Which You Do You Want To Be?

By Donna Davis

Can you teach me to act like a woman?" It was clearly a masculine voice on the phone. "Sure," I said, "when do you want to start?"

That was the beginning of a six-month adventure, during which we clarified exactly what it was that Michael wanted and found the ways in which to meet his goals.

Which You do you want to be? The confident speaker? The persuasive salesperson? Dynamic teacher? Effective manager? Relaxed spouse?

Where is your theater? Boardroom? Recovery ward? Court room? Lecture hall? Dinner table? Realty office? Church?

Which You do you want to be? We all have the same qualities in varying proportions. You can learn to choose and use the attributes that lead to effective communication and to getting the results you want.

We learn early on to behave in ways that fit the circumstance. Your six-year-old self may have learned that some words that are okay at home are definitely not okay when we visit great-grandma. You learned that talking while viewing TV is okay, but talking in a theatre is not. Later we learn that murmuring is fine for pillow talk but doesn't work well in a staff meeting. Lunch with a friend is an occasion for casual chat unless the friend has a hearing loss, and then you need more vigorous articulation and better support for your voice.

So how can you be effective in every situation? By learning the techniques that actors use, you can develop the ability to feel confident and comfortable with any audience in the various locales of your life. You can make real changes in how you present yourself and it may not take very long. Clients have told me that a few weeks or months of this work have created greater changes in their lives than many years of therapy. This is a highly pragmatic approach to becoming the You that you want to be.

The two basic principles of acting are: 1—Be specific and 2—Connect. Coaching in Clear Communication will show you how to make more specific choices about what to say and how to say it. If you need exercises for clear speech, you can use the same ones my acting students rely on. Our sessions will give you practice in the timing and focus that are essential aspects of connection.

Bringing more clarity and precision to your presentation will enable you to feel confident whether your audience is one person or a multitude. As you develop the qualities of vitality, enthusiasm and ease, your audience will feel increasingly comfortable and receptive. You will be showing them the You that you want to be. And you may even discover that you are having fun!

This work has grown organically from my work in the theatre. I have long resumes, both as an actor and as a director. I started training actors soon after I began directing, and then I began getting calls from people in other professions, asking if I could coach them in speaking and writing.

Requests for corporate training followed, both for workshops and for private coaching, so I created Clear Communication of California as the umbrella business for most of my work. The work is exciting and gratifying because I love helping people find out that their abilities are greater than they knew.

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