The Art of Manliness - #506： How to Improve Your Speaking Voice

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:10.800 And when it comes to your personal presentation, there's one aspect that often gets overlooked,

00:00:15.240 your voice. Your voice is a big part of what makes you you and what makes you likable,

00:00:19.340 influential, yet you probably don't think much about it. Not to mention, my guest day argues

00:00:23.700 that you're likely not even using your true voice thanks to bad habits you picked up throughout

00:00:27.860 your life. His name is Roger Love. He's a voice coach who's worked with some of the world's most

00:00:31.620 famous singers and speakers and the author of the book, Set Your Voice Free. Today on the show,

00:00:35.840 Roger explains why having a clear, confident, pleasant speaking voice is important for success

00:00:39.820 in your career and in your life, the biggest ways people sabotage their voice, including voice fry,

00:00:44.300 uptalk, and being nasally, and how these issues can be addressed and eliminated. And Roger also

00:00:48.560 shares how to speak in a more masculine way while you're probably not speaking loudly enough.

00:00:52.680 After the show is over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash voice.

00:00:56.600 Roger joins me now via clearcast.io.

00:01:10.200 Roger Love, welcome to the show.

00:01:12.140 Thank you so much for having me.

00:01:13.680 So you are a vocal coach and you've written a book called Set Your Voice Free,

00:01:19.240 how to get the singing or speaking voice you want. How did you get, how did you become a vocal coach?

00:01:24.000 Is that something like when you were eight, like you're like, I want to be a vocal coach? Or did

00:01:27.820 you, did it sort of happen organically? It happened organically. I was really interested

00:01:33.200 in singing, all things singing. So when I was 13 years old, I had convinced my mother to take me to

00:01:39.720 have lessons from the most famous voice coach in the world. And when I was 16 years old, he left for

00:01:47.380 Canada to teach a masterclass and he didn't have anybody to take over the studio. So he just casually

00:01:52.860 asked me if I wanted to take over the studio on Monday. And I casually told him that I had no idea

00:01:59.920 how to teach, that I was just doing my best to become a good student. He said, don't let that worry

00:02:06.100 you because I'm going to pay you hundreds of dollars an hour. And I couldn't wait to get over to that

00:02:12.280 studio on Monday fast enough. So I showed up as a novice voice coach, never having been trained as a

00:02:19.460 voice coach. And my first day I was voice coaching the beach boys and, and, and earth went in fire and

00:02:26.260 Stevie wonder and all of these incredible super groups that he had already had as students.

00:02:32.840 That's great. Was that intimidating?

00:02:34.940 Can you even imagine one by one, the biggest singing stars in the world came into the studio.

00:02:41.840 And every single time I thought I should just let them know that I know nothing and we should just

00:02:48.840 end right there. But I, I literally faked it. And what happened was a miracle and surprised me just

00:02:56.500 as much as anyone. Six months later, when he came back, every single one of his students wanted to

00:03:01.940 study with me. They wanted to stay with me because we found that I had an ability to listen to people's

00:03:08.060 voices and then make changes to make them better. So are most of your clients, are they singers or do

00:03:14.480 you also work with public figures who they don't sing, but they do public speaking for 17 years?

00:03:20.900 I stayed as a junior partner with that teacher and only taught singers. And I still have about 50% of

00:03:29.620 my roster as singers, but along the line, speakers started coming to me. People like Anthony Robbins and

00:03:37.000 Susie Orman and actors like Reese Witherspoon and Jeff Bridges. And they wanted me to work on their

00:03:42.500 speaking voices sometimes. So in the beginning, I literally turned them away because I considered

00:03:49.720 myself only a singing teacher. And through the process of me taking them as students and learning

00:03:56.940 what I needed to learn and create content that I needed to create, I realized that there's really

00:04:01.940 no difference at all between speaking and singing. And that I had gotten very, very good at helping

00:04:10.380 singers open up their mouths and influence millions of people. And that I realized I could do the same

00:04:16.820 thing for speakers. 0.97

00:04:18.820 Well, that's counterintuitive that singing and speaking are the same because most people think,

00:04:22.820 okay, I can understand a vocal coach for a singer, but speaking, like that's something you do every day.

00:04:27.660 You've been doing it since you were, I don't know, one. So what, how is it that, like, why do people

00:04:34.180 need, why would people need a voice coach? Like what, what, what goes on with when the way we speak

00:04:39.560 that we develop bad habits and things like that?

00:04:41.600 Well, here's the thing. People believe that they are the voices, the speaking voices that they were born

00:04:48.100 with. But the truth is it's not true. What happens is as we grow from babies, we just imitate the sounds

00:04:56.740 that we hear. And so if mommy speaks with a really nasal voice and I really want to get breast milk, 1.00

00:05:04.300 well, then I say, hungry, hungry. And if dad speaks with a really airy voice and I want to be carried all

00:05:10.500 the time, I say, up, up. So we imitate the sounds that we hear as we learn language and that's our way to

00:05:19.420 survive. And then suddenly we're adults and we think that's the voice that we were born with, that voice

00:05:26.380 that we hate on our voicemail message, that voice that doesn't seem to be getting us where we want in our

00:05:32.000 careers or in our personal lives. We think that's the voice we were born with. But I teach people that you can just

00:05:38.400 decide from today. You don't like your voice, it's not working for you, and you can learn how to use

00:05:44.880 it so that your voice becomes your greatest communication asset that you could ever have.

00:05:51.540 Yeah, a lot of people don't talk about it, but there's a lot of people who don't like their voice.

00:05:55.020 If they hear the recording of themselves, like, oh boy, I don't like that at all.

00:05:58.420 Join the group. About 95%, if not higher, of the people who listen to their voicemail message,

00:06:04.520 even after they've bought a brand new, really expensive phone, they listen to it and they're

00:06:10.560 like, ugh, who's that? And then they try to re-record it. And then they still don't like it.

00:06:16.460 And they try and try and try. And about 30 minutes later, your average person says,

00:06:21.460 I'm an executive. This is ridiculous. I can't possibly spend any more time recording this silly 0.99

00:06:27.640 message. And then you settle and you leave your phone alone. Well, that voice that you don't like 0.90

00:06:35.320 that you settled with on your voicemail message is the voice you're using all through your business

00:06:41.500 dealings, all through your personal dealings. And maybe other people don't like it that much either.

00:06:46.960 And that's the hard thing about voice because you use it all the time. So there's a disconnect.

00:06:52.120 You don't notice it until you actually listen to it as a third party.

00:06:56.020 That's right. We're not in the habit of recording our voices. But we also don't realize that the

00:07:02.720 sounds we make are making people believe us or like us. This is so interesting because in 2017,

00:07:12.420 Yale did a groundbreaking study to try to prove once and for all, when I speak to you or you speak to me,

00:07:19.900 what makes me believe you and like you? And they found after interviewing and studying hundreds and

00:07:28.820 thousands of people, they realized that we've learned to lie with our words. So you can't trust

00:07:36.280 what people say and that we've learned to lie with our physicality and our body language. So if you're

00:07:42.320 miserable and you put a smile on your face, you think you're convincing the person you're talking to

00:07:47.620 that you are the happiest person in the world, but you're not because words lie and body language

00:07:53.940 lies. But the study proved that the only thing that people believe are the sounds of your voice.

00:08:02.560 Somehow people can perceive whether you're telling the truth, whether you're honest, and whether you're

00:08:08.640 likable and believable just from the sounds of your voice.

00:08:13.080 That's powerful stuff. So it pays to think about it a bit. So you mentioned the way we develop these bad

00:08:19.860 habits, vocal habits, is just imitation. We imitate our parents, we imitate friends, we might even imitate

00:08:25.760 people we watch on TV. In your course of working with people, what are the most common bad vocal habits

00:08:32.080 you see? So you mentioned speaking with an airy. Is that a bad habit, speaking with an airy voice?

00:08:36.580 Some people think that speaking with air is speaking because you care. So you go to a psychologist and

00:08:44.520 they say, it's all about you. Roger, talk to me, talk to me. And they get all airy. And though the

00:08:51.400 airy sound might sometimes work in the bedroom, it does not work in the boardroom because air, when it

00:08:58.640 comes out of your mouth, dissipates in the air. And when people are listening to airy voices, they're just

00:09:05.680 thinking weakness. They're not thinking love. They're thinking lack of strength. So airiness is

00:09:12.360 one. Here's a couple of other things that people need to immediately think about their own voice and

00:09:18.600 then make the changes. We were taught when we speak to get to a comma or a period and then go down. So I'm

00:09:27.640 speaking and then I get to a comma. And I go down in volume and I go down in pitch to a lower note. So

00:09:35.440 every time I'm speaking and I get to a comma, I go down or I get to a period and I go down.

00:09:42.020 But here's why that is absolutely crazy. And we should have never been told that when you go down,

00:09:49.120 when the melody goes down from highs to lows, it makes people sad. Check this out. I love my wife.

00:09:58.120 It's my birthday. I didn't get any presents. So when I go down, it makes me sound sad. And then it

00:10:09.740 makes you sound sad. And it makes you feel sad. And yet that's what people are doing. We're not

00:10:16.140 supposed to go down all the time. Can you imagine telling Mozart that every time he, before he got to

00:10:21.320 rest, he'd have to go down in his melody. Nobody would tell Mozart that nobody would even tell Ariana

00:10:27.060 Grande that. So, so the melodies create emotions on the other side. If you just went up, I love my

00:10:35.220 wife. I love my dog. I love chocolate going up makes people happy. So how many people listening today

00:10:44.140 are going down at commas and then wondering why people are falling asleep or getting sad when they're

00:10:50.960 listening to them? No, that's interesting. So related to that, one thing I've noticed in the

00:10:54.780 past few years is this like this idea of up talk. Is that when you go up, like it's whenever, whenever

00:11:00.400 people do it, it's like, I love this. And it, it like, it turns like a statement. It makes it sound

00:11:06.680 like a question. Perfect. I'm so glad you asked that question because there's a difference between up

00:11:13.240 talk and going up in melody. And let me show you how simple it is. If you slide from one note to the

00:11:21.540 next, you like chocolate. It's my birthday. I'm okay. That's bad. But if you don't slide and you just

00:11:33.560 say, it's my birthday. I like chocolate. If you just go up instead of slide, then it's only bad if you

00:11:42.940 slide. And all those articles were written by non-musicians who didn't really understand how

00:11:49.360 emotion and music create thoughts. So you're absolutely allowed to go up. You just can't slide.

00:11:58.700 Like, how do you think that started? I mean, I've just, I've noticed it in like the past five years,

00:12:03.340 particularly young people do the slide thing. The, the origins that I believe are from the San

00:12:09.640 Fernando Valley in California where Frank Zappa had a daughter named moon unit Zappa. And she used

00:12:16.240 to speak like that and she would slide. That's okay. Let's go. And then she actually became a 0.87

00:12:24.440 celebrity. One of the first media celebrities, at least a daughter celebrity. And then that voice 0.80

00:12:30.080 became known as Valley talk before it was known as up talk. But I'm dispelling the myth that going up

00:12:38.320 is bad. As long as you don't slide going up is amazing. When I go up, I'm signaling to the listener

00:12:47.160 that I'm not finished. So they don't interrupt me. And how many people are sick and tired of being

00:12:55.260 interrupted? And the only reason they're being interrupted is because they're going down. And

00:13:00.440 when you go down, the other person you're speaking to thinks that you're done. So of course they jump in.

00:13:07.140 So if you don't want to be interrupted anymore and you don't want to make people sad,

00:13:11.060 you better learn the difference between Valley talk and just going up in melody called ascending

00:13:18.040 melodies. That's fantastic. That's an example of how singing is the same as speaking.

00:13:22.540 Exactly right. When you think about it, singing and speaking, what we use the same vocal chords,

00:13:28.020 we use the same control over air. And when a singer sings, they have melody so that there's a melody line.

00:13:35.320 Well, when we speak, we should have a melody line better than the ones most of us are using.

00:13:40.740 Because as I just showed you, most people are doing melodies that go down, melodies that go down all

00:13:45.520 the time. So we have melody. A singer has volume changes. Sometimes it's loud and sometimes it's

00:13:51.780 soft. And we should do the same thing for speaking. A singer gets loud sometimes, sorry, a singer gets 0.82

00:13:57.740 fast sometimes. And slow sometimes. And we should do the same thing for speaking. So when you think

00:14:05.860 about it, almost every variable that exists in singing, pitch, pace, tone, melody, and volume,

00:14:15.060 they should be considerations in the speaking voice. But here's the problem. You and I weren't born with

00:14:22.160 the manual that told us how to use our voices. I didn't get one. There was one missing from my crib.

00:14:28.280 And you have a nice voice, but I bet you didn't get one either. So I've spent my life writing the

00:14:33.940 manual of what people should use their voices to achieve. And if they want to influence people,

00:14:41.040 and if they want to be perceived a certain way, and if they want to have great relationships with

00:14:46.860 themselves and with other people, and they want to have great business dealings, and they want to be

00:14:51.520 able to get into an elevator and in three floors, make a pitch that turns into a great business,

00:14:57.300 then they need to start thinking about their voice and stop worrying about a lot of the other things

00:15:03.980 they're worried about. Well, so another common complaint that people have about their voice

00:15:08.380 is like, well, I just, I'm very nasally. And they think, well, it's just the way I am. There's nothing I

00:15:13.060 can do to change about it. So is nasally speaking, is that just a matter of habit? It's not a matter of

00:15:18.480 anatomy, or does anatomy play a role? Anatomy plays the role because as sound heads through

00:15:25.380 the throat and then goes towards the sinuses, the size of your nasal cavity, the size of your

00:15:32.440 nostrils, they play a little role, but it isn't definitive. In other words, no matter, you might

00:15:38.440 have the smallest nose or the biggest nose or the smallest sinuses or the littlest sinuses,

00:15:43.260 but you can immediately get rid of nasality. And let me give you the simplest fix right now.

00:15:49.580 When people have a nasal voice, it's because their Adam's apples are actually too high.

00:15:57.340 So if you put your index finger on your chin and you slide it back down to the first bump that you

00:16:04.980 find, can you find your Adam's apple, Brett? Yes, I'm doing it right now. Okay. Now swallow,

00:16:09.600 whoa. And you'll notice that your Adam's apple jumps up. And then it comes back down. Okay. Most

00:16:16.400 people, when they speak, they let their Adam's apple come up really high. And that's, then that closes up

00:16:23.660 the back part of their throat. And then when the back part of the throat is closed, the air goes

00:16:29.520 towards the sinuses. It's a super simple, easy fix. Put your finger back on your Adam's apple and say,

00:16:36.340 mum, say mum, normal. Mum. Now say mum like Yogi Bear. Mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum. Did you notice

00:16:44.000 how your Adam's apple went down? Yes. Now, if you would, if you had a nasal voice, you don't. If any

00:16:50.720 of your listeners have a nasal voice, they need to put their finger on their Adam's apple. They need to

00:16:56.240 practice for a few minutes with the Adam's apple down, making this Yogi Bear low larynx sound, I call it.

00:17:04.300 And then the Adam's apple just jumps down and the throat opens. So they do this for a few minutes,

00:17:09.740 even though they feel totally silly, but it's telling the Adam's apple to stay down. And then

00:17:15.700 they let go a little bit of the, the Basie sound and let go a little bit more and let go a little

00:17:21.040 bit more, but try to keep their Adam's apple down where their finger is. In a few minutes,

00:17:26.140 after you practice it a few times, you'll learn that you can keep your Adam's apple down and it'll

00:17:32.160 stay there by itself. And when the Adam's apple stays down, when you practice it just a little,

00:17:37.440 your throat sounds open and full and rich and all the nasality goes away.

00:17:42.940 That's amazing. That's a, that's a great tip. And, and is that like that,

00:17:46.300 that you say that's the person's true voice once they get that, they eliminate those bad habits.

00:17:50.080 That's their, their true speaking voice.

00:17:51.660 Great comment. I believe most people have no idea what their true voice is because they're so busy

00:17:57.840 imitating all the people they grew up with. And the only way you find your true voice

00:18:03.120 is to bump heads with somebody like me who says, here, let's do this. Let's learn how to breathe

00:18:10.140 better. Let's learn how to drop your jaw. Let's learn how to go high and low. And it's really simple.

00:18:16.320 And then when you've built an instrument, which takes minutes, then you can find your true voice.

00:18:23.340 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:18:26.680 And now back to the show. I think for a lot of men's the art of manliness podcast,

00:18:31.240 one thing that they're trying, they, they do with their voices. They, they lower it a lot.

00:18:36.840 That might not be their true voice. Correct?

00:18:39.540 Exactly. Right. Here's what happens before puberty,

00:18:42.500 a man and a woman's voice is exactly the same. It hits the same notes on the piano. If I,

00:18:49.720 if you said hello and they said hello, it would be the exact same notes, same frequencies.

00:18:54.980 So that's also why I believe that little boys and little girls get along so well,

00:18:59.340 because when they, they make the same sounds, so they feel very similar. Then puberty happens and

00:19:04.920 a male voice drops an entire octave, which is a huge direction down, lower.

00:19:12.500 And a woman's voice does not drop. So a woman stays on the higher side and a man goes lower. 0.91

00:19:19.560 Well, when that happens, a man usually doesn't even pay any attention to the high parts anymore

00:19:25.860 and just focuses on the bottom part of the range because it's new and it's exciting.

00:19:31.000 And, and, and not only is it already lower than women's voices and already louder and thicker 0.86

00:19:37.880 because it, the chords are longer, but it's, it's, it already sounds different. So most men

00:19:44.940 don't really need to then, well, I'll just make it lower or I'll make it more husky.

00:19:51.300 There it's, it's, it's not true that they need to make it louder and thicker and bassier because

00:19:58.080 it's already in the basement and they're already on the penthouse, but there are sounds that men

00:20:04.860 should learn how to make that don't separate them from women. So point one, yes, that chest voice,

00:20:14.060 that lower part of a man's voice is very appealing. So every man needs to know how to access it and

00:20:21.660 create volume and thickness without any kind of shouting or angry sounds because people don't,

00:20:29.860 do not like listening to people who are shouting and angry, but yes, a man should learn how to find

00:20:35.100 this beautiful, open, low chest voice. But a man who is stuck there all the time ends up scientifically

00:20:44.080 is being proven to be less attractive to women sometimes because not only does the woman, for 0.99

00:20:54.400 example, want to have, hear a sound that proves he can go out and hunt the buffalo and bring it back.

00:21:01.320 A woman also wants to hear sounds in a male voice that shows honesty and trust and caring.

00:21:10.620 So a man who only stays in the very low part of his range and sounds like a caveman is not allowing

00:21:18.000 those caring, loving feelings to actually vibrate against his partner some of the time. Does that

00:21:25.140 make sense? That makes sense. And also I've heard, maybe correct me if I'm wrong, is that if you try to

00:21:30.680 artificially stay down in that very low range, like it can actually damage your, like you can

00:21:35.440 lose your voice. It hurts your vocal cords. Anytime you try to push your voice too low or too high and

00:21:41.340 you create pressure, you can damage your vocal cords. But there are really simple ways to create

00:21:47.800 thickness down at the bottom part of the range. Let me give you one right now. Most men have too much

00:21:53.760 air at the bottom part of the range. So it's not just about being low, but they're low and airy.

00:22:00.680 So the low and airiness is not perceived as manly. It's the low and edginess, that edge sound that is

00:22:10.780 actually perceived as manly. How do you go from air to edge? Because they're both on the same note.

00:22:18.360 Here I am down there low thinking I'm super manly, except it's all airy. And now I add that edge and I

00:22:25.520 really understand what being a man and having a male voice is all about. You do this. Say the word

00:22:31.800 brat. Do that for me, Brett.

00:22:36.520 Brat. 0.89

00:22:38.560 Now, when you did that, that was awesome. When you did that, did you feel like a little

00:22:42.060 buzz, a little rumble in the back part of your throat?

00:22:45.000 I did. 0.82

00:22:46.020 Brat. 0.89

00:22:47.300 Do it again for me. 0.96

00:22:47.960 Brat. 0.89

00:22:51.120 Awesome. As opposed to brat, which sounds all airy, right?

00:22:56.800 Yeah, right.

00:22:58.000 So the difference between brat and brat is that edge sound, the sound of the vocal cords vibrating.

00:23:06.000 We need to learn how to use that edge in every word. So say this for me.

00:23:10.680 I, I, I can, if I want, I can, if I want. Almost. I can, if I want. Edgy all the way through.

00:23:26.680 Here we go. I can. Oh man. I can. No, I'm not doing it. I'm like,

00:23:32.440 but you're closer than you think. Stay down low. I can.

00:23:35.720 I can, if I want. Awesome. Most people listening sound more like this when they're trying to go

00:23:42.960 low. I can, if I want. And then that doesn't sound masculine because air dissipates in the air

00:23:50.340 and has no strength. So you're not going to be able to lift the mountain unless you have some of

00:23:54.600 that edge sound that makes all the difference in the world. It's amazing. Well, here's kind of

00:24:00.080 related. I can see this going that the edge thing going into another voice trend I've seen. And I

00:24:05.660 think it's come out of California as well as the idea of voice fry where you're like,

00:24:10.140 like, you know, it's like the Kardashians do it, but I've also seen, you know, dudes do it as well,

00:24:15.300 where they just like, and they do it with uptalk as well. What, what is voice fry? How is it

00:24:19.640 different from that edge? Okay. Again, great question. Vocal fry happens when the vocal cords 0.96

00:24:26.320 are vibrating with no air. So vocal fry is this. I'm talking to you and then I run out of air and

00:24:35.580 then I feel like I'm getting paid by the word. So I'll just add a few more. And the Kardashians are

00:24:42.080 princes and princesses of this. They run out of air and then it goes to vocal fry. Vocal fry has no

00:24:50.440 air. Vocal edge has air coming out of the mouth. Totally different. Edge fry. Fry sounds like you have a

00:25:02.220 sore throat or a throat infection. You've got no air and you've got no power. Edge has air and

00:25:09.320 thickness and power. Completely different things. We should lose that fry all together. You want to

00:25:17.740 know how to, to lose it? How do you lose it? Just breathe? You're so right. But specifically one

00:25:23.720 thing that you need to do with breathing. Most people, let's do this and have all your listeners

00:25:28.280 listen to this as well. Take a breath on the count of three. One, two, three, a big breath. One, two,

00:25:33.380 three, breathe. Now you're smart, Brett, and you probably let your tummy come forward as if you had

00:25:41.940 a balloon. Yes or no? Correct. But a lot of people let their chest and shoulders go up. That's called

00:25:48.760 accessory breathing. When you breathe, you take a big breath and your shoulders come up and then you

00:25:54.700 exhale and your shoulders come down. But that's the way to get the least amount of air into the body

00:26:00.740 and that's the way to use the air in the worst way because it doesn't give you a good sound.

00:26:08.880 We're supposed to do a thing called diaphragmatic breathing, which means we breathe into our nose,

00:26:14.040 we pretend that we have a balloon in our stomachs, we breathe in, the balloon inflates so it gets bigger,

00:26:20.740 and then all the time we're speaking, we're supposed to be letting our stomachs come in.

00:26:28.040 That's just the same way a car works. You put gas in the engine, you drive by pushing the accelerator

00:26:35.580 pedal. So there's always gas, gasoline getting to the engine and the car runs and wins races.

00:26:42.500 But we don't do that with our breath. We hold our breaths. And if your stomach is not coming in when you

00:26:49.440 speak, that's what creates the vocal fry. That's what creates nasal voice. That's what creates a 0.74

00:26:57.060 small, thin voice. We should learn to only speak while our stomachs are coming in. Take a big breath

00:27:05.160 with me. Pretend you have a balloon in your tummy, take a breath and say, Roger wants me to only speak

00:27:11.400 while my stomach is coming in. Do that with me. Roger only wants me to speak when my stomach is

00:27:17.560 coming in. Great. When you do that, you can't possibly go into vocal fry. And you can't possibly

00:27:24.720 sound like a mouse because that air is pushing the sound out. So you have great volume without

00:27:31.680 sounding angry. Oh, I wanted to talk about that. People don't realize, I already mentioned that when

00:27:37.780 you go down, I love my wife. I like chocolate. When you go down, you sound sad. People think the emotion

00:27:45.700 you're exhibiting is sadness. And when you go up, people think you're happy. But what's the vocal

00:27:52.000 sound of angry? Because men need to really know this. Because women and everyone in general is just sick 1.00

00:28:01.360 and tired of people yelling at them as if they were angry. Nobody likes that. So you might just

00:28:06.880 have a thick, strong voice and people are saying, who are you mad at? Are you mad at me? Why are you

00:28:11.740 arguing with me? Or why are you always trying to mansplain by getting louder? So when there's phrases

00:28:18.040 like mansplaining that's happening in the world, we need to deal with that volume thing. Okay, here's

00:28:24.780 the sounds, the components of angry. When you get louder, but you get faster. When the words get

00:28:32.820 faster and you get louder, those are two elements of angry. So if you get louder and then you get

00:28:40.100 faster while you get louder, and then the third element is you don't have any melody at all. So

00:28:45.460 it's all just one note. So if I get louder and I stand monotone, I don't have any time for notes.

00:28:50.040 This is the only note I'm going to give you. And I speak really fast. It sounds angry. So again,

00:28:56.380 this is all simple stuff. When you sound angry, it's because you're saying the words really fast.

00:29:01.260 You don't have any melody and you're louder. But if you just took one of those ingredients out,

00:29:09.000 you wouldn't sound angry. For example, let's say I was really loud, but I had melody. So I was going up.

00:29:16.680 Well, if I was really loud and I had melody, I don't sound angry at all. I sound happy.

00:29:22.800 So volume, if I mix a little bit of melody in it, immediately takes away all of the anger.

00:29:30.600 Also volume, if I just slow down the words, I don't sound angry anymore. So simple trick,

00:29:40.980 but this, this solves a lot of problems and this will make everyone realize you're not trying to

00:29:48.180 argue with them. All you got to do when you get louder is add a little melody or slow down your

00:29:54.260 words. And then no one will ever think you're angry. Well, in speaking of volume, you write in

00:30:00.220 the book about most people, when they speak, they, they undershoot the volume. They speak

00:30:05.680 quieter than they, than they need to. Yep. Most people are speaking as if they were always on the

00:30:11.700 phone or they always had a microphone right in front of their lips. Even public speakers do that. 1.00

00:30:18.000 They're like, well, I'm going to be miked. So I don't have to make very much volume. But the truth is,

00:30:23.380 is that people don't understand that speaking is supposed to be a physical connection. Let me explain.

00:30:31.100 When I speak to you, my sound leaves my mouth in the form of invisible sound waves. Okay. This isn't

00:30:38.180 science fiction. This is true. And those sound waves exit my mouth. And if I'm a great speaker,

00:30:44.560 those sound waves vibrate your body. So they leave my mouth and then they travel across the air a few

00:30:51.100 feet or however far you are. And they vibrate your body. When you feel my sound, we're actually connected.

00:30:59.020 And then that sound, some of it goes into your ears and goes into your brain and gets processed.

00:31:04.940 But if my voice doesn't physically get over to where you are, we're actually disconnected.

00:31:12.300 We're not connected. This isn't really having a conversation. And most people are speaking

00:31:17.640 in a way with less volume and less edge. So they're, it's like they're talking to themselves.

00:31:23.780 The sound is coming out of their mouths and lucky if the sound is going an inch in front of them,

00:31:30.800 but it isn't going two feet or three feet or six feet, however far away the person is or the people

00:31:37.700 are. So we have to learn to do that because we not only want people to hear us, we want them to feel

00:31:45.420 us. It's a physical thing. Isn't that interesting?

00:31:48.580 That is really interesting. Another issue that people have with speaking, so there's the tone

00:31:53.860 part sounding nasally and things like that, but people also are insecure about their enunciation

00:32:00.620 and how they pronounce things. You know, they say, well, I just speak like I have a bunch of rocks in

00:32:05.340 my mouth. What can people do to get better at that aspect?

00:32:08.840 The number one reason that people mumble and other people can't hear them is because they don't drop

00:32:15.140 their jaw. Eighty-five percent of the population speaks and their upper teeth are too close to their

00:32:23.920 bottom teeth. It's like they're clenching their jaw. They have tension in their jaw. They're not opening

00:32:28.840 their mouths. And so they somehow have learned to speak like ventriloquists and they, they don't move

00:32:34.580 their jaw. They don't drop their jaw and they think they can get all the words like that. But when you

00:32:38.080 don't open your mouth and all the words get all mushed together. So people think it's because they speak

00:32:42.600 too fast. It isn't. It's because they're not dropping their jaw more. You're supposed to drop

00:32:50.520 your jaw when you speak. And then that separates word from word, vowel from consonant. And then

00:32:58.540 people will totally understand you when you learn to drop your jaw more. Super simple. Also, you know

00:33:05.460 what I forgot to mention? We live in a world because you're talking about words now and people don't

00:33:09.840 understand the words. Well, I also wanted to mention that science for the last 50 years has proven that

00:33:17.940 the words you say don't really even matter, but that everyone who's listening to us today is of the mind

00:33:27.380 of thinking that if I had the right words, I could convince this person to hire me. If I had the right

00:33:34.840 words, I could make this company go forward. If I had the right words, this person would go out with

00:33:41.680 me. This person would marry me if I had the right words. But science proves now that the words matter

00:33:48.580 the least and that the sounds of your voice matter infinitely more than the words you use. So those

00:33:58.060 people that are still just trying to learn the right words, they're already behind the eight ball. You need

00:34:02.940 to learn what sounds to make so that people feel things when they hear you. Nobody's going to

00:34:08.700 remember the words you use, but they will remember the way you made them feel. And you can only do that

00:34:16.080 with the sounds of your voice. And this doesn't take a lot of practice, a lot of time. Some people

00:34:22.340 think, well, if I'm going to improve my voice, I'm going to have to dedicate hours a week. Do you need

00:34:26.280 to do that? No, that's what's great about it. You want to learn how to play an instrument like the

00:34:30.520 piano? You better set aside six, 10, 12 hours a day to practice piano. If you want to be an amazing

00:34:36.600 pianist voice is so easy to change because I immediately break all of the bad habits that

00:34:44.720 people have. And when you just break a few of the bad habits, boom, all of a sudden the true voice

00:34:51.100 starts coming out. And I have people do what are called vocal warmups, super fun sounds that they do

00:34:58.620 for minutes, a few times, a few times during the week, just two or three times a day, two or three

00:35:06.660 times a week, once a day. And they're super fun and they warm up the voice. And after a few minutes,

00:35:14.040 you feel like your voice is an instrument and you can play it. And everyone else seems to be

00:35:20.220 wanting to hear you because they're, they're realizing that you're suddenly speaking their favorite tune.

00:35:25.840 So what does that look, what does that sound like? Exercises are fun, like gug, gug, gug, gug, gug, gug,

00:35:31.020 gug. So I've designed these exercises to put the vocal cords in the right spot and to fix how the air

00:35:38.460 goes to them. So just a few minutes of gugs and gugs and some other little warmups that I have people

00:35:45.380 do and a little bit of breathing practice, you're good to go. You can go out and conquer your day based

00:35:50.900 on knowing that you're going to sound the best and everybody's going to want to talk to you.

00:35:54.480 Would there be a benefit for people who don't want to be singers, but they just want to improve

00:36:00.460 their, their, their vocal, their voice, uh, or the voice voice, the talking voice, would there

00:36:06.500 be any benefit of taking singing lessons? There is a benefit taking singing lessons. Yes,

00:36:11.700 because you learn how to breathe. You learn how to find the high notes and the low notes,

00:36:16.060 but I've taken 17 years of being a singing coach, teaching the most famous artists in the world

00:36:24.000 and condense that into what speakers know into what doctors and lawyers and teachers and, and every man

00:36:33.760 and every woman actually needs to know about their voice so they can have the same benefits that great 1.00

00:36:39.640 singers get. That's awesome. So they're not necessarily have to, they can, they don't have to do the

00:36:44.180 singing class. They could, but you've, you've distilled it for them. Yeah. And, and most people

00:36:48.180 believe they can either sing or they can't, but everyone can have a musical speaking voice and

00:36:54.380 then use that voice to achieve the things that they want out of life and the things that they're

00:36:59.660 not getting now. And they've tried everything else. They've tried another degree. They keep reading

00:37:04.540 more books, but yet they don't have the success that they want. And the last thing on their list

00:37:09.940 that they're thinking about is the sound of their voice. And yet that is the greatest makeover that

00:37:16.820 you could ever have. It takes minutes. I get thousands and thousands of emails a month from

00:37:24.500 people that just read one of my books or got one of my online programs, never met me, but completely

00:37:30.960 changed their voices and then changed their lives based on that.

00:37:35.340 I mean, have you ever had an experience where someone changed their voice for the better,

00:37:39.040 but then they had the, like their friends and family, like, what, what are you doing? Why are

00:37:42.100 you, that's not, that's not how you sound. You're, you're trying to be someone different.

00:37:45.660 I usually do it so gradually that I don't shock the people. So they come to see a lesson with me,

00:37:54.660 or they buy one of my products, they change their voice, they go home. It's so open and rich and

00:38:00.960 thick and strong with no anger. And it's got so much music in it that usually just the opposite happens.

00:38:07.180 People say, wow, you, you sound so happy today. Or did something good happen to you today?

00:38:14.080 Because again, I'm going to quote one of my students and a project that I did this past year.

00:38:20.240 One of my jobs was I took Bradley Cooper and I taught him how to sing for the film,

00:38:27.020 a star is born. And he did an amazing job. And of course it won all kinds of awards and the public

00:38:34.760 loved it. It was a super, super hit movie. And his voice sounded great. He sounded,

00:38:39.200 didn't you think he sounded like a, like the singer he was supposed to?

00:38:42.040 Yeah, he said, he sounds good.

00:38:43.600 So he told me after the process was done, he said, Roger, the thing I've learned the most

00:38:47.900 is you can't lie with your voice. That finding your voice really is the key to figuring out who

00:38:57.320 you are as a character, as a person in life, that you can't lie through voice. And I thought that was

00:39:05.400 beautiful. That understanding that, that if you want to be perceived as believable, if you want to

00:39:11.520 be authentic, if you want to showcase the best of who you are, you have to use your voice. They used to

00:39:17.480 say that your eyes were the mirror to your soul, but it's not true anymore. Now your voice is the mirror

00:39:25.020 to your soul. And if you want people to see inside of you, to see your best parts, to see why you

00:39:31.660 deserve the promotion, to see why they should go out with you and, and have your babies. If you want 0.96

00:39:37.180 any of that, then you have to use your voice and you have to start today to say, my voice could be

00:39:44.120 better. So I'm going to use my voice to make my life better and make every communication I have

00:39:50.140 mean something. I love it. Well, Roger, where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:39:55.020 Well, the good news is that I have prepared a very special offer to your listeners and it's $50 off

00:40:03.820 of my perfect voice, complete collection. And it's, it's just for listening today. So if you go to

00:40:10.700 the perfect voice.com, the perfect voice.com and you enter the code manly. And when you write it,

00:40:19.520 write it, say it with an edge, manly, not manly, like airy, manly at checkout, and you'll get $50

00:40:27.360 off of what already is the most cost-effective program and effective program on voice on the

00:40:35.340 internet. Well, fantastic. Well, Roger Love, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:40:38.660 Oh, thank you so much for having me.

00:40:40.440 My guest today was Roger Love. His book is Set Your Voice Free. It's available on amazon.com

00:40:44.280 bookstores everywhere. Also find out more information about his work at rogerlove.com.

00:40:48.580 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash voice.

00:40:58.780 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website,

00:41:02.400 artofmanliness.com where you can find our podcast archives. There's over 500 there,

00:41:06.220 as well as thousands of articles written over the years about personal finance, physical fitness,

00:41:10.300 how to be a better husband, better father, you name it. We've got it there.

00:41:12.940 If you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us a review on

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00:41:20.280 consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out of

00:41:23.820 it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay reminding you

00:41:27.720 not only to listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

00:41:42.940 Thank you.

00:41:46.280 Thank you.

00:41:48.280 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - May 08, 2019

#506： How to Improve Your Speaking Voice

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