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Matt Abrahams: Fundamental to
effective communication is being heard.

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I'm Matt Abrahams, and I teach
Strategic Communication at Stanford

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Graduate School of Business.

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Welcome to this Quick Thinks episode
of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

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I'm often asked, "How can I make sure my
voice is heard?" People aren't wondering

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how do they insert it into a conversation.

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They literally want to understand,
how can my volume go up?

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So today, I'd like to have a
conversation about volume, and you

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can't have a conversation about
volume without talking about breath.

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Then we'll talk about how to expand
your volume, build vocal stamina,

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and finally, we'll conclude to
talk about how microphones can

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help you communicate better.

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Your voice is a wind instrument.

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The more you do with it, the more your
volume and voice can be affected by it.

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We need to think about how we
breathe to help us project our voice.

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Many of us, when we get nervous or
are uncertain, we breathe shallow

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and tight in the upper chest.

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We also breathe very quickly.

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This changes our ability
to project our voice.

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You have to be able to fill your lower
abdomen to support your voice fully.

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Something  you can do in the privacy of
your own space to figure out where you're

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breathing from is to put one palm on your
upper chest and one on your lower abdomen.

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If I'm speaking from my upper
chest as I'm doing now, I feel

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vibration and a little movement here
and nothing in my lower abdomen.

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But when I take a deeper breath and
speak lower and sometimes slower, I

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actually feel a lot of movement here and
a little vibration in my upper chest.

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So to help build that awareness of
where your breath is coming from, give

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yourself a sensory experience of it.

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Another way to help you learn about
your breathing is to read out loud.

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Reading out loud is a proxy
for speaking out loud.

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And the benefit of reading out loud is you
can focus on your breathing because the

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words are presented right in front of you.

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I don't care what you read.

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It can be something
for work, for pleasure.

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It can be email, a magazine.

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Does not matter.

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By reading out loud and really paying
attention to where the breath is coming

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from, you can gain more control of it.

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And the more control you have over it,
the better able you are to project.

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So lower, slower breathing
gives you more vocal support,

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so you can project your voice.

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Now, there's a really interesting
technique that I learned

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from a acting professional.

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While I'm not an actor myself,
I really like this technique.

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Rather than just thinking about projecting
your voice forward, actually pick a

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place where you want to put your voice.

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So imagine you're in a conference
room sitting around a large table.

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You're at one end, and there
are people far away from you.

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Instead of just broadcasting out,
focus your voice in front of the

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person who's sitting farthest from you.

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In doing so, it changes
the structure of your body.

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You'll tend to open up more, you'll
breathe more deeply, and you'll be able

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to position your voice so it'll be louder.

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So it's not about broadcasting it out.

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It's about focusing on placing
your voice in a certain space.

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I alluded to body posture just a moment
ago, and this is really important.

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You want to open your
body as much as possible.

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Many of us, especially when
we're on virtual calls, we hunch

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over and close our body off.

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That reduces the oxygen.

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In fact, many actors and actresses or
professional speakers, before they go

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out on stage and project, they'll work on
stretching their body and opening it up.

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That's a great place for us to start.

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Once we have the mechanics and the
breath, we have to work on stamina.

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Very few of you would wake up one
morning and say, "I'm gonna go run

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a marathon," and just start running.

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If you wanted to run a
marathon, you'd train first.

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And the same thing is true with
your voice and vocal projection.

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If you're going to speak for 5, 10, 30, 60
minutes, you should build vocal stamina.

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Because most of us can start out
strong, but can we sustain it so we

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can continue to project our voice?

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Best way to do this,
again, is reading out loud.

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Reading out loud to build vocal stamina
is like running on a treadmill to build

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your stamina for running a road race.

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So if you know you have a 30 minute
presentation that you have to give

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in a week or two, you should start
reading out loud for 5 or 10 minutes a

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day to build that stamina, so you can
project your voice all the way through.

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And you wanna make sure that you
have the energy at the end of your

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communication as well as at the beginning.

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Many of us start energetic and
excited, and because we're speaking

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for so long, we lose our wind.

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We lose that energy.

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By building vocal stamina, you'll
continue to have the energy and

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be able to project your voice.

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Now, fortunately, we live in a
world where there's technology

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that can help us project our voice.

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Microphones are very useful for helping
you not just record what you're saying,

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but to make sure your voice is projected.

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Now, we have to use
microphones appropriately.

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The first type of mic I wanna talk
about is a lavalier mic, a lav.

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This is a little microphone that usually
gets clipped right under your chin.

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Now, it tends to have a
cord and a battery pack.

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You have to be careful and make sure that
you're prepared for that, 'cause often

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you'll drop the cord through your shirt,
and you need to have a place to clip the

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battery pack or a pocket to put it in.

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I've worked with some speakers who
came dressed in a way that did not

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allow for those to easily be done.

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When it comes to a lavalier,
you want to make sure it's about

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6 inches away from your mouth.

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And because it is fixed, you
wanna make sure that your head

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stays in the same position.

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So if the lavalier is here and I turn over
here, notice I've increased the distance.

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And unless you have somebody working
the soundboard that is controlling the

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volume, your voice will get quieter.

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So if you have a lavalier mic, you
simply turn your whole body, so

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you keep the orientation the same.

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So make sure you have something to clip it
to, both the mic and the pack, and try to

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keep your head in relationship to the mic
the same, so your volume stays the same.

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Now, sometimes when you're speaking,
you actually have a microphone.

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Handheld mic needs to be kept
at the same distance from your

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mouth so that the volume stays the
same and you make the life of the

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soundboard operator much easier.

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So lightly hold the mic.

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Some people clutch it
because they're so nervous.

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Lightly hold the mic.

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Put your elbow against your body.

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This is the only time I ever encourage
people to connect the elbow to the body.

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Usually when gesturing, we want it away.

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And I gesture with the other hand.

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Notice I'm keeping the distance
about 6 inches the same.

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Now, if I wanna switch hands, which
is a good thing 'cause this arm

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might get tired, I come to the mic,
keep the mic in the same place,

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and gesture with the other hand.

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Some mics have cables, and you need
to be careful with where the cable is.

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I saw a speaker once trip over the cable,
embarrassing for them and dangerous.

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So if you're using a handheld mic,
hold it in place, gesture with the

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other hand, and again, come back to it.

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These are all techniques that will
help you project your voice and

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make sure your point is heard.

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We want to think about
body posture and breathing.

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We wanna think about placing our voice.

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We wanna make sure we build that
vocal stamina to support our energy

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and volume throughout what we say.

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And finally, we wanna leverage
microphones appropriately to

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help us make sure we're heard.

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Thank you for joining me for this
Quick Thinks episode of Think

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Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

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To learn more about voice, please listen
to episode 262 with Patsy Rodenburg.

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This episode was produced by
Katherine Reed, Alex McCarthy,

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Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams.

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Our music is from Floyd
Wonder, with special thanks to

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the Stanford GSB video crew.

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Thanks also to Podium Podcast Company.

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