried, and she talked I said keep opening your
D’Arcy Webb:mouth and she cried. And she talked and she kept opening her
D’Arcy Webb:mouth. We don't open our mouths to speak. We will open our mouth
D’Arcy Webb:a little bit to speak. And we just use maybe part of our lips,
D’Arcy Webb:but we keep our jaws closed. fairly tight. But yeah, but if
D’Arcy Webb:you open your mouth, more sound comes out. Or feeling comes out.
D’Arcy Webb:Right? Tell us what gardening is. Gardening is when you
D’Arcy Webb:stretch your face into really, I wish I could show you silly
D’Arcy Webb:faces. So think Shrek over and you're really pulling ugly faces
D’Arcy Webb:faces that you would never make in public and what you're doing
D’Arcy Webb:raising your eyebrows really high and scrunching them down
D’Arcy Webb:really low and what you're doing is you're activating all of
D’Arcy Webb:those muscles in the face. We call it burning because it's
D’Arcy Webb:actually called burning and rural England. And if you
D’Arcy Webb:Google, burn grn girl get lots of pictures of people who look
D’Arcy Webb:really crazy people who are folding their upper lip, their
D’Arcy Webb:nose, or, and they have these contests in rural England, and
D’Arcy Webb:they win prizes. Yeah.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Well, I'm wondering. So in these rooms
Dr Amanda Crowell:full of people, you said these are not faces, you would make it
Dr Amanda Crowell:public. And yet there we were in public and these rooms full of
Dr Amanda Crowell:like 25 people making faces at each other with you. And you, of
Dr Amanda Crowell:course, just at the front, making them so bigger and
Dr Amanda Crowell:bigger. So we would just get more into it. And I was always
Dr Amanda Crowell:fascinated to find how full of excited energy those rooms were
Dr Amanda Crowell:after the fact. And some of it, I think, is because we were
Dr Amanda Crowell:making silly faces. But I also wonder how much of it was what
Dr Amanda Crowell:you were describing, just we're releasing all this tension and
Dr Amanda Crowell:suddenly realizing, like just releasing all this energy,
D’Arcy Webb:and allowed to be free and allowed to play. You
D’Arcy Webb:know, we are really allowed to play that often. And I remember
D’Arcy Webb:when I first started coaching at HBS, and I said to Michael
D’Arcy Webb:Porter, who is one of the founders, I said, Well, gosh,
D’Arcy Webb:I'm really after my first lesson, I hope I wasn't too
D’Arcy Webb:inappropriate. And he said, Let your freak flag fly. And so I
D’Arcy Webb:said, thank you. And so from then on, I did a couple of years
D’Arcy Webb:later, I walked into a corporate boardroom, they were a bunch of
D’Arcy Webb:scientists. And I was trying to explain to them how releasing
D’Arcy Webb:the anal sphincter would make people feel more comfortable
D’Arcy Webb:when they walked into a presentation. And then I
D’Arcy Webb:proceeded to show him the zoo Walshaw ladder, which you may
D’Arcy Webb:remember has classes, quite physical and quite vocal and
D’Arcy Webb:makes everybody feel very silly and very happy. Yeah. And by the
D’Arcy Webb:end of that, I'm really not sure whether they were in trance, or
D’Arcy Webb:whether they were stunned. But I, I didn't care. Because that
D’Arcy Webb:was my gift. Yeah, yes. And I think we are all so eager to not
D’Arcy Webb:try and squish ourselves into a round hole if we're square or
D’Arcy Webb:square hole if we're round. Yeah.
Dr Amanda Crowell:unleashing your great work is sponsored by
Dr Amanda Crowell:the aligned time journal. As you think about great work, you
Dr Amanda Crowell:might think, okay, but how? How do I figure out what my great
Dr Amanda Crowell:work is? How do I make progress on it? How do I overcome
Dr Amanda Crowell:procrastination, burnout and perfectionism. What I like to
Dr Amanda Crowell:call The three horsemen of the gold pocalypse, my answer to
Dr Amanda Crowell:that question is use the aligned time journal. It's a whole
Dr Amanda Crowell:person time management system that will keep you moving
Dr Amanda Crowell:forward on your great work without ever feeling
Dr Amanda Crowell:overwhelmed. Click the link in the show notes to check it out.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Give it a try and get busy unleashing your great work out
Dr Amanda Crowell:into the world. Well, the freedom I think we are both very
Dr Amanda Crowell:eager to squish ourselves into that square hole if we're around
Dr Amanda Crowell:so that we can finally be deemed good enough and, like,
Dr Amanda Crowell:acceptable, you know, so we can exist with some sense of ease.
Dr Amanda Crowell:And the real, the real message I feel like you're saying is that
Dr Amanda Crowell:the real sense of ease comes from going in the other
Dr Amanda Crowell:direction. Just
D’Arcy Webb:be who you are, be who you are, be who you are. And
D’Arcy Webb:so often, when we uncork that voice inside of us, we begin to
D’Arcy Webb:discover who we really are. Here I am. Here, right? Here I am.
Dr Amanda Crowell:I love it. Well, you're great at helping
Dr Amanda Crowell:people. I think, obviously, you know this, that you're great at
Dr Amanda Crowell:helping people figure out their voice. But I wonder what
Dr Amanda Crowell:challenges have you experienced as you've been in pursuit of
Dr Amanda Crowell:your great work? Oh, well,
D’Arcy Webb:I'm sure that many people have experienced what I I
D’Arcy Webb:have and continue to struggle with from time to time, which
D’Arcy Webb:is, am I good enough? Am I an imposter at this? What makes me
D’Arcy Webb:think that I can can do this, I think to to truly discover my
D’Arcy Webb:value. That's that's the quest that I have been on for the last
D’Arcy Webb:five years. You know, coming from the theater. Anytime
D’Arcy Webb:anybody offers you a gig, whether it's you know, $500 a
D’Arcy Webb:week or a buck 280 We will take it. We have always been that
D’Arcy Webb:way. That's what actors do. And recently, an actor approached me
D’Arcy Webb:and we had a consult call. And I explained to her how I could
D’Arcy Webb:help her. And she asked me my rate. And she was quite
D’Arcy Webb:surprised by it. And she said, You know what? She said, I think
D’Arcy Webb:we all should be asking for what we are worth. And I don't think
D’Arcy Webb:actors do that enough. She said, and someday I'm going to do what
D’Arcy Webb:you're doing. And so I think that's a that's been a big
D’Arcy Webb:discovery coming from the theater. Because I would do
D’Arcy Webb:anything. Teach, I would, I would accept anything I would
D’Arcy Webb:teach for free. And I actually I still do from time to time. But,
D’Arcy Webb:but I always did it because I thought, Oh, I'm at this, you
D’Arcy Webb:know, I'm so fortunate to be able to do this. I'll take it,
D’Arcy Webb:whatever you offer me. People don't pay artists for what they,
D’Arcy Webb:they what they should pay them. They don't pay them what they
D’Arcy Webb:think art is free. And it's not. Yeah.
Dr Amanda Crowell:So how did you overcome that? What do you
Dr Amanda Crowell:feel like? What kind of realizations have because I feel
Dr Amanda Crowell:like you are describing a very common, like you said, a very
Dr Amanda Crowell:common not just in theater, I come from academia, where we
Dr Amanda Crowell:were also convinced that we must do everything for free. Yeah,
Dr Amanda Crowell:you should take this adjunct job for 300 or $3,000. For four
Dr Amanda Crowell:months of work. You know, we're like, Well, I'm just lucky to
Dr Amanda Crowell:have a job. It's like, this is craziness. So I feel like it's
Dr Amanda Crowell:kind of everywhere. It's sort of a power play really, in those
Dr Amanda Crowell:really hierarchical systems. So I feel like a lot of people
Dr Amanda Crowell:struggle with this. So what how did you overcome it? Or how are
Dr Amanda Crowell:you overcoming?
D’Arcy Webb:hired a business coach tell you more about that.
D’Arcy Webb:I made it was it was it a year ago? Well, it was during the
D’Arcy Webb:pandemic. And I thought, I don't know how to do this. And I don't
D’Arcy Webb:know how to raise my rates. And I don't, I don't think I'm
D’Arcy Webb:charging enough. But I don't know how to charge. I don't know
D’Arcy Webb:how to how to run a business. And I need to take this more
D’Arcy Webb:seriously. People are asking me for my help. And I don't know
D’Arcy Webb:how to organize my time. I don't know how to organize my
D’Arcy Webb:finances. I need a coach. And so a year in three months ago, I
D’Arcy Webb:hired a business coach. And it was great. And she took me from
D’Arcy Webb:zero to 60 in about three months. Yeah. So I it was it was
D’Arcy Webb:great. It was really great. And then I began to discover
Dr Amanda Crowell:what really, if you can go into it and sort
Dr Amanda Crowell:of remember what realizations did you have about your worth?
Dr Amanda Crowell:Or about? You know, one might be that wow, artists really are
Dr Amanda Crowell:not, we really aren't paid what we're worth that would be a
Dr Amanda Crowell:realization. But were there others where you realized
Dr Amanda Crowell:something that, you know, maybe everybody else already knew,
Dr Amanda Crowell:right? Like you are a rockstar. But you had to really realize it
Dr Amanda Crowell:for yourself, what occurred to you, as you were sort of getting
Dr Amanda Crowell:over this scarcity mindset that plagues so many of us
D’Arcy Webb:think I really, with the help of a coach, I
D’Arcy Webb:started hearing it. When I got feedback, I always deflected.
D’Arcy Webb:The positive feedback, I didn't want to hear the negative
D’Arcy Webb:feedback either. Right. But I, I thought I know that's not true.
D’Arcy Webb:When anybody said to me, you've really helped me. When I can
D’Arcy Webb:stand in front of somebody that I'm coaching and see a
D’Arcy Webb:difference, then then I know that when I see a difference, I
D’Arcy Webb:know, when I began working with adults, adults work much faster
D’Arcy Webb:than college students, college students they got they've got
D’Arcy Webb:other classes, they've got rehearsals they've got they also
D’Arcy Webb:are just a little younger. Don't get feedback from them until
D’Arcy Webb:years later. But like right away, I can see a change in an
D’Arcy Webb:in an adult working with an adult and then I know I'm making
D’Arcy Webb:a difference. And when that change sticks, I've learned how
D’Arcy Webb:to teach them to practice so that they can sustain that
D’Arcy Webb:change. Because I have a couple of little tricks in my pocket.
D’Arcy Webb:You know, I say to people, okay, stick two fingers in your mouth
D’Arcy Webb:and now speak. You take your fingers out and automatically
D’Arcy Webb:you're speaking better. But if you don't know how to practice
D’Arcy Webb:to do that, the change isn't going to last. Yeah,
Dr Amanda Crowell:well, peculiarly brilliant Italian
Dr Amanda Crowell:William and I spend a lot of time with my mouth saying that,
Dr Amanda Crowell:especially before I'm going to do a solo podcast. It's such a
Dr Amanda Crowell:brilliant,
D’Arcy Webb:it's a brilliant tongue twister. It is it is. But
Dr Amanda Crowell:I like it, it makes me happy. It makes me sort
Dr Amanda Crowell:of imagine him being peculiarly brilliant in my mind. He lives
Dr Amanda Crowell:in like Victorian England, like we've had, we have a long
Dr Amanda Crowell:relationship now, peculiarly brilliant talent. But it's
Dr Amanda Crowell:interesting. Like, I feel like, there has been a shift in the
Dr Amanda Crowell:world where, I mean, previously, I think you may have felt like,
Dr Amanda Crowell:the only people to work with that really need full access to
Dr Amanda Crowell:their voice are actors and singers and, and now I feel like
Dr Amanda Crowell:maybe even COVID has made it even more intensely true, that
Dr Amanda Crowell:now we all need to have greater access to our voice. Well, I
D’Arcy Webb:think so because a lot of people are on Zoom now,
D’Arcy Webb:but I think also I have realized that it is from spending the
D’Arcy Webb:last five years working with adults, and not just public
D’Arcy Webb:speakers, right. But doctors learning how to have a better
D’Arcy Webb:bedside manner, or therapists learning how to speak with
D’Arcy Webb:intention, or, you know, people, people who who simply need are
D’Arcy Webb:looking for greater self confidence. Like I go in
D’Arcy Webb:advertising, that I teach self confidence, that's just sort of
D’Arcy Webb:the byproduct.
Dr Amanda Crowell:No, yeah, but I think it could be the product
Dr Amanda Crowell:too. You know, I
D’Arcy Webb:had a student years ago, many years ago, and it was
D’Arcy Webb:clear, he had some attention issues, and he couldn't sit in
D’Arcy Webb:my class. And I could see him itching to get out of that seat
D’Arcy Webb:and go do the next thing. He was a good student, but I just never
D’Arcy Webb:felt like he was really quite there. You wrote to me 15 years
D’Arcy Webb:later, and he said, I'm a nurse in Denver, Colorado, and I want
D’Arcy Webb:you to know that the work that you taught me, in sophomore
D’Arcy Webb:speech class is work I use every single
Dr Amanda Crowell:day. Okay, give me an example. Tell me
Dr Amanda Crowell:about this nurse. What? Why does voice work, help a nurse do
Dr Amanda Crowell:their job better?
D’Arcy Webb:I think it teaches people to speak with intention.
D’Arcy Webb:And specificity teaches people to pay attention to what's
D’Arcy Webb:coming out of their mouths all the time. You know, so many
D’Arcy Webb:people when they talk, it's like throwing spaghetti against the
D’Arcy Webb:wall, they're going to talk and talk and talk and talk until
D’Arcy Webb:stuff than sticks. Right? Or until something feels right or
D’Arcy Webb:sounds right. But when we learn the art of speaking, we have
D’Arcy Webb:created an awareness about this instrument and how it serves how
D’Arcy Webb:we communicate. Mm hmm.
Dr Amanda Crowell:So let's tell a story. He's a nurse. And he's
Dr Amanda Crowell:going to have to walk into somebody's office and say, I'm
Dr Amanda Crowell:here to take your blood. That's a pair. I sounded like a
Dr Amanda Crowell:vampire. Right? So that's not how you say it. The dip, so give
Dr Amanda Crowell:me just helped me understand the difference it makes in that
Dr Amanda Crowell:moment. Okay.
D’Arcy Webb:I'm going to look you in the eye to make contact
D’Arcy Webb:with you. I'm going to greet you with a warm sound. Hmm. I'm
D’Arcy Webb:going to have an intention before I walk in that room that
D’Arcy Webb:I'm going to put you at ease.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Okay, so that you literally think so this is
Dr Amanda Crowell:part of it. You think before you enter an interaction. Yeah, the
Dr Amanda Crowell:impact you're hoping to have?
D’Arcy Webb:Yep. So it's not just about how you pronounce the
D’Arcy Webb:word blood. It's about the impact that you are going to
D’Arcy Webb:have. How am I going to communicate to this person and
D’Arcy Webb:make them feel whatever it is, or make them hear whatever it
D’Arcy Webb:is? I want them to hear? Hmm. Allow them to hear it and allow
D’Arcy Webb:them to feel it? Mm hmm. So we start, it's like, say to actors,
D’Arcy Webb:your performance starts before you walk on stage. Mm hmm. Not
D’Arcy Webb:after you start speaking. Because then you're, you know,
D’Arcy Webb:you're groping for words and how you want to say it. Oh, that
D’Arcy Webb:probably didn't say that. Right. And where's my needle and right,
D’Arcy Webb:yeah, we're always performing. We're always getting ready to
D’Arcy Webb:perform. That doesn't mean it's in authentic. We're ready. We're
D’Arcy Webb:ready. So
Dr Amanda Crowell:it's tell me what it means to perform. If it
Dr Amanda Crowell:doesn't mean to put on a show. It means
D’Arcy Webb:to be present. means to be ready. So before I
D’Arcy Webb:came on with you to meet you, I was here five minutes early. And
D’Arcy Webb:I am attending to Amanda, attending to what her podcast is
D’Arcy Webb:all about. And I am attending to who's going to listen and who
D’Arcy Webb:will benefit. So I have intention to communicate.
D’Arcy Webb:Instead of Oh shit, she'll ask me some questions. And I'll kind
D’Arcy Webb:of ad lib this, and it'll be okay. And right, it's sitting
D’Arcy Webb:back in my sea, right? I'm here for you. I'm fully present.
D’Arcy Webb:Yeah.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Well, that's interesting. If you think about
Dr Amanda Crowell:the nurse, right? The different experiences we've all had in
Dr Amanda Crowell:doctors offices, just as one example, right, some of the
Dr Amanda Crowell:nurses they come in, they don't look at you. They put, so I'm
Dr Amanda Crowell:very afraid of needles. So like, I'm hyper focused at all times.
Dr Amanda Crowell:When is the needle coming out? You know, they walk in with
Dr Amanda Crowell:their like, bag of plastic stuff, and they put it on the
Dr Amanda Crowell:table. And I'm like, looking at it the whole time waiting to see
Dr Amanda Crowell:if the shoe is about to drop that they're going to have to
Dr Amanda Crowell:take my blood. And sometimes they don't even look at me. And
Dr Amanda Crowell:they say, they look at me long enough to say, are you ready?
Dr Amanda Crowell:Which arm Do you want? versus my new doctors so much better? She
Dr Amanda Crowell:comes in she like talks to me for a minute. I'm here to take
Dr Amanda Crowell:your blood. Is this you? Right? It's like, it's so easy to be
Dr Amanda Crowell:intentional. But I think I don't know. Do you agree? Most people
Dr Amanda Crowell:are just not intentional in the moments of their lives.
D’Arcy Webb:I would agree. I would absolutely agree. And I
D’Arcy Webb:think their lives would be richer if they learned how to be
D’Arcy Webb:intentional and fully present. Hmm. Well, it's
Dr Amanda Crowell:fascinating to think that studying voice
Dr Amanda Crowell:would be a way to become more intentional and present.
D’Arcy Webb:It's because we're paying attention to something
D’Arcy Webb:specific what is coming out of our mouths right now, right now.
D’Arcy Webb:And we can't It's not like we can't do that
Dr Amanda Crowell:we totally can. We can and Darcy can teach
Dr Amanda Crowell:us. And I can tell you. So tell me about the kinds of people
Dr Amanda Crowell:that you work with? So is it all doctors and lawyers? Or is it
Dr Amanda Crowell:people with podcasts? Like who typically do you work with on
Dr Amanda Crowell:this kind of stuff?
D’Arcy Webb:Well, you know, it's just not typical I, I have
D’Arcy Webb:a motivational coach, I have a business coach, I have a couple
D’Arcy Webb:of podcasters, a lawyer, starting their own business to
D’Arcy Webb:actors, and somebody who is just terrified to speak, hmm, really
D’Arcy Webb:high anxiety, their anxiety is keeping them from getting a job.
D’Arcy Webb:And they're really smart. No, I might not be able to help them
D’Arcy Webb:with their anxiety. I'm not a therapist, but I can do all the
D’Arcy Webb:mechanics of the voice and speech work. And this has
D’Arcy Webb:happened. And as well, where we've gotten through with one
D’Arcy Webb:client got through all the mechanics of the voice and
D’Arcy Webb:speech work. And this person demanded that they had not
D’Arcy Webb:learned enough and I hadn't given them what they needed. And
D’Arcy Webb:I said to them, now you need a therapy is where I can't help
D’Arcy Webb:you.
Dr Amanda Crowell:Right, right. Because sometimes doing it's
Dr Amanda Crowell:kind of like embodied therapy, right, like somatic
Dr Amanda Crowell:practitioners, you know about this a little bit. And you do, I
Dr Amanda Crowell:feel like it's what you're talking about. Even when we were
Dr Amanda Crowell:talking about gurning, where you scratch your face around a bunch
Dr Amanda Crowell:like that there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score, I
Dr Amanda Crowell:think I know it, probably the most no mainstream way to think
Dr Amanda Crowell:about somatic practitioner. And the notion that we're storing,
Dr Amanda Crowell:like, when you're releasing tension in your face, for
Dr Amanda Crowell:example, you may actually be releasing a traumatic memory,
Dr Amanda Crowell:which is why that person was crying when they opened their
Dr Amanda Crowell:mouth. And it's interesting to think like how sometimes being
Dr Amanda Crowell:more present, like as we put all the pieces of what you do
Dr Amanda Crowell:together, right? Like, I'm going to make you more present in your
Dr Amanda Crowell:life. Because you're going to pay attention to the words
Dr Amanda Crowell:coming out of your mouth, you're going to set intentions and that
Dr Amanda Crowell:like creates this container that most of us are not in we are not
Dr Amanda Crowell:in the container of this present moment. We're like way the fuck
Dr Amanda Crowell:back in our childhood or thinking about next Tuesday's
Dr Amanda Crowell:doctor's appointment. That's right, right. So like brings you
Dr Amanda Crowell:into this container of the moment, and then really starts
Dr Amanda Crowell:to release the things that keep you from being fully present in
Dr Amanda Crowell:that moment. And I can really see how even that would just be
Dr Amanda Crowell:powerful enough for a lot of people who don't have a ton of
Dr Amanda Crowell:trauma and could release a lot and just make you feel more
Dr Amanda Crowell:loose and free and present. And that's before your voice sounds
Dr Amanda Crowell:better on your podcast. Right? Or you're sitting in the
Dr Amanda Crowell:boardroom and you're like, I have something to say I'm in
Dr Amanda Crowell:this moment. I know how to set an intention and bring my voice
Dr Amanda Crowell:to the moment Were in I guess that's how I speak in
Dr Amanda Crowell:boardrooms. Who knows? That's so interesting. Darcy, I can
Dr Amanda Crowell:imagine everybody who's listening to this right now is
Dr Amanda Crowell:like, Who is this woman? I must, I must say, how can they? How
Dr Amanda Crowell:can they get to know you a little bit more? How can they
D’Arcy Webb:find out about you? Well, I would love to know them.
D’Arcy Webb:So I'm going to tell you tell me, go to my website, Darci
D’Arcy Webb:web.com, you can opt in to my mailing list by clicking on that
D’Arcy Webb:little button and then you'll get a breath warm up. So you'll
D’Arcy Webb:get a little taste of what it's like to work with me. And then
D’Arcy Webb:if you want more, email me at Darcy at Darcy web.com. And then
D’Arcy Webb:we can set up a free consult call and we can have a
D’Arcy Webb:conversation over zoom. And that'll be lovely. Because then
D’Arcy Webb:you and I can meet one another.
Dr Amanda Crowell:No, I love it. Well, I will add my own
Dr Amanda Crowell:personal recommendation that you absolutely do those things. I
Dr Amanda Crowell:actually have a warm up that I do with Darcy every morning, she
Dr Amanda Crowell:doesn't know I spend every morning, seven minutes every
Dr Amanda Crowell:morning with her. Thank you. Thank you and peculiarly
Dr Amanda Crowell:brilliant Italian William. And I do think it just it makes it
Dr Amanda Crowell:just makes a huge difference to feel present in my voice, which
Dr Amanda Crowell:is not something I would normally say but makes it it
Dr Amanda Crowell:makes a big difference if you do have a podcast or you are going
Dr Amanda Crowell:to be all day on Zoom. Or if you're teaching a class or if
Dr Amanda Crowell:you're going to talk I mean therapists are. A lot of the
Dr Amanda Crowell:people that I know from my work are therapists and coaches and
Dr Amanda Crowell:we spend all day on Zoom trying to connect with people. It's a
Dr Amanda Crowell:lot. It's a lot having strategies and skills for that
Dr Amanda Crowell:would be
D’Arcy Webb:amazing. physical, physical strategies, mental
D’Arcy Webb:strategies. Yep.
Dr Amanda Crowell:strategies, strategies, strategies. That's
Dr Amanda Crowell:what Darcy has to transform your life. Well, Darcy, I want to
Dr Amanda Crowell:thank you so much for coming on this podcast today. I learned a
Dr Amanda Crowell:ton. I'm sure everyone else did, too. So thank you for taking the
Dr Amanda Crowell:time.
D’Arcy Webb:I'm so happy that you invited me and it was such a
D’Arcy Webb:pleasure. Thank you so much.
Dr Amanda Crowell:You're welcome. Thank you for joining
Dr Amanda Crowell:me today on the unleashing your great work podcast. If you liked
Dr Amanda Crowell:what you heard, please subscribe and leave a five star review.
Dr Amanda Crowell:And hey, don't forget to check out the Allied tank journal. You
Dr Amanda Crowell:need support to get started. Stay at it and unleash your
Dr Amanda Crowell:great work out into the world. See you next time.
