Ask the Expert: Spacious Mindful Speaking with Alan Carroll

This is Amplify You Podcast about you discovering your message and broadcasting it to the world. If you're a coach, author or speaker, you'll want to tune in. If you're looking for the best return on your time investment, to get your message out to the world in a bigger way, we're giving you full access behind the scenes look of how we're running our podcasts, how our clients have found success, and what you can do to launch your podcast today. The world needs your message. I'm Michelle Abraham, the host. Join my family as we unleash your unique genius and find the connections you need to launch your venture today. Join us and let's get amplified.

Hello, hello amplify you family Michelle Abraham here. And I am so glad you guys are joining us today. We have I got a special guest for you with the ask the expert interview. I have my dear friend Alan Carroll with us, Alan, how are you doing today?

Michelle, I'm excited. I'm excited to be here. And I'm excited to be able to share some valuable things with the audience.

Excellent. Well, let me share a little bit more with our audience of all about you, Alan. So Alan is an educational psychologist. He specializes in transpersonal psychology, which is super interesting. He founded Alan Carroll and Associates over 30 years ago. And before that he was a senior sales training consultant for 10 years at a Digital Equipment Corporation. He has dedicated his life in search of mindfulness tools that can be used by everyone young and old, to transform their ability to speak at a professional level, as well as reduce the psychological suffering and caused by the MIS identification with our ego and reconnect to the vast transcendent dimension of consciousness that lies just on the other side of the thoughts we think and in between the words we speak. So a powerful a messaging Ellen, I'm excited to dive in today. Because not only am I a student of yours going into one of your courses next week, but also, I've learned so much from you over the last year working with you. At amplify you I'm so excited to hear more and more about how you can really support our podcasters with how they communicate in and people can hear their language and hear their messaging in a much better way.

Yep, absolutely. That's what I do. Go ahead and ask me a question. Let's let's start this puppy up.

Absolutely. Well, just welcome to you. Welcome to the show. And I want to know, how can us is also what's the problem with the way we speak right now. And I know I'm a fire hose when I speak. So what is wrong with being a fire hose when you speak.

When you watch somebody speak, what they're doing what you're doing what I'm doing, I'm blowing air out of this instrument called my body. I am putting my lips and my mouth and my tongue into a certain position. I am blowing just the right amount of air for just the right amount of time to create a sound bubble, a bubble of sound that you hear for as long as I continue to blow you hear a sound, but when I stopped blowing Well, what's that sound when I stopped speaking? What? Oh, that's there's no sound there at all. That's right. So that's the sound of silence. And when you watch the amateur speaker versus a professional speaker, if you just look for the amount of silence, pausing space, the person is able to insert between this sound that they're making, like Hello. And this sound that they're making two, three seconds after they said the first sound and the amateur speaker, you don't hear any silence at all. You hear talk talk talk talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk talk, how are you doing today Good to see you very nice minute that constant flow of of energy. And that constant flow of energy in the mindfulness business is called the yang energy. And from the data you have the yang energy which is the forward thrusting the fire, the energy, the masculine the that the energy coming out this way, and what's missing is the feminine energy. feminine energy is the inhalation of the energy the installation of the prana and you are now cooling the fire of the Dragon The Dragon Speaking the firing of the dragon, the dragon's breath that needs to be cooled. Well, how do you call it stop igniting the thoughts with your energy and pause. And you'll notice that when you begin to practice, consciously putting little pauses, little cracks between the sounds that you make you discover a power, you discover something that you didn't even know was there before. And that power is the space of mindfulness is the space of beingness. And so we train our students to begin to stop speaking. Number one, stop speaking. And you'd be surprised. Still, you'd be surprised, because you are you have a pattern that developed over the years, the pattern of speaking. And so to stop speaking requires you to be more awake than you usually are when you speak. And so when you ask the question, Do you know how to speak? Everybody would put one in chat? Yes, I know how I know how to speak. Well, then that means, Michelle, that the podcasters and yourself, you're not thinking about speaking, because I already know how to speak. I might be thinking about what I want to say when I'm speaking. But the speaking piece, no, no, no, no, I, I've been doing that for years. I don't think about that one. And if you don't think about the speaking, then you're an automatic speaker. And when you're an automatic speaker, you don't have a choice about how you're going to vibrate the air when when you speak. But when you are a conscious, mindful, spacious speaker, and create that one or two seconds worth of time, you now have the chance to think about what am I going to say next? How am I going to formulate that? Meaning? Am I going to change my voice? Am I going to show you a picture with my with my hands like a just maybe even I'll do a physical object to represent some something that I want you to understand. But now I have time to think about how I want to perform my thoughts. So the amateur doesn't perform their thoughts, the amateur talks, a professional speaker is conscious enough to perform their thoughts.

Interesting, I know one of the things that's always gone through my mind, if I slow down, or if I take moments. When I'm listening, like when I'm listening, I'm trying to listen. But also try to think of what's coming next so that when you get that moment to speak, I feel like sometimes you like a fear of like forgetting what you're going to say or nothing coming out causes. The lack of space for me is that is that normal, or is that something that you've seen other people experienced to?

When you begin to practice? Pausing, you begin to relax immediately, your physical body, because every time you project the energy out with that yang energy, it creates tension in the physical body. And every time you pause, creates relaxation in the physical body. So when you want to speak, you need to keep the instrument in a state of relaxation. So you've maximized your connection to your database. If you are tense, then your standards a little tighter to get to your database of knowledge. And I got my PowerPoint slides. And so the energy doesn't flow as easily through your body because the instrument that's accessing the data is in a state of tension. And as you begin to practice creating pauses, of flow of energy begins to happen in your body just comes right down from the head all the way through your body through the soles of your feet. And so now the instrument which is doing the speaking is in a state of relaxation. And so your access to what you want to say is greater, you are more relaxed, you're more calm, you're more confident, your communication is clear. And that's that's that's a wonderful thing to be able to do.

And I heard you say one time about when you're speaking so quickly and with that like intensity What it causes the audience? What's the experience the audience's having done?

Well, when when you say when you're a mindful, spacious speaker, you control the number one skill of a professional speaker, which is the which is the on off switch, which is the controlling switch, when when you're able to control the timing of your speaking, you then have one of these, this is I can control my speaking piece, I also can control my stopping peace. And so when you watch the professional speaker, they speak when they want to speak, and they're able to stop when they want to stop. And when you control the speaking consciously, and you control the silence consciously, you control the number one skill, which is the skill of timing, being able to control the timing of your speaking. And that will transform your whole experience of speaking. And one of the great I want to say it's, it's a metaphor, I was listening to fellow name Mooji. And Mooji is talking about trying to explain what I'm what I'm explaining. And he says, the thoughts that you're thinking, or the thoughts that you're speaking are like the clouds, and you look up and you see the clouds. And he said, what you want to be able to do is Park the clouds. And you'll see the sky on the other side of the clouds. And the sky is infinite and like it go sky got the universe, you got the guy the sky and space is infinite. But you can't see that, that infinite quality because of the clouds. And the clouds are your ego. It is your ego condensing, which is a source of suffering, you say something about me, I get upset. So identify with my ego, you say something nice about me, I'm happy. So I'm at the effect of what's going on over there. So in order to the transpersonal, psychologist wants to go from the ego into the space of the being, which means Park the clouds and begin to see the sky and allow the sky to come through your speaking. And we in psychology, we call that the space of the being presence, mind mindfulness, and you can do it, create it by just consciously putting a space between the sounds that you make. And pretty soon you have a whole experience of spaciousness. And now I can control I can talk as fast as I want to talk, I can talk up to 350 words per minute if I want to do that. But I also can reduce to speed. So I have control of the slow all the way to the fast. So it doesn't mean that fast is bad. It means your staccato notes in Beethoven's music. Can't can't be bad here. But what happens is you're not in control of it. And therefore you overfilled the buffers, and the audience is eating too much of your data, food and can't digest anything, which just leads to confusion. And that's not the image that you are the brand that you want to create on your podcast.

Right. And I would imagine it stresses out the audience too. And, you know, a lot of our podcasters also speak on stages. And so I would imagine that if you're speaking on stage and you're or you're speaking itself, and you're speaking that quickly, and they're giving off that kind of intensity, that's really stressing the audience out. You're not going to make very many sales from the stage when you're when you're selling like

well, along with that. Roger Ailes famous, famous speaker, he trained speakers and created Fox News. I mean, he's, he's a, he's a great media guy. He said there were certain qualities that that a great speaker has that you want to have. And he said one of the number one qualities is that the audience sees somebody who is relaxed. It sends out a relaxed vibration. And one of the things that I remember from ice to physics class was a fish tank full of water, no fish, and they had two balls suspended in the fish tank. One ball was connected to a motor and one ball was connected to a just a just a thought. And when they turn the motor on is sent a vibration through the water. They hit the other ball and the other ball would start vibrating at the same frequency. and they turn the motor off, and the other ball would slowly, slowly stop. So in the fish tank of the stage, or the fish tank of the podcast, you set the vibration. And if you want people to be relaxed when you're speaking, you better have your own instrument in the state of relaxation. And the only way that's going to happen is that if you have a thought, in the middle of your podcast, gee, Alan, take a breath, relax your body. So in the middle of the great talk you're having about whatever you're talking about, you have another thought that comes in and says, Wait a minute, Alan, take a breath and relax your body. Because if you don't have that thought, the FBI is not going to is not going to, it's not going to respond. It's not going to he's not going to do with what you Oh, I should have, I should have relaxed. You know, I started taking a breath. Oh, hey, you gotta wake up. So how do you wake up? You wake up by stop speaking. So, so the technology that we're talking about is a disruptive technology. And what we're disrupting is the automaticity of the flowing of your thoughts as you speak. And you have voice recognition, there's 8 billion people on the planet, there's eight different voice recognition is because there's a pattern. There's a pattern to your speaking, you don't think there's a pattern to speaking? Well, AI does. And I'm able to disrupt the pattern of your speaking. And then when you ask yourself, well, who are you speaking for? You speaking for your ego, meet my identity? Well, then disrupt your identity, disrupt the ego? Wait a minute here? No, no, no, no, no. Well, that's what you want to be able to do in order to get to the space of the being is to escape from the grip of the ego. And you can do that by taming the egos tongue. And that, how do you do that? Stop speaking.

It's hard. It's hard when you first start practicing that I would, I would just like to share that with everybody I've ever heard, I would say, and I'm excited to go. By the time this podcast airs, I'll be on my way to go to one of your training programs for three days now. Great,

that's wonderful, exciting. Training is like going to the gym, Michel, it's like, you're gonna be coached, you gotta go to the gym, there's going to be a coach there. And we're going to be coaching you on how to do space push ups. So cool, because the sky is already there. They weren't gonna say, Hey, did you know the sky is already there. He just got some clouds blocked in the way. And all you have to do is begin to park. The clouds allow the sky to come in videotape everything. So you can actually see the change and videotape and you will become more spacious. And boy, when you become more spacious, you become less resistant to life as it flows that you can no longer resisting because you put holes in the space of your speaking which disrupts the fabric of your ego, which causes the resistance that you have. And all of a sudden you're more loving, more compassionate, more relaxed, less upset. Then you are normally because you've you have I call it air rated your thoughts. You have begun to put holes like you do with the lawn in the wintertime, you aerate the lawn on air rating, the thoughts that I'm speaking by putting coals and when you listen to me speak, there's holes all over the place in my speaking and my body is relaxed. And I couldn't breathe. I thought so I'm taking more prana energy into my body right now. Because since I I'm pausing, there's a space that I can take in more energy. But if I don't pause between the sounds that I speak, I can only take little tiny breaths. And that's not going to be very beneficial to mindfulness. You don't hear any mindfulness people saying take little breaths. Take Big breaths, okay.

And the minute I knew I needed your help was when I listened back to your presentation I did or I would literally sounded like I was out of breath while I was talking and giving a presentation on like, Oh man, I need Ella's health error rate that error rate that speech.

Yeah, error rate to speech and it requires practice and my recommendation is, go to your home, go to a place at home while there's minimum distractions like the bathroom. Get a chair, get a mirror, sit down in the chair, close the door. Relax your body. Close your eyes. Get your body relaxed. It's your body like keep relaxing your body relax your body, relax your body. And then open your eyes. Just be with yourself in the mirror. Just see if you can hold eye contact with the mirror without moving your body. A body is ap salutely. Still, and you're just looking at your eyes, you're relaxed, and you're still can you do that? Step one, and you'll notice that your body is can't hold eye contact and your body is moving around, and you have to calm the body down. Gotta get the body under control, then start making some sounds. The one we talked about in the training is the professional speaker. Why? Because I can speak when I want to speak and I can stop when I want to stop, we go fast, we go slow. So we'll start that one really, really slow. By 2530 words per minute, which would look something like this

I am. Hey, pro Fash, no. Speaker. So I'm blowing bubbles of sound. And there's lots of sky. Lots of sky in between the sounds, when you go really fast, there's no sky, there's no beingness it's all ego, you can put some sky in there. Whoa, boy, oh, boy, you live another 2030 years of your life, you can do that. Because the the tension in the body causes the disease in the body. If you're going to keep tension free, which means air reading your thoughts, which are causing the tension, then it can only be beneficial to your physical, mental and emotional well being.

Oh, I love that. That's fantastic. So Alan, you've traveled all over the world teaching this and corporations and who's been your favorite kind of student to teach this to

professional speakers who are who want to polish their ability to speak. Recognize the speaking is part of the brand, especially if you're on the speaking business. For example, people who remember one time that Digital Equipment Corporation, the number one speaker of the corporation, that person always went up in front of audiences, whether it's the board at IBM or whether it is 5000 people, John Luther, Shawn Luther was an incredible entertainer. And that's part of what speaking is, can you entertain the audience while you're speaking? Well, what does that mean, I'm not there to entertain? Well, if you looked at the definition, you would realize that entertainment is the ability to hold the attention of the audience over time, and so you better be entertaining, otherwise, they're going to turn the switch and you're gonna go off. And so John was very entertaining. And he was really wanting to get better and better and better how to speak even though he was like the number one speaker in the second largest computer corporation in the world. And so having people who are thirsty, who really want to get better create a flow that allows the energy to come out of the trainer, then Warner Earhart from the s. Earhart seminar training, he talked about that the the listening of the audience that the podcaster is creating and speaking for creates the the listening creates the speaking if the audience wants to hear what you're saying, then the flow of words the flow of energy out because they're not resisting psychologically what they're saying their arms are open, let me speak that just flows out of you. But if the audience have no energy and then it stops it doesn't flow

like a lot of friction then in

the friction is one of my favorite favorite sayings when it comes to space and articulation of your thoughts is that articulation has three pillars to it. One Pillar of articulation is clarity. Are you able to formulate the thought that you want to ignite and present to the audience? Can you present it clearly? No filler words no eyes, no bodies awning on anything and you know, it is clear. Nice, nice and clear. Secondly, is it understandable? Are you are you talking in a way that I can understand what if he's too much over my head too much that knows right right there in my wheelhouse. I understand what the person is saying. And the third pillar of articulation is fluidity. Fluidity is the space between the sounds. And amateurs have no space between the sounds. And so what I, what we do is we take some space oil, and we put the space oil, but between the two sounds right there, and all of a sudden, the sounds get separated. And so we've lubricated, the we've lubricated, the, the, the engine of your speaking. And so the saying is space is the lubricant, that reduces the friction. And so you hear a professional speaker, very spacious, very flowing out of out of their voice, harmony, pleasant, because they're balancing the feminine energy of the Yin, with the masculine energy of the Yang. And they're doing that in present time. And you got to be present, grounded and relaxed, to be able to do that, because you also get to breathe. And boy, if you can just manage your breathing when you're speaking. You're free. You're free.

I'm looking forward to learning. Coming up. And Alan, we also have the pleasure of working with you to launch your podcast is coming out soon. As you bet. Yeah, so exciting. So tell us a little bit about the podcast before we let you go today. Well, I've

been in the mindfulness business, the psychology business, my all my life. And what I've discovered in my own world is that we can change people's mindfulness quality is building those mindfulness muscles by using the stage of public speaking, by controlling the timing that requires mindfulness. And boy, when you control the timing, it transforms your ability to speak. And so that started me on my journey of earning a living by training people on mine on mindfulness, but my passion is mindfulness. And so let's talk to folks that are in the mindfulness business, from the healers, who heal through mindfulness to the meditators to the yogi's, to the raja Yogi's to all the scientists and the people that are involved in the transformation of consciousness. And let's have some conversations that will expand people's mindfulness muscles, and begin to accelerate that ability to be stable in times of change. Because if you look at what's going on in the world, you could say, things are changing out there, young lady, they're changing, for sure, things are changing. And most people aren't really flexible when it comes to changing, because you're changing the pattern that I'm used to. And so I want to be able to create a conversation that allows that fluidity and the flexibility and the relaxation, no matter what the universe throws at you on the sky, I'm the holder of it on the beingness, I'm not some ego getting, we want to build a bridge from the ego into the space of the beam.

Fantastic. Well, I'm looking forward to your show launching. And if you're listening to this, we're gonna have a link to our show in the show notes once it's live, and so make sure you go and check out Alan's podcasts of mindful you. And Elemis just want to thank you for shedding some light for our podcasters on ways that they can really help their listeners have a more pleasant experience listening. And also they can start air eating their, their their speech, to allow more energy and flow to come in.

That's right. That's right, exactly. Like it's like a screen door. In the summertime. It's a screen door that allows the energy to flow rather than a winter door in which resisted the pausing spaciousness, error rates, your whole energy fields insist you can do it by speaking and it's free, the air is free, you don't get doesn't charge the pause.

I love it. And if you're listening to this podcast, you have to go and find it on YouTube and watch the podcast because Elon really has an amazing way of entertaining with his hands. And he had lots of great props today. So make sure you go and check out the YouTube video of this podcast as well on our YouTube channel. So amplify your family. I want to thank Alan for being here today. And I want to thank you guys for listening in today. I want to send you out this week on a mission to Allen which we send them out to do to practice sitting in that bathroom in front of the mirror like Alan suggested and just looking at yourself from breathing and relaxing your body I think that would be a great thing for our listeners to go out and practice this week. What do you think? Five

minutes just five Okay, good. Keep your body relax. Close your eyes, open your eyes. Slow down your speaking and breathe and pause between the breathe and pause between the sounds so that becomes natural right now breathing and pausing but between the sounds that you speak is, is not natural. So it has to be practice until it becomes, Oh, of course, I'm the sky. I'm not. I'm not the thing. I'm on the cloud and I have clouds, but on the sky

and the skies above the cloud, right?

Right. The sky is where the sun is where the air is where light is, the clouds blocked it. So the but if you can just park the thoughts that you speak, that helps Park the thoughts that you think and boy that's, that's major aeration, but that's mukti. Boy, that's that's Nirvana stuff. And that when you get past our partner foster to think,

Oh, my goodness, I love it. So report back to us what your experience was with that, we'd love to hear it. Check us out on Facebook and come in joining the conversation. And let's hear how your experience was trying to do that in front of the mirror this week. So Alan, thank you again for being with us and on FIU and looking forward to your podcasts coming out. And can we have you back again, sometime soon. We can do a behind the mic interview all about your podcasts.

Wonderful. I would love that. Thank you very much, Michelle, and we'll see you at Potter Palooza next week.

Absolutely. See you then thank you amplify your family. Have a great week.