Strategy for Voice Improvement: Listen to Natural conversation

00:01 So let's talk about the number one source of problems for most people with their voices. And again, I'm excluding that bottom less than 1% who truly have something awful.

00:13 The biggest problem for 99% of us who are displeased with our voice is that because we are nervous in certain situations, whether it's getting in front of a boardroom to give a presentation, speaking in front of a classroom is that we get nervous.

00:28 Once we're nervous, we stop doing the things we do with our voice that we do, and we're comfortable.

00:36 So when we're nervous, we might start speaking quickly.

00:40 We might start speaking in a monotone because we're thinking about how do we get through this? You're awful.

00:45 That sounds. And I really want you to know I'm right. We put doubt into our voice and end with question marks at the end, or we're not certain we were right. So we speak so softly.

01:00 No one can understand us.

01:02 We mumble, we whisper.

01:05 So these are not technically problems with your voice.

01:09 This is simply your voice expressing your emotions.

01:14 And the voice often doesn't lie.

01:18 So the key here is you've got to figure out how you come across your best any time you're speaking, and then do it that way, even if you are nervous.

01:31 That is the key to solving most people's vocal problems, because if you hear yourself giving a speech and you're thinking, Oh, I sound boring, I sound droning, I would hate to listen to myself.

01:44 The problem might not be your voice.

01:46 The problem might be that you're reading a really boring PowerPoint.

01:51 So here's what we've got to do to a thoroughly diagnose the problem, be come up with a solution.

02:00 I need you to call a friend.

02:05 Let your friend know you're doing this.

02:06 Although you don't have to, because you're only recording your side of the voice.

02:09 You're not recording your friend.

02:11 And I need you to just forget about the recorder for a while.

02:15 And I need you to talk to a good friend about something you care passionately about. It could be NFL football.

02:21 It could be Olympic ice skating.

02:25 It could be politics.

02:28 It could be any.

02:29 It could be religion.

02:31 Anything you care about passionately.

02:35 Just have a 20-minute conversation, record it.

02:40 Try to forget that there's even a recording.

02:43 And if it's a friend, you sometimes you yell, you get excited to get upset.

02:47 You're angry about the ref's call at last night's college basketball game. I need you to record it.

02:53 I don't care what you're talking about.

02:57 Here's what I do care about is once you record it, I need you to listen to it. And here's what most people find when you're simply talking naturally.

03:08 Your voice has great variations.

03:10 Sometimes you're louder, sometimes you're softer, sometimes you get excited, and you're faster and there's more excitement.

03:16 Sometimes you slow it down, and occasionally there's a pause. A good voice is kind of like a roller coaster.

03:29 Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's slow, sometimes it goes around corners, sometimes it's sometimes there's variation to your voice.

03:36 That's what makes someone interesting to listen to.

03:39 Not sounding like a generic TV news anchor.

03:42 That's not what necessarily makes anyone interesting to listen to.

03:47 So that's what I need you to do right now.

03:50 Call a friend, and you don't have to listen to it all.

03:52 Just fast-forward or go to the part on the digital audio file halfway in or two thirds in, or you think, okay, we're getting in a debate about something there.

04:04 And I'd forgotten we were recording.

04:06 Listen to just that one minute.

04:10 Chances are you're going to hear a lot more variation in your voice then when you are practicing that speech that you had to give at next week's Straight Association convention where you sound boring and flat and monotone the way I do. So I need you to do this diagnosis, because if I'm correct, and I often am, your voice is going to sound a lot better because you're going to have the full range of your voice louder, softer, faster, slower pauses, and your voice will come alive.

04:48 So please do that for me right now.