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Is your speaking voice too high?
The short answer is: probably not.
When people say they want their voice to sound lower, what they typically mean is that they want their voice to feel more resonant, warm, rich, and potent. Read on to learn how depth and richness are not necessarily related to a lower pitch, even though that’s how it might appear on the surface.
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Your “tone” might be making you look bad at work
“Don’t use that tone with me!”
“Your performance is good, but there is an issue with your tone.”
“Did you hear that tone in his voice?!”
We communicate tons of information with the tone of our voice. It’s so powerful that if there is incongruence between the tone we use and the words we say, people will believe the tone over the words. Imagine all the ways someone might say, “I’m fine” in a tone that makes it clear they are not, in fact, fine.
A lot of people find their way to me as a coach because they have gotten feedback about their tone being a problem. Let’s look at what that means and how you might choose to adjust it.
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The hidden cost of not hearing live voices
It struck me recently like a lightning bolt: I miss live voices. For almost a year, the vast majority of voices I have heard have come through a speaker. Quarantine has resulted in very little in-person conversation for me, even less without the auditory filter of a mask.
While electronic speakers convey enough auditory information for us to comprehend the words, they do cut out some of the acoustic spectrum so we are hearing only a piece of the true voice coming though them. We get the information and lose some nuance. But there is much more to the problem.
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Kick “stage fright” to the curb in 3 simple steps
Sweaty palms. Dry mouth. Tight throat, Shallow breathing. Pounding heart. Tense shoulders. Butterflies in the stomach.
Do you recognize any of these common elements of stage fright? Congratulations! You are a human!
Now that you have passed the emotional CAPTCHA test, let’s talk more about how these effects of stress and anxiety affect our performance, and what we can do about it.
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