Do you often find that your voice is not working well in the very first few seconds of your presentations?
Don’t worry. It happens to most people, even to presentation gurus.
Hi, this is Cynthia, your voice coach. In this video, you’ll pick up one technique that’ll help you stay ahead of many people and sound calm and in control.
My clients always ask me, “Do you feel nervous in presentations?” Yes, I do. We all feel nervous, in different situations and to different audience groups.
The difference is, if proper voice projection is a habit for you, the nervousness won’t show in your voice, as it did for me, because you’ll shift the tension from here to here. Otherwise, it’ll show in your voice, even if you are a well established speaker.
I was watching a TED talk by Nancy Duarte, presentation guru and bestselling author of the book Resonate and Silde:ology. If you haven’t heard of her, after watching this video check her out. She is great. You’ll find more about her in the description of the video below.
I’ve watched many of her videos and in most cases she was calm and confident. But in this TED talk, it was probably to a bigger audience and she was nervous. You can hear the nervousness in her voice in the beginning of the talk. Her breath was short, which made her voice a bit shaky and not come out smoothly. It lasted about a minute before her voice turned to normal.
Watch the video and compare the change in her voice before and after 1’26”.
If your voice doesn’t work for you in the first few seconds of your presentation, you don’t need to beat yourself up. You can have a voice that starts off strong, sounds calm and in control even when you are nervous. The key is to make proper voice projection a habit, i.e. You must project your voice with proper breath support and full resonance all the time.
The one simple and quick technique to get you started with, is to slowly breathe out first.
When you are nervous, you’ll find your breath is short and shallow, even worse, you are out of breath. Your voice is supported with breath. As a result, you’ll find difficulty projecting your voice. To solve that, you must regulate your breath first. Slowly breathing out creates space for new and proper breath to come in.
Let me demonstrate. The starting point is just to breathe out. It doesn’t matter whether you were breathing in or out before doing this, or how much air you have left. Just breathe out first until you have no air left, then slowly take a breath in, and breathe out again. Do it a few times until you feel more calm.
Try it for your next presentation and let me know how it goes.
If you would like to make proper voice projection a habit and never suffer from a shaky voice, feel free to contact me. I’d love to help you.
Btw, Check out Nancy Duarte’s TED talk. It uncovers a secret structure used in great speeches like I have a dream and presentations done by Steve Jobs.
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