How to Unlock Messages Your Voice Has Been Sending All Along - Barbara McAfee

Barbara McAfee — voice coach, author, and creator of the Five Elements Framework — discusses about the transformative power of voice, sound, and authentic expression. Barbara shares how she left a 12-year career in organizational development to pursue what she felt was a uniquely needed gift: a deeper exploration of what the voice reveals about who we truly are. From the five vocal elements of earth, fire, water, metal, and air, to the surprising power of music in dementia care, to her two books Full Voice and Vocal Intelligence, to a remarkable story of beings she has drawn since childhood and sensed singing alongside her, Barbara weaves together the practical and the mystical in a conversation that is as grounding as it is luminous.

Leadership Lessons From The Great Books
Understanding great literature is better than trying to read and understand (yet)...

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

I'm your host, Claudio Morgan. For older episodes, please uh visit uh Oravers Network, uh speechoinspired.ca, and our uh YouTube channel. My uh guest uh today is uh Barbara McAfee, and um today we'll talk about uh music and why sound is important in our life, about her books and her certified uh music uh program. So, Barbara, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

It's an honor to be here. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

You have so much uh experience in the uh music world and sound world that um you know you have about 12 years in organizational development uh before becoming a full-time uh voice coach. Um, what was the moment you realized that voice, not strategy or systems, uh was the real lever for um changing organizations?

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Well, that's a great question. I actually uh decided not to try to change organizations. I decided that people were my thing. Um, the organizations um are most of the time things that run on money. And humans have spirit and heart and soul, and I'm more interested in that, and I always brought that kind of perspective to my work as an organizational consultant. But I just realized that there were a lot of people who were qualified to do that, probably much more than I was, because when I started, you couldn't get degrees in that. I just learned from colleagues, and that what I had found about the voice was unique and much needed. I couldn't find anything like it anywhere. There's classical training, or there's like very practical presentation coaching, you know, about slides and how to stand, but there isn't that deeper exploration of voice and what it can offer our lives as human beings, as leaders, as community members, and that's what just made me decide in 2003 to say, okay, I don't need to do this anymore.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yes, and I agree with you. I have my own uh programs. Uh, one is called Chief Consciousness Officer, and the slogan is uh transform the leader, transform the organization. Because you have to start with the people who will understand that an increased level of consciousness is what makes the difference, not the ROI, the KPIs, and all those numbers which makes uh which make no sense at the end of the day. It's the people who make the organization, and if you change them, then everything else will uh will change. So, yes, I agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yes, very similar idea.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Yes. Uh the five elements framework uh you put in place uh breaks the voice into earth, fire, water, metal, and air. Was there a specific element you personally struggled to access, and how did learning to use it change you?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Well, the elements framework that I created is was an organic emerging thing that was born out of noticing my own voice and how when I changed my voice, my life changed as well. And and then also just noticing other people's voices and how their voices reflected their gifts. So the person who's very calm in the what I call the earth voice, which sounds like this, they're often really solid, they're great in an emergency, but they might not be the most exciting speaker, for instance. And uh the fiery people are passionate, that's my home. Uh, and they might be a bit much if you are trying to have a tender conversation with them. The water voice sounds like this, and this is wonderful for healers. A lot of healers come from the water, and it's all about the heart. So delivering bad news or saying you're sorry, or expressing empathy. Metal is very bright and shiny, and uh it's a great way to get louder without any strain, and it also can really make your thinking more focused and clear. And then the air voice is all about the dream, the imagination, the spirit. And that was the one I disliked the most because I'm a very tall woman and I'm smart, and I'm from originally from Minnesota in the United States, very practical, and so I just didn't think that that light, sweet, uh elegant voice had anything to do with me. And it did. So that was my my least favorite.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

And how were your programs were um perceived and um viewed by uh by the leaders and corporations you um you work with?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Well, I work with all kinds of different people, but I think it because of my background in organizational change and leadership, I can make a very good case for how much the voice impacts good relationships. A lot of what I did when I was a consultant was communication training and conflict resolution, and so often it wasn't what people said, it was the tone they used. And my work is all about tone, and so I think I have a pretty good handle on saying, you know, what what whatever happens in this world happens because people have a conversation. Nothing else much happens without that, and the effectiveness of that conversation really depends not just on the words, but on how people are saying what they're saying.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Yes, the the tone of our voice is very important. And also I've noticed that even when we write an email which bothers us, if we reply right away with that feeling of bothering and emotional stress, let's say, it will show in the way we wrote those words, and the person receiving it will notice it right away. So that's why the advice or the suggestion will be you know, step away from that bothering email, take five, ten minutes, relax, breathe in, then go back and write it with a smile on your face so it will have a happy ending in the end. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah, and we're relying so much on text and email these days that we I think are misunderstanding each other even more because we're not reading the body language, the face, the tone. Uh, and we're all going so fast, also, that I think it's much easier to miss each other. And then we're also working across a lot more differences internationally, uh culturally, and I think that sometimes we have to work harder to connect and often don't know what to do if it's not working. We usually persist in what's not working instead of being able to shift into something a little different, a different tone, a different quality, and then look for the light in the eyes, and then you know you've got something.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yes, and I think the cultural um uh differences is uh also uh an important aspect because if you and I talk about a specific um subject and we are in North America and we have the same mindset, but we switch the discussion to someone which is in the let's say Middle East or Asia, they might not understand the context and they might somehow feel offended or you know take it out of context. Um, so we really have to be careful with how we um work that conversation over the air, you know, through it through technology.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Have you worked with uh any known uh celebrity to mend their voice and make them sound uh much better?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

No.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Listen, no, I work with the most amazing people, and they come with lots of different uh questions or needs. And some of them, I'm working with a woman right now who has been in the leadership, you know, development kind of space for a long time, but her voice is just worn out. She's an older woman and she's used the same part of her voice over and over and over again, and that can cause repetitive stress injury, kind of like if you use the same part of your body all the time without rest or conditioning. And so I'll work with somebody with a really tangible issue like that. And then I've worked with people recovering, a lot of people recovering from trauma. We all have it, um, but in various degrees that feel like their voices got shut down. I work with a lot of leaders who maybe got promoted because they're technically really smart, and then suddenly they have to deal with these people. You know, it's like, oh, help me. Or they're doing public speaking and it's not their favorite thing. So I work with so many different people, and more and more people are just coming to me now and saying, I just know I need to do something. I know I have something to say, and I can't quite get it out, or I just know my voice has gifts for me, but I don't really know what I'm doing here. It's like, great, that's perfect. I don't either. Let's go. Your voice does.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Yes, it's it's an interesting uh field and uh interesting interaction because usually um again, these executives look for another uh management course or uh something else to uh increase their skills and you know widen their experience within their field, but not this type of uh uh experience, which is amazing, yes. And you mentioned that uh you live in the rural uh Wisconsin, uh, you know, where is everything is shaped by water, song, and silence. How does that rural natural settings uh settings show up in how you coach people from cities and corporations?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Well, I lived in Minneapolis for 40 years, so I know the city very, very well, and it's only an hour away. So there is that. But I think of the the influence of the forest. I just walked there early this morning and swam across the river where I live, you know, and to me it anchors my work spiritually. I also get inspired. I'm a singer-songwriter as well, so I do a lot of writing in the forest. I do lots of thinking, uh, dreaming things up, um, everything from programs to speeches to I've written my TED talks walking and to what I'm gonna cook for dinner. So to me, I step into the woods and something uh you know, something just I don't know, it just moves me. And today I came home with a huge bag of oyster mushrooms, which was woo, joyful. So it feeds me in many different kinds of ways.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Yeah, I had a feeling that you're gonna say mushrooms.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

So well, I can see you've got some friends behind you.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yes, close friends. Um, in fact, there are gifts from friends who knew that I'm going to set up uh this studio, and they said, Um, okay, we found this and we'll we thought about you. So that's very kind of them.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

That's great.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

And you mentioned that walking in the forest is like a spiritual experience for you. There's any other spiritual experience that you can mention that really moved you and changed um your life in some way.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

So many, actually. I've been very grateful that I've had such uh generosity from the unseen world. And one of the things that makes my voice work distinct is I ask people and myself to invite archetypes or characters to help stretch beyond the voice we think we have. So I, Barbara, couldn't sing above here when I first found some of my teachers. And I couldn't sing above that, but the hawk, the big bird I was, sang almost to the top of the piano. And that was a mystical experience. And so I think a lot about the collective unconscious that Jung wrote about and archetypes, and just know that there are these, I don't know, disembodied energies around just looking for work. Give me something to do to help you. Uh, I think humans used to make much better use of the unseen world. You know, they were always invoking the beings, uh, and I think we've gotten a little away from that. And so I've had experiences I can't explain of feeling something rise up in me and come out through my voice, which is it's like a lovely visitation. Um that to me is very mysterious and spiritual and generative. And then I also, like any artist who's honest at all, there are lines in my songs that are so good I couldn't possibly have made them. And I have a good ego, I mean, I have a good sense of self-worth. But I just looked at this, you know, I just wrote a song in the spring and I was like, well, that line that line is way too good for just falling out of my head. So I think the the process of creation is full of that for me.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Thank you. Thank you. And have you ever um Journey with a drum?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

You know, I've done a tiny bit of that. Uh, I had a friend who did that work, and uh I had a wonderful I don't know, travel with it, but I feel like I travel more um on the voice, on the sound. I've started singing jazz again. I started that was my first performing as a soloist in my twenties, and I was so scared and nervous and vocally tied up then. Uh, and now in my little town of 2,000 people, I have found this amazing piano player and composer, and we are performing these old jazz standards together. And I feel like I travel in those songs, particularly when I'm improvising. Like I I remember that we sang Blackbird, but I can't remember what we did. I just kind of I remember starting it, and then I kind of I remember landing back in my body. So I think that's more the way I move out into the realms beyond the body.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

So you are on your path to make that little town famous now. The crowds will come to you.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

I you know what? I just don't care about fame at all. I mean, I've made nine recordings, I have a lot of songs out there, and I that's never been my uh motivation. I've always been really interested in contributing, being of service. Um, yes, I like to pay my bills, yes, I like to do well. Uh, I have a high standard for quality and what I put into the world. But the fundamental is yeah, I just love when people show up, they have a great time. But we do have this beautiful new facility here in my little town that just got re-renovated, and so there's I would like more people to come to that, whether they're coming to see me or someone else.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

And still talking about music and sound, what do you think about the quality of the music being produced these days compared to the 80s and 90s? Because I live through that period, and for me, which I'm not an expert or a musician, I can see the difference. How it sounds, the lyrics, the way the the um artists behave on on stage. How it is for you.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

You know, it's funny. I I'm a little older than you, and so I my reference is so much around the late 60s and the 70s. And um boy, that music is holding up very well. You know, when I hear it, when I hear it now, I kind of go, yeah, that's that's really good writing, really good singing, really good instrumental. One of the things I've noticed is how processed it all is now. Um, maybe it's not happening. I don't listen to a lot of popular music because I'm I always have music in my head. So people are always asking me about this artist or that artist, and I'm like, I don't know, I live in a cave. I don't I have any idea most of the time. But I do notice that um in the studio they're doing a lot of um processing of the sound that makes people sound like robots more often than not. And I can't discern when I'm trying to find examples of the earth voice or the metal voice or something. I I sometimes can't even hear the human body behind the voice because it's been so mechanized. Um, and I mean I've made a lot of records, I've watched people redraw sound waves, you know, to make them more in tune. So the kinds of things that can be done to compress or adjust the sound in the studio is quite, quite remarkable.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yes, and people um of those days and even today, they were blaming those artists because they're under the influence, they're composing the music being under the influence. But I think they were under the good influence because nowadays everyone is under the influence at that level, and the music they compose or sing, as you just said, is pretty much crappy. Um, I don't think anyone will remember this music five, ten years from now, but we still play and listen with pleasure of you said 60s, 70s through the 90s.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

And it's also interesting, but I think the people who are young now will remember this music because it's the soundtrack of their youth. And all, I mean, music and memory are so connected. I I have one of the other things I do is I have a little comfort choir. We sing for people who are, I don't know, dying, sick, sad. You know, we just show up in a group of five or six people and just sing for you for no money. And so I've been around a lot of people who are at the end of their life or who have lost memory. And I remember one woman, her name actually was Irene, and she hadn't spoken for months. She had Alzheimer's. And a little group of us went to her house, and um, I started singing, Irene, good nine, which is this old sweet, you know, folky song. Her eyes lit up and she grabbed her sweet husband's hand, and she was just looking at him, and then she just pointed, and and the only word she could come up with was her, her. She was pointing at me, going, her, her, her. She was so excited. And and so I just kind of held her gaze and kept singing. And when we walked out, then the caregiver, you know, her husband just started sobbing and gave us, gave us a big hug and said, I haven't heard my wife say a word. Um, and so I've seen that happen so often, and other people have, where people aren't speaking anymore, but you start singing, you are my sunshine, and they start singing along. So I think music is a kind of medicine we have just barely started using to really wake up the brain, connect us to each other and ourselves, and to the world of spirit. I think music travels between the worlds very easily.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Yes, and it's also a known fact that uh sound that's a sec or certain vibration can destroy uh disease in our bodies. I mean, these technologies have been suppressed for so many years, but they exist, and hopefully they will uh be online very soon, in spite of all those uh blockages and uh trials and tribulations.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

I know it's there's so many good things that get pushed aside because money. Money, money and power makes you crazy.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Barbara, let's talk about uh your uh books, uh full voice and uh vocal intelligence. Uh, what determined you to um to write them and how they can help people?

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Oh, you know, most of what I've done in my life has come as like a what? You want me to write a proposal for a book? I spoke in Atlanta, Georgia, to a group of coaches there about my work. And apparently there was an author there from a wonderful publisher who got in touch with her publisher and said, I think this woman should write for us. So I came home to a note from this editor, and I thought, a book? I write songs. I'm a good writer, but I'm I write poetry, I write songs. So I put in a proposal, and they said yes. And so my first book was Full Voice: The Art and Practice of Vocal Presence. And um and then I got invited to write the second one last year. So that one started as an audiobook. Both of them are in audiobook form. Vocal Intelligence started as an audiobook, and then I also put out a paperback. They both focus on the five elements framework. The first one is more uh in-depth on just what is it and all the different applications of it, how to find a voice coach, all that kind of thing. And the second one is more focused on leadership, particularly. My stories are focused on leadership, and then the second one, the audio version, anyway, has about an hour of my music in it. So I talk about something, and then there's a little musical interlude, and that one also includes uh a keynote that I do a lot called Who You're Gonna Be While You Do What You Do. And it's five ideas for sustaining your energy and humanity in the midst of chaos, and that's the way that one closes. So they both have the five elements framework in the middle, you know, in the center of it, but they have slightly different um orientations. So I think either of them is I can be a really useful companion for people who want to expand their vocal awareness just to be able to like, how do I even think about my voice? Most of us think thoughts about our voice, like, well, that's just what it is, or I don't like the way I sound on a recording, or I can't sing because somebody told me I couldn't when I was seven. There's all these thoughts about voice, but they're not very interesting. And so this these books give people a way to think about their voice and expand their vocal possibilities, both in speaking and then also in how they listen to other people, to what's under the words.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Beautiful. Have you ever traveled to um sacred sites uh which were famous for potential acoustics and do your own research and listen to that particular sound?

SPEAKER_00 24:50

You know, I have I've ended up in some places. Um there was a cave out west in the United States that was apparently one of the earliest inhabited caves in North America. And I was there with a group of women, and we all got down there, we lit a few candles and then went into just the darkness except for the candles. And there was this tall space where they think the shaman or the medicine person prayed. And we, and those of us who wanted to could step into that and do something. And again, I don't remember what I did there, but that felt like a very powerful place that was full of the echoes of other voices. Um, and then I've of course been this is a sacred site that's built by human beings in the 12th century in the south of France, and just listening to Gregorian chant in this space that was created that had this very long delay, this very beautiful echo. And I'm like, how did they know how to do that in the 12th century? How did they know? So um, I think there are, I think everywhere is a sacred space. I know there are places that are more alive, you know, that you could feel. Um, but I haven't made particular pilgrimages to those yet. Sounds intriguing though.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Yes, and a lot of uh these places had uh water underneath them, so there's that vibration between the structure on top and the water underneath. And uh yes, uh they I think based on everything I read, uh they had a lot of uh knowledge, much more than we have today, even 2,000 years uh before Christ, you know, or 4,000 years, uh years before that. And uh it's only now that we are still recovering bits and pieces, and uh some of the scientists don't want to accept this truth because uh it makes those savages between their codes much more uh intelligent than uh themselves.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

So

[Ad] Leadership Lessons From The Great Books

SPEAKER_00 27:08

that's true.

(Cont.) How to Unlock Messages Your Voice Has Been Sending All Along - Barbara McAfee

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Yeah, I have I had a uh an experience many years ago. I I haven't thought of this for a minute. I was getting my hair cut by this woman who was uh was very psychic. And you know, she was just, you know, she kind of talked like this and she smoked cigarettes and she always dated the wrong man. She was a really interesting character. And sometimes when she was cutting my hair, she'd say, Can I tell you something? And I always said yes. And so one time she said, Can I tell you something? And she said, There are these three beings that are with you all the time, and they're very tall. And I'm 6'2 or a meter 86, depending on your your measurements. So I'm very tall. And she said, they're very tall, there's three of them, they are not from here, and they're with you all the time, and but and and they sing with you, and I was like, Oh, that's a lovely thought. And I have a friend who says, I don't know if it's true, but it's useful, you know, and so I would imagine these like figures behind me, and I can't tell you how many years later I realized I had been drawing them since I was a child. And then I've seen them on a rock wall in southern Utah. They have these big round heads and big eyes, and they have sort of a wing form, and I remember drawing them in in primary school when I was maybe nine, and feeling this incredible happiness. And then I made a big cutout one when I was in college, and I've painted them and I've drawn them, and there's something about them, and I feel like, oh, they've been trying to connect with me, and so now I'm much more conscious of you know, somebody said, Oh, they're just um from the Pleiades. I was like, Okay, fine, I don't know. They just make me feel happy that I have such beautiful and faithful friends who've been trying to get my attention since I was just a little kid, uh, all the way up through, you know, being in the hairdresser's chair.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

But please tell me that you went back to that hairdresser and have a special session with her asking for more details, please.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

I I didn't. I didn't. I lost track of her. And it took many years before I realized, you know, that that whole connection. Um but to me, it's like to me, the the like what my intellect wants to know about it, that more details and stuff. Yeah, that there's a part of it. But to me, the really deeply satisfying thing is the feeling, is the sense of their um their accompaniment of of me and my life, and that they are these mysterious and uh very different life forms from me, but that the way you're partnership somehow. That was super happy.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Yeah, in this particular case, it's a one-way road for you because if they see that you need something, they will just send it to you. But uh somehow you might want to find other details or anything else that you can be able to, would you be able to ask them if that contact would be a two-way road, you know? So that's the only drawback here that uh they will give you only certain things instead of you asking whenever you feel like asking.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

I wonder if they're the ones that come up with those really good lines in my songs.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Yeah, I mean, next time in meditation you can ask them and see what the answer is.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Well, yeah, they might have more to tell me.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Barbara, when you work with um executive, let's say, how deep do you go into your framework? Uh how do you assess how much help do they need based on your own, again, framework of the elements?

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Most of them come with something in mind. You know, they they have a big presentation coming up. I've helped people craft their speeches because I do that. Um, what they're going to say and how they structure it, and then how they're going to say it. Um, I always start with the five elements framework. Well, I always start with the question, what is your story about your voice? And that tells me a lot about where they are in their journey with their voice. And it's purposefully ambiguous, you know, that it's like, what's my story about my voice? It can be, I hear a lot about childhood, I hear a lot about uh singing, or not being able to get out what they need to say, or feeling like they don't sound the way they want to. Um they're misunderstood. And so, but we always start with that question and then we go through all the five elements, playing, you know, pretending to be characters to sort of exaggerate each one so you can sort of see how it sounds in its bigger form, and have a conversation about each one of those. And by the time we get through the end of that, plus what they said they wanted to come for, that's kind of maps out our work. But I have to say, if they come for something practical, like the woman whose voice gets really tired, we can address that. I have tools for that inside the framework and beyond it. But there's also the transformational part, and some people come with that in mind to say, I just want to get what my gifts into the world before I die, you know, or I have something to say, or will o' or whatever. Wherever they enter it, between the practical and the transformational, they get it all. Right? It's all available, and the voice is so intelligent. The voice kind of knows what they need and want. And my job is to sort of listen them into that possibility. Um, often what they first come for shifts as they start opening up more vocal possibilities.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Yes. Thank you. If you have the chance to invite to dinner three personalities from the spiritual community, who would these personalities be?

SPEAKER_00 33:49

From the spiritual community. Well, I think of these men as musical, musical, spiritual, brilliant, prophetic people. The first people who showed up right away was Bobby McFarron, because he was. I had I lived in Paris for about a year in the mid-80s, and I had a few cassettes with my walkman, that's how long ago it was. And one of them was Bobby McFarron's first recording, and I was just barely discovering my own voice at the time, and I was like, oh, that's possible. Um, I have met him um several times, but I would love to talk to him and the amazing uh Jacob Collier. I don't know if you've heard of him, but he is, I think he's Mozart, come back, and the way he talks about sound and music and the level of creativity he allows himself, absolutely, and John Baptiste, another great Grammy-winning composer. And I think of them, oh, and I'll throw Stevie Wonder in there. Um, I think they are all tapped into a kind of joy and healing and genius that I I just am delighted by. So that's who I that's I would it would be a musical reunion, and I just mostly would want to just sit and watch them talk to each other. I would just say off you go, and then I would just sit there in awe and wonder about what they were sharing with each other.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Beautiful. Thank you very much for for sharing that. And Barbara, we are at the end of our uh lovely discussion. Any final words?

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Um yeah, I would love to quote one of my favorite mystics, Hafiz, from this uh Sufi tradition. And it's in a little it's on a little poster back here, and I've had it in my office for years. I actually wrote a song about it as well, but I'll just speak it. I wish that I could show you whenever you are lonely or walking in the dark, the astonishing light of your being.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Thank you. Thank you very much for everything you do and for this wonderful um quote.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Thank you for this conversation. It was delightful.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

All the best. And uh to my viewers, thank you for uh watching, share it, uh, leave a comment, uh, visit the links I mentioned at the beginning of the interview, and until next time, love and gratitude.