The Year that was....

I am writing this blogpost from downtown Luxor in Egypt, oneweek into my 3 week end of year vacation (hence the slight change in newsletter format!)

And what a year that it has been! From humble beginnings the 'Design Your Life' Newsletter has grown to over 1200 subscribersin over 90 countries around the world. It has been a remarkable experience to share my thoughts with a growing global audience. Thank you for your interest, readership and recommendation that have made this possible.

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My Year in Review
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2005 has been quite an extraordinary year for me. I have consciously turned my back on security to create a life that is a fuller expression of who I am.

I have to say that in many respects it hasn't been easy. I have taken my chances and made plenty of mistakes along the way but as a result I have learnt, grown and achieved more than in any other time in my life.

Here's a very brief snap shot of what has unfolded for me.

- I successfully developed and launched 2 online Newsletters called 'Design Your Life' & 'Up-Starts' that are both now read in over 90 countries around the world.

- I wrote my first ebook - entitled 'My First Thousand Subscribers' (to be launched in early 2006).

- I assisted many of my personal coaching clients to focus more fully upon the very things that they were born to do.

- I co-launched Web-Wednesdays - a monthly internet entrepreneurs networking evening in London

- I became single again for the first time in 6 years after my relationship with my girlfriend sadly came to an end.

- I flew an aeroplane for the first time in my life!

- I finally saw the pyramids in Egypt after many years spent wondering!

... and most importantly, I have met and had the support of so many wonderful people that have helped, encouraged and inspired me to live and express myself fully in the world.

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2006 - Looking Forward
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My big business focus for 2006 will be to expand upon the number of people I can help and impact through the work that I do. This will include packaging my coaching products across a variety of different formats including

- one-on-one coaching
- group workshops
- teleseminars
- ebook creation
- online coaching resources

My personal focus will be to fill my life with as much health, happiness, and adventure that I possibly can and to encourage everyone that I come into to contact with to get out there and dothe same!

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30 Minute Complimentary Coaching Session
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I would love to help you make 2006 your best year yet.
To take me up on my 30 minute complimentary coaching session, please click the following link...

http://www.senn-sational.com/complimentary.htm

Thanks again for all your support over 2005. If there is anything I can do to help you to be more successful, please let me know.

Take a chance 2day!

Damien

Damien Senn
Creating Compelling Futures
Senn-Sational Limited
Ph: +44 (0)793 906 4338
Email: support@senn-sational.com

Do you need a voice doctor?

To fulfill my potential as a coach, it became very obvious to me that I was going to have to become a master in the art of effective communication. Taking stock of my own communication skills, the one area I thought that I could improve upon was the way that I used my voice to articulate my thoughts and feelings. I do most of my coaching over the phone these days, so this was of particular importance to me.

Enter Dr Voice, vocal coach to the stars and master of all aspects of the voice. In his total immersion voice coaching program, he literally transformed my personal awareness of my voice and how I use it to communicate....

The Interview

Damien: What was it that initially inspired you to specialise in Voice Coaching?

Dr Voice: What initially inspired me to specialise in voice was the fact that I did not have a voice. My voice always seem to me to sound squeaky and feminine. And I could not sing a note of music without people telling me to shut up. This hurt very deeply, as it does all of us, because it is like an attack on your person. This added to the feelings of a low self esteem in my personality and inspired me to pursue a singing career

Damien: Why is the voice so important to people in business?

Dr Voice: The voice is so important in business because it is one the most powerful communication mechanisms that a human being holds. If not controlled, it can lead to so many miscommunications which can actually stop any rapport building between people.

Damien: What are three ways you help business people improve their voices?

Dr Voice: Firstly, I get them to believe that they have a voice, larger and more colourful and more expressive than they already have.

Secondly, I help open their awareness to the sounds that they are already making. This provides them with control and an ability to strategise their thinking in the moment.

Thirdly, I inspire their openess to who they really are. Your voice is the sound track to your life. It's the blue print to who you really are. So through the voice you can get to know your true self.

Damien: How can one develop a voice that everybody enjoys listening to?

Dr Voice: Again, through practice of specialised techniques that have been developed over the years; muscle building exercises, awareness of the elements of sound, along with the passion to be an effective communicator.

These combined, create an energy in the speaker that the listener is compelled to surrender to.
If you watch a movie, you judge it by how powerful the elements are. Did it have a pace? Was it colourful. Was it changeable? Was it mesmorising? Did it still my mind to make me feel entertained? These are the qualities that we all love to listen to in someone elses voice.

Damien: Do you think great speakers are born or made?

Dr Voice: We were all born with 64 muscles vibrating our voice energy. You only have to be beside a baby crying or hear it at a distance to understand the power of that energy.
You are compelled to be effected by this baby crying because it is using 'voice energy' and not 'speech energy'. Voice energy creates a great speaker. Unfortunately as we grow from baby to child and develop speech energy, many of us lose the elements of a great voice. That's why we have to relearn to re-activate those muscles to become great speakers.

So in answer to your question, great speakers are born, and are made.

Damien: Are there some simple tips you may like to share to help people improve the quality and effectiveness of their voice in business?

Dr Voice: What is simple and effective normally requires pages of explanations!
The first step to improving the quality of ones voice is to feel the words that we speak. Most of us have no idea of how to feel the words as we speak.

Your larynx and voice box is 33% of your body. The voice itself is reliant on many other parts of your body as well; your diaphragm, your stomach muscles, your leg muscles, your spine, your head, your chest, your lungs. All these play a very important part of voice production. And as it involves all the body it must therefore involve all the brains functions.

An exercise to try is to hum with lips pursed. Imagaine that you are yawning at the same time. Feel the resonance in the voice box while you are humming. The more you do this, the more resonant and flexible your voice will be which will bring a warmth to your communication.
In business, a practice of the elements is crucial to bring a better rapport to your audiences or clients. A study of which is available by attending one of my 'Immersion days'.

Damien: Tell me a little more about the total 'Immersion Days' that you run for your personal clients?

Dr Voice: Immersion days are based on my seminar titled 'Change Your Voice - Change Your Life'.

In an Immersion Day, I help clients unblock pockets of energy that are stiffled and have limited their personality. This is done through voice work.

Many of my clients, after attending an immersion day, feel released from various different blockages in their life - this may include their relationships, their self esteem, their financial and spiritual awarenesses.

The greatest joy of the day is the voice that my clients come in with is not the voice that they go out with. The voice is recorded at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, enabling clients to hear the change in their voice. This serves as a reminder for them to practice at home in order to keep their new found voice.

Damien: Who do you consider to have the best voice in the world? What makes them so special?

Dr Voice: Normally it is actors that have acheived celebrity status based on the quality of their performances. They have managed to achieve a star like quality in their voices which make them memorable and pleasant to listen to. That is why most of the worlds large advertising agency's tend to use them to help sell their products. And we buy them because of that quality in the voice and in that actor. Those of us who aren't actors, through the process of my programs can achieve such a quality and recognition in the voice.

Just to name a few; James Earl Jones, John Hurt, Richard Burton, Alec Guinness, Richard E Grant, Joanna Lumley, Jane Seymour, Angelica Houston, Helen Mirren, have all been voice over artists and documentary story tellers.

Damien: How can singing actually improve somebody's speaking voice?

Dr Voice: We use the same mechanism for singing as we do talking. However, when you sing, you engage more colour, variation and flexibility to the vocal chords. By using singing techniques, you exercise certain muscles that help produce the different elements that we can use in our speech. Plus singing is fun and helps promote a confidence building to voice production as a whole.

DS: Your personal song writing and musical talents have taken you all around the world. What has been your most memorable experience?

Dr Voice: There has been two or three situations that I have found memorable, one of which was when performing at the Royal Albert Hall. A second before launching into the song I had forgotten the words. Fortunately, the band was professional enough to go through the introduction again in a different way until I was able to recall the words to start the song. As soon as my voice hit the microphone and I heard it resonate against the incredible walls at the Albert Hall. The silence of 7000 people being centered on my voice was amazing and I just merged with the sound.

Another time was in Australia at the Down to Earth festival where Santana had just come off stage and everyone was leaving the arena. I was asked at that point to get up and sing with just a guitar. I had the flu, my voice was in bad shape but my heart and nervous system were vibrating with joy and fear at the same time. I closed my eyes and I started to sing. At that point there was only around 100 people left meandering away from the theatre.

Something that I had never felt before happened. You could call it a desire to reach the human soul, and at that point all fear had vanished and nothing but joy remained in my heart. Just as I finished the song I could feel the heat from the audience, you see I had my eyes closed the whole time. And upon opening my eyes, much to my delighted surprise, the arena was filled with people. They had all come back during the length of the song I was singing.

The stage manager panicked and pleaded me to sing another four songs, at which point I called up all my friends to sing with me. This was a great day.

Another memorable experience was where I was musical director, orchestrator and arranger on a piece of music composed for a film. For the first time in my life I found myself controlling the London Philharmonia. Here was an Orchestra that had performed for every major blockbuster film that we all enjoy.

And what did I use as a tool, that saved my life on that day?! 'The Elements', the very ones that I use in my voice production programs.

So what's your Worst Case Scenario?

I want to share a very powerful breakthrough that I personally made just before finally deciding to quit my cushy corporate lifestyle to set up my own business.

Most business start-up text books often advise would-be-entrepreneurs to consider their worst case business scenario before actually taking the plunge into business ownership.
So I sat down and I thought about it. The next day I scratched my head and I thought about it some more. A week later, I was still thinking about it.

And then the answer came to me.

The worst case scenario for my business idea was that it could all go terribly wrong and as a result I would have to go and take another job back in the corporate world.
Now that didn’t seem too bad, did it? I exhaled deeply and started to breath a little easier.
And then bang, as it so often happens, a self awareness insight hit me like a brick. I realised that I was actually already living my worst case scenario!

I silently gazed around the open plan office that I was working in. I looked into the eyes of my co-workers. I got the strange feeling that I wasn’t the only soul doing this.

So why do we live lives that don’t excite us?

So why is it that we choose to live out our working lives doing things that really don’t excite us? Well often, I believe it’s a part of a societal conditioning process. We live in a world that largely uses fear to condition people to conform to things that deep down they really don’t want to do. We are conditioned to play it safe. We are conditioned to believe that we less than are than we truly are.

This is done for good reason. It supports the existing global power structures. If we are fearful we are more than likely to believe that we are separate from each other. And if we believe that we are separate from each other, we are much easier to control.

Your challenge, should you choose to except it, is to rise above this energy pattern and step into your own power. The best way that you can achieve this is by doing the very things that you were born to do.

Are you being called to set up your own business?

If your calling is to set up a business, you need to act quickly. Make the most of any momentum you have already built up in your life and start considering how you can prosperously and profitably create meaningful experiences for yourself and for the people that surround you.
The successful businesses of the future will be the one’s that support the health and well being of the planet. When you step into this power, the world will move with you.

So what’s your worst case scenario?

So you have entrepreneurial tendencies that you aren’t currently expressing out into the world (yes you know who you are!).

Well ask yourself this question 'what is the worst case scenario of setting up my own business?’
Sit with this question. You don’t need an answer for it straight away. Mull over it for a few weeks if you have to, but make sure you get to an answer that is true for you.

When you get this answer ask yourself a second question ‘Am I already living my worst case scenario?’

If you are, then give yourself a little smile (and a high five if possible!) because you really have nothing to loose by just getting out there and going for it!