Tracy Goodwin on the Fast Leader Show

Tracy Goodwin Show Notes

Tracy Goodwin was a Freshman in college and was cast as the lead in a play. The young man playing opposite of her began to beat her as part of a scene. The intensity increased over time and Tracy asked the play Director if it could stop. The director refused and threatened to replace her. Tracy was devastated. Listen to Tracy’s story of how she was able to get over this hump and move onward and upward faster.

Tracy was born and raised in Kingwood, Texas just outside of Houston along with her two older sisters and an older brother.

Her older brother and sister are quite older than her and her middle sister, so it’s as if there were two families of siblings. Her mother was resilient and caring home maker.

Her father was a Choctaw Indian, born on a reservation in Oklahoma. Her dad was her inspiration as he lived an extremely difficult life and overcame incredible circumstances to become the President and CEO of the largest pipe fabrication company in the world.

Growing up in a family where she was not a loud to use her voice Tracy started entering speaking contests at the age of 12. Wanting to be a professional actor Tracy when to college and received Bachelors of Fine Arts and Master of Child Drama.

Continuing to act and working professionally as an actor for years and then directing plays all over the world at the age of 34 she finally found her destiny.

Tracy now is the Chief Voice Coach of Captivate the Room. And author of Captivate the Room with your Voice.

Tracy is proud to leave behind as her legacy two thing. First recovering her son from autism which was somewhat severe in the early days and doing it without support from family or friends. She sees that as one of her greatest blessings because it give her the ability to get her son everywhere he needs to succeed. Her second legacy is the number of people that she has helped step into the power of their voice and get from limitations linked to their voice from their past experiences.

She has overcome insurmountable odds both personally and professionally but God has seen her through and is good all of the time.

Tracy currently lives in Los Angeles, California as a single mother of a child with special needs whose father left when he was 5 months old. Tracy calls it her, “went out for a loaf of bread and never came back” kind of story.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @TracyAGoodwin and get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“Everybody has a message to share.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“What is your psychology of the voice?” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“You need to use the five elements of voice variety.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“We should be using the five voice elements to touch the emotions of our listeners.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“When we’re up in our head we’re disconnected from our voice.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“It’s about getting out of our head and connecting to the passion.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“The voice is the orchestra of the heart.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“The words are everything and they are nothing, it’s how you bring them to life.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“Only 7% of the impact of the message is in the actual words.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“Perception in our mind is not always reception.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“Speak your truth, just do it beautifully.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“They need to hear it in such a way that it connects back to memories.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“We are not a problem, we’re all an answer.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

“There’s a purpose and a reason for everything and you don’t need to control it.” -Tracy Goodwin Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Include vocal variety in your delivery.

Holding her back from being an even better leader

Fear of rejection.

Best Leadership Advice Received

Take a breath and start before you’re ready.

Secret to Success

Never give up.

Best tools that helps in Business or Life

Intuition and trusting self.

Contacting Tracy

Website: http://captivatetheroom.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyagoodwin/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TracyAGoodwin

Resources and Show Mentions

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today

Show Transcript:

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

121: Tracy Goodwin: I was getting beaten every night

Intro Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

Need a powerful and entertaining way to ignite your next conference, retreat or team-building session? My keynote don’t include magic but they do have the power to help your attendees take a leap forward by putting emotional intelligence into their employee engagement, customer engagement and customer centric leadership practices. So bring the infotainment creativity the Fast Leader show to your next event. And I’ll your attendees get over the hump now. Go to beyondmorale.com/speaking to learn more.

Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader Legion, today I’m excited because we have somebody on the show today that is going to help you find something that you must find. Tracy Goodwin was born and raised in Kingwood, Texas just outside of Houston along with her two older sisters and an older brother. Her older brother and sister were quite older than her and her middle sister so it was as if there were two families of siblings. Her mother was resilient and a caring homemaker. Her father was a Choctaw Indian born on a reservation in Oklahoma. Her dad was an inspiration as he lived in extremely difficult life and overcame incredible circumstances to become the President and CEO of the largest pipe fabrication company in the world. Growing up in a family where she was not allowed to use her voice, Tracy started entering speaking contest at the age of 12. Wanting to be a professional actor, Tracy went on to college and received a bachelor’s of Fine Arts and a Master’s of Childhood Drama. Continuing to act and working professionally as an actor for years and then directing plays all over the world at the age of 34, she finally found her destiny, Tracy is now the chief voice coach of Captivate the Room, and author of Captivate the Room Find your Voice. Tracy is proud to leave behind as her legacy two things, first, recovering her son from autism, her second legacy is the number of people that she has helped step into the power of their voice and get from limitations linked to their voice from their past. She has overcome insurmountable odds both personally and professionally but God has seen her through and is good all the time. Tracy currently lives in Los Angeles, California as a single mother of a child with special needs whose father left when he was five months old. Tracy calls at her went out for a loaf of bread and never came back, kind of story. Tracy Goodwin, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Tracy Goodwin: I am so ready and so delighted to be here, thanks for having me.

Jim Rembach: I’m glad you’re here Tracy. Now I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?

Tracy Goodwin: Well, my current passion is my work. I just absolutely love helping people find their voice and learn how to speak their truth beautifully. Everybody has a message to share and that’s just kind of my thing that is what I love to do.

Jim Rembach: There’s many figurative types of presentations of finding your voice, kind of like finding your place gaining your ground a lot of those things that you are talking about the feeling but for you we’re literally talking about voice quality, voice impact, voice dynamics all of those things. So, how do you actually address finding voice versus somebody who’s talking about it figuratively?

Tracy Goodwin: Well, I think the inner voice is what a lot of people work with. What is your message? What is your story? And that is great. But I go straight to the core of what is your psychology of the voice? What have you laid into the muscle memory, that I’m going to call bad habits, like your words aren’t flowing out or you’re not using all five elements of variety or even worse you’ve got voice barriers that are preventing you from selling, from connecting, from catapulting your success, so it’s literal techniques that are the difference between good voice habits and bad voice habits. Captivating and enthralling the audience and leaving them in a fog drifting off into their iPhones.

Jim Rembach: So, you talked about the five—what are the five?

Tracy Goodwin: Pausing, which is the most powerful tool in the toolbox, elongation, shades of fast and slow, shades of high and low, and shades of loud and soft, those are all interesting right? Five elements, five senses that’s what we really should be using to touch the emotions of our listeners and most people use one or maybe two, I call them go two’s.

Jim Rembach: That’s really interesting that you bring up those different dynamics. I get feedback from people who have listened to different episodes and some of the feedback that I have received are about certain people in the way that they’ve connected with the listener. And for me I’m like—it’s really interesting how they interpret things versus what I interpret from a listening perspective. Because I’ve had some people on the show that for me are incredibly brilliant folks and yet they don’t convey or come across that way and I’ve had people say for some of those folks they really didn’t complete the episode because they didn’t think there was a whole lot of engagement or dynamics there. So, how do you teach somebody who’s stuck in a rut to get out of it?

Tracy Goodwin: I can totally believe what you just said to me because I see that day in and day out. And a lot of times people that are super analytical, people that are really in their head that’s the thing. When we’re up in our head we’re disconnected from our voice so, we’ve got to get back in the body. One of the things that I start with I associate everything with food. So, voice is like baking a cake. First we have to fix the foundation which is actually baking the cake and then we’re going to come back in and we’re going to ice it and put the roses on and that’s the flair. So the first thing we have to do is we have to assess and say, okay, your sound is stuck in the back of your throat that’s part of why you can’t make it interesting because it’s kind of holding it back there not letting it flow out and so this is the box that you’re working in. So, first we have to flip something in that muscle memory to pull that sound out and get it flowing, I call it strengthening the pipeline like a garden hose. You turn a garden hose on and the water comes out at the end, well it does unless I sneak over in the night and clip little holes in it and then the water also comes out the side, we’ve got to patch those holes first so that the sound will flow out strong, that’s where we start almost always.

Jim Rembach: I think you bring up a really interesting point. And as you were talking I started thinking about how I get feedback from some of my guests when it’s on mic versus off mic. So we’ll have conversations and then we’ll record an episode and they’re like, wow, you come with so much energy you’re not the same person that I was just talking to a moment ago. And I think that’s an important point, is that you have to know when you’re on and when you got to bring it and when you have to do things that are different than what you would do during your normal conversation but that doesn’t come naturally.

Tracy Goodwin: No, that’s that stepping into energy and that’s such a good point and that’s where so many people struggle. They struggle in being podcast guests or hosting a podcast, it’s huge for people in video. They’re okay in regular conversation but as soon as the camera rolls, they just kind of get like this and so it’s about stepping into that energy. And it’s especially important like what you’re doing is phenomenal because we can be on a show with a guest and if that guest has really low energy we can easily drop down to that energy and what we want to do is we want to pull them up to our energy. So, it is, it’s about getting past those barriers, getting out of our head, getting in our body, taking in a breath and connecting to the passion because then the voice is allowed to work and be the orchestra of the heart that it really is.

Jim Rembach: And I would like to take an add on to this because for me a lot of our listeners are actually working within an organizations and have careers where they have to do a lot of business presentations and the assumption is that they have to just really present the data and not be someone who detracts from or takes away from the emotion and all of the insight that can be used to connect to people in their heart so that they’re really reaching their mind. That’s what I try to tell people that they really need to bring out is that telling people the statistics is really—people don’t connect emotionally to statistics what they connect emotionally to is what happens as a result of those statistics. Meaning, I felt upset, I felt energized, I felt betrayed, I felt like I wanted more, I felt like I wanted to run away, it’s those things that they really need to connect with in order for their business presentation to have more meaning.

Tracy Goodwin: Absolutely and you are singing my song. I mean one of my key sayings is the words are everything and they are nothing it’s how you bring them to life that changes lives. And I get that with people—I love that and I get that with people with regards to professionalism I don’t want people to think I’m not professional so I have to be professional, well, you have to be real too. We’re going to see your professionalism we’re going to know you’re the expert that is there, we’ve got to connect with you that’s just as important. Like you’re saying the statistics sure, but man, could touch my life, touch my emotions make me feel something.

Jim Rembach: Well, I also have to share with you because of what we’re talking about here is—just the casual conversation talking to somebody at a conference and they were referring to a business case that they were having to build about initiative that they were trying to get approved. And they had a lot of non-business presentation conversations with one of the folks that who was really a key decision-maker for this particular project and she went through, put together all of her business case information and hand it over to him and he basically said that, “you know what, we don’t really need to go through all of this business presentation stuff” he goes, “this is just the right thing to do.” And approved it without her even presenting her business case.

Tracy Goodwin: Wow!

Jim Rembach: I think that’s a great lesson for us to all take is that, if you can connect emotionally and bring it and turn it on and really get to people’s heart through that and then ultimately connect to their head a lot of times the business cases that you go through you may only be doing them because they’re required not because it’s actually connecting and getting your things approved.

Tracy Goodwin: Oh, I agree. I agree a hundred percent, it’s about connection, absolutely. And the voice is a big tool for that. We get bogged down in the words a lot I think too much and there are other elements. What is the statistic? I believe it’s only 7% of the message, the impact of the message is in the actual words the rest is body and voice which is connection.

Jim Rembach: So a lot of the folks that I am having the opportunity to interact with and hopefully assist and support help, are people who are in customer, care contact centers, customer experience, and so the voice oftentimes is the primary interaction point. If you were to say and look at the experiences that you have had working with folks in, yes the theater, but is also the business world, if you were to say that there was one thing that they could really focus on to make a difference for them, what would it be?

Tracy Goodwin: Oh boy, narrowing it down to one. I think—

Jim Rembach: Or let me put it this way, if there was a common thing that you have seen where people struggle with that often times you could say that the most people have this problem, what would that be?

Tracy Goodwin: I think it would be stepping outside of the variety box, the vocal variety box that keeping everything contained and you end up doing what we call flat lining and you have zero variety of any kind whatsoever like that, start rolling in some variety. What is your norm? Do you normally go fast? Then roll in a little bit of slow to balance it out. Are you normally loud? Roll in a little bit of quiet. Because what that does is that creates unpredictability and so it keeps us engaged. And when we’re engaged we’ll listen better than sitting here while you’re talking and I’m thinking about what I’m going to say because I’m not even listening to you. So, I think that variety is a big, big part of it.

Jim Rembach: That’s an interesting point that you bring up because we used to have contests within our call center of different voices and variety that we would actually bring so it will kind of break up the monotony of the day. And so we’d like have radio voice day where we’d all say, “Hello, this is Jim, how can I help you today? What other things would help us step into more variety?

Tracy Goodwin: Probably the acknowledgement and recognition and understanding that perception in our mind is not always reception. We think, Oh! my gosh, I’m being too over-the-top, I’m being too wild. I’m being too loud, I’m being too crazy, I’m making a fool of myself, when really that’s not what’s being received at all. So, I think it’s about bumping it up. Like what we were talking about a little a little while ago about stepping into that energy, getting a little more exciting with the choices that you’re making with your voice. Because you’re perceiving it in your head is maybe too much or maybe enough but what are they receiving? If they’re staring off, if they’re not listening, if they’re looking at their phone, they’re not receiving anything that’s too interesting. I think it’s, really that awareness of—okay, I need to up my game here a little bit I need to play in a bigger box, if that makes sense.

Jim Rembach: Well, it does. And so when you start thinking about the Fast Leader show stepping it up and bringing it and having the dynamics oftentimes we look to quotes to kind of help us do those things. Is there a quote or two that you can share?

Tracy Goodwin: Well, I have to think about that. Some of the things that I use the most are things that that I say. One of them is, “Speak your truth just do it beautifully”. I think we have to get to a place where we get comfortable saying what we need to say without fear using our voice and speaking it in a beautiful way not relying on tone, and not the right words but tone, so that maybe you’ll get how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking. I see that in the workplace a lot I think that’s a big one. And I think of course my favorite that I’ve already mentioned is, “The words are everything and they are nothing.” It’s how you bring them to life. How do you want to make me feel? How do you want me to feel? Do you want me to get excited? Then you need to have excitement in your voice because that’s going to get me excited. If you just flat line I’m going to just flat line emotionally.

Jim Rembach: As you’re talking I started thinking about something that we refer to an emotional intelligence called active listening. And I think we need to turn that a little bit and talk about active speaking. How does our audience actually need to hear it not how we normally deliver it?

Tracy Goodwin: How do they need to hear the message? Or hear our voice?

Jim Rembach: All of that.

Tracy Goodwin: Well, I think that at the end of the day in my world it’s about connection and it’s about having their senses touched which in turn affects their emotions they need to hear it in such a way that it is going to connect them back to memories. When I say, “Oh, the winter, it was so cold.” I need to say that in such a way where they go—Oh, that reminds me I remember that time and that winter back in ’78, I like her I want to hear what else she has to say. So, they need to hear it in such a way where we’re not talking at them we’re talking to them we’re sharing experiences and we’re connecting, based on those experiences that happen to be coming from words, but the voice and the elements of the voice are being used to affect the senses so the connection can truly be created.

Jim Rembach: It’s a great point, thank you for sharing that. Now we had talked about—off mic—about a couple of the things associated with how you’ve come to be the actual chief voice coach. We talked about some of the humps that we have to get over and you talked about the transition and ultimately finding where you need it to be in this world as well as your family dynamics and stuff, there was a lot of humps. But can you share one of those?

Tracy Goodwin: Well I can tell you the biggest one and it’s kind of a mind bender, really. But I was, of course you know, I wasn’t really allowed to use my voice and I found speaking and acting as a way to use my voice. When I went off to college I was cast in a lead in a play which, as a freshman was a huge deal. And in the play there was a scene where the man is supposed to slap the woman, and of course you’re thinking it’s going to be staged slapping, but as the play progressed as we rehearsed the young man that was playing opposite of me started slapping me around for real and nothing was done about it and it got worse and it got worse to the point where I was getting beaten every night.

Now, remember I was raised in a family where I was not allowed to use my voice, so I was terrified to use my voice. And three nights before we opened, he just literally beat me to—a horrible—he threw me down on a hardwood floor face down on a hardwood floor, broke my nose. And I went to the director of the play and I said, “Listen, I finally mustered my courage, and I said, is there any way he could not hit me like that anymore? I can’t take it anymore. And she said, let me tell you something you have chosen a profession in which you must suffer for your art and if you can’t I can replace you. And the result of that was my voice started—I started talking like this—this was what my psychology of my voice because I was so afraid. Well, all of that was horrible but what that did was that put me in the training that is the core of what I teach and how I help people today 32 years later.

Jim Rembach: Thanks for sharing that, I’m sorry that—I can only—what happened after that discussion?

Tracy Goodwin: With the director?

Jim Rembach: With the show? With everything? I mean to me it’s like—how did—I know your voice change but I can only imagine the pain and the anguish and the frustration and the feeling of despair that went through, how did you move forward from that?

Tracy Goodwin: It was pretty awful and I don’t really even think that I felt the full ramifications of it until later I honestly think that I was in shock for quite some time. Shock that it was happening, really honestly, the shock of what that director said to me was far greater than taking the hitting every night. I mean that was horrible, don’t get me wrong, but what made that so horrible was I didn’t know how to use my voice and I finally used it and I was smashed under the rug. And so that was a tough blow, to say the least I left that university, because the director and the situation was applauded and I was the problem. And I believe that we are not a problem, I believe far too many people live in the world believing they’re a problem and I believe we’re all an answer. And so, I left that University and had no idea even that my voice was so messed up when I got to the new University in the acting the head of the acting program said, “Good grief! You’re never going to make it if we don’t fix your voice. I was like what do you mean I’m an award-winning speaker, what’s wrong with my voice? I didn’t even realize until I got into the work but the work that I got into is muscle memory work which allowed me to release those experiences along with that voice. So, I think leaving that University was essential. I think if I had stayed there, there just was too much baggage and I think for years I resented the way that I was treated there and why that was allowed? Why that was okay? There’s something very wrong with that. But I fixed my voice I was successful as an actor and it was only years, not that long ago when it impacted me. Oh, my gosh, that’s my core, that’s the foundation for everything I do. And that allowed me to really have—that was the end of it that was the victory in it that was the silver lining of that really unbelievable experience it really is, it’s really unbelievable.

Jim Rembach: Thanks for sharing that I mean, that you have had the opportunity to really persevere and come out for the better is incredible. I know that you have a lot of things going on, you just moved to LA because you have a lot of clients that are actually in the Hollywood entertainment industry, you have you have your son that you’re taking care of a lot of things going on in regards to growing your business, but what are some of your goals?

Tracy Goodwin: Well, one of my big goals for this year is to start live speaking again. I have not done that in many years because my son’s been my priority and he’s in such a great place now he’s doing so well and I’m really feeling led to speak live again, so that’s really big on the forefront. I’m working on really even growing my podcast, Captivate the Room, even more and I’m dabbling in creating some online programs to help even more people around the world rather than just—I predominantly work one-on-one right, those are the big things I’m working on right now.

Jim Rembach: And the Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor:

The number one thing that contributes to customer loyalty is emotions. So, move onward and upward faster by gaining significantly deeper insight and understanding of your customer journey and personas with emotional intelligence. With your empathy mapping workshop you’ll learn how to evoke and influence the right customer emotions that generate improved customer loyalty and reduce your cost to operate. Get over your emotional hump now by going to empathymapping.com to learn more.

Jim Rembach: All right, here we go fast leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay Tracy, he Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Tracy Goodwin, are you ready to hoedown?

Tracy Goodwin: I think so. I’m nervous but I’m ready.

Jim Rembach: Alright. What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Tracy Goodwin: Fear of rejection.

Jim Rembach: What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Tracy Goodwin: Take a breath and start before you ready.

Jim Rembach: What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Tracy Goodwin: Never give up.

Jim Rembach: What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Tracy Goodwin: Hmm-hmm, intuition and trusting self.

Jim Rembach: What would be one book, and it could be from any genre, that you recommend to our listeners? And of course we’ll put a link to your book on the show notes page as well.

Tracy Goodwin: The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown.

Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/tracygoodwin. Okay, Tracy, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you have been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything back you can only choose one. What skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Tracy Goodwin: That it all works out and you do not need to stress over it. That everything is going to be okay and just go with the flow because there’s a purpose and a reason for everything and you don’t need to control it.

Jim Rembach: Tracy it was an honor to spend time with you today. Can you please share with the Fast Leader Legion how they can connect with you?

Tracy Goodwin: Sure I loved being here. They can find me at captivatetheroom.com.

Jim Rembach: Tracy Goodwin, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps links from every show special offers and access the download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

END OF AUDIO

[/expand]