Videos

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Voice Training: Can I Really Change My Voice?

Many people admit to disliking the sound of their own voice. The issue is made more frustrating by the common assumption that there’s nothing you can do to change it, that you’re born with that voice and therefore stuck with it. While there certainly are certain aspects of your voice that are inherited and part of your physiology, there is a substantial part of your voice that’s learned and reinforced by habit. Those behaviours can be changed with practice and the development of good technique. Everyone can have a good speaking voice.

Voice Training: 3 Focusing Questions

Voice training takes a lot of practice, and it’s very easy to just go through the motions. But successful skill-building requires more than just repetition. It demands focus. Here are three focusing questions to consider at the end of each voice training session. They will help you coach yourself.

The Most Neglected Speaking Skills

After twenty years helping people improve their speaking skills, it’s easy to identify the most common techniques that are usually missing for the average public speaker or presenter. You can probably guess most of them, and yet few people are actually putting them into practice. Here are five public speaking skills that, if implemented, will put you far out in front of the majority of your peers.

Concise Communication Skills

Your ability to be concise and to the point is an important part of strong communication skills. Rambling and getting into too many details confuses and frustrates your listeners and makes you less credible as a speaker. The ability to communicate clearly and concisely will enhance your image and earn the respect of your friends and colleagues. Here are four strategies to help cultivate concise communication skills.

How to Stop Talking Too Loudly

Speaking with a voice that’s always too loud effects your personal and professional life. If you’re a loud talker you’re probably sick of being shushed or told to use your indoor voice. Here are two strategies for dialling down the volume of your speaking voice in a way that feels natural and gives some relief to those around you.

Action Triggers: Creating Fast Habits

Action Triggers are a practical and powerful tool to help you make faster progress in voice training. Peter Gollwitzer claims it’s essentially a way to create instant habits. Research shows that action triggers can make you 75% more successful than people who don’t use them. They’re easy to implement and have a lasting effect on your behaviour. If you want to make your voice training as effective as possible you should be leveraging action triggers.

Voice Training: Dealing with Resistance

When you first get started with voice training you’re probably excited, enthusiastic and optimistic about improving your speaking voice, but you might not be expecting to confront your own resistance to change. Learning to recognize and effectively handle resistance is critical to the long-term success of your voice training.

Public Speaking: Should I Move Around

When you’re speaking in public or giving a presentation, it’s often hard to know what to do with your body. Should you stand still or move around? Speakers often pace around, believing it helps calm their nerves and keep the attention of their audience. But does it, really? Movement can be a powerful tool for a presenter. There are benefits to using it wisely and consequences for employing it indiscriminately.

Stop My Voice from Shaking! – Public Speaking and a Trembling Voice

Don’t you just hate it when you’re speaking in public and your voice starts shaking? There’s nothing that screams NERVOUS!! like a trembling voice. Trying to control a quivering voice just makes it worse. Here are three broad techniques that enable you to channel that energy constructively.

Mouth-Breath Benefits for Speakers

In a previous video I addressed the common question, “When I speak, should I breathe through my mouth or through my nose,” but I forgot to discuss the very practical benefits you might experience by cultivating a mouth-breath when you’re speaking. This video attempts to fill that gap, along with a personal story about mouth-breathing and my development as a voice coach.

Should I Breathe Through My Mouth or Through My Nose?

I constantly get this question in the comments to my videos, “When I’m speaking, should I breathe through my mouth or through my nose?” The answer is pretty obvious, but we just don’t realize it when we’re focused on a conversation. Here are three reasons why a mouth breath is more effective for speaking than a nose breath.

Voice Training: Trying Too Hard

Voice students without supervision often end up working too hard. This results in tension that makes the voice sound flat, hard and lifeless. Voice training aims to produce maximum sound with a minimum amount of effort. Learning to work with your voice, rather than pushing your voice, enables you to sound good, feel good and engage others.

Voice Training: Breath Holding

Breath-holding is one of those unnoticed habits that presents a real obstacle to your speaking voice. It closes you up, stops your flow and gets you into your head. Cultivating uninterrupted breath flow can make the difference between feeling blocked and jammed up as a speaker or being open, connected and fully engaged.

Listener-Centered Presentation: The Performance Stage

It’s so easy to feel self-conscious when you deliver a speech or presentation. After all, everyone is watching and listening to you. But the ultimate objective of any presentation is to deliver a message to your listeners as effectively as possible. Here are three strategies to help you keep your audience as the primary focus of your speech or presentation.

Listener-Centered Presentation: The Preparation Stage

Public Speaking: Just Get Through It

Voice Training: Nasal Resonance

Public Speaking: Freedom versus Formulas

Voice Training: Managing Expectations

Voice Training: The First 20 Hours

Public Speaking: 3 Cures for Fast Speech

Communication Skills: Clarity

Public Speaking: Time to Practice

Voice Training: Your Strong Voice

Voice Training: Silent In-Breath

Voice Training: What’s the Best Exercise

Speaking Skills: Slowing Your In-Breath

Public Speaking: Feeling vs Words

Voice Training: Making an Impact

Voice Training: Tired Vocal Cords

How to Make Your Voice Deeper

Voice Training: Back Breathing

Voice Training: My Favorite Voice Exercise

Communication Skills: Mumbling

Overcoming Stage Fright

Dealing with Failure: An Essential for Effective Practice

Optimum Pitch for Speaking

Presentation Skills: Being Open

Presentation Skills: 5 Presentation Crimes

Voice Lessons: Being Like A Bell

Presentation Skills: Creating an Experience

Presentation Skills: Tips versus Training

Preparing an Effective Presentation

Five-Minute Vocal Warm Up Exercises

Keep It Short: Antidotes for Going Over Time

Voice Projection

Credibility: How to Be a Credible Speaker

Female Voices: Common Speech Problems for Women

Voice for Men: Common Male Voice Problems

The Pause: So How Do You Pause?

Project Confidence: Making Your Voice Sound Confident

Posture: The Problem with Posture

Communication Skills: Speaking with Authenticity

Voice Health: Vocal Health Tips

Voice Lessons: Feeling Sound

Ums and Filler Words

Presentation Skills: Choosing Your Task

Vocal Fry: Eliminating Vocal Fry

Communication Skills: Monotone Speakers

Seated Presentation Skills: Tips for Presentation from a Chair

Crucial Speaking Skills: Resonance

Lower Back Pain: My Experience with Network Spinal Analysis

Breathing Exercises: Breathing Relaxation Techniques

KISS My Simple Presentation Skills

Voice Training: Do You Need a Vocal Coach?

Voice Exercises: The Three-Stage Breath

Voice Exercises: The Lip Flutter

Proper Breathing: There’s No “Right” Place to Breathe

SPEAKER NOTES: Creating Effective Presentation Notes

SMART PRACTICE: Strategies for Effective Practice

FAST TALKING: Thoughts for Those Who Talk Fast

A Voice Exercise: Stretching Your Tongue

BREATHING EXERCISE: Another Favorite

Here’s a simple breathing exercise to help you speak in a more open and generous manner. It’s one of my favorite exercises (I like the simple ones), and it’s a favorite of many clients.

CRUCIAL SKILL #1: Grounding

Grounding is one of the most crucial physical skills related to public speaking. Here’s a recent video on the topic.

DROPPING PHRASES: Strategies to Prevent Trail Off

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