Strategy for Voice Improvement: Defining Your Exact Problems

00:01 So now we're getting somewhere.

00:02 We're getting your feedback and feedback from others.

00:06 And I want to put the feedback in roughly three possible categories.

00:12 It may be that you and your colleagues say, Wow, your voice is so awful, so grating, so irritating that the second people hear it, they want to run to the nearest window and jump off the window. I hope that doesn't happen, but that could in theory happen. If that's a situation, I will be honest with you.

00:34 I can't really help you.

00:36 You need to go to a speech therapist, someone who is highly qualified in every aspect of vocal performance, who can help you.

00:44 And I'm happy to give you a full money back on this course that you've purchased. So I wish you well.

00:52 But if that's a situation both you and other people are telling you, your voice is just so beyond the pale cringeworthy.

01:01 There's so many problems.

01:04 Then you do need a speech therapist.

01:07 Now, in my experience, in the tens of thousands of people I've worked with for 30 years, I've only had one client who really had a genuinely irritating voice, and it frankly wasn't more irritating than Ben Stein or Fran Drescher, and they make tens of millions of dollars with their voice.

01:26 So that's the first category.

01:28 Again, if that's you, we wish you well, but we will say goodbye now.

01:33 The next category is where both you and your friends listening to you have given you similar feedback and that your voice seems a bit emotionless, bland, flat, monotone, hesitant.

01:52 If those are problems, those are very fixable problems.

01:56 And I'm going to show you exactly how to do that.

01:59 Now, the third category of feedback that is very common in these situations is that your criticism involves all of those things and others.

02:10 But your colleagues, your friends, your family who listen to you said your voice is fine.

02:18 Never thought about it one way or the other.

02:20 If that's the case, I have to tell you, you don't really have a problem with your voice other than you need to get used to it.

02:26 So your solution is to simply record yourself more, whether on YouTube videos, on your cell phones, listen to your voice more, and you'll simply get used to it.

02:38 It won't seem alien and strange.

02:42 Now keep in mind there are only three types of voices that people have. There's the top 0.01% of people whose voices are so magical, so inviting, so different.

02:57 They are unique, they're so memorable.

03:00 There are some people like that.

03:01 Their voices are so great.

03:03 They roll out of bed at noon, go record a voiceover for a commercial, get their million dollar check, go home, go back to bed at 1:00 pm.

03:13 I don't have a voice like that.

03:15 Chances are you don't have a voice like that.

03:17 Very few people have that.

03:19 That's extraordinarily rare.

03:20 It's a gift and it's also something people work on, but that's extremely rare.

03:28 There's also the bottom point, 0.01%.

03:32 And I'm using these statistics roughly approximations, but you get my drift.

03:37 There's the very, very bottom of people with voices.

03:41 It's so awful, it's so irritating, it's so grating that people want to jump out of the window.

03:51 Now, if you've listened this far, we've already eliminated you from that category.

03:55 Now there's everyone else in between, which by my estimate, is more than 99% of people in the world in their voices, where their voice isn't so great that people pay the money for it. And it's not awful that people run out of the room.

04:07 They're just average voices.

04:11 Nothing wrong with that.

04:12 That's what I have.

04:15 So if that's what you have, we can breathe a sigh of relief. We can get a little more relaxed and comfortable.

04:22 Sure, there are things we can do to make it sound even better.

04:26 And I'm going to give you those techniques, but let's have an honest assessment of where we are in this spectrum.

04:34 I firmly believe, based on statistical probability, that you're like me in that middle 99% of people not fantastic beyond belief and not awful beyond belief.

04:47 So I need you to make this determination, though.

04:51 Now, you, of course, may still see problems with your voice.

04:54 It may seem flat, may seem too tentative to soft.

05:00 Those are easy things to change.

05:03 And I'm going to show you exactly how to do it next.