416: Nori Jabba Shares with Women How to Master Your Voice

Andi Simon:

00:00:02

Welcome to On the Brink with Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon and as I say for each of our podcasts, I’m here to be your host and your guide. Our job is to get you off the brink. What we want to do with these podcasts is bring you people who are going to help you see, feel, and think about yourself through a fresh lens in new ways. As an anthropologist, I want to teach you to be a little bit of an anthropologist about your own life, your career, your personal whatever it is that matters to you and why you come to On the Brink to learn more. To find out great stories that could help you do better and change. And these are very fast changing times. So today I have a woman who was on one of our podcasts in 2023, Nori Jamba, who did a great job then talking about her book, which was called Keeping Your Seat at the Table. And we’ll talk very briefly about that today. But she has a new chapter coming out in a book with 35 women who have written stories about their stories.

Andi Simon:

00:01:03

And, you know, and I say this often to my clients, to my consulting clients, that the story in your mind is what you live. You believe that story to be true. I’m sorry to say the only truth is there’s no truth. However, once you’ve got that story in there, it guys your perception of reality and there’s no reality. So once you have this illusion, you become wedded to it. And change is very difficult because you need to change the story. So we’re going to listen today about voice storytelling and for women, how do you master that story in a way that can really elevate you and take you where you’d like to go, because only you can control the story. Others can help influence it, but nope, only you can control the story in your mind. Nori, thanks for being here today.

Nori Jabba:

00:01:52

Thank you so much. It’s great to be here and now.

Andi Simon:

00:01:55

Nora’s bio is a wonderful one. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. Her 30-year career includes experience in corporate, real estate, community development and affordable housing.

Andi Simon:

00:02:05

A few years ago, she decided to look for an employed work employee. She decided to look for employed work again after years of consulting and realized that she had lost her seat at the table so no one would hire her, despite relevant experience, qualifications, and several awards. After multiple disappointments, she abandoned her job search and opted for research and perspective to better understand why job hunting is so challenging for middle aged women who should have reached their prime. So what you learn was too valuable not to share. So the first book, Keeping Your Seat at the table, is a memoir and a guide on combating ageism in the workplace. Now, Nori lives in San Francisco Bay, is a mother of three adult daughters and a rescued Doberman. She’s got great stories to Nori jabber.com. And we’ll put that in our podcast blog as well. But Nori has got more to share with you about who is Nori, what’s her journey, and why is this chapter so important to her? As a way of understanding how women not only have to find their voice? I don’t know why we have one but master it in a way that others can hear us.

Andi Simon:

00:03:16

And my last little remember is remember what you say isn’t necessarily what people hear. And what you meant isn’t necessarily what they capture and what you say. It’s not so easy to communicate. Nori. Thank you. And tell us about your own journey.

Nori Jabba:

00:03:31

Thank you. Andy. So I wrote this chapter in this book. it’s called The Road to Mastering my voice. And my voice is unique. Everybody is. But yet it’s not because I have an identical twin sister. So I get to hear my voice because our voices are also identical. So it’s been a really interesting journey through my life of trying to be comfortable with my own voice, learning how to use it, but also hearing it from my twin. And the sad part is that both of us have never really liked our voices. So my journey is not just about mastering my voice but learning to love my voice and learning how to embrace it with all of its flaws. And so the journey of mastering my voice, you know, I looked back in my childhood and I’ve always been somebody who is not afraid to speak up.

Nori Jabba:

00:04:31

And I realized, looking back, that so many times in my life, I had used my voice too much to my detriment, and had to learn and grow from it, as we all do. You know, we do this dance, right? So my journey in mastering my voice is really, really learning to love my voice and therefore love myself more.

Andi Simon:

00:04:53

Well, tell us a little bit about this book. This is a chapter in a book with 35 other women. Who was it compiled by? What is the purpose of the book? Because their stories are very powerful and very interesting.

Nori Jabba:

00:05:06

Yes. So it’s a book about quotes from 35 different authors, and it was compiled by Susan Freeman, who runs an organization called Empowered Women. And she puts on events, she puts on a conference every year, and it’s a one-day conference in a different city and pulls in women professionals from all over. And we get together one day a year and share our stories. And their speakers, maybe eight speakers that go through the day and share their stories.

Nori Jabba:

00:05:37

And then we get to know each other. And she has retreats. And then she decided last year, you know, let’s put our stories together in a book and share them with others. So it is called Own Your story, and it is 35 stories of professional women sharing their own journey so they each have their own personal journey. No, no, there’s no theme to the book other than sharing telling your story. And it’s really a hero story for women. She roses, as Susan likes to call them.

Andi Simon:

00:06:11

Well, you have the book there, right? So for our audio folks, you won’t be able to see it, but for the video you can put it up again just for another moment. It’s a really great cover. I love the faces of the women on there. Empower, connect, and create change. Own your story. How interesting. Now in writing your story on mastering your voice, you had an agenda, a purpose. And while you’re learning to like your voice and hear it out of your twin, it’s a very interesting set up for this whole question about who how do I tell my story? What ways does it come across? Did you had a whole discovery going on? Share it with us.

Nori Jabba:

00:06:53

Yes. So you know my discovery as I was writing this chapter and really thinking about how we master our voices as women. I thought about the phrase find your voice. Right. Have I found my voice? And I realized that that phrase is really reserved for women. But you don’t hear too many men talking about finding their voice or telling other men to find your voice. But women, we tend to talk about finding our voice as if it’s been lost somehow. And so I really wanted to change the narrative away from finding your voice to mastering your voice. It’s much more empowering. And so I really thought about, you know, what does that mean? And how have I used my voice to help me in my life or to hurt me? And so it was a reflective journey of, yeah, you know, I have used my voice to my detriment many, many times. But out of each of those times comes tremendous growth. One of the first things that I remember as a child was in second grade, where my teacher snapped at me, and she wasn’t a very nice lady.

Nori Jabba:

00:08:08

I tried to connect with her throughout the year, but it didn’t work. But I was sitting in my chair at school on my legs, you know, kind of sitting, just on my own, having them up on the chair. And she yelled at me, stop sitting like that. Put your legs down. If God wanted you to have legs, he if God wanted you to sit like that, he wouldn’t have given you legs. And I, I snapped back, well, I don’t believe in God. Which was, you know, here’s this little 7- or 8-year-old girl and so quiet. Right? And the whole class was just utterly shocked and burst out laughing. And the teacher yelled at me and, you know, snapped, don’t you ever do that again? And I was in trouble for the whole rest of the year. But and out of that journey, the kids would connect with me and say, you know, gosh, I’m so I’m so jealous. You don’t have to go to catechism.

Nori Jabba:

00:09:03

And I started talking to my parents. Well, why don’t we believe in God and my family? And what’s the story behind that? So it prompted this learning and exploration and questioning that I have done my whole life. And I later did become Catholic of all things and am still Catholic today. And my kids went to Catholic school and my parents have embraced that. but it was really that beginning where I started using my voice to question and to call somebody out on something and a very incorrect assumption. So that was a little scary and, a milestone in my life that set the course for times to come.

Andi Simon:

00:09:50

You know, though, it was, I would have done what you did. I mean, I’m to, brazen, bold, courageous, and I know it doesn’t matter to me. I sort of like my mother raised me to be my own person. And she would say, I don’t really care what all the other kids are doing. I care what you’re doing. For a child growing up, though, that means you have to know what you are doing.

Andi Simon:

00:10:11

And in that moment, you knew who you were. You knew what you believed, and you knew what you wanted to tell in your voice. but it is. I find that bold, brave, courageous. But out of that quote unquote mistake, was it a mistake or was it not? You learned a lot.

Nori Jabba:

00:10:28

It was not a mistake. but it definitely made me very aware of how my voice can be used as a weapon, as a tool, and not just as a communication way to communicate. It really can be a tool and a weapon. And we have that power. You have power over your own voice. And I think that’s something that women don’t acknowledge. And if we don’t give ourselves that power enough and it goes back to find your voice. Right. I’m finding my voice. Now. Let’s master our voices. Let’s empower ourselves. So that story of second grade repeated itself many times in my life. You know, I share another story. When I jumped in the car and got in the front seat, and my older sister literally picked me up and threw me out and said, babies go in the back, right? And so I yelled at her terribly of so I was so taken aback by her aggression, and I yelled really loudly.

Nori Jabba:

00:11:39

And we were going to ride go karts and I was so excited about going. To ride the go karts. And my dad didn’t hear my sister being mean to me, but he heard me be mean to her and he said, that’s it, you’re not going. I’m like, wait, no, what? Wait, you don’t understand. He’s no, you’re not going. And I missed out on those go karts. And to this day, you know, if I get to ride in Malibu Grand Prix or go faster, I still enjoy it so much because I missed out on that go kart. But, you know, it was another episode of your voice is your power. And it can also be a weapon and it could be misinterpreted it and misinterpreted. So, you know, learning to master it is really key. And later on in my career, I was a younger looking woman and I was the boss, and I had all these men reporting to me who much older than I was and, you know, learning to master my voice with that group was a huge challenge.

Nori Jabba:

00:12:43

Huge.

Andi Simon:

00:12:45

Well, I remember being in a similar situation. I want to know how you mastered it because I didn’t know I had a master. It I just was, moving up in my career. And when you’re an SVP of a bank, you don’t really know that you need to do anything with your voice except being who they think they hired. They don’t really know and speak truth, which you think is true, but it’s really the perception of it only to realize that their heads are in different places. Tell me about that. From your perspective, what did you learn?

Nori Jabba:

00:13:19

So I learned about recognizing how to master my voice in that corporate situation. Not the man, not from the men who reported to me, but from another woman who called me out one day and said you’re to folksy, folksy folk as well. And I thought, What? What does that mean? What do you mean? And I was really kind of taken aback. She was a contractor who reported to me, you know, I managed a contract.

Nori Jabba:

00:13:54

she was about my age, maybe a couple of years older and not in a position of authority, but. And I truly do appreciate that she did share this with me, but it was really kind of insulting the way that she said it. And I didn’t take it well at all. And but I still think about it because it really, it really struck me and made me think about how am I? Am I too casual? And so I realized that I like to be conversational. That’s how I connect to people. I can be authoritative. And she felt that I wasn’t being authoritative enough. And that’s really all she meant, that I was trying a little too hard to connect with the guys on my team. And, you know, I was trying to be a little too casual with them. So I did take that to, to heart and stepped back and tried to be more authoritative and less casual, less folksy, as she called it. But it never, never felt right. It just never.

Nori Jabba:

00:15:03

And my team didn’t really like this new me. And when the contract was gone in, the contract was over. There was sort of a sigh of relief. Okay, now we can just go back to how we were, which worked really well for our team. So it was a good lesson for me of taking that feedback, but also understanding, you know, being authentic to myself because I stopped being authentic and it just wasn’t who I was, but I did. I did adapt a few, changes and became, you know, learned how to be a little bit more authoritative. So then I had three kids and that certainly helped. I could be both folksy with them and authoritative. And as a mom, you have to be many different voices all at the same time, right? You have to be nurturing and loving and strict and authoritative and it’s a dance all the time. So that comment, you know, I’m grateful for it because it has helped me learn how to be authentic.

Andi Simon:

00:16:11

You’re reminding me of a woman I’m coaching who has been moved up into a senior position in an organization, and her boss asked me if I could help her develop executive presence. And she’s very smart, and she gets lost sometimes in the weeds or the detail. And I remember that feeling of knowing so much that you want to share it, but you don’t realize that the people who. You’re telling a story about this detail don’t really care about the detail they care about. What does it mean and what is it you want them to think about? And what’s a story there? And it doesn’t matter whether it’s health care or banking or accounting or whatever. You know, what is an executive sound like? What’s that voice and how is it different from a middle manager who’s down in the field helping people change so they can do better? And it’s very, very timely. But it’s also very difficult to know because you don’t hear yourself. And so as we’re coaching and she says things, you know that that I have to pause and say, well, that’s not something you want to say too often here.

Andi Simon:

00:17:15

and we’ve got to move it from an eye to a week conversation. You have to have conversational intelligence. Like Judith Glazer tells us, you want to co-create the solution with their minds, as opposed to preach to them on your wisdom and those she gets. But now we have to rehearse and practice as if she’s going on stage, because it’s not that different than a role on a stage where you need to manage the position and the presence. So people know that it may not be you, but it is you on stage. So I have a hunch that you’ve watched the mastering of The Voice in professional ways, you know, really materialize, and help you grow in your own personal development. What do you think?

Nori Jabba:

00:17:58

Absolutely. And I developed an acronym to Master Your Voice that I think really sums it all up. And it’s called The Voice, of course. And I can share that with you if you’d like.

Andi Simon:

00:18:12

Why not? I mean, I think this is interesting because help me help my clients at the same time, or the listeners, because the Voice acronym is very clear about what you’re trying to achieve.

Andi Simon:

00:18:25

Please. Sure.

Nori Jabba:

00:18:26

Yeah. So I see your voice as a filter, right? It’s a conduit. And that’s how we need to think of it. And so voice the acronym, the first one is letter V for volume. And I have a very soft voice. I used to teach in a classroom when I lived in Austria. 50 boys in a classroom with, with ceilings that were maybe 30ft tall. And I have a voice that doesn’t carry and I would lose my voice after every Monday. It was just exhausting. But learning how to adjust that volume is really key. Speaking, a lot of women speak from the front of their mouth rather than the back, and there are books on this that you can. And actually, one story I have to share on this is from a council member of my city, and I worked in politics and we had gotten to be friends, and yet we had a professional relationship. He wanted to invite me to dinner to meet some friends of his. Well, they were his voice coaches and they provided coaching just on your voice for him and his team because he had trouble mastering his own voice.

Nori Jabba:

00:19:43

And, you know, it was a really shy man. And so he had to learn how to use his voice. So he introduced me to these people. But why? Because he thought I needed help, which I did. You know, again, he recognized in me what he saw in himself, a little bit of hesitation, a little bit of not knowing how to master that volume. So I learned a lot from these people. And as disheartening as it was like, oh, I need help with my voice. It was also a wonderful gift that he gave me. So volume. And they taught me, you know, how to speak from the back rather than the front where the pitch is really important, and volume. Second one is opportunity. So using your voice, thinking of it as an opportunity to share who you are, your authentic self, your message, how you do that is key. The next one is AI for intelligence and always recognizing that you can come across as intelligent or not all in how you use your voice.

Nori Jabba:

00:20:52

And so what is it that you are trying to share and using intelligence and just thinking about how you are coming across is key. And the next one is content. So keeping aware of what the content is and how you’re going to share it. And then finally emotion sharing. How much emotion are you going to use in your voice. So it’s a filter with all of these things and it’s not complete. You know, there are other elements, but I really liked those five. And trying to capture that when you use your voice and really just thinking about it. So in a professional context, if you’re going on stage, if you have to make a presentation, think about the OIC in those five things and how you’re going to use your voice. With that in mind.

Andi Simon:

00:21:43

When you’re talking about mastering this. Do people need coaches or mentors and can they hear themselves, or do they? Should they record themselves and watch themselves? What kind of how top’s?

Nori Jabba:

00:21:56

Absolutely. Recording yourself and watching yourself is so important.

Nori Jabba:

00:22:02 The most important thing I think you can do, though, is speak aloud and record your voice. So when I wrote my book, I am an audiobook lover, and so I knew that I had to have an audio version of my book. And I also know that when it comes to memoir, I want to hear from the author. I don’t want to hear anybody else’s voice. It just doesn’t resonate with me as much. So I knew I had to record my book. So I found a producer. I used squeaky cheese in Petaluma, California, and small operation and fantastic presence in the audiobook world. And they basically taught me how, how to master my voice in an audio setting. And, you know, we all speak, we’ve all given presentations if we’re professionals. So you think you’ve got it? No, I it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. And it took hours and hours and hours, as you can imagine, to record a book. But I learned so much about my voice.

Nori Jabba:

00:23:07

And through that process, I, I learned how to treat my voice better. To that. My voice is almost like a separate part of me. It’s almost liked a separate being that needs nurturing and care, and it’s an entire body experience. You don’t realize that until you are in a booth recording a book, and you have to sit up straight and hold your head a certain way and engage your core. It’s exercise, right? Use your hands. It’s full body experience. but through that process, I really learned a lot about my voice. So you hear it back, you hear when it starts breaking, you understand. When it gets tired, you learn how to care for it, to take a break, to use the spray to make certain sounds, to exercise. But listening to your voice is the most important thing you can do.

Andi Simon:

00:24:02

Now what are you doing? Are you mentoring others? Do you now offer yourself as a coach in this mastering your voice? Or is this something nice to have and not necessarily a part of your business?

Nori Jabba:

00:24:14

So I do Coaching and public speaking.

Nori Jabba:

00:24:18

I speak on ageism in the workplace, and I would love to speak on mastering your voice that haven’t done any professional speaking on it yet, but they bring it up a lot because they wrote this chapter. And so, you know, as I head towards retirement and I am 60 years old now and I work in affordable housing for a city, and I love my job. But when I retire, my retirement career is going to be on speaking. So I’m going to continue speaking on all of these topics, including mastering your voice. I think it’s so important for women, for men too, but for women in particular, because our voices tend to be criticized a lot more than men. We use a harsher lens if we have a high pitch or we become more aggressive through our voice. There are terms that people use for women that we wouldn’t use for men at all. And you can see it in the debates. You can see it with politics. it’s just a different lens that we use to evaluate women’s voices.

Nori Jabba:

00:25:25

So I hope to share that with, with women through coaching and public speaking.

Andi Simon:

00:25:30

This has been absolutely wonderful interview. I’m delighted that you came on because the timing is right, and particularly in the middle of this particular election and the way in which people, guys in particular, judging others based upon their voice and, and it is less about what they’ve done or said than what they feel. And remember, we decide where the eyes in the heart, not with the head and the head follows and justifies it. But what you hear and see is how you begin to form decisions about how you want to follow them. You know, your contractors who were happier when you were folksy, or telling you something about how they heard you. And it wasn’t the word you say, but it was a tonality in the way you said it. This is when I ask. We’re about ready to wrap up, but you know 1 or 2 things you want the listeners to remember and walk away with anything in particular.

Nori Jabba:

00:26:24

So don’t find your voice. Don’t worry about finding your voice, master your voice. Your voice is your superpower.

Andi Simon:

00:26:33

Good. And that requires us to remember the voice, the volume, the opportunity, the intelligence, the content, and the emotion, particularly the emotion. Remember how it feels. Matters probably as much as what you’re saying. And how they hear you. Depends as much on their story in their mind and how they see you. And I often say that life is like a stage. Everybody is a performer. And now for women, as we’re growing in this society into corporations, in our own business, we need to be able to be very plastic and be able to see how our voice is impacting people in different settings and in different ways. And so Nori has brought us a great approach for herself. It’s been a life’s journey of discovery. And for you, our listener, or our viewer, you know, go apply it again to see what’s happening. Record your voice. Zoom makes it pretty easy and as you do it, then have somebody else say, what do I sound like? Am I authoritative or am I collaborative? You know, am I looking to create together or am I looking to control? You know, what do the word say? Words you can say in different ways that make it work or not work, and so on that note, I’m going to wish everybody a wonderful day.

Andi Simon:

00:27:52

However you may be listening or viewing us. Remember my book: On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights, which was the catalyst for this podcast, rethink. Smashing the Myths of Women with Business and Women Mean Business are all available on Amazon. My job is to help you see, feel, and think in new ways and take the anthropologist in me and spread it out there so that you can all step back for a moment. Little like today and hear yourself. See what happens when you speak and understand what’s working and what needs to be mastered better. And I love to tell you to take your observations and turn them into innovations, because that’s what we do. People say, what does an anthropologist do? I said, we hang out. But what we’re observing can help others begin to see themselves through a fresh lens. And on that note, I will say, have a wonderful day. Stay well. Send me your ideas at info at Andy simon.com and come visit and send me great people.

Andi Simon:

00:28:48

I mean, we’re done a 405th podcast and we have a dozen more coming through. And listen carefully, share them around. We’re in the top 5% of podcasts thanks to you, and we want to keep growing. It’s a wonderful thing to share. Goodbye now, Nori, thank you for joining us. Thank you. Hope you’ve had fun.