AskPat 555 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 555 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Okay. Here's today's question from Glen.

Glen: Hi, Pat. How's it going? My name is Glen from Saskatchewan, Canada. I have a question about podcasting today. I notice when I listen to a lot of the really popular podcasts, a lot of the hosts have very similar speaking styles and very similar characteristics to their voice. They speak very clearly. They don't have deep voices. Their emotional state comes through clearly in their voice and they enunciate very well. I feel like when I record an audio of myself, my emotional state and my enthusiasm doesn't really come through.

I don't know if it's because I have kind of a deep voice and it kind of drowns it all out and makes it kind of monotone. But I was wondering if you could give me any tips on how I could really improve my speaking quality behind a microphone. I already have the sound quality down. I took your recommendations on equipment, and now I just really want to work my speaking quality. I was wondering if there's any tips you can give me prior to launching my podcast to really max out that quality and improve the way that I talk behind a microphone. Thanks. Bye.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Glen. What's up? I appreciate this question a lot because as a podcaster myself and somebody who does stage stuff, public speaking, obviously our voices are very important, so it's cool that you want to improve it. I think that's a great, great insight, and it's very encouraging to hear you want help on this. The other part of this is, I'm going to ask how many of us love the sound of our voice? Probably none of us, right? I don't like the sound of my own voice. When I first started podcasting, that's one of the things that held me back. I just didn't like how it sounded, and I thought other people would think it was terrible too. It might not be as bad as you think, Glen. When listening to you I get what you're saying but I don't think it's as bad as think, at least when you were asking the question. Perhaps your mindset shifts when you're doing a podcast, and you kind of get into this zone where then the voice comes out differently. Which is very common. Similar to going on stage, how people are great in person, talking in conversation, but once they're up on stage, something happens and they're just not the same person anymore. Maybe that's what's happening on your podcast too. I don't know. But we can make improvements. I know this because I've worked with a vocal coach. A vocal coach helped me—this is actually a singing coach that I hired. Kerri Ho is her name, at The Songbird Tree. You could find her on Google. Kerri Ho, K-E-R-R-I and then H-O. Then Songbird Tree. She's amazing.But you don't necessarily need a vocal coach to improve how the emotions come out in your voice. What I think you have to do is change how you perceive who it is you're speaking to.

But you don't necessarily need a vocal coach to improve how the emotions come out in your voice. What I think you have to do is change how you perceive who it is you're speaking to. If you were to imagine that when you're on your microphone that you're actually on stage, then the emotions might come out more, because when you're on stage—this is something I learned—when you're on stage, just naturally, because there's a lot of people there, your gestures are going to be much bigger. Your hand motions are going to be much bigger, and your voice becomes louder but also maybe a little softer at certain times, because it plays with the room well. It really creates that dramatic effect. Now, I'm not saying you have to create drama in your podcast, but what I feel is you just have to put a little bit more behind it. That doesn't necessarily mean be louder. It doesn't mean, again, drama. It just means, again, you're being conscious about these things. It's hard to say, “Oh well when you're telling a happy story sound happy,” or, “When you're telling a sad story to sound sad.” That's more acting, right? Than anything.

But what you can do is just visualize that there's an audience in front of you. I don't know if this is going to work or not, but this is what I would assume might work for some people. Visualize there's this audience in front of you, and you're actually speaking to them and you want them to connect with you. When—I would assume, Glen, that when you're talking in person with people, for example, you're not monotone and you're just blah, right? You actually have emotion and you share emotion in different ways. I would also encourage you to move. Move your hands. I'm moving my hands right now as I speak, because I know that also helps emphasizing emotion. Even though you guys can't see it, you can hear it, right? Then the other thing I would actually try is standing up. Standing up while recording is the best thing in the world.

This is what I do now. I'm standing right now. It really helps. I don't know. Just physically it helps you, because when you're sitting down, your lungs and stomach and everything is all squished together, right? Just, the airflow isn't all there. Plus, that's kind of a relaxed mode. But when you're standing up, you're a little bit more active. You're a little bit more focused. Of course, your voice just has a little bit more strength, and maybe some of those emotions will come out that way too. I think this is more of a thing that would have to be done kind of on the individual level, but those tips might actually…

And so, Glen, I'm wondering if they would, and if you could follow up with me, that would be awesome, because I think this is good training for everybody out there. There's a lot of podcasters too that I feel could actually use some more emotion in their show. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Do you hire a coach? That's up to you. You might actually reach out to somebody. Maybe you have some service that you could offer in exchange for a vocal coach's service to just spend an hour with you to just talk this over. Because I'm not a voice expert. I do use my voice all the time, and I've learned to have a lot more emotion over time. That's probably the most important thing. You just gotta keep trying. Keep trying new things and see what feels right. The more you do it, the more you're going to get into the zone and really feel what that is. If you go back in time and listen to some of the earlier episodes of the Smart Passive Income podcast, for example, you'll hear that I do have a more monotone voice. It's a little bit more timid. That's back when I was not confident. When I was sitting down while recording. I just didn't visualize who I was speaking to.

Hopefully, those things can help you. And Glen, I would just want to wish you all the best of luck, and yeah, keep me posted on how things go. We're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to askpat.com. You could ask right there on that page. Yeah.

To finish off the day, let's finish off with a quote. This quote is from Brian Tracy. He says, “It doesn't matter where you came from. All that matters is where you are going.” Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you the next episode of AskPat. Bye.