The Sound of Your Voice | "Invest in Your Voice" Article

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Invest in Your Voice
By Dr. Carol Fleming

Are your financial statements forlorn? Are you showing little profit and lots of loss? Did you lose your job? This means you have some time on your hands, time you could invest in developing your personal communication skills. You've always wanted to do this, but you've never had the time, right? Now may be just that time you've been waiting for.

You're probably unsure about what you should be doing that would pay off for you. This is where I come in. Here are six very positive steps you can take that will move you toward excellent communication skills. You will notice that none of them involve reading a book. The only way for you to successfully influence your communication behavior is to actively involve yourself in the physical activities that underlie speaking, meaning you have to do something not read something.

1. Get a professional Communication Skills Evaluation to start with:

You'll find out what you're good at already, and
You'll identify exactly the areas that could use improvement.

In my experience, people have very little knowledge of their personal impact and are unable to set appropriate improvement goals. Please seek out an objective, skilled professional person to get valid feedback.

2. Do-it-yourself speech/voice evaluation, using my audio tapes

The Sound of Your Voice tapes will help to guide your listening. Hearing yourself on a tape recorder is not for sissies, true, but there is a lot of information on my tapes to guide your improvement efforts. The point is to actually listen to yourself to figure out what you would like to change. If you are short on cash but long on motivation, this is a good option for you.

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3. Make a dent in your stage fright.

Visit some Toastmasters International meetings to find a group that will help you develop your presentation skills. You can locate clubs in your area by going to http://www.toastmasters.org on the Internet. I found 64 such groups in Sacramento alone. This should tell you something about the need for this kind of experience. I frequently ask some of my clients to join a group so they'll have additional opportunities to practice some of the skills I am teaching them. The cost is low and the group support is high, so give it a try to get you started on developing your presentation skills. You know how important it is to speak well in public.

4. Sing! Yes, you!

Get that voice to operate in a church choir, community group or in private lessons. The voice you sing with is the same voice that you speak with. You can develop greater tonal support and pitch range, breath control and clarity of articulation by utilizing the principles that underlie singing. I have found that people try to do all their talking with the consonants of speaking and are starving the vowels of support and distinctive color. Those who give only minimal effort to vowel realization are truly shocked when they are shown how to produce a proper vowel. Singing instruction would allow you to experience these resonant qualities so you could transfer them to your speaking voice.

5. Find an improvisation group and experience new ways of responding to life.

Here in the Bay Area we are blessed with marvelously gifted "improv" leaders who can help you get out of the shell of your habits and fears to explore possibilities of expressiveness. There is an exhilarating joy of overcoming your apprehensions and inhibitions and discovering the sheer fun of play and spontaneity. I frequently have clients who are markedly reserved and controlled. You sometimes call them stuffed shirts. You just might be that stuffed shirt and want to be perceived as being more approachable and relaxed but, somehow, you got locked in that personality straitjacket. Maybe you're ready to bust out, at least a little bit. When I want to help someone increase their general expressiveness, I get them into an "improv" group. Try it. You'll thank me for this.

6. Start a play-reading group or better yet, join a small community theater group.

When you are pretending to be somebody else you may well be able to find styles of expression that aren't available to you in the course of your usual talking. A community 'little theater" would provide you with structured opportunity and some coaching and feedback to help you develop your voice and expressiveness. And it does wonders for projection problems!

If you frequently need to make oral reports, or read aloud at meetings, you would do well to learn how to read clearly and expressively. This means to read for the meaning being expressed rather than just reading the words on the page. You want to be more than just a mechanism that turns written words into sounds. The human voice provides dynamic variation that turns the dull and deadly into the interesting and pertinent. This is what actors do when they pick up a script. You can do it, too. I use a variety of scenes from plays to get clients to increase their expressive range.

Of course I choose characters and situations that should bring out the qualities the individual wants to develop. Sometimes a greater maturity is desired, a lower voice, slower speech, greater authority, etc. I select the character and guide the person in the portrayal that shows these qualities. When a certain degree of success is achieved, we tape record the production so the person can hear how they have changed their speaking style and can evaluate how it sounds. If they are pleased, we go on to incorporate this style into their personal repertoire.

If your community lacks a 'little theater' option for you, get some friends together, agree on a play or a scene, pass out the parts and get into it. I can't tell you how much fun this is. Good luck!

Contact us today to discuss how our workshops, coaching and training products can improve your Personal Professionalism and Communication Impact.

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