370 - Presenting with Confidence with Smart Passive Income’s Voiceover Guy John Melley

If you’re nervous, anxious, jittery or just plain distraught before sales calls or meetings…you’re not alone. I honestly can’t believe this isn’t talked about more. After all – you pour your heart and soul into building awesome websites and refining your craft but in order to get paid for that hard work…you gotta sell!

Luckily, there are many things you can do to build confidence and calm before a sales meeting. And that’s what we’re diving into today.

I’m pumped to be joined by voiceover professional John Melley who – if you’ve listened to Pat Flynn’s “Smart Passive Income” podcast – you already know…he’s the guy who’s intro’d Pat and done his fun facts for years.

Needless to say, I’ve been listening to John in this form for years. Always wondering…”Is that his real voice?”

You’ll find that out in this wide-ranging convo about:

• Calming nerves before sales meetings
• How to speak and present clearly and confidently
• How to physically change your state if you’re nervous
• How to save your voice when you talk a lot
• Posture tips while working

And a whole lot more.

P.S. Be sure to check out his book The Voiceover Athlete (don’t worry, it’s for web designers too!)

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/370

Episode Transcript

John Melley (00:00):
You're tightening everything up, you're
restricting and constrictingairflow and there's also a
hormonal thing that's takingplace.
You're getting an adrenalinedump and a cortisol dump in your
body because the brain is beinginformed that, oh, we're under

(00:20):
threat Defend, you know.
So when you're sitting likethis, you're kind of like in
threat defensive, you're in adefensive mode, and when you're
up like this, just I can justfeel it, just feel a difference.

John Melly (00:45):
I can just feel.
It Just feel a difference.
Welcome to the Web DesignBusiness Podcast with your host,
Josh Hall.

Josh Hall (00:57):
Helping you build a web design business that gives
you freedom and a lifestyle youlove.
Great to have you here, friends.
This is a different episode forthe podcast here, because we're
going to take a deep dive intoyour voice and your presence,
specifically helping you if youget nervous or anxious when
presenting web designs orpresenting in even a small group
.
This is something I know allweb designers struggle with,
Typically.
I sure as heck did.

(01:17):
I was nervous as heck when Iwas presenting my networking
group, but I learned over theyears how to contain that and
control that a little bit.
And, man, I wish I would haveheard this conversation that
you're going to hear today priorto that, because I have none
other than the voice over manhimself of Pat Flynn's podcast
smart passive income.

(01:37):
So if you've been a fan of thatshow, you've likely heard this.

John Melly (01:43):
Welcome to the smartive Income Podcast, where
it's all about working hard nowso you can sit back and reap the
benefits later.

Josh Hall (01:52):
But that's not actually his real voice.
In fact, this is what Johnreally sounds like.

John Melly (01:57):
And just so you know what I really sound like, this
is my real voice.

Josh Hall (02:03):
So not only are we going to talk about voice today,
presence and how to speak andbe confident in sales meetings
and group settings, but we'regoing to talk a lot about how
your body as a whole plays intorunning your business and man, I
took a lot away out of this.
I want to thank John.
What an honor to have him onlearned a lot.
I think you will as well.

(02:24):
We do mention this.
He is the author of a new ebook, the voiceover athlete, which
I've actually gone through, andit comes with a little mini
video course If you'd like to gothrough it, where he has
exercises that we talk aboutlater on.
So I'd recommend it.
We will have that linked at theshow notes for this episode,
which can be found at joshhallcoslash 370.
All right, here's John.
John, thank you for taking sometime to chat today.

(02:52):
I just told you before we hitrecord I feel like I'm talking
to a bit of a rock star.
I've been a fan of Pat Flynn'spodcast, the Smart Passive
Income podcast, for years andsubsequently I've heard your
voice almost every week foryears as you're doing some
voiceover work.
And first of all, thank you fortaking some time to chat today

(03:12):
because I feel like my industryof web designers.
Some people may think why wouldwe need to dive into voice and
voice work?
But I've found many a time inmy experience in meetings or on
calls, that my voice gets weak.
And the reason this is reallyimportant for me is I remember

(03:32):
early in my journey I did apresentation for my mom's
Corvette club and I presentedtheir new website that I was
about to build for them and Icould not stop coughing.
I got a little nervous and myvoice tensed up and it was like
my nose started dripping andthen I just was like coughing
and thankfully she got me somewater, but it was honestly

(03:53):
pretty embarrassing and then Irealized like I actually need to
think more about my voice andhow I present.
So for all those reasons andmore, I'm so excited to chat
with you.
Yeah, I'm excited to be here.
Thanks for inviting me.
Excited to chat with you.
Yeah, I'm excited to be here.
Thanks for inviting me.

John Melley (04:07):
Give us, if you would, just a bit of your, just
your backstory and what you doin voiceover and voice work.
Okay, where do you want thestory to start from?
My first interests or my career.

Josh Hall (04:22):
I guess, yeah, career Like what.
If somebody wonders what does avoiceover do, what does that
entail?
What type of things do you dowith your voice?

John Melley (04:31):
My primary function is I'm the commercial
production director for a radiostation in Boston.
It's Mix 104.1, wwbx and,speaking of dry throats, I've

(04:51):
been in that current capacitysince late 2001.
Before that, I was at anotherstation, oldies 103.
And so I voice, edit andproduce radio commercials.
It was a CBS-owned and operatedstation for most of those years

(05:12):
.
Back in 2017, it merged with acompany called Entercom, which
is now Odyssey.
So you may hear, if you listento radio there, the radio there.
But growing up I had seen theimpact of people having a career

(05:33):
.
And then, back in the 90s Ithink, there was a book called
who Moved my Cheese?
And basically observing life.
The worst number in anything isone, one of anything.
And if you have one source ofincome, one data backup, one
microphone, if something goeswrong you're kind of stuck.

(05:57):
And so I had studied, taken itupon myself to study marketing,
and I said you know, radio is agreat business, it's a fun
business, but it's still abusiness and it's about getting
ratings and charging advertisersfor the access to those that
audience.
And if they decide, well, thisformat isn't working, well, then

(06:19):
we're going to blow outeverybody and hire a new staff
and that's back when, you know,there wasn't all this artificial
intelligence now with thisvoice synthesis, um, and so I
was learning, first of all, thatit's easier to keep a customer
than to go out and cheaper tokeep a customer than to go out

(06:42):
and get a new one.
So I was studying marketing andthere's a point to all of this
and I wanted to create veryeffective radio commercials for
people who had invested in thestation, because I wanted them
to come back.
And sometimes you have to dothings a little differently than

(07:04):
what is supposed to sound like.
And, josh, the longer you and Ispend on this thing, the more
voices will come out, I promise.

Josh Hall (07:12):
Oh, I'm so excited.

John Melley (07:16):
And it just happens .
At any rate, I was trying towrite commercials and get people
to see that.
You know, if it doesn't justsound like a radio commercial
but you notice it and it getsyour attention, then it's
working.
And so I decided I needed toapply that to my business and so

(07:40):
I started my own freelancebusiness on the side.
A lot of voice folks do so.
I've done.
I've done so many things.
I mentioned it briefly in myconversation with Pat Then.
One of the cool aspects of mygig as a voiceover talent is I
get exposed to so many differentthings.

(08:00):
I've done a lot of voiceoversfor video games, did some
creature sounds for Atari games,a bunch of other smaller video
game companies all kinds ofdifferent things.
I've done a few audio books.
Candidly, audio books aren't myjam just because they take so
long, so long and talk aboutstamina vocal stamina you

(08:32):
definitely need that.
I've done promos.
I've done, obviously, a lot ofpodcast work and I have a couple
of my own shows.
So anything that has a voice.
I call myself the ubiquitousunknown.
I'm everywhere but nobody knowswho I am.
So you know messages on hold,you know all kinds of things,
anything that needs a voice.

(08:52):
I've done a lot of corporatetraining, narration, all that
kind of good stuff.

Josh Hall (08:58):
Well, the multiple voices within the span of an
hour.
Listen, I'm a dad of three undersix.
I've got two golden retrievers,so I probably sound like I'm
managing multiple personalitieswith all the different voices
that go on in the span of anhour.
But I think it is interesting.
You mentioned a couple ofthings really interesting there,
but what I would love to get tofor this is to really dive into

(09:23):
how to improve our speaking andour voice, especially for those
who are doing extended calls,speaking engagements.
I'm getting into that place nowwhere I'm going to be doing a
little more speaking and it'snew territory for me and I just
know I know myself because I'm atalker I can wear my voice out
pretty quick and today, forexample, after this, I have a

(09:44):
coaching call with my web designcommunity and I know by three
or four o'clock today I'llprobably be up here.
So I think the voice isfascinating and you tell me,
john, I feel like nowadays theremay be more opportunity to
stand out when you arewell-spoken and when you have a
voice that is different thaneverybody else.

(10:05):
Would you agree?
Like, do you feel like it'salmost a superpower now to have
a strong, stamina based voice?

John Melley (10:11):
I, you know there's is a concept called presence,
you know?
And, um sure, here's the thingIf you're going to be speaking
in public, I know I spent a lotof time alone in a room, but
I've done a fair amount ofpublic speaking too.
In a past life I used to be alobbyist and you know you'd go

(10:35):
and give presentations on howsome piece of legislation was
going to impact.
I worked in the real estateindustry.
I was working for them and I'dsay, you know, I'd talk about
some law that was going tochange how they got their
licenses or something, and thenthe regulators would come in and

(10:55):
they would say and I would haveto go out and give another
speech and say you remembereverything I said last time I
was here.
Yes, forget all that, it's nowthis, and so, anyway, I've done
a fair amount of public speaking, and the thing the biggest
takeaway I got from when I waslearning how to speak in front
of an audience was you have tounderstand that the audience is

(11:20):
rooting for you.
They want you to do a good jobbecause they they don't want to
sit there and go.
Oh God, you know, you don't.
You don't want to bedistracting from the message
that you want to give to your,the people who are listening to

(11:43):
you, you so anything that youcan support that goal.
What's your message?
You know you may have, um, foryour industry.
You may have a new chat techsupport chat feature that you
can implement, or, uh, those,those pop-ups that validate

(12:04):
somebody made a purchase, orsomething like that.
Some new feature, some newwidget you may have that.
You may have a new coachingprogram that you want to roll
out.
You may want to talk about howthe new algorithms for Google
search are going to impact yoursearch engine optimization,
whatever it is.
I'm really going out of mydepth here by trying to pull in
your jargon, but at any rate, um, yeah, you want to.

(12:28):
Basically, if you can get up infront of an audience composed,
confident and prepared anddeliver your message in a way
that people can understand whatyou're trying to accomplish, and
then, if there's an action totake, take the action that you,

(12:48):
as the presenter, want them todo, then you've succeeded.

Josh Hall (12:53):
So, most, most every web designer fears and dreads
getting up in front of anaudience of any size, and I
don't know what number wouldconstitute an audience, but for
me, I remember vividly going towhat I thought was going to be a
one on one or one on twomeeting and it was a board of
directors for this nonprofit Iwas building a website for and

(13:14):
it was like nine people orsomething that felt so different
than a couple people.
I remember feeling nervous andmy voice reflected that.
What can we do to calm nerves?
Before we even dive into likesome nitty gritty on like voice
stuff, I would love to know whatare some of the tips that you
have for calming yourself downwhen you are nervous or even, if

(13:34):
it's a good anxious energy.
What are some of yourrecommendations to calm your
nerves?

John Melley (13:40):
Sure, Okay, there is a little checklist that I go
through.
So there you know, people a lotof times will have this
imposter syndrome thing going on.
It's like why am I here?
You know who am I to be doingthis?
First of all, if you've beeninvited to speak, then obviously
the person who's extended theinvitation thinks you're

(14:01):
qualified to speak on that topic.
So reassure yourself that theywant you there for a reason.
Right, the other thing thatit's easier said than done.
But why is it you have to askthe question?
Why is it you have to ask thequestion?

(14:23):
Why is it different to speak infront of I don't know if you're
gonna hear trudy in thebackground there- puppies are
always welcome on the podcastokay, well good, thank you for
that it's casual around hereokay, well, it's casual.
Here today too, usually I'mlike retake, anyway.

(14:48):
So you've been asked to speakfor a reason, but why is it
different mentally If you'rejust speaking with one or two
people versus a room full ofpeople?
They're still just people andit's easier said than done, and
I totally understand that.

(15:09):
And also and which brings me toanother point thrive on that
energy.
You kind of hinted at it.
If you're nervous, that's agood thing, because want it
means you care, it means youwant to do a good job.
And you've got to kind of justput out and I'm speaking from

(15:33):
experience, I do it too and youjust have to shut those voices
out and say no, I'm here for areason, you know.
No, I'm here for a reason, youknow.
I'm here because they want meto share this message, this
information.
And then there's a realpractical tip that you can do,

(15:55):
and it's called the power pose.

Josh Hall (15:59):
Have you ever heard of that.

John Melley (15:59):
There is an actual physical response that you can
create by your posture iseverything you can.
And if you're going to go onstage, I do this, you psych, you
got to psych yourself up andI'll give you some concrete

(16:22):
examples.
And I'll give you some concreteexamples.
But if you want to literallymanifest some physical
confidence, you want to stand upand you want to extend your
arms out and you want tolengthen yourself and just stand
there.
It's called the power pose andwhat happens with that posture?

(16:46):
You know body language, boy.
We can go into a deep dive here, josh, because I've done a lot
of research in this I'm in forit, so let's do it there, your
body, regardless of gender.
when you're in this pose, yourelease testosterone, and

(17:09):
testosterone is a confidencebooster.
It's what gets you ready tohunt, to defend, to fight, if
necessary, to run.
It's the natural thing thathappens when you've got that
adrenaline surge.
Human body is an amazing thing.
I don't know how it works, it'sjust.

(17:30):
There's so many things.
Think about all the things thatwe're doing right now.
We're sitting here in ourchairs.
We're, we're looking at eachother through space and time.

Josh Hall (17:45):
Did Amazon come Perfect timing Amazon?

John Melley (17:47):
UPS, fedex mail carrier Trudy is our guardian,
at any rate.
Just think about it.
We're smelling, we're hearing,we're breathing, we're looking,
we're feeling temperature.
We're hearing, we're breathing,we're looking, we're feeling
temperature.
We're processing the food andthe drink that we've had already

(18:09):
today.
We're coming up with ideas.
You're listening, you'reprocessing the information.
You're also monitoring thesound levels.
I'm trying to not getdistracted by my dog chasing
trucks from outside.
You know so.
There's so many things thatwe're doing all at once, and if
you just stop it, we'rebreathing, you know, the heart's

(18:30):
beating and we're, you know,we're creating all of these
chemical reactions within us,and so posture leads to a
physicality, a hormonal cascadethat takes place in the body.
You know, you can.
We are very good at readinghumans through years and years

(18:54):
of evolution.
Um, you can tell whensomebody's down just by looking
at their posture.
Right, you know?
Yeah, the slump, the down,slump the downward.
Look the downcast face, therounded shoulders.
It's a defensive posture, it'sa threat posture.
When you stand up and youexpose your, your visceral

(19:20):
organs basically, and your armsare out like this and your hands
are wide open and you've gotgreat posture, the body responds
.
There's a confidence there andif you can get yourself for five
minutes or so just off byyourself, strike a pose, strike

(19:44):
that pose, just prep yourself.
You will feel it.
I feel it just sitting heredoing it with you.
I mean, I'm much more animatedin my delivery than what I mean.
I'm just sitting here, josh,and it's cold here today and all
that kind of stuff.
But if I was to sit here andtalk to you like this, it's a

(20:04):
disconnect.
It's like his posture isn'tmatching his voice.
Look at how he's rounded downbut he's talking.

John Melly (20:11):
It almost looks like I'm angry blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah.

John Melley (20:14):
Right, but if I'm like this and I'm talking, look,
the smile just happens on myface.
I get excited, all of that.
So the power pose is a big deal.
So if you're going to bespeaking in public or you're
going to go into a session oryou're going to make a
presentation or whatever, that'sa technique I employ all the

(20:36):
time.
The other thing is you've gotto put this, switch this thing,
say you know what?
This is my room.
I own this room.
Right now.
This is my time.
They've asked me here and you,you've got to just push yourself
there.
It's, you know, it's calledvoice acting, for a reason you
know.
Assume a virtue if you have itnot, you know, interesting, yeah

(21:01):
, you've got to do it.
If that's what you want to do,even if you you don't want to do
it, your audience is rootingfor you, am I?
So I'll give you a couple ofreal examples.
I was one of the first gigsthat I got hired for.
I think it was a newspaperClevelandcom.

(21:23):
You're out in Ohio?
Yeah, I'm in Columbus.
Yeah, not too far, okay.
So I did an ad forvelandcom.
You're out in ohio?
Yeah, I'm in columbus.
Yeah, not too far, okay.

John Melly (21:26):
So I did an ad for clevelandcom and they hired me
for this guy, this voice here,which is almost pat flynn, but
not quite, and so anyhow, I'm inthere and I'm in the booth.

John Melley (21:41):
The agency's there, the recording engineer is there
.
I'm in this little booth, thead agency owner's there, the
agency rep's there.
It's like this conference room.
You talk about a conferenceroom, they're all sitting there.
Then they've got the client onspeaker phone.
I'm in the booth, they've gotthe speaker monitor out in the

(22:04):
conference room and they'relistening.
And so the guy I'm from Boston,so what I'm about to share.
I was like this guy only knewwhat an insult he's like.
He sounds like he's from NewYork.
I'm like heresy, heresy.
Anyway.
So, but you know you talk aboutit, they call you back, call

(22:25):
you back in and they say theygot it.
And you know.
So in my production gig studioit's like you know there's there
are a lot of spots comingthrough.
You know might have to dealwith 15, 20 different
commercials during the day,commercials during the day,

(22:51):
these.
So I'm in there for like anhour hour and a half reading a
30 second commercial and I'mhearing the engineer go
clevelandcom, take 29.
Oh God, 35, take 43.
And I'm going um, so during abreak I walk out to the
recording engineer and I say andI'm having this freak out
moment in the studio, right,because they're saying maybe

(23:13):
take it this way, maybe take itthat way, and they're rewriting
a script and they're scratchingout stuff and my sheet, my
script, is just.
You know, I need a map to getthrough it.
I'm going, wow, how am I?
But at that point I'd almostmemorized the script.
Um, and so I walk out to theengineer and go so, like how

(23:35):
many of these sessions do you doa day?
And he goes two, maybe three.
I went okay, I know what's goingon here and I share this with
you for a couple of reasons.
One, understand the context inwhich you're working in.
You know there's there's abackstory to any environment

(24:00):
you're in and if you don't kindof do the research on that, what
you think is normal for you isnot the norm for them, you know.
So here I am thinking, oh myGod, they got to do 20 of these
things or so today and I'msucking up all their time.
And he's like yeah, we got maybeanother one.

(24:21):
No, we don't have anythingafter you today.
And this is like at one o'clockin the afternoon and I'm still
in there banging on this script.
And so there's the context.
It's like, okay, totallydifferent frame of reference.
Here's the client saying youknow, we've paid for four hours
of studio time.
We better get the most out ofthat studio time, let's.

(24:41):
You know, let's work this guyand I'm fine with that, I'll
have fun with it.
But you know, let's work thisguy, and I'm fine with that,
I'll have fun with it.
But you know, in the meantimeI'm going oh, I'm never going to
get hired again, I'm going toget blacklisted.
This is it, this is like my.
I mean, that was a short ride.
Oh God, I'm totally psychingmyself out.
And then I went no, shut up Inmy head.

(25:04):
Shut up, you're here for areason.
They hired you, they, they did,they wanted to write a first
refusal.
That's how badly they wantedyou.
And you start you've got to putthat in your head.
And lo and behold, not only didthey run that commercial, but
they renewed it twice.
So I'd come home or check mymail and there'd be another

(25:27):
royalty check in and I'd be likewow, I guess they really did
like that.

Josh Hall (25:31):
Yeah, I'll talk for four hours for that Heck.
Yeah, oh yeah.

John Melley (25:35):
I mean, it didn't take that long, but man it was a
stressful environment for mebecause I didn't know the
context initially.
But once I understood that,that took a lot of the pressure
off of me.
I was like oh, okay, okay, I'mnot screwing this up, this is
what they want, this is theprocess.
So understand the context andthe power pose is a big thing.

(25:58):
Does that help you?

Josh Hall (26:00):
Oh, absolutely Absolutely.
Both of those points are great,especially for web designers
who don't know what they'regoing into.
Often, like I said, I thought Iwas meeting you know one or two
people and it was like aboardroom and I was like next to
a projector.
It's a whole different feelingthan sitting at Panera in a car,
like in a booth, you know.
It's a whole different vibe.
And obviously just sitting andstanding is a whole different

(26:21):
vibe.
I'm actually a lot morecomfortable sitting with someone
, just because I did so manymeetings for years at a coffee
shop or at a restaurant wherewhen I stand up, I really had to
work on that.
I was in a networking groupthat was hugely helpful for that
, with standing and speaking anddoing like a presentation every
couple months.
I was in a Toastmasters group,which was really helpful, which

(26:44):
was really helpful, reallyreally helpful.
I would recommend it foreveryone just to be a better
speaker and be a bettercommunicator.
But those are great tips there.
I am curious about the voiceitself.
What happens when we getnervous?
What is happening with ourvoice?
For somebody like me, I justreally haven't thought too much
about the anatomy of what is inour voice.

(27:06):
But uh, what's what happenswhen we get nervous?

John Melley (27:09):
well, I alluded to it earlier with the power pose
versus the mind, and the mindinforms the body.
That's just neurology.

(27:34):
There's also this there areyour brain has these things
called mirror neurons, and whatthey do.
How deep you want to go here,Josh?

Josh Hall (27:44):
As deep as you want, let's go.

John Melley (27:47):
Here's the thing I I'm a very much a person that
believes in nature and, and thatthe body has everything that it
needs, and that a lot of thisother stuff that we're in now

(28:08):
doesn't really match up with howthe human body and brain have
evolved over millennia.
And you know these computersand these wonderful gadgets
called smartphones, they're likedecades old.
You know, in the grand schemeof things it's just a in time,

(28:31):
um and so, but we're spending alot of our time accommodating to
using these things, um, andthat takes a toll.
And so if we spend a lot oftime at our desks and computer

(28:53):
me I do this Think about whathappens here.
Right, you're rounding yourshoulders, you're looking at
your neck.
There's a picture in my bookI'll show it to you here in the
voiceover athlete About I gointo a great deal about posture.

Josh Hall (29:17):
Oh, it's huge website .
We call it code neck, code neck.

John Melley (29:20):
Yeah, it's another four computers.
It was called caveman posture.
So here's the picture, gotcha.
Yeah, before computers, it wascalled caveman posture.
So here's the picture, gotcha.
Yeah, so those arrows representairflow.
Okay.
So if you're sitting like thisand you're breathing in, you're

(29:42):
tightening your throat.
Just crane your neck forwardand feel the difference.
You're also pinching the nervesright where your brainstem is.

Josh Hall (29:54):
Is this why side note so many radio people have the
mic up high where they kind oftalk into it upwards a little
bit?

John Melley (30:00):
Yeah, or they'll stand.
A lot of folks stand.

Josh Hall (30:04):
If I'm recording, uh a spot, I'm typically standing
because now look at that yeah,this is a great challenge,
because I always tend to have mymic below and I kind of lean it
over and into it.
But now I'm feeling like I mayexperiment with keeping it up
and, uh, talking like forcingmyself to just get a little bit

(30:26):
straighter.

John Melley (30:26):
Yeah yeah, um the the other.
So here's.
Have you ever heard of thethreat posture?
No, I mean, I assume it's uhimagine, imagine somebody's got
like is standing five feet awayfrom you and they've got a
baseball and they just whip itat you.
What are you going to do?

Josh Hall (30:46):
Yeah, crouch, you're going to go like curl, uh-huh.

John Melley (30:49):
Well, look how close this is to that.
Right, and you're sitting therelike this versus.
It's not that different.
The only thing different isI've got my hands up, but if
you're sitting like this with a,mouse and a keyboard or you're
reading stuff.
That's posture.

(31:10):
So when I say the mind informsthe body and the body informs
the mind, when the brain sensesthis posture, what do you think
is happening chemically in yourbrain?

Josh Hall (31:23):
Everything's probably tightening up through here too,
literally.

John Melley (31:28):
You're tightening everything up, you're
restricting and constrictingairflow and there's also a
hormonal thing that's takingplace.
You're getting an adrenalinedump and a cortisol dump in your
body because the brain is beinginformed that, oh, we're under

(31:49):
threat, defend, you know.
Um.
So when you're sitting likethis, you're kind of like in
threat, defensive, you're in adefensive mode, and when you're
up like this, just I can justfeel it, just feel a difference

(32:13):
in in that.
So there's there was.
Here's where we're going to godeep.
Pbs did a whole series on thebrain, the human brain, and they
did this experiment faces ofpeople, and the face was on the
screen, flashed on the screenfor maybe two seconds, three

(32:47):
seconds, and the person seeingthe images had to say what
emotion the expression on theperson's face was demonstrating.
You know, happy, sad, angry,frustrated.
It got very, very specifichappy, sad, angry, frustrated.
It got very, very specific.
And you know there were verynuanced emotions and they did it
for, like I don't know how manypictures, but let's just say 30
different expressions.
You know, calm versus anxious,and there's so much to this.

(33:15):
And then what they did was theyhad people who had Botox done
and they put the same set ofimages in front of the folks
that hadn't had Botox versus thegroup that had had Botox done,

(33:39):
and you know, like the peoplewho hadn't had any Botox got
like 95% or more accuracy onwhat the expressions were.
The people who had Botox scoredmuch lower.
Because what Botox does is itprevents certain nerves from

(34:02):
firing and we interpret emotionsby so.
Like when a person's smilingyou're, you tend to smile back.
If people are angry, you kindof get a little defensive
looking, you know.
So there's messaging that'sgoing on from the brain to the

(34:24):
muscles and the nerves, butthere's also messaging going
from the nerves, like if I'vegot a frown, back to the brain
and so if you're I mentionedmirror neurons before.
If you're not able to make theexpression, to mirror the

(34:45):
expression that the personyou're conversing with, if
you're not able to do it, you'renot able to interpret the
message that the person in frontof you is giving you.
The message that the person infront of you is giving you, your
ability to interpretconversation in context is

(35:05):
diminished because you'veimpaired the messaging that your
brain is receiving from yourfacial expressions.
How baked is that?
So that's.
This is one of the reasons whyit's like you ever have somebody
who was like, oh, that person'shad botox, yeah, how.
How is it, though?
How do we know?

Josh Hall (35:28):
we know.
I mean it's, it's just likeseeing cg and being like that
looks really real, but I justknow it's not.
I can just tell you know, likewe're just such.
We just know every little bitof faces and expression.
What's interesting about thistoo, though, even before the
voice, it's like.
I remember when I started mybusiness I was going around to

(35:49):
local um businesses and, uh, Iused to be in a band, so I went
into the recording studio weused to to go to and the
producer there.
I remember walking in and justbeing like I'm starting web
design, I'm doing website designand graphic design, and you
know, anytime you need help withthe website, I would love to be
a help for you.
And he said I remember vividly.

(36:10):
He said I can see it in yourface, like I see it in your eyes
how excited you are about this,like I see it in your eyes how
excited you are about this.
And that just goes to show youhow far just a little subtle
change in posture and excitementfacial expressions can go.
That translate right intobusiness, by the way, because a
client can know how you'rereally feeling, based off
expressions, for sure.

John Melley (36:30):
And just to step out 30 feet from where you and I
are right now.
Look what's happening here.
You're talking and you'reexcited about it and I'm sitting
here smiling and I'm going yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this is all part of it.
If we were having this, oh,josh, you know, before long

(36:50):
you're going to be like oh yes,you're going to be mirroring
what I'm doing.
So there's this great book.
It's called the gift of Fear byGavin DeBecker, and it's it was
written, I think, in thenineties.
It's a great read for everybody.
You know, I think a lot ofthings.
You know, there's so muchsocial pressure now to conform

(37:14):
to different things that we kindof discount that gut reaction
or suppress it.
And he gave and this is whatreally came hit.
This home for me was he givesthis example have you ever been
driving in your car, josh, andyou just know that the person in
front of you or the personcoming up alongside of you is

(37:34):
just going to cut in front ofyou and you just know that's
what they're going to do, andthen they do it.
Think about the scenario thatyou've made, that assumption, a
prediction.
Now, the brain does two thingsit protects and it predicts, and
it protects you based on whatit predicts will happen, based

(37:58):
on past experience.
Now, a lot of this stuff isjust hardwired into the brain.
So think about this You're on ahighway, traveling in a metal
box at 60 miles an hour, maybeyou're all by yourself, and then
there's this other person intheir own metal box, traveling
along the highway at maybe 70miles an hour, and they're just

(38:20):
cruising along and somehow,without maybe even making eye
contact, you're predictingaccurately that they're going to
cut right in front of you, andso you start making adjustments.
How do you think that happens?
We're really good at readingother people, and so this whole
thing about the power pose.

(38:43):
And then, boy, this went so faraway from voiceover, but I mean
, but it all.

Josh Hall (38:49):
I know this is directly.
I mean, what's interestingabout this is we could have, you
could have, you know, wentright into vocal techniques, but
it's a great foundation that Ifeel like.
What's probably more importantis the body as a whole, because
I imagine there's no sense oftalking about your throat if
you're hunched over and notfeeling a strong presence.

John Melley (39:11):
You in my book I talk about a couple of
principles that I've learnedthrough my own self-discovery,
and in my book I explain why Iwent through this process.
Because I was doing very well.
I was making a lot of money, Ihad my own, I had my full-time
gig of the radio Thankfullystill do and I had a lot of

(39:32):
freelance business coming in.
I was making more money than Iever had in my life and I wound
up with kidney stones.
I was making more money than Iever had in my life and I got
wound up with kidney stones andI was like this is stupid.
Why am I?
You know, I can make all themoney in the world, but if I'm
not healthy, what's the pointI'm going to be going on?
I mean, I've, we've all seen it.

(39:53):
There's enough people going tothe hospital and medical tests
and prescriptions and all thatkind of stuff, and I'm like I
don't want to do that, you know,but I still love what I do, and
so I did this deep dive andstuff, and so one of the things
is there's this principle calledthe arthrokinetic reflex, and

(40:17):
what that means is that yourbody, your brain, has a map of
your body.
I'll give you an example.
So it's a concept calledproprioception.
Your brain knows where yourbody is in space.
If I were to say to you Josh,take your right pinky, extend it
and touch the center of theback of your head, you can just

(40:41):
do it, right?
Yeah, because you know where itis.
Your brain has a map of whereeverything is.
It's not like touch the youknow, assuming that you have the
ability.
I'm not like oh, that was my eyeyeah, exactly, yeah we've seen
things where people kind of knowif they're blindfolded or
they've had their.
They went to the dentist andthey had the Novocaine and

(41:02):
they're going like this with thefork.
You know it's like well, whatare you doing?
Why is that?
Well, your map is shut offbecause you've numbed it for a
while and thankfully it wearsoff and you get it back again.
Well, if we're not moving or ifwe have jammed joints, do you
know that a jammed joint inanywhere in your body will

(41:27):
reduce your strength?
What do you mean by?
I don't have good jointfunction because you've sat for
eight hours at a computer andyou get up and you're like oh,
things are snap, crackling andpopping like a rice krispie

(41:48):
cereal.
Yeah, exactly your feet, um,your hands, think about how many
joints are in your wrist andyour fingers and in your feet.
And I was, you know well, thefirst person who taught me this
stuff.
He was like, you know, you gotto get bigger shoes and I'm like
, why, well, can you curl yourtoes?
And I'm like, why would I needto do that?
Well, because your toes do havejoints and you know, the

(42:09):
concept of use it or lose itapplies.
Well, what happens is if you,literally if you don't use it,
you lose it.
And there's this thing calledsensory motor amnesia, and so
it's like, if you ever feel like, oh, I can't feel that, or you
know this space in your bodywhere it's just kind of like

(42:32):
this void, you're supposed to beable to feel it, void, you're
supposed to be able to feel it.
So my point in talking aboutall this is and you mentioned it
is that you know, if yourthroat's now, if you're hunched
over your body's not optimal.
You know, one of the taglinesfoods inflammation is basically
the body's defense system.
So if you've got an infection,inflammation is good because

(43:12):
it's fighting it off.
But if you've got, let's justuse the extreme.
Let's say you've got a nutallergy and you eat nuts, that
inflammatory response creates,you know, asphyxiation and it
will kill you, you know.
But there's, there's a gradation.

(43:32):
It's not.
There's not one extreme or theother.
There's like a whole spectrumof inflammation in between.
And if you're eating food thatis inflaming your body, you
might not feel it on aday-to-day basis, but over time
that's your immune systemworking and eventually, if it

(43:53):
doesn't get a rest like anythingelse, it gets tired and it
stops and then it manifestsitself in any myriad of diseases
.
Um, that if you do things tominimize the inflammation in
your body, that you're going,you're going to feel better
instantly, you know.

(44:14):
And when people go throughthese anti-inflammatory
processes and they lose weight,they say, well, yeah, but at
most I'm just like peeing abunch of water.
Well, yeah, because you've beenretaining all that water to
cool the inflammation that's inyour body.
And what happens when youretain water?
You swell up, you get arthritis, you can't move as well, and

(44:36):
all that kind of stuff.

Josh Hall (44:37):
So it all matters and it'd be an interesting case
study to hear voices whensomebody's like very obese and
when they lose weight, and whatthe voice?
How different the voice sounds.
I'm going to pay attention tothat, like when you see
celebrities lose a bunch ofweight or something.
I'm going to pay attention to towhat they sound like afterwards

(44:59):
, because you can tell yeahsometimes when you listen to
somebody I mean even just thevery active breathing you can
tell like this person's probablylike very overweight.
I listen to some podcasts.
I'm like I'm a hockey guy, solisten to some hockey podcasts
and you can tell like they justthey don't sound like they sound
like they just walked up abunch of steps to get here,
versus, yeah, somebody who'smore fit and it's a lot easier.

(45:22):
It just sounds easier tobreathe.
Obviously, getting into a wholedifferent aspect of this, you
want to give yourself everyadvantage.

John Melley (45:30):
You know, I mean, and if it's there for you to
take, why wouldn't you?
You know, it's not costinganybody else anything.
You know, it's not like youhave to stomp on anybody or
clear them out of the way.
It's like to do it.
You just, you know, take careof yourself and all of that.
I mean.
Am I perfect on this?
By no means, but it'sdefinitely a level of awareness.

(45:53):
So, to get back to your thingabout what happens to the voice
when you're tense long wayaround, you know it's when
you're hunched over, there's.
I mean, I'm not doing anythingto my voice, but you can hear a
difference?
Yeah, for sure, you know.

(46:13):
And I drop my shoulder bladesback and down.
I've opened up and you're goingto sound better too, because
people always say, oh, I hatethe way my voice sounds.
That's because you hear yourvoice in a way no one ever else
will or could.
Two things One, you're hearingit as it travels through you.

(46:34):
You're also hearing it slightlybehind your mouth, right, but
you're in front of me.
But they're also not hearing itas it travels through my skull
and my chest and everywhere.
You know, if I feel in my arms,you know.

(46:56):
So you hear your voicedifferently.
But if you, if you, if you, ifyou're here and you're hunched
over, versus here and open,you've got more resonance
available.
Does that make sense?

Josh Hall (47:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
And one thing I wanted to askyou about as a voiceover artist
yourself, you've mentionedyou've done a lot of different
types of voices and types ofsounds.
I have always been fascinatedby voiceover work.
I think in another life I wouldlove to be in some area of the
industry, but I have learnedmore about and you've hit you
hit on this in your conversationwith Pat about how you can

(47:33):
literally move your voice intodifferent places in your body.
This may be a perfectopportunity for you to show us
your range.
But how does that work?
Because I would love to sithere and say I could probably
figure that out, but I just Ifeel like my voice sits nicely
nestled halfway up my throat,headed back towards my nose, and

(47:53):
I would love to talk deeper andhave a more commanding presence
, the Josh of Josh, yeah, the,the, you know, the deep King
Josh voice, but I just end up.
The more I talk, the more my Ifeel like my voice ends up just
going up and back.
So I would love to use sometime here that we have left for

(48:14):
almost a bit of coaching for me,which I know is going to help
everyone else.
Yeah, how do we move our voice,and where can it go?
Well, big.

John Melley (48:21):
Thing.

John Melly (48:23):
It can go any way you want to put it.

Josh Hall (48:29):
I have to ask you let's limbo this how low can you
go, John, I can go way downhere, but you know I have to.

John Melley (48:37):
Your voice is muscle, man.
I mean, it's like so.
Did you hear how my voice justchanged after going down here?
This is up here and now I'mtalking in my regular voice.
So the this, this is hours andhours of misspent youth finally

(48:59):
paying off.

Josh Hall (49:01):
Um, anyway, uh it is impressive, that's incredible,
to be able to go that high andthat low yeah thank you very
much.
I appreciate it um it's uh yeahI mean is it more diaphragm and
and breathing air?

John Melley (49:20):
all yeah, well yeah , there's all of that.
You know I, I mean kind of didsome stuff with pad because he
was asking me how I makedifferent voices and you, you
kind of led into it.
But you know, the biggest thingfor you, for you, do you want
to develop more of a moreresonant sound Relaxation?

(49:44):
Do you ever notice that in yourmorning, when you wake up, you
got morning voice?
That's for a couple of reasons.

Josh Hall (49:49):
One, there's some right, I was just going to say I
do the power washer.
When I wake up, sometimes mykids I'll be like it's, like
it's terrible now, but in in themorning it gets really low and
gurgly and so I do the powerwasher and they love it because
I literally sound like a powerwasher, starting up and running.
oh, like the air compressor yeahyeah, you know like a water

(50:12):
power washer that I would bespraying off the house with, you
know it'll.
It runs like that motor runs,but when it starts up it's like
low and Uh.
I could do that first thing inthe morning because my voice is
just so low and relaxed yeah.

John Melley (50:23):
It's relaxed.
You just hit on it, it's beyour.
Your body has given itself achance to heal and so it's
relaxed, and that's the thing.
It's, it's breathing technique.
So so there's there's a coupleof breathing techniques I can
share with you.
Um, I actually have a metronomeon my phone and I set it to

(50:48):
slightly under minute.
I think it's 59 or 58 beats persecond, and there's research
that shows if you can breathe inand breathe out maybe seven

(51:11):
times a minute, that's a veryrelaxed pace.
I believe I'm getting thatright.
But what you can do, what I do,if you really want to relax out
, is you you inhale for a countand then you exhale for double
that count.
So what typically happens forme when I do this practice is I

(51:38):
get settled.
I usually sit in my armchairover here and I get the
metronome and it's on very, verylow and it's in terms of volume
, and I do a count of three tostart, so it'll be one, two,
three, and then exhale for six,four, five, six, so there's a

(52:01):
total count of nine, right,three and six, and then inhale
again, and then what happens is,as I've settled down, because
you know you're moving aroundand your heart rate's up just a
little bit and you're breathingand all that, and then, once you
settle down, you're going tofind that that initial count
will be able to lengthen fromthree to maybe four, maybe six

(52:25):
sometimes, and then you can,it'll get.
Your body will tell you if youlisten to it, you're not ready
for that number yet.
So by the time you're so, I'vegotten it all the way up to like
10 and then 20.
So then I'm doing two fullbreath cycles per minute.
But you know, it's just assimple as like.

(52:48):
If you're doing and the doublethe duration on the exhale for
two cycles is it takes so twobreath cycles of three and then
six.
What the body does is itswitches from a sympathetic

(53:13):
nervous system to aparasympathetic nervous system.
And the way that I remember itfor myself is in parasympathetic
nervous system, that's whenhealing and digestion and
relaxation kicks in.
And so if you want to turn onthat system by inhaling for a

(53:37):
count of three and then doublingthe exhale for six, for a
minimum of at least two cycles,it switches the nervous system
over to the parasympatheticnervous system.
And a way I remember thedifference between the two is
the sympathetic it's sympathy,and when you have sympathy, that
means something bad hashappened.

(53:59):
And so when you have sympathyfor something, so if you're not
digesting your food, you're not,your body's not healing itself

(54:21):
and repairing itself.
So when you can turn on thosethings, there's that.
So what I do is I just start atthree and then six, and then I
kind of increase it out from two, four and eight, five and 10.
Sometimes I push it out toseven and 14, and then I go I'm

(54:42):
struggling on that 14 exhale, soI'll back it down, you know.
And sometimes three is too longto inhale.
Sometimes I'm like I'm good attwo, but the more I practice
that I'm good at two, but themore I practice that, the longer
those things can be.
And I'll do that for like 20minutes.

Josh Hall (55:05):
And man you come out of that.
You could record a Western, youcould narrate a Western after
that.
Oh my God.

John Melley (55:10):
It just it's so amazing.

Josh Hall (55:15):
It's got to feel good too, right Like I can feel when
my voice is strained and itsounds like it's up in my throat
.
Yeah Well, think how close thatis to your brain.

John Melley (55:23):
Think about how much stuff is going on really
close to your brain.
The reason it's so close toyour brain is because it's
really important.
You know, our eyes arebasically external portions of
our brain.
We take 70% of the information.
You know, assuming you'resighted, 70% of the input comes
through our vision system.

(55:44):
Then you're hearing, you know,then your nose taste.
All these things are reallyimportant and that's why it's so
close.
We're really beautifullydesigned and so I just you got
to take care of it.
The pills aren't going to,they're just going to mask stuff

(56:07):
.
So if I could give two I'm nota doctor, hear me now,
acknowledge, I'm not a doctor ormedical professional.
But I will tell you two things.
Refined vegetable oils get themout of your life.
If you can stay away from thesunflower, safflower, canola oil

(56:29):
, rapeseed oil, sesame oilvegetable oils those aren't
really vegetables.
It's not like they're takingcarrots and celery and squeezing
them and extruding the oil outof them.
Yeah, that's definitely happenedand they've taken the seeds
from those plants and puttingthem under extreme heat and
pressure and then they got tobleach it because the product,

(56:52):
initial product, is justhorrible and the brain, the
body's immune system, goes, goes.
What the heck is this stuff?
And it's in everything.
It's in everything avocado oil,olive oil and butter.
That's what I use.
Um, and because avocado andolive that's they're getting the

(57:15):
oil from the actual fruit, notthe seed.

Josh Hall (57:18):
I wanted to ask you about, like some practical
preparations for a bigpresentation or or when you know
you're going to be speaking fora while.
I real quick, though.
I wanted to just hit on theimportance of the breath work.
I'm so glad you mentioned thatbecause, as I've looked back at
some of the times I presentedthe problem, my biggest problem
was breathing and beingterrified of a pause.

(57:41):
I feel like most people.
If you're not used to presentingin some sort of fashion, the
pause during a presentation isterrible because silence just is
expanded in time when you're infront of people.
One second of silence in frontof people feels like 10 when
you're in front of them.
I have to remind myself with mycalls and my live streams and

(58:02):
the Q and A's that I do that.
I don't have to be making anoise every freaking second of
the entire call.
I can take a breath and I canbreathe and I can come back to
it, and even that felt likethree seconds.
I bet that was like half asecond, yeah, yeah it's time
compression and that happensunder stress and threat.

John Melley (58:24):
So if you're up there on stage I'm sure you've
experienced this you get upthere and you're nervous and all
that kind of stuff, but then,once you're in, you settle down
right.

Josh Hall (58:35):
Well, and going back to my roots as a drummer in a
rock band, I was going to askyou what you played the drums,
yeah, right up there.
So yeah, uh, that's, I got myNeil Peart back here.

John Melly (58:45):
Oh nice.

John Melley (58:46):
Hey, I saw one of Neil's last concerts when Russ
was in Columbus, so oh, I was inum Portland Oregon when I saw
one of their they were they hadlike three shows left.
It was Portland Oregon when.

Josh Hall (58:58):
I saw one of their.
They had like three shows left.
It was a wow.
The 40 tour, the 40 tour, yeah,yeah, okay, we were.
We saw the same cycle.
That's awesome.

John Melley (59:05):
When they went from like the most modern stage all
the way up to like the, themirror ball and the gymnasium
set.

Josh Hall (59:11):
It was super cool.
My father-in-law is a diehardrush guy so I took him after.
I took his daughter away fromhim when I got married, but I
took him to.
I figured that was a nicetrade-off, you know, but I took
him to that show.
Yeah, it was really cool to seethe stage.

John Melley (59:24):
Yeah, you got the better end of that deal for sure
.

Josh Hall (59:27):
Jacques.
That's what he said.
I know I did.
What is interesting about that,though, is that's when I
learned about the whole timecompression thing as a drummer.
Obviously, everything in a liveshow revolves around the
drummer.
Hate to break it to everyoneelse.
We are the most important.
So the songs were super fast.
Now, in my mind, the songs feltthe exact same tempo and speed

(59:50):
that we had always done them,but when I'm in front of a few
hundred people or, in some cases, thousands of people people,
the nerves of excitement.
It wasn't like scarednervousness, it was just amped
up excitement.
I had to really learn that whenI'm performing live this song,
you're going to have to playlike it feels slow for it to be
the actual, the right time.
So same thing when you'respeaking to you, you may feel

(01:00:12):
like you're speaking at a normalpace, but to everyone else
sometimes it's like and Ilistened back to some of my
presentations earlier on and Iwas like, oh my God, I didn't
breathe at all.
I don't think I breathed, Idon't think I had any breaths in
like half an hour or so.

John Melley (01:00:29):
Yeah, and then, of course, that's going to get your
voice tired.

Josh Hall (01:00:33):
Yes.

John Melley (01:00:33):
Really Diaphragmatic breathing is very
important.
Do you know what that is?
I don't.

Josh Hall (01:00:40):
I wondered if that was kind of.
I mean, I know I'm familiar.
You know your diaphragm is whateverything is connected to,
right through here where the airgoes through.
So I imagine I would imaginethat your voice is.
It's all about the diaphragm.
I imagine it also goes back tothe power pose you open up your
lungs, you open up your chest,so it goes back to the power
pose you open up your lungs, youopen up your chest.

John Melley (01:00:57):
So the diaphragm is this muscle that basically sits
at the base of your lungs andbasically separates your lungs
and heart from your visceralorgans and it acts like a
bellows.
You know what a bellows is?
It's really amazing.
When it's not firing correctly,you get the hiccups, and so

(01:01:17):
that's what.
When it's not firing correctly,you get the hiccups, and so
that's what that is.
And but basically a lot ofpeople, when they're sitting
like this at the computer,they're tense and they're
breathing up in their chest andtheir neck and in their
shoulders.
And if you're breathing up here,like up in here, it's not a

(01:01:38):
deep breath, it's a shallowbreath.
Again, threat, your brain isgoing oh, we're under threat.
Shallow breaths.
You want to calm yourself rightdown that diaphragmatic
breathing.
And, if you want to, for yourviewers and listeners, if you
take your hands like this andput them over the crest of your

(01:02:02):
hip bones when you take adiaphragmatic breath, you want
to visualize breathing down in away, so that your finger and
your thumb move and your lungsare bigger than you think they
are.
They go down in the back and weare very frontally focused

(01:02:27):
visually, because that's whereour eyes are and we focus a lot
of our concentration,particularly if you're working
on a computer, everything isdirected forward a lot, and what
I would encourage your audienceto do is visualize your back

(01:02:49):
when you're breathing.
Take a breath and just rightnow, focus on your back.
Feels different, right.

Josh Hall (01:03:02):
Yeah, it's a whole you do.
You do just think about lungs,like right here.

John Melley (01:03:04):
But not, yeah, you're just like well, it's
close.
You know, this is where myhands can go.
It's harder to put them up andaround, but, um, you know.
But if you visualize and nowjust like, visualize breathing,
but down by your lower ribs onyour back Totally different
experience, right, it just feelsdifferent.

(01:03:25):
And so you know, it's not justfront, it's all around.
So that's the proprioceptionthat I'm talking about.

Josh Hall (01:03:34):
Side note, it's one reason I did go through your,
your your course recently.
Uh, that was accompanied byyour book and it was cool to see
, like, how many differentstretches and things you can do
around the voice.
It was a good reminder of thisconversation too.
That voice is just what iscoming out is, uh, a reaction
and the result of everythingelse that's going on, which I

(01:03:56):
think is your key point to allthis about thinking about your
body as a whole.

John Melley (01:04:01):
Have those practical example.
If you're in pain or ifsomebody's in pain, how do they
talk?

Josh Hall (01:04:09):
Yeah, the voice is ah , it's up, it's like as high as
it could go, it's exactly.
Nobody's like my toe.

John Melley (01:04:15):
A brick hit my toe and it hurts it really hurts and
people don't believe thatbecause it's out of context,
right, yeah, you're like, ohyeah, right, you're being funny
now, josh.
And then your big toe doesn'thurt you at all.
It's like, oh my God, that's abrick hit my toe.
And, uh, you know so, if you're, your brain is like distracted

(01:04:37):
because it's trying to protectyou.
You ever twist your ankle andthen you're kind of like walking
on it, but then all of a sudden, maybe two days later, the rest
of your body hurts becauseyou're favoring the foot, so
you're putting more work on thisother leg, and so then your
knee starts to hurt and thenyour hip starts to hurt and your

(01:04:57):
back starts to hurt.
It's all connected.
So, like, if you're distractedby discomfort, even if you're
not aware of it, um, if you'renot moving, well, I guarantee
you that you're not performingat the highest level you can,

(01:05:18):
and it's all connected, it allmatters.
Everything impacts everythingelse.
That's why you know not to getoff on it.
But these specialists that say,oh, I focus on the second
knuckle of your pinky, that'sthe kind of doctor I am.
I'm a pinky doctor.

(01:05:39):
Well, it's kind of ridiculous,right?
You know, if you there, I don'thave as many.
I think there are more videoson the hands in in the videos
than our book.

Josh Hall (01:05:57):
I know that yeah, a lot of hands and a lot of, uh
like, neck and chat, yeah chestyeah, think about.

John Melley (01:06:04):
Do you know what a homunculus is?
no, sounds like a mediterraneanappetizer yeah, have that, I'll
have the homunculus Anyway.
No, homunculus is.
It's a depiction of the humanbody scaled to the amount of

(01:06:27):
brain resources that are devotedto it.
So if it basically exaggerates,it's a weird looking thing.
But basically, if you were to,if your body was built in
proportion to the amount ofbrain work, then you would have

(01:06:48):
hands that would be about fivefeet big, you'd be about this
tall, your lips would begigantic and your feet would be
enormous, because that's andyour eyes would bug out because
that's where the brain allocatesit's.
Really, think about what yourfingers do.
It can sense temperature,texture, pressure, it can

(01:07:12):
manipulate things, it can grabthings and all these joints take
up a lot of space to fire them.
I mean, think about all thatstuff that they can do.
There's a high, there's adirect correlation in lack of
hand function and death.

(01:07:35):
If you can't grab things, ifyou can't feed yourself.
I mean it gets to a point I'veseen people who've got like have
to grab their you know theircoffee cup like this And's
shaking.
I mean it's sad, but you, theamount of information that your
hands convey, you know they'lltell you when something's

(01:07:58):
slipping out of your hand and soyou grab it, just all the all
these little things and so um,the amount of release that you
can get in your body bymobilizing your hands.
It's incredible, josh.
If somebody hadn't shown thisto me, I would have said, oh,
you're crazy.
But I've literally sat andworked different drills on my

(01:08:23):
hands for 15 minutes or so and Istand up my shoulder, think
about it.
Minutes or so and I stand up myshoulder, think about it.
All those nerves have to travelfrom your neck all the way down
your arms.
You know, and and all thatinformation If you're, if you're
jamming them up and you're onlyusing them to type or click.

(01:08:43):
Imagine if you did a push upevery time you clicked your
mouse.

Josh Hall (01:08:47):
You'd be freaking jacked right.
Web designers would be rippedYou'd be ripped.

John Melley (01:08:53):
Click, click, click .
How many times?
Just for a thing.
I was editing some weatherforecasts.
I do some.
They're not even weatherforecasts, they're updates.
They're three seconds long, butI do them for a number of
markets, and so for each one ofthose little three-second

(01:09:15):
snippets, I counted 21 mouseclicks and drags for one
three-second thing.

Josh Hall (01:09:24):
Oh, I can't even imagine what we're doing
building websites and video work.
I do a lot of post-productionstuff, so my gosh, I mean it's
going to sound self-serving.

John Melley (01:09:32):
But folks, I mean, if you want to really open your
hands up and reverse you, willyou work on your hands?
Yeah, you think I'm crazy.
People are like, oh, dude, whatare you talking about?
Think about how many joints arein your fingers, in your hands
and your wrist.
And I, you know it's this.

(01:09:55):
There's multiple parts to yourhand.
You know there are fingers,palm, back of palm and wrist.
And you're like, yeah, dude,again it was a big deal.
It matters, you know.
And if you're sitting in thisposture, there's the other thing
in the book that I talk about.
It's called the SED principle,s-a-i-d, and it says it stands

(01:10:17):
for specific adaptation toimposed demand.
And in the book I give a coupleof examples.
But have you ever seen aprofessional tennis player's
forearm?
Oh, right, yeah, you know whatthat looks like versus.
You know their racket handversus their non-racket hand.
This is like.
I mean, it's like muscles youknow all that kind of stuff.

(01:10:39):
If you drive a car, I wouldinvite you to look at your.
If you drive um, you know justa regular automatic car.
I bet you dollars to donutsthat your right calf muscle is a
lot more defined than your leftone.
Have you ever seen a?

Josh Hall (01:10:57):
picture of nadal the what nadal the tennis player.
Have you ever seen a picture ofhim?
No, look after this, orwhatever you fancy his left arm.
He's a lefty.
His left arm is like massive.
Yeah, it's kind of a joke that,uh, like he only lifts weights
on his on his left.
I remember um gosh, this wasyears ago I had a physical like

(01:11:17):
in school days and they werelike, do you carry your bag on
your right shoulder?
And I was like yep, and theywere like you could literally
see it.
It's like a little bit lowerthan your in your other shoulder
.

John Melley (01:11:27):
I was like, ah, think about that and you're
compensating, yeah, um, yeah.
And, and you know you're sayingtalk about posture when you're
sitting.
Sitting is you're, you'repracticing sitting.
So you're literally imagine ifyour your muscles just shut off,
you're going to fall out of thechair.

(01:11:49):
You're sitting in that chairholding yourself up for hours a
day.
That's basically an isometrichold.
You know, otherwise you'd fallout of the chair.
So you're getting I don't meanthis in any way in a derogatory
sense.
This is the truth.
You're getting really good atsitting and you're getting

(01:12:11):
strong sitting, and so whathappens is the body adapts to
that demand, and so your hipflexor muscles are going to
contract and your lower backmuscles are going to extend
around your backside to thebottom of your leg, and so
you're going to get thiscontraction on one side and this

(01:12:34):
extension on the other side,and what happens is that people
walk around with their buttsticking out, and then what
happens is that their lumbarcompensates for it.
So you get this curve in yourlower back yeah, and you can
tell.

Josh Hall (01:12:54):
I feel like you can tell.
Obviously this is the mostcommon with older people.
You can tell when somebody hasa chair, like has a recliner.
You know, I told my wiferecently, very timely, I was
like I'm never going to get, I'mnever going to have an old guy
chair, because I know exactlywhere that leads.

John Melley (01:13:10):
Yeah.

Josh Hall (01:13:12):
It's just like the slow decline, maybe a quick
decline in some cases.
Yeah.

John Melley (01:13:17):
Well, there's this posture here.
It's called kyphosis, kyphoticposture, and think about what
that's doing.
It's compressing your lungs andyour heart and it's pressing
down on your digestive systemand your liver and all of that.

(01:13:39):
It matters.
So I'm not saying give up thecomputer, I can't.
This is how we make our livingnow, make our living now.
But what I am saying and whatyou can do with this book is you
can counteract, you can offset,you can.
The body has an amazingcapacity to heal and it's the

(01:13:59):
only one you've got and it's theplace you're going to live for
your entire life.
I I don't know who said that.
I think it might've been JimRohn, probably Abraham.

Josh Hall (01:14:09):
Lincoln.
That's where all the quotes goback to Somebody a lot smarter
than I.

John Melley (01:14:13):
But when you think about it, it's true, it's with
you all the time, and so it'slike you have to ask yourself
why am I?
And I'm guilty.
You know, man, I like me somebuffalo wings and blue cheese.
You know it tastes good, bluecheese.
You know it tastes good, butyou know it's fried and um in in

(01:14:35):
vegetable oils withanti-foaming agents put in.
Have you ever seen what goesinto front deep frying oil?

Josh Hall (01:14:42):
I kind of view that like hot dogs.
Like you know, I'm going to beevery once in a while.
I don't want to know, but Idon't want to know what makes
the sausage or the hot dogs inthis case.
But uh, uh, yeah, this is agreat reminder about how one
little aspect of like speakingwell and having presence is a
reflection of everything elsegoing on.
And as web designers, I don'tthink, or even just on

(01:15:04):
entrepreneurs and businessowners, there's never a bad time
to be reminded to get up, tostretch and work on those habits
that definitely affecteverything else.
And I did want to give you achance, john, while we wrap this
up.
Uh, your book, it's voiceoverours, but there's a lot more to
it than that.
It's kind of like, uh, um, yeah, if you would tell us about
that.
One final question for.

John Melley (01:15:35):
I want to make sure we get to.
But, but, yeah, tell us aboutyour book and where everyone can
connect here with you.
Thank you for that opportunityand I, I I know I've kind of
been all over the place here,but the core message to all of
this is that your body, itmatters, it's so.
The book is called thevoiceover athlete.
Athlete, I'm sorry, yeah,athlete.
Oh, that's okay.
Uh, and the reason because it'scalled the voiceover athlete is

(01:15:55):
if you use your body to do yourjob which I do and you do and
everybody watching us andlistening to us does because if
you don't have a body, you'reunable to do this or run or all
the things that you do requireyour body.
And I say the healthy bodymeans a healthy voice.

(01:16:19):
It also means healthyeverything else.
So this book I kind of alludedto how this all happened.
I tell you my story.
I was very active when I wasyounger and then you know, I got
away from all of that and whatthis is.
There's 170 different pictures.

(01:16:41):
I don't know if this isreversed.
It looks bass-ackwards on me,looks good on my end, looks good
on your end.
That's that matters.
Um and um, there's over 170different photos um where I take
you through all of thesedifferent mobility exercises,

(01:17:03):
and it goes from the jaw all theway through the neck, shoulders
, elbows, wrists, hands, spine,thoracic cavity, and it changed
my life.

Josh Hall (01:17:24):
It's awesome.
Like I said, I went through it.
I know you have a video coursethat accompanies it.
It was very cool to actually dothat.
It's awesome.
I definitely like I said I wentthrough it.

John Melley (01:17:31):
I know you have a video course that accompanies it
and, um, it was very cool toactually do that.
I would love your feedback.
What was most impactful for you?

Josh Hall (01:17:39):
There were a couple of the exercises about
stretching your neck inparticular, I think, because I
do often sit and get tightthrough through the chest and
stuff.
It was a good reminder abouthow much is actually going on in
the neck in context,particularly of of a voice, like
how much strain, basically howmuch strain is happening in your
voice because of everythingelse that's connected and around
to it.
So it was just such a greatreminder.

(01:18:00):
Uh, and even just the breathwork and even, yeah, for some of
the exercises with the uh, withthe stretching in the neck, I
remember doing and being like,oh my gosh, I didn't even think
about that.
Yeah, the jaw too.
The one with the jaw Ispecifically remember because I
have a pretty weak jawline.
I remember going through thatand being like, oh my gosh, I
wish I would have done this 10years ago.
I wish I would have startedthis.

(01:18:21):
The trachea is one.
Never too late.
The trachea, yeah yeah, the,the moving that I was like.
Oh my gosh, I didn't thinkabout that, unless you're.
You know you have a siblingwho's choking you.
You don't even think aboutmoving your voice around.

John Melley (01:18:33):
Yeah, it's um.
So anyway, I know you wanted toask me about vocal placement,
but I think we touched on thatwith relaxation and breathing.

Josh Hall (01:18:43):
Yeah no, that's huge.
Yeah, and, like I said, eveneverything we've covered up to
this point with your presenceand everything leading up to
that, I mean just the breath,work, relaxation, that alone is
going to drop a voice and makeit sound more commanding, I
imagine.

John Melley (01:18:58):
Yeah, and I think also the mindset you know it's
like.
Remember they've asked you fora reason.
It's the authority thing andthe imposter syndrome.
One quick story on that Iremember I was out in LA at
Buzzy's recording studio.
I was taking a workshop with aguy by the name of Pat Fraley
who has been a wonderful mentorfor me.

(01:19:20):
Pat's done thousands ofanimated characters.
He was on Teenage Mutant Ninja,turtles, krang, um, and he's
all kinds of things anyway,brilliant, brilliant talent, um,
and I remember being out therein la and in this studio and all

(01:19:42):
these june foray who did um, uh, the voice for rocky the Flying
Squirrel and Rocky andBullwinkle I'm dating myself but
James Earl Jones, who did thisto CNN.
You know that.
You know all these names, thesefamous people.
You know autographing the wallsand I'm standing in this studio

(01:20:02):
and it was so cool.
You walk into this room andit's dead silent.
Oh my God, it was amazing.
You know, and I'm standing inthere going.
What the heck am I doing here?
Who am I to be?

(01:20:25):
Standing in a room with like 10or 11 other voice talent from
all over, and I'm going?

John Melly (01:20:32):
oh man.

John Melley (01:20:34):
But then I was like , no, make the most of this
moment.
Man, You're here.
I flew all the way from Bostonto LA.
God, love those poor folks outthere.
God, I mean it's just awfulwhat's happening.
But yeah, it was.
But yeah, you gotta just yougotta shut that critic out.
You know, take valuablecriticism from people, but

(01:20:57):
remember people are rooting foryou and they, um, they want you
to do a good job, Um, but, um,yeah.
So the the uh, I'm glad youliked book and there are videos
that go along with it.
Actually, the pictures in thebook, oh, from the videos, right
, yeah, yeah, there's screencaptures of the video.
And yeah, there's a lot ofstuff with the tracheal mobility

(01:21:22):
, Yep, the swallowing andpracticing, all of that.

Josh Hall (01:21:26):
I recommend it.
Look for my entire audience.
Every web designer is going tobe in a meeting, going to be on
a long call, sometimes stackedup back to back, unexpected.
Whatever the situation is, Idefinitely recommend, john, your
book.
Thank you.
Even if somebody doesn't wantto be a voiceover artist, I like
the term athlete just for thatreason because it is a physical
thing.
So a lot of this has been greatreminders.

(01:21:48):
I have one selfish lastquestion for you, but we'll have
your website and the booklinked in the show notes.
For this one I don't thinkthere'll be a copyright
infringement and Pat's a friendof mine, so I think I can ask
this.
But I've always wanted to hearthe Pat Flynn Smart Passive
Income Podcast voice say you'vebeen listening to the Web Design

(01:22:11):
Business podcast with Josh Hall.

John Melly (01:22:15):
Can.

Josh Hall (01:22:15):
I request that you do that for me live just to hear
what that would sound like.

John Melly (01:22:19):
You've been listening to the Web Design
Business podcast with your host,josh Hall.
That's great.
Yes, he's in the 614.

Josh Hall (01:22:32):
I was hoping you'd add handsome or something in
there, but hey, we can work onthat.
Here we go, ready.

John Melly (01:22:36):
Take two You've been listening to the Web Design
Business Podcast with yourhandsome host and father of
three, Josh Hall.

Josh Hall (01:22:54):
My day is made, my week is my year, year is made
and we just kicked off 2025.

John Melly (01:22:57):
So did you?
I get the right number of kids.
You got it.
You got it, you nailed it I waspaying attention.

Josh Hall (01:23:02):
I'm gonna send this to pat and be like hey, uh, I
know, you know, uh, john's notdoing any voiceover for for the
podcast currently, so I stolehim from you, but I'm taking his
voice.
We're going to keep it going.

John Melly (01:23:11):
There you go, man, I appreciate that you know Pat's
been.

John Melley (01:23:14):
Pat has been wonderful to work with.
Finished up our conversation Isaid, pat, this has been a real
trip to watch this whole thingtake off for you, from the very

(01:23:35):
beginning to then, watching howyou grew this audience and your
podcast and your business andall that kind of stuff.
I said to him, I mentioned tomy wife that I was going to be
doing this and I said just kindof offhandedly, if I had known
what this was going to turn inturn into, I would have
negotiated a royalty deal withhim.

(01:23:56):
Right, I don't think I'm talkingout of school, because he
paused and he said back then Iprobably would have agreed to
that.

Josh Hall (01:24:05):
Sure, you can take 1% .
No, I can't tell you.

John Melley (01:24:08):
It's been a real trip.
I mean people, it's beenbrought people in business to me
.
But more than that it's beenkind of a weird experience
because I'd be at differentconferences and then somebody
would find out that you're thePat Flynn guy.
You're that guy, do the voiceand I'm like come on, man.

Josh Hall (01:24:28):
Is that your biggest claim to fame, or do you have a
bigger claim to fame than beingthe smart passive income guy?

John Melley (01:24:36):
Do I have a bigger claim to fame?
That's a pretty good one.
I've done a lot of neat things.
I was on an exhibit at theRonald Reagan Presidential
Library I don't know if it'sstill there, but it was for
United Technologies.
I've done stuff for Atari.
Like I said, I've been workingfor CBS.
I worked for CBS Radio for manyyears and now it's Odyssey.

(01:25:00):
I have been a very lucky guycareer-wise.
I had goals and I've had anopportunity to use some talents
and put myself in situationswhere opportunities would open
up.
But I have been very, veryfortunate.
I really I just celebrated my30th year in radio last year and

(01:25:27):
I'm still going, and I think alot of that has to do with not
being cocky but confident.
I get overwhelmed at timeswhere I can have like six or
seven different productionorders coming at me and of
course they want it now and theclient needs to approve it
before they go away for the longweekend.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, yeah, get in line.

Josh Hall (01:25:46):
Everybody else wants that too, you know it sounds
like the life of a web designertoo.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Melley (01:25:52):
You know we're all running there that game and it's
just.
But I think a lot of it has todo with coming to the
realization that I got to takecare of this, you know, because
if this isn't working, I'm notworking.
Yeah.

Josh Hall (01:26:07):
And again, a lot of this convo was a great reminder
of just how important our bodyas a whole is.
We may type with our fingers,but it's connected to everything
else.
So a lot of good challenges inthis one.
John, I really appreciate yourtime and your challenging nature
of just health first, and Iknow you've been through a lot
and have really done a lot inthat area.
To continue on.

John Melley (01:26:28):
I've been really lucky, done a lot in that area.
To continue on, I've beenreally lucky.
You know it's.
You know I had I had kidneystones and all that kind of
stuff, but I have been very,very lucky health wise I've.
I have family members whohaven't been as fortunate and
you know you have this, for Iget very passionate about this.
You really, we need to takecare of ourselves, the people

(01:26:52):
out there.
There's a healthcare industryout there, but we need to own
our own health to a great extentbefore we go looking elsewhere
for it.
So but I appreciate you, josh,for asking me on the show and
giving me an opportunity toshare all of these sub passions
that I have, aside fromvoiceover, and to promote the

(01:27:13):
book and all of that kind ofstuff, and so thank you.

Josh Hall (01:27:16):
Heck, yeah, man.
Well, thanks for your time.
John Really appreciate it and Igot some work to do here.
I'm excited to improve my voiceand improve everything that
it's connected to, so Iappreciate it.
You are very welcome.
What fun.
I hope you enjoyed this one.
It was so awesome to talk toJohn.
I hope you got some takeaways.
You can share with John and Isome of your favorite takeaways

(01:27:37):
from this chat by leaving acomment at the show notes for
this episode, which are going tobe found at joshhallco slash
three, seven, zero.
Again.
John does have a new ebook outcalled the Voice Over Athlete.
I would recommend checking thatout.
That will be on the show notespage as well.
And if you're like me and youwant to actually see some of the
exercises that John talkedabout a little bit in this chat

(01:28:01):
and actually go through hislittle mini course that is like
a video walkthrough of how to doliteral exercises before you
speak, particularly in a group,I would recommend doing what I
did and just picking up the freecourse.
It's not free, it's a low costI think it's like 50 bucks,
something like that thevoiceover course that comes with
the book if you want it.
So I highly recommend it.

(01:28:21):
I learned a lot from it and Ithink you will too.
I mean, this is the matter ofsales happening for you or not
Sometimes, when you'representing confidently and
talking clearly, not mumblingand muttering like I do
sometimes on the show.
Thank you for bearing with me,so I recommend checking it out.
Josh hallco, slash three 70 toget all the show notes, links,
resources, et cetera.
And again a big thanks to Johnfor taking some time and sharing

(01:28:43):
a lot with us in this one right.
Awesome.
Go hit them up, say thanks, letthem know you had some fun
today listening to them and abig thanks, so I'll see you on
the next episode.
Stay subscribed, because we gotsome other big ones ahead.