TJ Walker says lowering your voice to sound authoritative backfires: it kills pitch variation, reduces volume, and makes people tune out. Use your full vocal range instead—vary pitch, volume, speed, and pauses—to sound genuinely confident and keep people listening.
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We all want to sound more authoritative, right? And what spells out authority more than a deep, low, powerful voice? So if you want to speak to people and come across with more authority, more confidence, shouldn't you lower your voice? After all, Elizabeth Holmes raised an absolute fortune, billions of dollars for her company, and she spoke like this, in a low, deep voice, even though it wasn't her real voice. So shouldn't you do that? No, don't do that. And it's not because you may end up in jail like Elizabeth Holmes, but it is because it's acting. And unless you're a trained actor, it's going to be really easy to sound like a bad actor. Here's the problem. If you try to artificially lower your voice, people can spot it. Like, who does this person think he is? Who does she think he is? So many people around the world these days are great at spotting good acting because we all have access to the best movies ever on Netflix and other streaming services. We also know bad acting when we see it, because we've all seen bad sitcoms, bad movies. And this is when we see actors who train for years and years and years, sometimes have master's degrees on acting, we can still spot bad acting. So if you try to speak in a lower register in your voice, it's going to seem phony, it's going to seem contrived, and you're going to undercut your authority. So I do not recommend that you try to sound more serious, more professional by speaking in a lower tone of voice. It doesn't work. The other big problem with trying to lower your voice is, is it sets off a negative chain reaction in other aspects of what people hear. When you intentionally lower your voice, you're making yourself more monotone. Hear the way I said that. You're making yourself more monotone. Hear the different levels of the scale I'm using. If I tried to say that in a low tone of voice, it would be like you're making yourself sound more monotone. It's all down here. It's boring. One of the biggest problems speakers have anywhere and everywhere is everyone's got all these distractions. Everyone can go to plan B. If they hear you speak, check out their cell phone. So if you bore them, they're going to leave you. They're going to check out. That's the problem with a monotone. And trying to speak in a lower register. Trying to deepen your voice is going to make you sound monotone, and that makes it easier for people to ignore you. If you want to be more successful, then improve your communication skills. The best way to do that, Smash the subscribe button right now. You do not want that. The other problem, when you speak in a lower tone of voice, typically you lower the volume without even realizing it. If you lower the volume and you're more monotone, it's simply harder for people to hear you. It's harder for people to focus on what you're saying, is therefore easier for them to ignore you and to start playing with their phone, daydreaming about what they're going to do Friday night. You don't want that. Now, I'm all in favor of you using your voice in the most effective way possible to communicate authority, authenticity, confidence. So, yes, it's great that you want to improve your voice, but the number one way to use your voice effectively is to use the full range of your voice. Don't be afraid to occasionally speak high. Don't be afraid to occasionally speak with low volume. Don't be afraid to occasionally speak a little faster to convey excitement. And don't be afraid to occasionally pause to let an idea settle to sink in, to give people a chance to reflect on what you said. The real secret to using your voice effectively is to use every aspect of it. The full range of it. The highs, the lows, the fast, the slows, the louds, the softs. That's what makes someone interesting to listen to. Number one thing your voice does is convey information to people in a way that's interesting to them. Anything that's monotonous, that that's too consistent fails that test. That's the problem with, for example, reading a PowerPoint to people. As you can see on this next slide, I have bullet point one and bullet point two, it creates. That's the problem with trying to read a script if you're not a professional news anchor who reads scripts from teleprompters three hours a day. So I beg you, do not read a script in front of people unless you want to spend about 10 hours rehearsing it. You want to use the full range of your voice. That will make you sound conversational. Why do you want to sound conversational? Because there's constant variation. We've all had conversations with friends or family members that might go on for 10 hours if you're in a car trip somewhere. And it's never boring because there's constant variety. And yet we've all heard speakers that within 10 seconds were practically asleep because their tone of voice is consistent. It's too consistent in the volume in the pitch in the depth in the pausing. Everything is so consistent. And that is the kiss of death when it comes to using your voice. And no, you don't sound more authoritative. Lowering your voice Now. A lot of men want to be more macho, so they I better talk with a low voice. Don't try that. You're not fooling anyone. Women feel that there's discrimination in the world. And yes, of course there's discrimination. Women sometimes feel like men don't take them seriously because of a high pitched voice. And I can't tell you that's never happened. But it's far more important to be interesting with what you say, have interesting ideas, interesting examples, interesting stories, and talk about it in a conversational way that's much more effective than artificially lowering your voice.
