Kevin Stafford 0:00
Okay. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the conversations with coaches podcast. I’m your host, Kevin and I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time, but hosting on this podcast for her second episode, Laurie Smith. Let me give you a very brief reintroduction to Lori. She is an intuitive public speaking and leadership coach, helping people who are on a soul driven mission to stand in their power, speak their truth and lead capital L so that they can do their part to change the world with authenticity, with creativity, and with courage. Laurie, it’s great to meet you. And I’m really glad you decided to come back on the pod to do this for a second time. And with me for a first time, I already am quite fond of you, even though we’ve been talking for like five minutes. Oh, it’s great to meet you. And I’m really excited to chat.
Lauri Smith 0:46
Me too. It’s great to meet you too. And I’m already having a great time. Oh,
Kevin Stafford 0:50
good, good, good, good, good. That’s one of the my one of my early lessons, doing a podcast doing anything like this really was just to let my enthusiasm show, okay, if I look a little silly, and because I often do, and so that’s fine. I can’t really control for that. But be be as enthusiastic and as happy as you are and let the chips fall where they may. So I’m glad that’s coming through the Digital Zoom audio video connection. So let’s, I I like to usually say this kind of cheekily as it let’s talk about your superhero origin story, how you got your powers just because it’s always very much in people’s minds. But I always love hearing about coaches origin story, how they got their start as a coach, whether it was a key mentor with the right words at the right time, or just a sort of building realization that coaching was the word for what they’ve been doing for a while but didn’t really quite understand in all sorts of other different journeys that bring people into coaching. So what was your What was your spark? What was your start?
Lauri Smith 1:47
There were a lot of little breadcrumbs along the way. And the really key moment that specifically sent me to coaching was sort of partway on the journey. Once I was saying yes to the intuition. I left a corporate job to go get a master’s degree in theater, thinking I was going to act at night and do and teach theater during the day and be a starving artist. And I was prepared to do that anyway. And I was teaching at a community college, I was about 34 years old, and a student of mine who was like a couple years younger, came up to me and said, You’re different. The way that the other instructors are teaching is still the professor model, where they’re professing a knowledge that they have that we don’t, you are more like a coach. You’re curious, you’re intuitive. When you trust yourself, you look like you’re reading people’s minds. And at this stage, you’re getting the best performances out of all of my classmates, but you don’t know that because you’re not seeing them in the other class. And then she said, when you don’t trust your way, it’s really not working for you.
Kevin Stafford 3:11
What a great like, compliment, criticism sandwich. That’s perfect. Oh, man. It’s like, that’s the dream feedback right there.
Lauri Smith 3:18
Yeah, absolutely. And it was one of those moments I did not know about this field called coaching other than, you know, coaching basketball, I could tell from her energy that she wasn’t talking, you know, from her energy, she’s not talking about like being a coach of a sport. I didn’t know what it was. But it was one of those moments where times seem to be slowing down behind her and her face almost look like it was in a fun mirror. And I just said, you know, it was like, this is important. I’m gonna go take this coaching class. And no questions just went and did it. I also paid full price for the first coaching class, which I then found out like no one else was doing, because they will call up and say I’m not sure and get a $250 discount,
I paid full price, because I listened to your intuition,
and listen to my own intuition. And that was the first step of really becoming a coach. Going to the coaching class, because of her
Kevin Stafford 4:24
lovely Spark, I can’t get over how wonderful that bit of feedback is so thoughtful and reflective, and authentic. And it’s like, yeah, I’m just kind of sitting in it. I’m gonna I mean, even though like I’m almost getting like a contact high off of the power of that feedback, because you’re describing how you experienced it. It was like a moment, you know, slowing in time with the depth of field moving and I’m just like, I’m kind of feeling that a little bit because of how, how how much clarity I can sense comes from that moment. And I’m, I’m sure I mean, I imagine but I’m very confident that that that kind of clarity and induction of clarity infuses your coaching practice
Lauri Smith 5:01
It absolutely does. It absolutely does. And it helped, you know, it will, that memory will come back around either when people ask. Which reminds me to trust my own intuition and to trust, my style, whatever we’re talking about whether we’re talking about teaching, coaching, making a decision over, you know, how to do my taxes this year, listening to the follow my own intuition and trust my own style, even if I haven’t seen an example of my style in the world before, because I hadn’t. I hadn’t seen coaches. And then I walked into the coactive Training Institute, then called the coaches training institute, and was seeing two people leading a class with that more interactive coaching style of essentially teaching a class or facilitating a class. I love
Kevin Stafford 6:02
that you followed your intuition into into a place that brought you brought you away from Am I the only one who does it like this into a place of oh, there are, there’s both lots of people like this, and no one quite like me. And we can grow together. It’s the space is beautiful, this like moment of like bursting synergy that comes from that, and it starts because you’ve made the choice with courage to follow that intuition to trust it.
Lauri Smith 6:28
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Kevin Stafford 6:32
That’s so lovely. I’m always so taken with the entire process. And I love I love the like, it’s such a harsh, but so perfect bit of feedback, where it’s like, when you try when you do when you try to do it some other way, it doesn’t work for you. It’s like, and that’s yeah, it’s such an intrinsic part of both being a Coach and the coaching relationship, the experience of being coached, and that how important the right fit is fits a word that comes up in a lot of context for me when I’m talking with coaches, because obviously, you want to be a right fit for your client, you want your client to be a right fit for you, whether that’s an individual, or whether you’re coaching like a team in some capacity, or a group or something like that. Or if you’re coaching like some sort of high end like full organizational coaching, like the fit is so crucial, and also the fit with your I love thinking about this too, because the importance of constructing your methodology and your approach and the way that you are saying, coach is so crucial to becoming the best version of yourself as a coach, because you really are embracing everything that makes you strong and unique and special, while also allowing you to more deeply connect with the people you’re most going to be able to help. And I’m always I’m just I’m so I’m so in love with that process.
Lauri Smith 7:41
Yeah, absolutely, there’s a really different energy when it is a good fit. It feels like I’m very sensitive to energy. So it’ll feel like there’s an energy that’s different and more pure without anything in the way that’s already expansive. As we’re engaged in the coaching, even generally, the first time we meet, there’s something that feels magical about it from the fifth
Kevin Stafford 8:10
year and it’s, the more you exercise it, the easier it becomes to recognize and trust. Because it’s like you can kind of you could it’s very easy to second guess it when it’s like it feels right. Because there’s that we’re trained a little bit more miming, we’re trained a lot bit to the polite way of putting it might be to be skeptical of such feelings inside of ourselves, or at least to interrogate them so often to dismiss them as fairy tales, when really the more you exercise that awareness, and the more you practice trusting it and seeing where it leads, the more you are able to pick up on it. And the more you learn to listen and the better able you are to teach people to show that to people and have them find their way of finding those magical connections and those magical moments. Yeah,
Lauri Smith 8:55
absolutely listening to that letting questions arise from that, rather than trying to you know, feeling like there’s some some way to do it that we haven’t figured out yet. That’s the way someone else did it.
Kevin Stafford 9:14
So easy to fall into that trap to get to read the someone’s 17 key steps to success or whatever, and try to just lay them over the top of our life like a frame or something like this. Like on top. Usually what happens is rather than helping us to build ourselves up, we ended up just carrying the extra weight. We’re just like, it’s somebody else’s roadmap to success, and I’m trying to superimpose it on to me now. I’m just carrying more stuff and I’m not getting anywhere.
Lauri Smith 9:40
Yeah, exactly. That’s such a great way of describing it. very visceral, very much feel like it. Or does it feel like does it feel like it lightens your load? Like if you see a way that someone else is doing something and you decide to steal, steal apart, part of it, borrow it, not reinvent the wheel? If it lightens your load, great. If it feels like you took someone else’s way, and it’s weighing you down, then maybe that’s not one of the recipes you want to borrow from.
Kevin Stafford 10:13
And that’s where that so I really I was quite taken with the way you use the phrase, questions arise, like questions rise up. Mmm, that’s such a huge part of the way I experienced coaching. And really the way I experienced human connection and just my own personal growth, is that there’s a, I think it’s, I think it might actually originally be a Bible verse, but I’ve heard it in many, many different forms for many different locations. It goes basically something like out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. I was always quite taken with that, like, at felt felt true in a way that I didn’t walk I didn’t comprehend. But I felt like all the way down deep in my soul, and been kind of exploring that and the way that you phrased questions are rising, reminded me of that how the right questions the questions that really need to see the light of day will come up of their own buoyancy. You know, if you’re engaged in the right activities with the right people, and you know, going in the right direction, they will come up naturally.
Lauri Smith 11:09
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I love that, quote, I may I have to have you text message that to me,
Kevin Stafford 11:16
I’ll do my best to source it, the Internet can be a wild place for that sort of thing. But yeah, I’ll see if I can find find at least a semi accurate source for that. And I’ll send that to you. Because that’s one of my one of my favorites to sit on and think on and take action on. Because often I can find what I need to do next, just by taking a moment to listen to what’s just coming up out of my heart.
Lauri Smith 11:35
Yeah, that’s I have a whole thing on Soul suckers, which is my word for the inner critic, and soul. And that is one of the ways of feeling the difference. If it’s the soul suckers, it tends to feel like there’s a lot of energy around the head. And it’s talking like sometimes opposing soul sucking inner critic voices kind of arguing back and forth. And it’s very ungrounded and up, and they’re talking super, super, super fast, but saying the same things over and over. And then the other voice is more like that buoyant bubble up from the heart. Hmm. And it might only say at one time. Mm hmm. So if you stay with the stuff in the head, it’s like, well, I told you and you didn’t listen to what I said. If we’re listening to it more often, I find like, it’ll bubble and if I ignore it, it will bubble again. Or it might even start to sound like it bubbled up, and then I’ll kind of hear things in my inner ear. And sometimes when I’m coaching someone, something comes up and I don’t blurt it right away. And then it’s like, it keeps sort of saying it a little bit louder. And I have to interrupt them and say, I have this question that won’t go away. Hmm, this is what that question was. And there’s a very different, like you said, more buoyant, more clear, more space around it. Feel to that intuitive voice than the like, what about this? Have you thought about that? Did you do this thing other people do it this way? Those soul sucking voices?
Kevin Stafford 13:18
Oh, man, your your brief imitation there, like the way you changed your voice. I was like, Ooh, that sounds familiar.
Lauri Smith 13:28
If it sounded familiar, just know you are not alone. We all have some version of that.
Kevin Stafford 13:36
Such a good way to think not just think about it, but engage with it too. Because I often find myself thinking about and actually talking about with coaches the importance of and it’s spoken of in different ways. But it kind of boils down to something akin to holding space. And often think about that, not just in in the sense of space, but also in the sense of quiet and stillness. And it’s not always going to be the case that when you’re able to turn the volume down on the soul suckers, that cacophony of voices that are going on in your head, it’s not immediately going to going to become clear that something else is going to bubble up to fill that space. But it’s why it’s important to create that quiet and hold it so that when that resonant deep, I’m well I almost have like James Earl Jones in my head as the voice of the voice of my heart coming up with his resonant like, you know, go the distance. Now I have field of dreams in my head or something like that.
Lauri Smith 14:24
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. A lot of times the reason we don’t like silence as people or space, is that sometimes when we’re alone, we try to take space, we get the silence, and that’s almost more uncomfortable. If it were as easy as if I create the space all the answers will come up like James Earl Jones, we probably wouldn’t all need coaches. Does, you know the more you do it, the more often your own. James Earl Jones is going to talk to you. It’s just at first it’s not always that instantaneous. So which is why it can be so helpful to have a coach who helps you. hold space for you, like you said, so that when you sink into the silence, and you let all those other should voices go, you’re not alone when you’re sitting in the silence. If no bubble comes within the first two seconds,
Kevin Stafford 15:20
yeah, and that’s exactly it exactly where where our coaches just ended. And I throw these words around, I’m very much very much in love with what coaching can bring to people’s lives professionally, personally, just across the board. And I love how much of a rising tide coaching is, and how much more of an awareness there is of exactly what that a coach can do that for people then have it it’s hard to describe like this by someone like you is exactly why I love doing this podcast so much, because I get it get a chance for people, so many different kinds of people. So many different kinds of coaches say almost the exact same thing, but could be coming from the position of the people they’re trying to serve the most every coach has like a certain certain groups certain subset of certain focus, that they’re like, I’m best suited to serve this person, or this group, or this type of person or someone who’s at this stage of their life. And I just love how there is a rising awareness of the fact that there is a coach for every season. And for every stage, and it’s just lovely to to hear it spontaneously bubble up out of conversation. I love it.
Lauri Smith 16:24
Yeah, I remember when I first started my business and when to go to networking meetings, it was all the kind of old school brick and mortar networking meetings where they would say, well, you’re only allowed to have one of each profession. And that meant you could only ever had one coach. And now it’s changed more, I don’t know 100% about the brick and mortar types. But the world learned in the last 15 years that it’s a little bit more like finance. So you might have six people who are technically in the financial industry in a networking meeting. Because finance is a really big word. There’s a lot of different you know, there’s the person who does your taxes, there’s the person who manages your portfolio, those are two different people. And coaching has shifted so that it’s like, well, now we have a health coach, we have a public speaking coach, we have a branding coach, and they can all be in one networking meeting. Because there’s one for every season, like you said,
Kevin Stafford 17:23
yeah, and the way that coaching has a, I was gonna say it has a unified language, it’s something like I’m still kind of working on this notion in my head, as I’m experiencing coaching, there’s like there’s a singular language to it with a myriad of different dialects that can serve different purposes. And so there’s an ability to collaborate towards a single goal or towards helping a single person or a single unit or a team or whatever the shape of it happens to be and ability to collaborate together. That is really just it’s it’s so profound, it’s still something I’m still like exploring the power of even as I see it happening all the time, just that ability for, for people in all these, these different realms of expertise are able to come together to help someone from their from their various areas of expertise, but speaking enough of the same language, so that there’s not a lot of wasted time translating or mixed or mixed messages. It’s a lot of a lot of capacity for focus and forward momentum.
Lauri Smith 18:17
Yeah, absolutely. As a voice teacher who, I don’t do dialects anymore, but I did in grad school. So the metaphor of we’re all speaking the same language, but in different dialects. Just really gave me a little a little giddy, giddy response.
Kevin Stafford 18:33
Excellent. Like I said, still workshopping that as an analogy, but it feels feels like it’s got some truth to it, so I’ll have to keep off to keep noodling on it. Yeah, I was gonna say I can’t believe I could totally believe that. We’ve already been chatting for 25 minutes, I just realized that we’re coming up on our time. And we haven’t even really talked very much specifically about your coaching practice today. So let’s just talk a little bit about who you coach, how you coach them most often, obviously, like one to one coaching is always like at the heart and soul of a coaching business, but obviously, public speaking keynotes stuff, group group coaching, masterminds? Are you writing a book? Have you written a book? Are you holding a book right now is the book in the room.
Lauri Smith 19:14
Book is somewhere in the room. I don’t know where it is. I couldn’t get it. I have the old copy of the book right next to me, but I have a new one. I have written a book, I won’t run and get it. It’s called Your voice matters a guide to speaking soulfully when it counts. I wrote that almost 10 years ago now and it’s available on Audible. Also. My my passion My love is public speaking and leadership coaching with visionaries who are sensitive and may have been kind of lurking in the shadows, who are feeling called to step out and be seen In and do more public speaking in order to help bring the change to the world that they’re here to create. And what I believe is that we are all born charismatic, we all have presence. And what the world is doing wrong is telling us that there’s only one kind at a time and trying to turn people you know, if you’re not Tony Robbins, but everybody’s trying to get you to speak like Tony Robbins, I have news for you. There’s only one Tony Robbins, he’s the only one who can express that exact kind of charisma. There’s only one Barack Obama, he’s the only one who can express that type of charisma. And they’re very different. So if there are 6.8? Or is it 7.8? Now billion 7.8? Yeah,
Kevin Stafford 20:49
I think it’s because I’d lost, I think we’re close to eight, we’re getting close to 8 billion.
Lauri Smith 20:54
Let’s say 7.9. Because we don’t know when this is 7.9 billion people on the planet, there are 7.9 billion different flavors of charisma. And the way I work is to help remove the masks, the emotional masks and the energetic armor that people have put on because they think they have to be different than themselves, to peel away those layers and help them come home to themself. And instead of being fear driven, be more soul led, when they speak, or to let go of the crazy mind and come from the heart and speak and resonate outward. From there. And my favorite way of doing that is in my small intimate groups, which do include some one on one. And the reason that I love the group is that it’s the outside world that that made us feel like we needed to suppress and hide and have those energetic armors and the emotional masks in the first place. So by coming together in community with a small intimate group of people who are all removing the masks, and learning how to expand their authentic energy. It’s like our bodies relearn, okay, I’m safe to do that in community with other humans. And then the leap to showing up that way, when you’re the one standing at the podium, with an audience of real people out in the real world, is a much easier and more smooth leap to make than if we only ever work one on one.
Kevin Stafford 22:39
Yeah, um, I find myself as I’m as I’m listening to everything, I found myself very, like briefly flashing back to my own personal journey as just being a public figure, because we’re all public figures as we interact with other people in the world. And just remembering how terrified I used to be like in high school to getting up in front of the class and having to talk. And like I would just like it, the flop sweats and I would stutter and just to have all, all of my like, I would manifest all of my nightmares about it just by being so terrified and so nervous, and how like thinking of myself as I moved through my life and became more invested in connection than I was afraid of whatever I was afraid of, from being in public of speaking of expressing myself, and thinking about like being led or being pulled forward by the thing I wanted to express and connect, rather than driven and pushed from behind by the things that I felt like I was afraid of, or that feel it felt like was chasing me down and didn’t know what I was gonna do, to me this unknowable thing that was behind me, therefore I couldn’t see it. And it’s just, it’s such a, I don’t, it’s it, I’m gonna make a bold claim that I don’t know is 100% true, but it might be the single most important development, personal development of my adult life is getting. And still, it’s still ongoing, still ongoing, nothing more in the direction of connection and expression, and charisma, which I mean Christmas is another like sort of tangential word for that connection and empathy and being able to express yourself and to be expressed to and receive as well. moving in that direction. That’s that might be probably is the single greatest personal development of my adult life and I’m, yeah, I can. I’m resonating with what your what your coaching practice is all about. And I’m just, I feel very grateful that you’re out there in the world doing it.
Lauri Smith 24:30
Thank you. You’re so the way that you’ve found your way there, lead your way there. I’m, I’m excited on the inside. It’s extremely intuitive. I like to break things down to three words for people now and the three words that I use most often or intend on align, invite, and intend is taking a moment to do exactly what you did set your intention for what you want to happen. Right Other than letting the fear focus on what you don’t want to have happen. And it’s like shifting from going river rafting and thinking, I don’t want to hit the rocks, I hope I don’t fall out of the raft. To I want a wild, adventurous ride down this river with the people that are in the raft with me more I want to smooth ride down this river, whichever one you want focusing on that is a very different experience. And to me where I sit, that’s what you did is you set an intention for connection with the crowd, and you’re focusing on that instead of focusing on I hope my school kids don’t throw tomatoes at me.
Kevin Stafford 25:45
And where they get tomatoes, who gave them tomatoes? Tomatoes? No, that’s and that’s, I mean, to be perfectly frank, this almost sounds like I’m blowing smoke up your butt. But I’m not. That’s exactly why a coach is so important because I didn’t have those words, then I’m much closer to having them now. But I just sort of bumbled through, figuring that out with help along the way, but not really having the words or the guidance, that could have shaved years or decades off that development, or just shaped it and changed it in different ways that I mean, I’m here now, and I’m grateful for that. But I feel like if you really want to, if you if you’re at that moment of oh, I think I see what I want my life to be like, the moment you have that realization. Find someone like Laurie, find someone like you to help coax that sort of spark into the fire that can illuminate the way forward. And I just love that you have the methodology. Like the the way to speak of it the language that will speak to people, even if they even if they don’t think they know the language they do. They’ll know it as they hear it. And then the ability to guide people forward as well. It’s just it’s, again, we’ll come back to that word. It’s magical.
Lauri Smith 26:56
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Kevin Stafford 27:00
Well, shoot, I yeah, I could do this all day. This is just freaking great. You got me thinking backwards to my past and in a positive way. And looking forward and in a positive way. It’s like, it’s great. This is great. I feel like I just got coached almost. Oh, before I let you go, and I have to let you go. I don’t want to but I do have to you you have anything you want to tease or anything you want to put out there that might be coming up in the very near future, this episode will I’m not quite sure when it will release. It’s being recorded here towards the end of February of 2023, which I can’t believe we’re already almost to the end of February of 2023. Thankfully, it’s I’m grateful and also a little bit dizzy from how fast it’s going. But you know, this episode might might release in like maybe mid late March might not release until later in April. But is there anything you would like to tease that whenever somebody’s hearing this is either just out or is going to be right around the corner?
Lauri Smith 27:54
Yeah, absolutely. I am incredibly excited after years and years of of birthing it and incubating it in the background. I’m going to release my first quiz. And it’s a quiz, the question, it’s called the speaker Alter Ego quiz, at least at this point. And the idea behind it, the question that appears at the top is which protective mask hides your inner radiance. And they take the quiz, they find out what’s the mask that they’re unconsciously perhaps hiding behind when they speak, and then they’ll, they’ll learn a whole lot more after that about how to release that mask and show up as their true selves.
Kevin Stafford 28:42
I love that that question has it’s a challenging question. Because it’s so specific. It’s like, I already know you’re hiding. Let’s talk about what you’re hiding behind. And it’s like, that’s good. That’s good kind of challenge because it’s like, everyone’s going to respond to that question with a. She’s right. Okay, so what am I like, Let’s go forward on my options to such a great start and shoot. Now now that I’ve heard that I’m excited to take it myself when it comes out. I’m gonna have to keep an eye out for that. Yay. Where when the time comes, where would be the best place for people to find out when that’s been released? Do you have a couple social media feeds you’re pretty active on you have a website where you post this kind of stuff, too. You have a newsletter, anybody can subscribe to anything like that all the above
Lauri Smith 29:26
all of the above. And the easiest one for me to remember is to go to my website, which is voice dash matters.com. And I will send it to everyone who’s already on my list when I have it and if people are hearing this and they go to the website, there’s one of those banners at the top. If they’ve gone to it after the quiz is already created. The banner at the top is going to say take the speaker alter ego. So they’ll they’ll find that there.
Kevin Stafford 29:57
Excellent. Excellent. Okay. Ah, I really should let you go 3036 minutes and change according to the Zoom clock, which has got to be alive, but I’m going to trust it. It’s got to be the truth to it can be both. I have had such a such a fine, fine, fine time talking with you this has been asking ask I’d like the adjective static, fantastic, terrific. They’re all adjectives. I’m very grateful to have gotten to share this time with you today. I’m also very, very grateful that you are in the world doing the work that you do, your approach and the way that you’ve shaped yourself and your coaching and the way that you the way that you interact with people. I it resonates with me. And I’m not just saying that I mean that I talk with coaches for this podcast for a living. So I’d like that happens to me a lot. But particularly, I’m resonating with the way that you are connecting with and expressing yourself to the world. And so I’m just pretty grateful that you’re out there doing what you’re doing. And I’m selfishly grateful that I got to see a little bit of your time today.
Lauri Smith 30:52
Well, thank you so much. I feel very grateful to have had such a fun and deep conversation with you.
Kevin Stafford 30:59
Yeah, we’ll do it again. Soon, I’m going to have to have you back on it’s just a matter of when depends on when this episode airs, I try to leave a little bit of space not just have the same, the same handful of coaches on every week, like I sometimes would really, really like to just because I’m you know, again, being slightly selfish, like I want to talk to talk to Laurie again. So we’ll talk again, students, this was this was this was fun, and I feel like very, very useful. We were able to like kind of shine a light and expose to the audience, you audience who are listening, what a conversation like this can be like that people are having these kinds of conversations, what’s available, what’s, where you can begin, and what it might look like as you’re going along. So yeah, and if you have any questions for, for me or for Laurie, we’ll have all the links in the show notes of what to do, where to go, how to find us how to talk to us, and yeah, one more time. Thank you, Laurie. Thank you. And thank you, audience. We will talk to you again here very very soon.