Note: This post was originally published as a two-part series in 2014. It’s been gently updated for clarity and alignment with my current work in Soulful Speaking.

Have you ever received feedback about your voice, personality, presence, or impact that stung?

Most of us have.

Harsh feedback about how you “come across” can land like a gut-punch for a few reasons:

• The person giving it often hasn’t studied voice, presence, or communication. They’re trying to help, but their language is clumsy and sometimes harmful.
• Your voice is an expression of your soul. When someone critiques it, it can feel like they’re critiquing you.
• Often there’s a tiny kernel of truth inside the feedback — something in you does want to shift — but the way it’s delivered doesn’t show you how.

The good news: when you look at feedback through the lens of The Vocal Presence Path™ approach to Soulful Speaking, you can begin to reframe it into something useful, actionable, and aligned with who you really are.

When Feedback Hurts (and Why It’s Not the Whole Truth)

Imagine you’re a Director in corporate, wanting to move into Senior Director or VP. In your review, your boss says:

“Sometimes you’re vibrant, full of life and inspiring, and other times you come off as arrogant.”

That’s actually one of the better ones — it leads with something positive. But even here, it doesn’t tell you what to do differently in a way that’s grounded, clear, or kind.

Here are some of the worst examples I’ve heard over the years:

• “You have no impact when you speak.”
• “You come off as a wimp.”
• “You come off as arrogant.”
• “People sometimes think you’re a bitch.”
• “Your voice is strident.”
• “Your voice is grating.”
• “You’re too meek.”
• “You take up too much space in meetings.”
• “You’re a bully.”
• “You have great ideas but you’re not being heard or respected.”
• “You need to be more forceful.”

If you imagine yourself on the receiving end of these, it doesn’t feel good.
But underneath the sting, there is something to work with.

That’s where The Vocal Presence Path™ comes in.

The Vocal Presence Path™: A Different Way to Hear Feedback

Here are the 7 Steps on the Path:

1. Acknowledge and Release your Soul Suckers™
2. Root in a Sense of Purpose
3. Embody What’s Important
4. Breathe Life into the Experience
5. Energize yourSelf and the Space
6. Connect (truly, madly, deeply) with Others
7. Take Others Along for the Ride

When I’m working with clients and third-party feedback, I use this Path to translate vague or painful comments into something actionable and empowering.

Whichever steps you think of when you read those comments above — you’re right.
Turning to the Path in a mindful way almost always shifts your impact, because it grounds you in authenticity and the Voice of your Soul.

And there are two steps I look at first when feedback is about impact, presence, or “too much / not enough” energy:

• Embody What’s Important
• Breathe Life into the Experience

Avoid – Balance – Control: How You Engage with the Room

When we’re faced with the opportunity to engage with other human beings — in a meeting, on a stage, on a call — we often unconsciously choose one of three ways of relating:

• A – Avoid
  You half engage, hold back, or energetically disappear. You’re “there” but not fully in.
• B – Balance
  You’re rooted, present, connected, and open to give and receive.
• C – Control
  You push, dominate, or try to “make” connection happen by force.

We do this to protect ourselves from rejection or judgment. But it shapes how our voice, presence, and impact land — often more than the actual content of what we say.

Now, let’s revisit some of that rough feedback:

“You come off as a wimp.”
“You’re too meek.”
“You have no impact when you speak.”
“You have great ideas but you’re not being heard or respected.”
“You need to be more forceful.”

With this kind of feedback, I’d first explore how the person is engaging with the world around them.
Very often, they’re unconsciously leaning toward Avoid — pulling energy back, shrinking, or not fully allowing themselves to take up space.

On the other side:

“People sometimes think you’re a bitch.”
“Your voice is strident.”
“Your voice is grating.”
“You take up too much space in meetings.”
“You’re a bully.”

Here, I’d be suspicious that the person is unconsciously leaning into Control — pushing to be heard, perhaps overcompensating for an old wound of not being taken seriously, and unintentionally coming across as intense or overwhelming.

In both cases, the opportunity is the same:

👉 Practice consciously engaging from B – Balance.

Breathing Life into the Experience

Once we’ve located the pattern (Avoid, Balance, or Control), the next step I look at is:

Breathe Life into the Experience.

This is where the Nourishing Breath and true vocal support come in.

Sometimes people are engaging from Balance on the inside — but their breath and support aren’t actually reaching the room.

• If they don’t inhale enough air
• And don’t support from the core (especially the transversus abdominis muscle)

… they may only be speaking loud enough to hear themselves. To everyone else, it’s almost like they’re whispering. That can lead to feedback like:

“You have no impact.”
“You’re too meek.”
“You’re not being heard or respected.”

On the flip side, sometimes someone is pushing from the throat to generate volume. This can create what I call a “throat bluff” — the throat is working so hard it actually clamps down on the natural resonance and aliveness of the voice.

That “throat bluff” can result in:

• A grating or strident sound
• A feeling of being “talked at” or bullied
• Feedback like “You take up too much space” or “You’re too much”

Even when the person’s intention is balanced, the way the sound is being produced can trigger strong reactions.

The Tricky One: “Inspiring” and “Arrogant”

Let’s go back to this feedback:

“Sometimes you’re vibrant, full of life and inspiring and other times you come off as arrogant.”

In many ways, this is the trickiest of all.

I’d suspect that, on most days, this person is:

• Engaging from Balance
• Breathing and supporting enough to fill the room
• Coming across as engaging and inspiring

But in heightened or crisis situations — or when stakes feel especially high — something shifts. They may unconsciously slide into:

• Control (tightening, pushing, over-efforting)
• Or holding their breath and overworking the throat to “power through”

To the speaker, it feels like they’re “powering up.”
To the listener, it can feel like pressure, arrogance, or intensity that doesn’t match the moment.

Again, the path forward is the same:

• Return to Balance in how you engage
• Breathe Life into the Experience from the core, not the throat
• Reconnect with your deeper Sense of Purpose: why you’re speaking at all

Your Turn: Reframing Your Own Feedback

Think back over the feedback you’ve received throughout your life about your voice, presence, or impact.

• Is there a theme?

• Do you tend toward Avoid or Control when you’re under stress?
• Where might Balance and Breath change everything?

Play with consciously:

• Choosing to engage from Balance
• Breathing Life into the Experience with enough supported breath to truly fill the room
• And letting your presence be informed by what’s important to you, not by old Soul Suckers™ or survival strategies

Notice how your impact shifts from there.

Feedback doesn’t have to define you.
With the right frame, it can refine you — bringing you closer to the voice of your soul.