Warm Up Before You Speak Up | Captivate the Mic

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You wouldn't sprint without stretching. So why do we walk into the meeting, the stage, the pitch — cold? A quick solo episode on why so many women can't find their lower register when it matters, plus the two-minute warm-up I've been teaching leaders for twenty years.

Here's what I've watched happen for twenty years.

A woman who is brilliant in the hallway walks into the conference room and her voice goes up. Gets faster. Gets smaller. She apologizes before she makes her point. And afterward she says some version of the same sentence to me: I don't know why I do that.

So let's talk about why.

Your lower register isn't missing. It's not a skill you failed to acquire. It's a place you learned not to go — because at some point, taking up space cost you something. A comment. A room that went quiet the wrong way. A review that used the word "abrasive." Socialization does part of it. Past visibility trauma does the rest. Your body remembers. Your throat remembers.

A cold voice is a compliant voice. It stays high and thin and quick because that's where it's been safe.

I'm going to come back to all of that in another episode. It deserves its own room. But today I want to hand you something you can use this week.

So we warm up. Not because your voice is broken — because your body needs the reminder that it's allowed to be here.

Two minutes. Speaking to two people or two thousand, same warm-up.
In this episode, we'll tackle:

Why your voice climbs when the stakes rise — and why that's history, not nervesWhat vocal authority actually is (it isn't volume, and it isn't doing a Serious Voice)Why nobody taught you this, even if you've had presentation trainingThe full warm-up — doable in a stairwell, a parked car, or the bathroom before you walk inWhy you go over the top in the warm-up so you don't have to in the room

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