Transcription of Seth Rigoletti for the show Breathe #9
Dr. Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we feature a segment we call Maine Magazine Minutes, which is hosted by our all the time co-host Genevieve Morgan.
Genevieve: Thank you Lisa. Today we are joined in the studio by Seth Rigoletti who is a leadership and communications coach at Valico Group. As part of Valico group he works with politicians, engineers, scientists, executives, and authors to teach them how to have a greater presence, communicate in a clear fashion, and deliver a more impactful message. The focus of his work is on genuineness, resonance, and helping clients to be more persuasive in their communication. Which, actually, has a lot to do with our topic today which is breathe. I want to welcome Seth Rigoletti to the studio, hi Seth.
Seth R.: Thank you. Hi.
Genevieve: We have a lot of people come into the studio, obviously, and some are really nervous and some are not. It seems to me that that is a common problem for anyone involved in public speaking. That is exactly what you are trying to address.
Seth R.: There is a lot of things that are happening for me whenever I am speaking in front of a group of people. In this particular case there is all of this stuff around, so one of my goals, one of the things that I try to work with people about is really staying present with the people that you’re talking to. If it’s a room of 500 people or if it’s a room with 3 people, the problems are still the same, which is if I get too much in my head, if I start thinking too much about what I want to say or how am I being perceived, or what did I just say, then what happens is … I have noticed this in my own body and in other people’s body as well, I will stop breathing, or I will hold my breathe. You can hear this in people’s voices. It’s not that they don’t project or you can’t hear them. Some people have wonderful, beautiful deep voices, but they’re still not breathing.
Genevieve: There’s a tightness, the constriction, right?
Seth R.: Right. An example, and I don’t really know how well this will play out in radio, but an example would be if I were holding my breath and I was talking, my voice would kind of rise up a little bit and my voice would start speed up, some of my pronunciations would get a little slurred, and I would start to say things like this? Where there are these question marks at the end of my voice?
Genevieve: I think I can recognize that.
Seth R.: That is really like a tightness in my diaphragm. If I sink that down and I go down deeper and I just breathe through my voice, what happens is my vocals become more resonant. Rather than just sound coming through my mouth, there’s actually more of a vibration that comes through me. For a bigger audience, even though you are mic’ed, it does actually have an effect on how people receive you and how they hear you.
Genevieve: You can train people to do this through your work?
Seth R.: Yeah. The funny part about all this work is that there is training to it. I want to be specific that the work that I do is not necessarily maestro work, I am not trying to help people become master technicians, I am trying to help people become more themselves. Our bodies are designed to be resonant, we are designed for voice. There is this thing on Kristen Linkletter who is a teacher at Columbia University. She designed this whole type of vocal work called the natural voice, the Linkletter work which she applies to Shakespeare and acting.
It’s really about the idea that if we brought ourselves back to a more natural place with our breathe, if we relaxed our vocal cords, if we didn’t feel like we had to control our voice it would be beautiful and resonant. We would be able to be clearly communicating not just the words that we want to say but all the range of emotions that we want. What I focus on with people is to understand what interferes with our breath. There is this part about exercises that help you open up and help you practice how to breathe and how to be more resonant. There’s all these things that we can do to make that happen. The number one thing is what hijacks you, what is it that brings you out of the moment?
Genevieve: That can be very individual, so your work is client by client, I imagine. you don’t have a set plan for every person?
Seth R.: It is individual, absolutely, it is client by client, but it’s also very much … There are universal things that happen. For example, there are some people who are terrified of public speaking, some people who when they get up to the idea of speaking in front of a group of people, whether it be just a few, a handful of people, or as I said 500 people, they are terrified. For those people it is really about identifying what it is that they are terrified of.
Genevieve: For those listeners out there that might be facing a big presentation at work this week or my personal favorite, a toast at a wedding or a family gathering, regular public speaking that you might not think of as public speaking but can still be terrifying in its own way. Do you have any general tips or ideas for how to do what you’re saying, be yourself?
Seth R.: One of the biggest mistakes that people make is that they think the content is the presentation. We think that we’ve got this content that I’ve got to give you. You see this with PowerPoint all the time, people just load all of their content on the PowerPoints and they really just read through them and click through them. It’s death. It can be 35 minutes of absolute hell for people in that meeting. There’s this Dr. Meradian did this study back in 1957.
Genevieve: Whose that? Dr. Meradian..
Seth R.: He started doing some studies about what is likability, what is this? I think he was a psychologist and he started doing this study which is basically what makes us like somebody. This is an often quoted statistic because he made this discovery and then people like me were like this is great news for us.
Basically what it came down to is that only 7% of the reason why they like other people is because of the content of what they say. “Hey, I like your dress,” is not the likability piece. 55% of it is non-verbal. 55% of it is how you physically said that, how you physically were when you said that. I think 38% of that is oral, how I hear you say that. For actors, this is obvious. Actors know that you can have the same line and you can say it 10 different ways and mean 10 different things.
Genevieve: So it is not the message, it is the messenger …
Seth R.: Right. In acting they would call it the intention, what are you trying to accomplish in this moment? Coming back to the presentation piece, what I tell people is that you have to know what effect you want to have on your audience. The effect needs to be something, you want to think about it like I try to say, what do you want people to leave with? If all you have is, “I want them to leave with the content,” then I say do them all a favor, print out the content, give it to them and tell them the meeting’s over. They will leave with the content, won’t necessarily read it …
Genevieve: They’ll digest it on their own time.
Seth R.: They may or may not, but they’ll thank you for not holding them hostage for half an hour. Let’s say in my presentation I want this team to take a leap of faith and we are going to increase our budget, we’re going to go an extra mile and I am asking them to work a little harder, even if we’re increasing our budget, work a little harder, give more effort towards this goal, and it’s going to be a short term goal so it’s going to be a lot of work in a short term period of time.
In order to make that convey, in order to have that effect on them, I have to share something, I have to share something transcendent with them, like, “I really believe that this will change the way that we do business, I really believe that this will make our business better or make our company better, or make our lives better in some way.” I have to be clear about why I believe that and what it is about me that is excited about this opportunity, why do I want to work harder?
Genevieve: That’s what I hear overall about Valico, not only is it about coaching people in public speaking, but it’s actually about coaching people to understand who they really are so that when they stand up in front of a bunch of people it can be genuine. Let’s bring it back to breathe though, how does breathe connect with all of this? I know it’s important.
Seth R.: Right. I heard this in a yoga class one day and it really resonated with me which is that breath can only happen in the present. When you think about that, it’s pretty helpful. As long as I’m in my head, I’m not in my heart. If I’m in not my heart, then I’m not being present for everybody here. What breathe does, it’s a mechanical process. If I breathe then I tell people politicians, business people, whatever, I say, “Breathe through your mouth.” Just that act of doing that, I don’t mean to be all mystical, but brings the energy down into your midsection and then once you’ve done that it’s really hard to stay up in your head. You can go back to your head, but the breathe reminds you, I have to be present.
Genevieve: Those very simple maneuvers are very basic things that you teach. If there are people out there listening today who want to get in touch with you in terms of more individual or sophisticated techniques, how do they get in contact with you?
Seth R.: I have a website.
Genevieve: What’s the address?
Seth R.: www..valicogroup.com. Valico is an Italian word that means the crossing points between mountain peaks. It’s all about connecting who you are to who you want to connect to and what you want to say.
Genevieve: Seth, thanks so much for coming in today, it’s been really interesting. I have learned so much already, thank you.
Dr. Lisa: Thanks for coming in Seth.
Seth R.: Thanks.
Genevieve: Seth Rigoletti is one example of people doing inspiring work in our community. At Maine Magazine we like to turn the lens on these individuals and give you the opportunity to learn more about them. Please visit us online at themainemag.com or pick up an issue at your local newsstand or bookstore.