TJ Walker explains why you shouldn't artificially deepen your voice when speaking. Instead, vary your volume and pace, stay conversational, and focus on making your message clear and memorable. Most voices work fine if you use them right.
Chapters
How do you use your voice effectively when giving a speech? Now, did you notice? I didn't say so how do you.
Use your voice effectively during a speech?
I didn't try to artificially sound deeper than I am. I just tried to sound conversational. There's this whole school of thought out there that says in order to be believable, authoritative, you need a deep voice. Frankly, I don't believe it. And in my real world observation of effective speakers everywhere, it's simply not true. The number one thing that is important with your voice is that you sound real, that you sound believable, that you sound conversational. Most Americans, and indeed most people in developed nations, have seen thousands of hours of tv, movies, entertainment programming. So people are used to watching good actors, they're also used to watching bad actors.
So if all of a sudden you start to talk as though you sound like you're really important, or you're lowering.
Your tone of voice, it's going to sound fake, it's going to sound phony. The best thing to do with your voice is to do what you do when you're just having a friendly conversation with one buddy over a beer or wine or whatever your beverage of choice is while talking about some hobby or sport you care about. And that is sometimes you speak a little louder, sometimes softer, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. And occasionally you pause. That's what makes someone sound conversational. The problem with many speakers is you're.
In order to sound professional and smooth, everything starts to come out the same speed, the same tone, the same volume. And there are no pauses because they want to finish.
Horrible. That lulls people to sleep. There may be times when you have a larger audience, there's no microphone, and you do have to project some. But ideally, if there's more than 30 people in the room, you've got a microphone. And that way you can just sound conversational. You don't have to yell like this. Can you start talking like this? It's mono tone and it's very irritating to people. So try to use a conversational tone of voice. What do you do if you hate your voice? Well, guess what? Most people hate the sound of their own voice. And that's because we hear our own voice all day long, distorted through the bones in our skull. So when we hear our voice coming through speakers, whether it's a voicemail, a television, we're hearing it relatively non distorted, much less distorted than hearing it through our own ears through our skull. And the problem is it's not our self image of our voice. So it is disorienting. But in my experience, very few people. I've had more than 10,000 clients over the last 30 years. I think I've had one client who genuinely had an awful voice. Everyone else's voice is perfectly fine. They are tiny, teeny tiny. Less than 0.01% of speakers of the world who have voices so powerful, so distinctive, so likable, so memorable that they can roll out of bed at noon, record a tv, a radio commercial, get a million dollar check and go to the beach. That's not me. It's not most people, frankly. Not anybody I know. And then there's the other 0.0001% where it's just so awful people will jump off the balcony to get away from you. And then there's the other 99 point whatever percent left where their voices are serviceable. They're not the most memorable or distinctive. Some are a little more pleasant than others, but for the most part, it's just a voice. That's the category I put my own in. That's the category yours is likely in. So just get over it, get used to it. Finally, think of all the people who are wildly successful who have awful voices. Ben Stein of Ferris Bueller day off fame. And when Ben Stein's money, notoriously monotone, has made tens of millions of dollars off of his voice. Fran Drescher, the nanny with the queen's accent. Wildly successful Barbara Walters speech impediment. Lisp. Winston Churchill, not exactly a slouch. Speech impediment and a stutter. Still very successful in his chosen career. So I would ask you to make sure people can hear you, make sure you sound as conversational as possible. But after that, focus on having interesting, relevant, memorable messages.
