Office Space: About Eating The Frog

There is a quote, attributed to Mark Twain, about eating a frog first thing in the morning. The idea is that if you do the hardest thing first, the rest of your day will be much better.

Here’s the thing — Voices need time to warm up. So even if your “frog” is a hard conversation there are things you must do first if you want your voice to convey your intent.

The voice itself needs your breathing to be available and for the tissues to be flexible and pliant. This means that at very least getting your heart-rate up and practicing some vocal movement is required. There are many places to access a vocal warmup including on the GROW Voice FB page so I will leave it up to you to find what you need.

Once the vocal instrument is primed then we can get into the realm of authority. This comes from being prepared both psychologically and factually for the conversation, meeting, or presentation. The context will inform what is required and how much preparation you need to do.

Finally, you need to navigate and manage your charge. These are the neurological currents that pop up as physiological responses — anything from increased heart rate to sweaty palms. You should have a good set of tactics for how to function at a high level, no matter what your charge is doing.

Then, you are ready to eat the frog. With good preparation, you may even find that frog isn’t really that bad.

Gina Razón is the Founder and CEO at GROW Voice LLC, a full-service verbal communication studio in Boston’s Back Bay.  She has over two decades of experience as a teacher of voice and speech, is a communication and change facilitator, and is a voraciously curious voice user.  Gina has worked professionally as a classical singer for over a decade and more recently as a professional public speaker.  For more information on the studio or to book Gina visit www.growvoice.com.