Conversation with Lieve Hendren
Margaret’s violin teacher told her something in middle school that had nothing to do with music: you have to play the silence.
She’s carried that lesson ever since — through vocal training, through a performance career, and now into the work she does every day helping leaders communicate with intention. Silence isn’t the absence of voice. It’s a tool. And how you use it matters as much as anything you say.
That idea sits at the center of this conversation with Lieve Hendren, a Workflow Coach and vocalist who built her entire coaching practice around a single realization: joy is not optional. It’s not the reward you unlock when the to-do list is done. It’s the prerequisite for flow, and for the kind of vocal presence that actually moves a room.
Lieve learned this the hard way. Despite being a trained singer, she spent years having panic attacks before presentations. The frog-in-the-throat feeling, the mounting pressure, the sense of losing the room — all of it traces back to the same source: a nervous system responding to stress without a repeatable way out. The fix wasn’t more preparation. It was presence.
And presence, it turns out, starts with joy.
Margaret and Lieve trace that thread through some of the most relatable moments in professional life: the meeting where your voice did something you didn’t authorize, the combative room where your usual approach won’t land, the days where everything clicked because you walked in having already let go of the outcome. What they land on is something more actionable than a mindset shift: a practice. A warmup for your brain, your body, and your voice before the work even begins.
If you’ve ever wished you could replicate your best performance on purpose, this episode is for you.
In this episode:
- Why joy has to come before flow, not after the work is done
- The audition story that changed how Lieve prepares for every high-pressure moment
- Margaret’s violin teacher’s lesson on playing the silence — and why it applies in the boardroom
- How reflective listening defuses hostile rooms
- Why knowing your message matters more than rehearsing your words
Resources:
- Learn more about Lieve and her work at lievehendren.com
- Get The Joyful Flow Formula at lievehendren.com/book
- For more vocal techniques — vocal fry, tone, energy and more — subscribe to the Peacock Voices YouTube channel
About Lieve Hendren:
Lieve Hendren is a Workflow Coach and flow coaching practitioner who works with executive directors at nonprofits and mission-driven creators and innovators. She is the author of The Joyful Flow Formula and creator of the Focused Flow Planner Journal. Before building her coaching practice, she pursued a vocal performance career alongside management consulting and tech startup work.
