E65: Everyone Can Sing: Finding Your Voice with Julie Bale

In this inspiring episode, Emma welcomes back singer and voice coach Julie Bale to share her incredible journey, from hypnotherapy for weight loss to helping women unlock their voice and confidence through singing.

Julie introduces her transformational program, From First Note to Final Curtain, helping women who’ve been told they “can’t sing” step onto stage with power, presence, and joy...proving that everyone can sing. They also share details about an exciting upcoming Christmas concert supporting the children’s bereavement charity Windmills.

• Singing is a skill anyone can learn...not a gift you're born with.
• "Diva energy" is confidence, charisma, and connection, perfect for business owners.
• The next cohort leads to a live Christmas concert performance on Dec 7th.
• All profits go to Windmills, a charity close to Emma’s heart.

Who is Julie?

Julie Bale is a powerhouse in the world of vocal transformation, performance mindset, and personal empowerment. With over 35 years of experience as a singer, voice teacher, hypnotherapist, author, and speaker, she has helped hundreds of individuals find their true voice both on stage and in life.

Founder of the ground-breaking Diva programme, From First Note to Final Curtain, and the transformational mindset training StagePower – Performance Mindset for Speakers & Singers, Julie’s mission is to help women in business step into their full presence, confidence, and vocal power. Her unique approach blends world-class vocal training with cutting-edge psychological techniques to banish performance anxiety and unleash fearless, fabulous performance.

Julie holds a music degree, a PGCE, and a diploma in singing from the Royal College of Music. She has trained for over 25 years with legendary voice specialist Janice Chapman and has worked extensively as a vocal coach in schools, elite London choirs, private practice, and major workshops. Her expertise spans vocal technique, performance preparation, and mindset coaching.

Driven by a lifelong fascination with the psychology of performance, Julie also trained as a clinical hypnotherapist. She now integrates these powerful tools into her work, enabling singers and speakers to step onto any stage feeling confident, free, and in complete command.

Whether she’s working with a first-time soloist or a seasoned professional, Julie’s passion is unwavering: to ignite belief, build vocal mastery, and guide each client to step fully into their Diva Energy ®

Her signature programmes provide a powerful, supportive space for women to explore their voice, perform solo, and connect with a community of kindred spirits—empowering them not just to sing, but to shine. Discover more at: 

https://www.juliebale.com/discoversinging

https://www.instagram.com/juliebalevoiceandmindtraining

https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliebale

Want to connect? Find me here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemmahine

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-hine

Website: https://www.emmahine.co.uk

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/@EmmaHineStrategy

Transcript

 Hello & welcome to Dream Business Dream Life, helping ambitious people, like you, to grow a business they love.

 I’m Emma Hine and I’m on a mission to show you that it is possible to grow a business without sacrificing your life.

 Having experienced the rollercoaster of making millions of pounds, but feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and totally unsuccessful, I know first-hand the importance of growing a business on your terms.

On this podcast I'm going to share with you lots of tips and advice that will enable you to grow a business that gives you the financial freedom to live the life of your dreams while sharing with you some inspirational growth stories from other fabulous business owners.

 Ready to live the dream? Then let’s get stuck in…

Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Dream Business, dream Life. Today I am super excited to be joined once again by Julie Bale. Now, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you will know that Julie has been a guest on here before. But there's two reasons I invited her back today, both, which are super, super exciting.

The first, later this year, Julie and I are collaborating on something that we are both so excited about, and we wanna share that with you. But more importantly. Julie has been through the most unbelievable growth journey since she last came on here, and I wanted her to share that with you because it is the absolute perfect example how you can create the thing I talk about all of the time, which is the dream business and the dream life.

So Julie is a singer, a voice teacher, hypnotherapist, an author, but to me she will always be the diva creator, and I am super, super excited to have her here with me today. Hello, my lovely, Julie. How are you? Hello. Thank you so much for having me back on again. It's so great to be here. Super, super excited.

Okay, let's dive straight in. So take us back a little bit first, just quickly back to pre February, wasn't it 2025? What was life in business for? What did it look like for you back then? So I, I went through this stage. I've always been a singer. I've always been singing, been singing since. The age of two singing since the womb probably.

Um, and, but what happened in my singing career was that I ended up coming to a place where I discovered there was lots of performance anxiety going on, and not just for myself, but also for my students. And through that I discovered hypnotherapy. And you know what, it's like you discover a new toy, and I was so excited about this and how it could help singers to be more confident on stage to deal with imposter syndrome and all, all of that kind of thing.

Um, all these wonderful tools. And then as I worked more with hypnotherapy. I thought, well, it's doing all this incredible stuff. What if it could help me to lose weight too? And um, and, and that had always been an issue for me. And I went down that path and I created a program which turned into a business.

And that's sort of where we first met, wasn't it? When I had created this incredible program with clients who had lost loads and loads of. Of weight myself, I had also lost 35 pounds using hypnotherapy to lose weight, and I was really sort of focusing in that area and that was my business. However. I'm a musician and what was happening for me towards the end of last year was I kept being tapped on the shoulder, kept having these taps on the shoulder.

Look what's happening over here. You could help that person. I would see people struggling with their singing, um, and, and know that with. In two minutes, I could help them to feel more comfortable or people who were too scared to sing. And then I started having this same conversation every time I would meet all of these now new, wonderful friends of mine, these new connections, these women in business, uh, who would say to me, oh, you're a singer.

I'd love to sing, but, and the but was always, somebody has said to me in the past that I'm tone deaf, that I should mind when others sing that I'm not good enough, that I shouldn't sing. And these are what I always say to people. Now, people who are. Usually wholly unqualified to tell anybody that they can't sing because I believe that everybody can sing.

And so this, I just kept thinking, I have got to do something about this. So it took a step towards that, and in January of this year, I decided I was going to create a program. To help everybody sing with a particular emphasis on those people who had thought that they couldn't. And there's another strand as well, because the other strand was, I also kept hearing about people who were saying next year, and you know, we all do, we have our word for the next year.

We'll have our goal for the next year. Next year in my business, I'm gonna focus. On main character energy and I didn't know what that was, so I had to look it up. And main character energy, I think it comes from video games or something. Um, and really what they were saying was, I'm going to be the main character in my life.

I'm going to be the most powerful, have the most presence, have the most charisma, all of that kind of thing. And I thought to myself, that's not main character energy. That's diva energy. And that. I can teach people that because that's something that I use myself, myself as a complete introvert. I am a complete introvert, but when I get on the stage, I can switch on.

This diva energy and become the person who, who has the presence, the charisma. You know, if you want to really deliver being the face of your business, you need to be able to sort of step into your biggest confidence, your presence, your charisma, your personal power, um, connection. You know, and for me that was all about learning to sing.

So those two elements came together and I thought, what if I created a program where people could come? And def and learn to sing, but in the process also have all of these other things that come with it as well. Their confidence, their presence, their power, all of that stuff. Learn how to connect, how to be vulnerable on stage through singing.

And so I'm gonna get a group of 10 women in business. Together, and I'm gonna take them through people who have had either no experience of singing at all, people who most definitely have been told they don't have a voice, they shouldn't sing. And because I am qualified, you know, because I have 35 years experience, because I have a, a degree in music and a diploma from the Royal College of Music and I've worked with the top people in the industries as well as singing on stages or I know.

But everybody can sing. I've worked with over a thousand singers. I've helped a thousand people to sing, and now I want to focus on helping women in business do that. People who have always wanted to sing but thought it wasn't for them. So I have a. A client now, and she came to me because she won me in a raffle.

She won, she won a 60 minute singing lesson with me a few years ago, and she came to me, she was really timid and I said to her, what's your goal? What goal do you have? If you could do anything with your voice, what would you do? And she said to me, I'd really like to sing hymns confidently in church. And I thought, do you know what that is a really great goal, fantastic goal, you know, sing hymns in church.

Let's have a go. So over the course of the lesson, we did some work. I showed her how using she could use her body to get a better sound, how to get a better quality sound. Just simple changes, doing different things, working with the breath, you know, all these physical things. And it was quite clear by the end of it that she could sing.

And I said to her, you know, you can absolutely smash this. You can sing, you can sing hymns confidently in church. And she burst into tears. She stood there crying and she said to me, the, these words that, that are really the core of my mission that sit with me in everything she said to me. I always thought that singing was a party that I'm not invited to.

Wow. And so my mission, I know, I know, and it it does, doesn't it? It gets you at the back of the throat every time. And, and I thought, do you know, I want to invite everybody to my singing party. So that's where I'm at and what I'm doing. And, and how exciting. How, how exciting. And, and this business has literally grown arms and legs so, so quickly, hasn't it?

And, and what I love about it is it's not just about singing, is it? It's not just about singing. No, it's absolutely not just about singing. Singing is singing is the way in. And obviously, you know, you, the people who I work with, they want to sing. They want to find their voice, but most of them, and in fact, you know, I would say.

Out of the, the, the 10 that I'm working with in this particular program at the moment, I would say probably nine of them came. And in the first session that they came to me, they expected me to validate the belief that they'd had, that they could not sing. So, yes, they all want to sing, but what they have found from being a part of this program is they've discovered so much more about themselves.

It is, it is really a voyage of personal growth because when you have permission to sing, your giving yourself permission to sing, permission to use your voice, that your voice matters. Then so much else in the whole of your world changes. So confidence, certainly from a start, changes people who are, who are doing things.

I've even have one of my, I call my clients divas, and I'd rather like that because who doesn't wanna be a diva, who doesn't wanna be a di. But, um, but yeah, one, one of my clients has gone from not ever singing, believing that she couldn't sing, believing that her voice wasn't worth listening to, and is now starting to even.

Build a music business herself, bringing more singing to people who have also felt that they couldn't sing and. To bring singing to people for the joy of singing, not because they're gonna be the next Mariah Carey. You know, imagine a world filled with Mariah Carey's that once the Christmas is enough.

Yeah. Um, but you know, imagine, imagine just singing for joy. There used to be a time, didn't there? Where everyone would meet up down the pub and sing My Emmy, you're too young to know this, but there were, there were people used to just gather around the piano and sing, sing along. Not because they were a great singer, but just because how singing makes you feel.

'cause that's the thing, singing, it's, it's not about how you sound. It's about how you feel, and then when you feel confident to sing, you realize that there's so much more you can do with your voice. And as a business owner, your voice is your power, you know? Absolutely. It's that connection. It's, it's everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the confidence, you know, as a business owner, if you, if you are working with them, not only to build their singing abilities, but to build their confidence, to be that diva, to be that person that stands on stage, that is building their confidence when they're doing everything in the business, when they're connecting with the clients, when they're doing their own marketing, if they wanna go on stages and talk.

On stages, they can throw a tune in there as well. I mean, how amazing does that make it, how, you know, to have those extra tools in your toolkit is unbelievable. Even I imagine the breathing techniques that you're, you are, you are helping them with to sing are gonna help them in so many other ways. Yes, absolutely.

Lots of people who I, who I work with, uh, talk about speaking on stages and when we have our, our very first singing lesson and I show them what we, uh, what we in the business call postal alignment, but really it's sort of how to stand best to, uh, to make your best noise. That's what it is. And, and we talk about how, how you should have loose knees and people say.

I've never thought of that before. But then when we start working with airflow, so the breathing techniques mm-hmm. We want to, uh, when we're, when we're speaking, we're, we're using our breath in a slightly different way, but when we're singing, we are wanting to use a lot of air. Very quickly, and if we impede the air flowing anywhere, I'm getting a bit technical here, I'm gonna stop in a minute.

But when we, if we impede that air, then we stop the air flow, which stops. Us being able to talk. So quite often you'll find and as your top tip folks, um, you'll find that if you're on stage and you're speaking and suddenly you're thinking, oh, my voice is going funny, what are your knees doing? Just check out your legs.

'cause you'll find you probably very, very tense in your legs. And if you let go of your knees, then everything else. So the pelvis, you know, the chest and everything else is freer, and your airflow will become freer too. There you go. Who would've ever, ever have known that unless they'd had somebody amazing like you in their lives to teach them that stuff.

And I think, you know, thi this is really interesting stuff. Obviously it's very complicated stuff. Um, but no wonder people think they can't sing because they would never know anything like that, would they? They would never know that. It's just about the technique. I say just that sounds like it really makes it really simple.

I know it's not, um, you know, it's about the technique. It's about how you hold yourself. It's about all of that stuff built in with. Do you work with, does your hypnotherapy come into, um, into your program as well? Absolutely. I mean, that, that is, that is where I came in. Mm-hmm. To, uh, where I came into hypnotherapy was to help singers and actually, first of all, to help me because I'd got to a place where I'd got this thing going on where I would go, I would go on stage, and instead of being what I wanted to be, which was free and fearless, I would instead have a voice screaming in my head.

You know, or words saying, Ooh, you're gonna, you're gonna mess up. You're gonna fall over, and all of this kind of thing. And that is even more important to people who have those messages ingrained from years and years of, you can't sing, you can't do this. What makes you think you can do that? You know, your tone deaf when most people don't even know what tone deafness is and tone deafness exists.

It absolutely does. But it's very, very rare. The chances are, if you've ever been told you're tone deaf, it's just that you need a little bit of changing the way you are using your body. And in that way, Emma is really simple because there are just really simple ways of holding your body, of playing with your airflow, and one of which includes in my sessions, a kazoo.

Who knew, but we like, by playing a kazoo, we can really, really connect to our airflow, to our whole body when we're speaking, when we're singing. You know, it makes a huge difference. And always in the first lesson, in the first part of the first lesson, there will be these huge aha moments where people realize that actually it's not.

Ever that they couldn't sing. It's just that singing is a skill and they just needed a little bit of help to show them how to do it best for their body. And once they do that, then they're flying. Yeah, and that's the same with everything, isn't it? If you're not sure how to do something, you invest in somebody that can help you to get better at that.

But we can all do anything if we put our minds to it and, and we want to put our minds to it. So if there's people listening to this, Julie, business owners, or even non-business owners that are listening to this and thinking, do you know what, there's this little teeny weeny little bit of something in me that says, I'd like to sing, but I think I'm that one person that Julia's going to turn round to and say, no, you really can't sing.

What would you suggest they did? Well, they need, they need to come and see me basically. They need to come and see me. They can, um, it mostly when, when people get this, when you get like what I call, um, the little person dancing inside going, could it be me, could it be me? Normally people are, are ready. To take that step forwards.

And uh, and of course at the moment we, um, we've got this thing coming that we're, that we're gonna talk about in a bit, um, that people can join. But if you are even more concerned than that, you can book a little 15 minute, a free 15 minute consultation with me, where in that time I will show you some things that will show you.

You can do this. Yeah. And, and I'm just gonna add to this. I was on a call with Julie, totally unexpected, very, very recently. Um, when I was sort of like, okay, Emma, off you go, you sing. Um, and you did actually get me, IM, you did improve my singing it. It's got a long way to go, but you did within literally second she said, try this and you could feel and see the difference.

Honestly, if you are on, if you've got any doubts. Luke Julie up. I'm gonna share everything in the show notes anyway. So do look Julie up. Okay, so you just touched on it slightly. Um, tell us a little bit about your current, not your current, your next cohort. So you've got a group of people who, at the moment, who are going through the, the, the training at the moment, and they are gonna be hosting a concert in September.

But let's talk about what happens after that. So tell us about what happens for the next batch of people that are gonna have this opportunity. Sure. So the next batch of people are gonna have something really exciting because my program is called From First Note to Final Curtain, which means that you can come.

Having no singing experience whatsoever. And through that I guide you through, um, vocal technique, performance technique 'cause we need that as well. You know, how to connect with people on the stage and the hypnotherapy part, the performance mindset, all of that. But it ends with the final curtain, which is a performance in public.

With a professional accompanist and with the rest of the cohort. And one of the beautiful things about this program is that you get to go through it with other people exactly the same as you. And we meet up, we have a day that I call a diva day where we meet up. And everybody sings for each other, and the connections that are built on those days are just incredible.

So strong. Everybody's celebrating and supporting each other through their singing. And the final curtain that's happening for the next cohort is going to be a really beautiful. I might even say candle lit sort of Christmas concert, which is going to take place the night before, not the night before Christmas.

No. Oh, no. Thunder comes, then it's gonna take place the night before. The growth event at Christmas, so the concert will be on the 7th of December leading in, so lead, bringing in Christmas for everybody the night before the Christmas growth event on the 8th of December. Absolutely. And, and this has sort of been something that I think has been in the pipeline for a long time, hasn't it?

Because when me and Julie first connected, I remember saying, oh, there's nothing more special than Christmas music. Julie, you need to bring Christmas music to my gr Christmas growth event. Um, obviously for whatever reason, it, it last year was never gonna happen that way, but, um, this year it is happening.

Okay? It's not the actual event, although sneaky little, um, update here. Julie is gonna be one of our speakers at the growth event at Christmas, so you never know. You never know. There you go. Sneaky little before it's become official. Um, so it's, it's gonna be bringing this Christmas, singing these songs, whatever they're going to look like.

Obviously we don't, haven't got a clue what they're gonna look like because right now there is the opportunity for you to become one of those Christmas divas. So if you are sitting here thinking. I would love to do that. I've always fancied doing a bit of singing, but I'm not quite sure I'm the right person or I, I'm tone deaf.

All of those things that Julie spoken about, get yourself in this concert. What to me is the most beautiful thing about this and how Julie has has created her business model is this concert is not just about an ideal opportunity for the people to. To, to show their voices to the world. It is also about giving back.

So every single one of these concerts that Julie puts on, and there will be one at the end of every single cohort, is being done for charity. So all profits go to a charity. Um, and obviously because this is me and Julie doing something together. It was my charity of choice, um, which is windmills. So anybody that's been in my world for a while, um, will know that windmills, um, are a, a bereavement charity.

They support children when they have gone through, um, a bereavement. Um, and they supported my gorgeous two grandchildren when we lost Becky. And I'm not gonna get upset. Um, so I am super, super excited that we are having this opportunity to do something that I love Christmas music. I may well have to choose a song.

I may well have to choose a song that somebody is going to sing. 'cause I love listening to singing. Um, but all, as I say, prophets are going to go to windmills, which to me is. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. So we haven't officially launched the tickets for the concert yet. However, if you wanna buy a ticket, you absolutely can do that.

We have a, a little bit of a back doorway to, to do that. We will be promoting it, um, further down the line. So there you go. There's your opportunities. Get in touch with Julie and become one of the jingle divas. It is gonna be an amazing evening. But more than that, you are gonna have an amazing experience on the run up to doing that.

And you're gonna finally be able to get that voice that's been inside of you for so long out there in the public domain. Um, and you're gonna give me goosebumps because that is, that is the thing that I wanna feel. I wanna feel those goosebumps when I hear people singing. Um, anything you wanna add to that, Julie?

I think just. If you are sitting there and you are thinking, I know that you've said all of that, but I really don't think it's me, but you want to do it seriously. Everybody can sing. Let's give, give it a go. Get in touch with me. Let's have a go, and I will hold your hand throughout this whole process, and not only me, all of the other divas do the same as well.

You will be in this beautiful cohort of people who are there to celebrate you. That's what you will get from this. Absolutely. And I'm sure if there's still any doubt after all of that, anybody that's doing the current cohort would happily tell you about their experience because there has been some unbelievable, um, change in people hasn't in the, and the testimonials and everything that have been coming through in, in the short space of time that they've been doing it ready for this first, uh, round is unbelievable.

So I'm sure that some people would happily share their, their experiences too. Okay. We can't end this just like that. We have to end this how we end every other podcast. So Julie, let's, let's have a top tip. I know you've already shared one or two tips with us, but what would your top tip be for people who are listening to this?

My top tip is this. If you are sitting there and you really, really are thinking, I really want to do this, do it. Life's too short. Give it a go. You can sing. Let's sing together. I absolutely love that. And Julie, where do people come and find you? So they can find me at, um, I, I'm on all of the socials, so Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, um, and you can find me on my website, which is julie bale.com.

Amazing. Thank you so much, Julie, for joining me again today. I have absolutely loved chatting with you, and thank you to everybody else for listening. We will see you next time.

You have been listening to Dream Business Dream Life with Emma Hine. If you want to know more about how I can help you to build your dream business and your dream life, then visit my website emmehine.co.uk. Until next time remember you really can have it all!