Practice Again and Record

• 00:05 So you've listened to your voice.
• 00:07 Ideally, you've heard something that struck you was more interesting this time,
• 00:11 greater range in your voice.
• 00:13 This is how you want to sound all the time when you're talking to people.
• 00:17 When you're leaving voicemail messages.
• 00:19 When you're giving a speech, a presentation.
• 00:22 When you're having to talk to someone and it's a slightly formal situation and
• 00:26 you're a little bit nervous, you've got to act a little.
• 00:31 You gotta imitate somebody, but it's not me.
• 00:35 It's not Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan or the movie guy announcer.
• 00:41 It's yourself when you are relaxed.
• 00:44 The role model for most people of how they should speak is how they already talk
• 00:48 when they're completely comfortable,
• 00:50 relaxed, talking to a friend about something they're passionate about.
• 00:54 Now, I don't mean the cursing, if that's something you do.
• 00:58 But the full range of your voice, the highs, the lows, the louds, the softs.
• 01:03 That's what makes someone interesting.
• 01:05 That's what makes someone conversational.
• 01:09 So if you're worried about your voice, in my professional experience,
• 01:15 this solves almost all the problems people have.
• 01:19 Now, you might not still love your voice.
• 01:23 But you do need to realize objectively that your voice is perfectly fine for
• 01:27 what you're trying to do.
• 01:28 Unless you are trying to become a voiceover artist,
• 01:32 again, we've addressed that.
• 01:35 And unless you're trying to be a news anchor for the CBS Morning News,
• 01:40 chances are your voice is going to be fine if you just try to talk the way you do
• 01:45 when you're in normal conversation.
• 01:47 Now, here's the key.
• 01:49 If you have an upcoming speech, a presentation, a one on one talk,
• 01:54 I need you to take that script or the outline or the bullet points, talk it out.
• 02:00 And I need you to record it and try to sound as conversational and
• 02:06 as interesting as that talk with your friend when you had
• 02:10 perhaps forgotten about being recorded.
• 02:14 because here's the danger.
• 02:15 A lot of times people start fixating on the words and the next thing you know,
• 02:19 the volume is sort of the same and the speed is the same and
• 02:23 the pitch is the same.
• 02:24 And wah wah wah wah wah wah, you sound like Charlie Brown's teacher.
• 02:30 So you're going to have to figure out a way of having that same
• 02:34 conversational tone.
• 02:35 And often that means practice, practice on audio.
• 02:40 And if you're giving a speech, I would, of course,
• 02:43 recommend that you practice on video.
• 02:45 So that's the next assignment right now.
• 02:47 In a moment I'm going to talk about things people do that they think
• 02:51 are helping themselves get better, but actually make them worse.
• 02:54 But for right now, I want you to focus on giving some kind of prepared statement.
• 03:00 Whether it's a voicemail message you want to leave to someone, a speech,
• 03:04 a presentation, a PowerPoint.
• 03:05 I want you to record it and try to make it sound as good as
• 03:10 the previous one when you were just talking to a friend.

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