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Want to Make a Difference?

By on July 10, 2012 in Community, Gratitude

In a recent post I told the stories of three friends who have either recently embarked or are getting ready to embark on Great Adventures. I’d like to say more about one of them.

LaVonne Ellis – Complete Flake, Voice Coach, Customer Lover, Writer, Adventurer

I first met LaVonne Ellis soon after I started blogging. I joined a couple of online communities for bloggers and people wanting to promote their businesses ethically and responsibly online, and LaVonne showed up in both of them.

LaVonne didn’t just show up, she welcomed me. And in the faceless, potentially anonymous world of virtual “communities,” that meant a lot. Then she started following me on Twitter. So I started following her blogs and Tweets. (Two years and one week ago today, in fact!)

As it turned out, part of LaVonne’s fascinating story is that she used to work in radio. Which, of course, means she has developed (or was born with) a wonderful Radio Voice. And one of her businesses was providing services as a Voice Coach.

Well at about this time, my frustration with my voice was reaching critical mass. For ten years my speaking voice had been deteriorating, making telephone work, public speaking and online presentations well, difficult. To say the least. And my frustration hit its last nerve when I was interviewing someone over the phone and she said, “I think we have a bad connection, can I call you back?”

Sigh. “No,” I said, “It’s just my goofy voice. It’s not the connection.” *hungheadinshame*

So I reached out to LaVonne, who was offering promotional half-off half-hour voice coaching sessions. I ponied up the money and sent her my pre-session questionnaire with a recording of me interviewing someone. I was so excited to get started!

She turned me down.

LaVonne Lives By Her Ethics

LaVonne read my description of my voice problem, and listened to my recording, and declined to work with me: She said it appeared to be a medical condition which had not been confirmed and could be serious, and said her strategies wouldn’t be effective for me. She encouraged me to see a medical specialist, and she immediately refunded my money.

I was crushed.

I had finally worked up the nerve to do something – again, after being disappointed by multiple doctors who couldn’t solve my issue and brushed me off to others – and she turned me down.

She did The Right Thing.

LaVonne could have taken my money and coached me and then said, “Hmm, too bad, so sad.” But she didn’t.

And it kicked my ass into trying one more time to get my voice diagnosed – this time successfully. Which has led to a two-year process of discovery, which is still going on.

I later reached out to LaVonne to thank her, and she told me how bad she had felt about saying no and disappointing me. But she did it anyway. The right thing.

Tough love.

Customer Love

Not long after that, LaVonne and much of the online world read a post by Naomi Dunford, “Make Them Love You. THEN Ask For Money.” Like many others, LaVonne was inspired. Unlike everyone else, LaVonne decided to do something.

And she invited us to come along.

And the Customer Love Challenge was born.

I won’t go into all the details about the Customer Love Challenge – you can read the backstory here.

What I will tell you is why it matters to me, and why I hope it matters to you.

Why It Matters

The Customer Love Challenge quickly grew into a Phenomenon. A website was born. Tweetchats were held. A community formed. A free ebook was published. 28-day Customer Love Challenges were launched. Formats were experimented with. Budding business people who really didn’t have a clue – or an audience – found support and encouragement.

Nearly all for Free.

For Love.

LaVonne provided a catalyst that helped people (us) focus their (my) attention on their (my) customers rather than exclusively on making money. She helped people (me) put the horse where it belonged, before the cart. Love your customers, she taught, and the rest will follow. And she led by example.

She provided a platform, a forum, for people to connect and support each other in figuring this stuff out. Guest posts were solicited and published. Ideas were incubated and loved into life.

Ironically enough, LaVonne helped me find my voice – as a writer. I wrote four guest posts for Customer Love Challenges in less than a year and a half. I am not alone when I say the opportunity she provided me to develop my thoughts in this area and be exposed to a wider audience meant a LOT to me. And I met a TON of fascinating, inspiring, hilarious, creative, dedicated people, many of whom have become friends and some of whom have become colleagues. Several of my Customer Love confreres, including LaVonne, went on to write Captains Curious guest posts for my blog – what an honor for me! And that is just an example of another of the lovely benefits that grew out of Customer Love – members found people with complementary skills who could help each other out.

In other words, LaVonne helped me see the positive power of the internet for Good.

Evolution

As time went on, LaVonne noticed that many of the Customer Lovers, as we called ourselves, needed technical help with their websites and making all of the bits of online business work. So she branched out, and launched Trust Wanda. Since LaVonne had figured out how to do all this online WordPress, shopping cart, hosting, eeek, stuff for herself, she began offering that as a service. First to Customer Lovers, then to a broader audience.

And something interesting began to happen.

Just as many of the Customer Love peeps grew in confidence and began to stand in our abilities and plant flags on the tops of the mountains of our dreams – or at least make progress up the sides of those mountains – LaVonne grew in confidence too.

First, it became clear that the Complete Flake identity behind which LaVonne had been masquerading was, in fact, obsolete. A Complete Flake she clearly was not. So that website – and alter ego – was retired.

Then, LaVonne launched One Blue Berry and had us all hanging on the edges of our chairs, waiting for the next installments of her Green Card story.

And then, LaVonne knocked us out with her announcement about deciding to pull up stakes and set out on her Road Trip. Charles-Kuralt-style, LaVonne intends to set out and roam the continent (or at least a big chunk of it) and write about her adventures.

I, for one, can’t wait to read about them!

But first, she has to leave. Set out. Make it so.

LaVonne has helped so many of us make our dreams come true and find our voices (literally and figuratively). I want to help her make this dream come true.

How? Well, Moral Support is important and, I’m sure, always welcome. But there are other ways we can help.

  • Although the Customer Love challenges have run their course, you can still have access to three of the Customer Love tools to help you love up your customers and build your business on a firm foundation:
  • Hire Wanda – I mean LaVonne – to build or maintain a WordPress website. She’ll even help you with recording and editing audio files to post on your website. Interviews? Webinars? Piece of cake. With coffee.
  • And, of course, you can Chip In and provide direct financial support to the Road Trip in the amount of your choice.

LaVonne is someone who has made a difference in the lives of many, although she’ll probably blush to read that. Let’s make a difference in her life.

Please join me in supporting LaVonne on her Road Trip! I’m so curious about what adventures she will have, the people she will meet, the tales she will tell, and how she will be changed by it all. Are you curious? Let’s make it happen, and make LaVonne’s voice heard.

(My thanks to Jenny Thomas of DesisisterJen for inspiring this blog post. Thanks Jen!)

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Parkinson’s, Dance, Spasmodic Dysphonia, Singing – and Joy

By on June 12, 2011 in Joy

Friday night I luckily tripped over a story on the Newshour on PBS, which was rebroadcast from December 2010.

Watch this video. Substitute…

  • “Dance” for “Sing”
  • “Dance class” for “Choir practice”
  • “Look” for “Sound”
  • “Movement” for “Speech”
  • “Physical” for “Vocal”
  • “Parkinson’s” for “Spasmodic Dysphonia”

Yes.

This is vocalizing with Spasmodic Dysphonia, and it is one of the reasons I am so happy to have returned to singing. Dancing and singing bring joy under normal circumstances, but even more so under these circumstances. My voice works better when I sing, just like they move better when they dance. And it hopefully explains what I mean by learning to speak more like I sing.

I am reminded of something my brother told me, that his singing instructor said to him: “Good speech is half sung.”

And there’s that Joy thing again. It keeps coming up.

Thanks for listening.

Update: Finding My Voice

By on August 31, 2010 in Gratitude

While this has been the year of Finding My Voice (metaphorically speaking), this has also been the summer of finding my literal voice. I have received a huge amount of support around my talking to people and blogging about my recent diagnosis of Spasmodic Dysphonia (SD). I want to say Thank You and provide a brief update before we return to our Regularly Scheduled Programming.

A number of things have happened since I originally posted about this on August 10:

I have had two sessions with a Speech Pathologist

I have had two sessions so far with a Speech Pathologist, and so far they seem to be helping. A lot.

We are working to improve my breathing and resonance, and the exercises are similar in many ways to those I had to do when I took singing lessons years ago. (I suspect that my familiarity with the concepts helps the process, but I think anyone can learn this.)

The exercises are a pain in the ass to do and my cats sit up in alarm (or annoyance) and then leave the room. They (the exercises, not the cats) make me speak in what feels like an unnatural way, but I am finding that, when I have done them, speaking in a new way comes more easily.

I have continued talking to people

I have continued talking to people around me about the process, and about my fears (and my successes) and that has also been helping. A lot.

As a result, I have gotten a HUGE amount of support. That support ranges from people reminding me to do my exercises to being patient with me on calls while I practice saying something, to providing me with feedback. People are telling me that they can already hear a difference in my speaking voice and that it sounds more even and less strained (at least some of the time!).

I am also learning more about how people perceive(d) my speaking voice. Some people have said that they never really paid attention to it; another told me that once she knew what was going on with my voice, she stopped hearing it. Not that she stopped hearing me, but she stopped noticing my voice and wondering what was going on – Why was my voice breaking? Was I upset? Was I OK?

I also received a lovely comment on my blog post from a woman who has had SD for years, and who is a trainer by profession. She said that now she tells her clients and students up front about her voice, and they are wonderfully patient and supportive.

I have joined a choir!

After my diagnosis, I immediately began looking for a group to sing with. I found the Broadway Chorus, a local community chorus, which meets about four blocks from my home. I took myself in hand and went to the signups; the director tested me and determined that I am (still) a First Soprano (much to my surprise). We just had our first rehearsal, and it was heaven to be singing again. It was a mixed bag in terms of how I did – sometimes doing better than I expected and other times thinking, “Yikes, did I make that sound?” But this is going to be a Very Good Thing. It will strengthen my voice, and my confidence, and it serves to remind me that there is more to my voice than how it sounds when I talk. Besides, singing is such a joy.

Oh, and the irony of the theme of our first program isn’t lost on me: It is the chorus’s 20th anniversary this year, and the theme is: Can’t Help Singing.

I am practicing Compassion with myself

This whole process continues to give me the opportunity to practice compassion with myself. I don’t perfectly employ the techniques I am learning, but I keep trying. I’ll do better next time.

Someone once said that “the difference between procrastination and time off is intent.” Well, the difference between being gentle on myself when I fail and having a lack of ambition is Compassion. (And Persistence.) Being compassionate with myself doesn’t mean I don’t keep trying. It just means there is no whipping involved.

I faced the opportunity to reaffirm my decision – and passed the test

As I came to the end of my group health insurance coverage under the federal COBRA program at the end of August, I spent a rather intense week researching my options. It looked at one point as if my diagnosis of Spasmodic Dysphonia 37 days before the end of my group coverage meant that I have a Pre-Existing Condition that would cost me another $200 per month in premiums when I switch to an individual policy. I reached a pivotal moment when I had to ask myself, “Was I a complete and utter FOOL to pursue this when I did, rather than waiting for another month?” And I embraced my decision. I was able to say, “No, I did what I needed to do when I was ready to do it.” (It also helped that several friends and family members reinforced that; not one said, “Boy, you really messed up the timing on that one!” Thank You!)

Oh, and it turns out I am eligible for extended group coverage through Cal COBRA. At almost the exact moment I embraced my decision, I got a call from my insurance carrier saying, “Oops, we’re sorry, we gave you incorrect information, you’re eligible to keep your group coverage after all.” Was that whole exercise just a Cosmic Test?

I am taking steps

I am actively working on developing a workshop I will lead; I am not letting my voice be an obstacle (or an excuse). More on that later.

I am more than my voice

If I believe that, then I have to let that More shine, and be confident in that shining. That’s kind of scary. And exciting. I have to embrace my voice. It is part of me.

Well, that wasn’t so brief after all. (Surprise!) Thank You, Thank You, Thank You to all of you who have been so supportive and who have helped me along this journey. I will continue to update you on my progress.

Now we return to our Regularly Scheduled Programming…

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