Brian Tracy shares six ways to sound more confident when you speak. Slow down to gain authority, record yourself to catch bad habits, use strategic pauses for emphasis, and eat light before short talks or high-protein for longer ones. Drink room-temperature water, or honey and lemon if your throat hurts.
Questions this video answers
More than 5 million people.
Four kinds: the sense pause, the dramatic pause, the emphatic pause, and the sentence completion pause.
Four to five hours.
A free "5 Minute Speech Creation Formula and Worksheet."
Hot water with lots of honey and lemon juice.
Chapters
Hello, I'm Brian Tracy. When you speak, your voice is your most important tool. Fortunately, you can learn to use your voice like playing a musical instrument to increase your power and persuasiveness in any conversation or speech that you give. Tip number one is to slow down. When you speak more slowly, your voice has more power and authority. Your listeners have an opportunity to absorb and reflect on what you're saying. You exude confidence. You lend your words greater importance. All powerful people speak slowly, enunciate clearly, and express themselves with confidence. Loud, confident speaking is powerful and moving. When you speak too rapidly, your pitch increases, often to something squeaky and childlike. Thus, the impact of your words and your influence on the audience both decrease because listeners downgrade the importance or value of what the speaker is saying when the speaker speaks too quickly. Number two Build vocal power. The human voice is like a muscle. It can be made stronger with exercise and use. Many people with weak voices have become powerful, confident speakers by building their voices over time with exercise. Here's an example. Memorize a piece of poetry and recite it regularly as you drive or walk around. Imagine that you're making a dramatic presentation on a stage in front of a large number of people. Put emotion and strength and emphasis and energy into the words. Go slowly change the emphasis on each word in the line of poetry and then thereby change the meaning of the line. Tip number three is Record and listen to your voice. As you develop your ability to speak powerfully, record yourself reading poetry or parts of plays. Replay these recordings over and over, looking for ways to improve your pronunciation, your delivery, and your pacing. Tip number four Record phone conversations. You can increase your level of vocal mastery by recording your side of conversations and listening to them afterwards. Every time you record and play back your own voice, you will hear different ways that you could improve your delivery and articulation next time. Tip 5 Focus on pauses. The drama and power of a speech is contained in the silences that you create as you move from point to point. There are four kinds of pauses you can use to put more power into your presentations. They are the sense pause, the dramatic pause, the emphatic pause, and the sentence completion pause. To learn more about those, click now. Tip 6 Eat and drink well. Energy is essential for good speaking and voice projection. Before a short talk, eat lightly. This ensures that you are bright and alert when you start speaking and that your brain is functioning at its best. Before a long talk, it's essential to eat well. A solid, high protein breakfast or lunch will give you energy to burn for four to five hours. Protein is brain food and you need it to think and speak effectively. Your voice will remain strong and your mind will stay clear. To ensure the best possible voice, only drink room temperature water prior to and during your speech. Cold water can chill your vocal cords and decrease the amount of warmth in your voice. When you have a sore throat, it can be difficult to speak clearly and project that voice. If this occurs, drink hot water with lots of honey and lemon juice. This miraculous combination has saved me on several occasions. Preparation is essential to your ability to deliver a powerful speech. I've created a Speech Creation Formula and worksheet that I personally use to outline every talk I deliver and you can have it absolutely free. This is the quickest and easiest way to organize your ideas for your Talk. Download my 5 Minute Speech Creation Formula and Worksheet now. I've professionally spoken to more than 5 million people and this is the exact formula that I've used to outline every speech I've ever given. Sa.
