TJ Walker explains why nervous speakers lower their volume on camera, sounding flat and less credible. He recommends recording practice videos to hear yourself, consciously raising your volume from 3/10 to at least 5/10, and using mental imagery like projecting across a noisy restaurant to improve projection and articulation.
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What happens when you stand up, you're getting ready to speak, especially in front of a camera, and then you feel it happening. All of a sudden you're tightening up, your volume goes down, and you know it, but you feel like you can't really do anything. This is just the natural way. And everyone says, act natural, right? It's natural when you're nervous to speak a little quieter. And the problem with speaking quieter with lower volume is it makes you monotone, it makes you flat, it makes you boring. And it's sending a message to people that, hey, I'm kind of nervous here. I'm not really comfortable. Maybe I'm not really credible. Maybe you shouldn't pay attention to me. Is that the message you want to send? No. So until you get to the point where you're speaking daily in front of a camera, you need to realize that this is a hazard that affects almost everyone. You need to prepare for it. The number one way of preparing for it is practicing on video. So if you're doing a job interview on Thursday, practice with a friend or family member on Tuesday, have them interview you. They can call you on any kind of video, zoom, anything like that. Record it, have them actually interview you, and then when you're done, watch it and listen to your volume. Chances are you're going to notice, oh, I've already gotten kind of quiet and silent. That's a little weird. That doesn't work quite right. Do it again. This time, specifically, think of your voice as a volume control. If you were a 3 on a 1 to 10 scale, you want to get to at least 5. No, you don't have to go up to 11 like in the Spinal Tap movie, but you want to get at least in that middle range. So do it again. Rehearse, watch the video. Try to analyze exactly how you did in terms of your volume. If it's not high enough, do it again. If you're not getting the volume you want, you've got to play some tricks on your own brain. Instead of thinking about talking to one friend, perhaps your own age three feet away, think about talking in a noisy restaurant. You're at a table, you that seats 12 people, and it's a restaurant full of people. Everyone's talking, it's noisy, and you have an elderly aunt, grandparent all the way on the other side of the table, and they've asked you a question. You're not going to yell at them, but you are going to project more. You're going to be a little louder, a little more energy. You're going to articulate a little more thoroughly. That is what you, you want. Quite often it takes that level of energy when you're speaking on camera just to get to the point where you sound normal, where you sound relaxed, where you sound comfortable and confident. So you need to calibrate it. If you just wing it and say, well, you know, that's how it happened, you're not going to be happy with the results. If you have to write a term paper in college and you know it's coming and you do a draft and you revise it, edit it, get fe feedback from advisors and others, it's generally going to be a little more polished than if you just had to go in the classroom and dictate an essay right there on the spot. Right. You wouldn't expect that to be as good. It's exactly the same thing with how you look and sound on your video presentation. You need to practice it so you know exactly how the volume is to get it to the right amount of volume, where you sound comfortable, confident, not monotone at all.
