Do YOU struggle to keep your peers engaged in the conversation? Your captivating story is not perceived as you expect? People quickly stop paying attention, shift their focus or start mind-wandering?

Do people ignore you a lot or perhaps starting conversations with strangers is your least favorite thing to do because you simply can’t grab their attention?

How often do you encounter people that are trying to tell you a story, explain something or get their point across while you just inadvertently start mind wandering, because it is so hard to pay attention?

That happens to me all the time.  It is not listener’s fault, but the person who is telling the story! Captivating and alluring voice is rare these days.

Good news is that with effort and time you can develop this SKILL. Yes, confident and attractive voice is a SKILL! It is not something someone is born with, but rather an acquired ability to express himself freely through his voice.

Everyone Must Work on Their Voice

When people say that someone NATURALLY has great voice, they essentially mean that some people NATURALLY picked up good habits from their peers, family and friends growing up.

So these people already did put work and effort into this skill.

Those that didn’t have that opportunity, perhaps because of growing up in quiet environments where not much loud and open talking was encouraged, need to start working on their voice.

Even professionals like sportscasters, actors and news reporters spent hundred of hours working with coaches and on their own to attain that confident and attractive voice.

Voice is a Powerful Tool

Voice is a holy grail when it comes to influencing others. People who have attention grabbing powerful voice that at the same time sounds pleasant to the ear, tend to get a lot more social attention. We are all social creatures and regardless whether you’re introvert or extrovert, male or female, we all crave attention because it provides us with the feeling of being important.

I remember several years ago I didn’t care how I sound when I talk. I just talked and mumbled and all I cared about is delivering the content and getting my point across. I never cared about the DELIVERY or HOW I SOUND when I talk. Only now I realize that delivery is as important if not more than the content you are delivering.

This is especially important for men. Because people assess men’s survival qualities and thus their attractiveness based on the way they sound when they talk!

Female Voice vs Male Voice

When people compare female and male voices, most often they refer to pitch, however I think pitch is not a primary difference that makes voice masculine or feminine.

Average male voice pitch range is 60 to 260 Hertz, while female is between 100 to 500 Hertz. Not only we see that female voice is almost twice wider in pitch range(400Hz vs 200Hz male voice has), but also we see an overlap from 100 to 260Hz where a voice can be as masculine as it can be feminine.

Picture of the musical notes frequency chart here

It is not the pitch that makes the major difference, it is resonance that is added to your voice which forms timbre.

It is TIMBRE that makes all the difference. Timbre is a quality or character specific to any sound-producing device. In our case it is us – our body and all its resonators that form the character of our voice.

Not only it matters where you pitch your voice from, but also how relaxed are certain body parts that make your timbre richer and warmer and thus more pleasant to your listeners whether you’re talking, singing or narrating a story.

The secret here is that once your voice starts originating in the right place, it doesn’t really matter at which pitch you sound. What matters is which body parts are relaxed and freely vibrating.

Now that we know what sets confident and attractive voice apart from average, wouldn’t we want to improve what we already have and capitalize on our most precious skill?

Breathe Properly

In order to speak for extensive period of time and maintain stable airflow, you need good breathing technique. Otherwise you will feel fatigued pretty soon.

Did you know that even though we breath 24/7, most people do it incorrectly?

For instance take a little test right now:

• Take a deep breath and slowly inhale a large amount of air
• Hold it for 3 seconds
• Exhale slowly

Now the question: Did your shoulders rise and fall during this process?

If so, then I regret to inform you that you are breathing wrong! The more effective way of breathing is by using the lower parts of your lungs which happens to be in the diaphragm area not in the chest.

Lungs have shapes of pears with bottom being wider and bigger than the top of the lung.

Picture of lungs here

If your shoulder rise and fall during breathing that means you’re engaging the upper part of the lungs a lot more than the bottom when in reality it should be opposite. Bottom parts are bigger on purpose, if you look at swimmers, long distance runners or any other athletes who have high endurance levels, they all breath in their diaphragm area using their stomach and core.

Picture of the body and bottom parts of lungs expanding the stomach and kidney area here

The conclusion is: Breathe with diaphragm not the chest.

Proper breathing will let you have a stronger voice with more impact and conviction and it will definitely attract more attention and listeners. It will project effectively through mediums and other noise in loud environments or in a presence of other people’s voice. You will literally WIN the attention in this hard vocal competition.

Slow Down

Look around, how fast do people talk? Nearly everyone is rushing to say everything they think at once hoping that it will keep their listener’s attention.

By slowing down, you can put more effort into the delivery or the way you sound when you talk.

You can also sound more clear without chewing any words, because all that brain power you got can be put into making fewer words sound better!

If you have an excess of brain power while accurately arranging your voice content, use it for keeping good posture and watch your body language as those are key elements in communication as well.

Speak Louder

Don’t yell! By louder I mean engage your chest resonator to amplify your voice. That diaphragmatic breathing I spoke about earlier – that is the most effective way!

Inhale enough by contracting your diaphragm and thus expanding bottoms of your lungs. This will ensure powerful and constant supply of airflow when you will be talking while steadily exhaling all that air.

The only thing remained to do now is make sure that the air flow doesn’t get squeezed anywhere on the way out. For example constrictions in the upper chest area or neck can cause obstacles for a free and smooth air flow and as a result the natural timbre of the voice is ruined.

Open Your Mouth Wider

Does any of the following resonate with you?

• You speak too softly
• You mumble
• You speak too quickly
• You are trying to say something and stop mid-sentence because it feels like the thing already doesn’t sound good enough?

The solution is – Open Your Mouth Wider. This will literally solve all these problems, it will also slow you down and force you to speak clearly. There is a reason that this tip is given to most singers when they are just starting out.

Effects of this advice cannot be underestimated, because think about it – crisp and clear voice is easier to perceive by our ears than mumbling, soft and fast. Our brains tend to switch attention to these voices because it requires less work to interpret them.

Articulation

Articulation is the ability to physically move jaw, teeth, tongue and lips to produce sequences of speech sounds.

A lot of times we fail to pronounce certain characters or words properly not because of jaw malfunction or tongue issues, but because those parts are constricted and full of tension.

It is important to relieve that tension frequently. One of the most important things to remember is stretching. For instance stretching your neck can be done simply by yawning. Jaw, neck and tongue can be relieved of tension by opening your mouth wide, looking up and exhaling.

Your jaw joints should be massaged while simultaneously opening and closing your jaw. Tongue is the only muscle we have that is attached at one end and not at the other, so it is prone to tension and constriction. That can be avoided by purposely poking your cheeks with your tongue. “Chewing” your own tongue is very helpful as well even though it sounds silly.

Stretching and relaxing your larynx is important and can be done by alternating swallowing and yawning. These two motions cause larynx to move up and down.

Vocal Projection

The above can be summarized by saying that voice lets you project a lot of your qualities and even character. People can conclude certain things about you just by listening how you talk. It is insane but it is what’s called Honest Signal.

It cannot be faked, however you can misconvey certain things about yourself if the voice you speak with is not you TRUE voice. If it gets constricted by tight larynx or tense neck, the natural resonance is lost and you would sound differently from your natural voice.

Also remember that everytime you’re in a position where you feel inferior, intimidated or just nervous, there is a high chance your voice will change and be much worse than what you already have!

That is why it is SO SO SO important to work on it, at least 5 – 10 minutes a day doing those simple exercises I mentioned above.