Ep 214 How Do I Modulate My Energy in My Voice August 1, 2016

How do you modulate the energy in your voice when giving a speech or presentation?

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public, to the media, at work and in Life. Speaking with T.J. walker.

This question comes from one of my online students on the Unity platform. Alina writes in tj, I find it very difficult to know how to modulate my energy when I speak. Does it come with practice? For example, if I speak to a large crowd, to me it feels almost like a theater performance. And so I literally put on a show to get everyone engaged and interested. When I then have a training for a small group of people, I tend to bring the same level of energy to the small room. And I guess that's not the way to do it, is it? From what I hear from some of my close friends who saw me presenting to small groups, they say I need to modulate my energy as it is far too big for a small crowd. Oh, dear, I'm lost. Well, Alina, it sounds like you're a pretty seasoned presenter anyway, and I'm very, very happy to hear that you're getting feedback from your colleagues, especially the occasional negative feedback, because that is extremely helpful. First of all, let's back up for a moment. Everyone's different, but by far the most common problem people have with energy and modulating their voice is they get nervous. When they get nervous, they shrink. It's not your problem of being too big for the audience, it's that they shrink up. Their energy goes down, their volume goes down, and it makes them flat, monotone. And they seem scared and they might be scared. Makes them seem nervous and uncomfortable. So that's the biggest problem you mentioned in an earlier part of your question. Does it come with practice? Yes, it does come with practice, but with a caveat. You need to watch video of yourself not only practicing, but speaking in the venue in front of live people. When I started this business back in 1984, my first training, it wasn't very practical to tell people, videotape every speech you do. These days, you have to be incredibly lazy not to do it because everyone has video cameras everywhere. Your cell phone. So my recommendation, even if you just prop it up in the back of the room and it doesn't even get all of your head in the video, record every speech you do. And if you are, for example, giving a training in front of a small group of people, put it in the back so you can see the audience and you can see how they're responding to you. Get a sense if they are constantly pulling back and putting their fingers in their ears because you're screaming at them. Well, that's a problem and you need to take note of that. I would really caution you about overcorrecting because sometimes people's energy level feels high and then they take it down a couple of notches. But they've taken it down so much they now seem flat, bored, boring, uninterested and almost mumbling. So be very, very careful about that. More tips on energy for your voice and modulation in just a moment.

Do you have a speaking related question for number one USA Today best selling author TJ Walker? For more than 30 years, Walker has been a public speaking coach and media trainer to presidents of Countries, Prime Ministers, CEOs, Nobel Peace Prize winners, professional athletes and Ms. Universes. Send your questions to infoediatrainingworldwide.com or on Twitter J. Walker.

You mentioned that you have big energy for a big room. That's good. I want to caution you though. A lot of times people are in a big room, let's say a big hotel or conference, and there's 500,000 or more people in the room. On the one hand, you want your hand gestures to be a little bigger. Especially if you're walking around. You want to pause a little bit longer, but you don't necessarily want to yell. The problem some politicians have, and I'm not going to mention their name, but it's males and females in both parties. Both major US Parties. Forgive my narrow US references. Those of you listening in other countries is a problem that does affect people everywhere. Frankly, that they're in a large room so they start to yell. They're projecting their voice so people can hear a long way off. The problem is you're making yourself a particular type of monotone if you yell consistently. If you have a higher volume that's consistent, and if you have a microphone on, you don't need to yell. People can hear you. Like right now, none of you are in the same room with me, but I don't have to yell because I have a microphone on. If you need more volume, you can simply adjust the volume on your end. If you're speaking in a large venue where people are in the room with you, chances are you're going to have a microphone and speaker. There are these in between zones. Let's say you're doing a training or some kind of a conference and there are 80 people in the room and the room is 60ft by 50ft. You might not have a microphone. You. You might not have speakers. In that case, you do want to project, you do want more energy and more volume than usual, especially if it's a relatively brief presentation. If you do that too long, you're going to wear yourself out. You'll do damage to your vocal cords as well. So you've got to look at every situation independently. Practice, but practice on video. I'm going to make a wild assessment here, Alina, that as experienced as you are and as professional as you are, you're not necessarily practicing on video. You need to know exactly how you're coming across. Not just audio too. You need to see if you're way too animated and way too energetic. That can seem weird to people. I have to tell you, that's a pretty rare problem to have. The far more common problem is too low energy, too flat, too boring, too monotone. I'll never forget though, and forgive me, because I know I've mentioned this in the last month, but I was in someone's home. It was a business situation. They were giving me client presentation. I had one other work colleague with me. We were sitting on the guy's couch and he showed a PowerPoint presentation. This is related to book publishing. And he gave a speech as if he were on a stage in front of 5,000 people. He had gigantic arm gestures and he's two feet away from us in his living room. He, he's practically yelling over the volume of music clips that he had in his PowerPoint presentation, which frankly were totally irrelevant to anything. And it was the most wildly out of sync thing I've ever seen. I frankly thought it was an awful presentation and I could tell he thought it was fantastic. And I do think for some audience, if he'd been in a room with a thousand people or 500 people, and he did it exactly the same way, that many people would have taken away a positive sense of what it was about. Many people would have given him high marks as a presenter, but when he's standing in front of two people who are sitting in front of him two feet away, it was awful. My final bit of recommendation for you, Alina, is I stressed it earlier, I'll stress it again. Don't guess, don't wonder. And I appreciate you writing to me, but I can't help you nearly as much as you can help yourself simply by studying the video of how you came across when you actually gave the speech. And if you want to take it up a notch, ask a friend to hold the cell phone or even bring a camcorder on a tripod. Camcorders are really cheap these days. Tripods are $20 and that way the person could actually scan the audience occasionally and get a few different angles Watch the video One of the reasons why I'm really comfortable when I speak is I've seen a tremendous number of my own speeches so I know how I'm coming across. Am I the best speaker in the world? No. Do I get a wonderful standing ovation every single time? No. But I'm pretty sure there's no problem with my voice energy modulation because I've seen exactly how I come across in front of large audiences and small audiences. Do I watch every single video of every single speech? No. But I've watched huge percentage of them and at this point I've watched countless speeches, so I know how I'm coming across. I know how I'm coming across in real time because I've seen it on video so many times. So that's really my recommendation for you. Practice on video before the speech. Then have your speech videotaped and analyze it carefully. Continue to ask feedback from friends and colleagues, but really judge for yourself too by watching. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me today. May all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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