Most Replayed Moment: Captivate A Room Even If You’re Shy! - Vinh Giang

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00:33I was looking earlier, there's almost like a billion search results on Google for people trying to figure out or trying to provide answers to how to communicate successfully. So let’s get into it. I use this term, "vocal image." What does vocal image mean?

00:48It came about when I realized I spend, and I think most of us spend, a lot of time on our visual image, right? How we look, our body language, the way we dress. But very rarely do people spend time on their vocal image. Now, I’ll make it make sense. When people see you and you reveal your visual image, they make assumptions about you pretty quickly. So they form assumptions—oh, this person seems friendly, maybe they're confident because they've got good posture, maybe they're smiling, they're friendly. And then all of a sudden, when you open your mouth and you speak, they now turn these assumptions into beliefs.

01:21So what may be assumptions before, now they go, "Oh, you are friendly, you are confident." Or they might think, "Oh no, bit of a wanker." And you've had these experiences before, I've had them before, where you assume, you see someone, you’re like, "Oh, that person looks really cool," go meet them, you're like, "Ah, not really nice. That's weird." So it's another layer that we don't think about though, because we again think we're stuck with our voice, we think we're stuck with the way we communicate, we think there's no way for me to ever change this.

01:54So let’s talk about how one can improve their vocal image so that they're effective across context. You mentioned melody, volume, hand gestures. If we start with melody, what the hell is melody?

02:08The different notes you can hit with your voice.

02:11Okay, so is that variety?

02:13Yeah, variety, pitch variety. Pitch and melody. Because there's a melody that lives underneath your voice. All right, let's do an experiment. I'm going to play you a piano song, and I want you to listen to this, and then you at home right now, I want you to listen to the track and see what words come to mind. So we'll just play the song.

02:40Okay, yeah. Sadness.

02:45Right, so and then if listeners at home could have a voice here too, that’s maybe they would say it’s somber, nostalgic, right? All these words would come up. And again, if we sat with this for a while, we’d get plenty of words. Let's try another one. Let's change the mood, let's shift to something like this.

03:10Inspirational, motivational.

03:14Good. See, all of a sudden now, and I'm thinking running towards something. And again, there's a part of me that thinks, "Oh, cheesy commercial," right? There's that part of it too. So you can hear all these different things. Let's try one more. This one, we’ll shift gears again. What about this one?

03:32Like a horror movie. Scary. About to die. Something bad is about to happen. Ominous. Little three-year-old stood on the landing of the staircase at nighttime with long black hair.

03:45Yes, correct. So that again, all of a sudden, paints all these different vivid pictures in your head. The reason I did that experiment is there were no words in any of those tracks. Yet, think about all of the words that rushed to your mind as you were experiencing the melody—the different notes. What people fail to realize is that you have a melody in your voice. This is why when some people walk into our lives, it could drain the energy from our lives. And when they walk in, you feel the impact of them walking in—in a negative way or a positive way. Some walk in and you go, "Oh, I feel good, I feel great." What is that? It's the melody in which they come in with.

04:22Can you have a pretty limited range, a limited melody, but still hit people with scary and sad and inspiring?

04:30I believe you can. Again, because we genuinely don't have 88 keys, right? So again, it's a metaphor. But I believe that we can create so many different songs with our voice if we learn to treat it as an instrument. And we can play with a technique to help you increase your vocal range if you want. There's something called a siren technique. A siren technique is when you read something with a low voice and then you go towards a high voice and you go back down to a low voice. So now, I don't want you to do it to start with. I just want you to read this as you would, and then we'll try the siren technique. So just read that as you would neutrally first.

05:07Okay, so for those that can't see, Vin has passed me a card—cue cards. On the card, it has a bunch of words which I'm just going to read. And as you're listening at home, have a guess of what movie this is from.

05:22"Want to know how I got these scars? My father was a drinker and a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that, not one bit. So me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. Turns to me and he says, 'Why so serious, son?' Comes at me with the knife. 'Why so serious?' He sticks the blade in my mouth. 'Let's put a smile on that face.' And, 'Why so serious?'"

05:50Beautiful. What movie is that from?

05:52No idea. I don't watch movies.

05:53Oh, are you serious? Dark Knight, the Joker. Heath Ledger, so amazing. Okay, cool, great. So again, you read that in your neutral voice. Now what we're going to do is we're going to play with the instrument. So the siren technique is when you read with a really low voice and then gradually you go to a high voice. And I'm going to challenge you to not be afraid to go into the falsetto, do not be afraid to play. So just play. And it's not about going low at the start and then high at the bottom; within each sentence, I want you to go up and down, up and down. I really want you to play with your voice. Otherwise, I'm going to push you. In three, two, go for it.

06:30"Want to know how I got these scars? My father was a drinker and a fiend."

06:40Good.

06:41"And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself."

06:55Good. Wow, hurts. Now try to go in a way where it is a little more even. Just give it a go. But normally you won't be able to because you won't have all of the range fully expanded. Try again, keep going.

07:07"He doesn't like that, not one bit. So me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it."

07:22Good.

07:23"Turns to me and he says, 'Why so serious, son?'"

07:34Fantastic, that's fantastic. You did a great job, right? But you feel that feeling you feel right now?

07:41Yeah, weird.

07:42Yes. And it's not so much about getting you to speak like that on the podcast, but it's more just helping you realize this instrument that you have is capable of so much more. There is so much more that it can do as opposed to what we normally do with it. Because for the longest time in my life, I didn't have any melody because I just thought this was how you talk. And the reason I can switch to this very quickly, Steven, is because I practiced these behaviors for about 25 years. What's even more interesting is they've done studies where they had five or six people talking at the same time, and the person who the person heard was the person who had more melody in their voice.

08:26Oh, really?

08:27The person who is more melodic, what they say becomes more memorable. Whereas if all of us were speaking like this—me, yourself, Jack, everyone—all of a sudden you wouldn't hear the difference. Whereas all of a sudden, if you just start to play with your voice a little more.

08:44How do you know you've not played with it too far?

08:49By playing with it too far and then getting feedback. And people are so afraid of that though. And they don't realize that they don't go too far, they underplay. The risk is not going too far; the risk is not going far enough. Again, at this point when people heard me squeaking like Mickey Mouse, they're going to say, "Fuck me, I... you're going to have to remind me again, Vin, why this is worth it." You'll be able to make people feel more connected to you. They'll feel what you're saying, not just hear what you're saying. I mean, do you notice this in some people? Of course, they'll say things, but you don't feel it. It happens in *America's Got Talent*, *Australia's Got Talent*, where Simon Cowell will say, "Right, right, very good, but I don't feel it." What are they talking about? It's the emotion in their voice.

09:21There is emotion in your voice too. Do you want to go to the next one?

09:25Please. I didn't know there was more.

09:27There’s more, yeah, there’s five. Let's go through all five. No, next one. I'm just going to get you to read this one as you would, and then I'll tell you what it is. Just so you don't get ahead of yourself. And see, tell me if you—please tell me you know this movie, far out, Steven.

09:44"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you that I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

10:14Yes, very dark movies. I love these movies. What movie is this?

10:19That is the movie called... where his daughter gets kidnapped. What’s it called? *Taken*!

10:32Yes, from *Taken*. But here's the thing. So the next foundation is rate of speech. If you were reading that and I was kind of just giving you some coaching, again, as you're reading that, think of rate of speech of having a scale from zero to ten. All right, so one being painfully slow and ten being as quickly as you possibly can, right? So you were around playing around a five. Very comfortable. That's your default rate of speech. Most of us when we're nervous, we just have a default rate of speech; we fall victim to a default rate of speech. When you think about rate of speech, there's a way to use it. And the way you use rate of speech is if you really want to highlight a point, creating an auditory highlight, slow down. That creates an auditory highlight. It's like a highlighter with your words.

11:15And if you want to be able to show charisma, energy, you speed up. And if it's not as important, you can speed up and that's fine. This simple rule gives you vocal variety with your rate of speech. That simple rule.

11:30And what does changing my rate of speech then do to the message I'm communicating? It makes it more memorable, clear.

11:38There's more clarity in it. Right, so for example, if I was speaking and I said, "Right now I'm going to go through the five core vocal foundations and I'm going to take you first one through is rate of speech then after that I'm going to talk to you about pitch and melody and then after that I'll talk to you about the importance of the other three," right now you have no idea what is important and what is not important. Whereas all of a sudden now, if I said, "I'm going to take you through the core five vocal foundations," all of a sudden you now have a point of focus. And the big thing that people want with their communication is clarity. Well, if you are going to be more clear, the delivery needs to be clear so that the receiver gets what you intend. It's not just about the exchange of information because how I say something impacts how you receive it.

12:18So I want to slow down where I want to hit emphasis.

12:22Yes. And this script has multiple places where you want to slow down. When people are nervous, what happens? They speed up. Considerably. And have they ever measured that? If you get above 210 words per minute, it’ll be a little bit too fast. And what's the average person speaking at in terms of words per minute? Around 150. You want to get to around 150-180. That's a very good rate of speech to be at. Whereas if you're slower than that, then again it just gets a little bit monotonous at times for people.

12:50But again, here's what's fascinating. If I, if all of a sudden now, I stick to a default melody and then stick to a default rate of speech, notice what's happening in your brain, right? All of a sudden you start to again, you'll start to switch off, right? Whereas all of a sudden if I start to vary my rate of speech, the transition from slow to fast is what's hooking people. So if you were to try to read that again now, but I want you to slow—and some bits painfully slow down—and play with your voice. And then some bits go quicker, and then the last bit, "I'm going to kill you," slow it all the way down. And be playful. It's not about...

13:30Okay, I'm going to start from here. If you're looking for a ransom, I can tell you that I don't have money. But what I do have... are a particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long... career. If you let my daughter go, that will be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

14:14Yes! Give him a big round of applause, that was amazing! But again, you feel so strange when you do it.

14:21Yeah, I do.

14:22It's so fun to listen to. And again, this is us practicing. This is a safe environment. Don't do your next podcast like that. But again, it just goes to show the range that we have access to.

14:34And how it changes the message in such profound ways. It's the same words.

14:38It's the same words, but when you read it the first time, it didn't sound scary at all. Now I feel scared.

14:45There's something, I noticed this in like board meetings and stuff, especially with like younger team members or people that would class themselves as being shy, that they do hurry along. And there is a certain, someone said to me the other day that people that have the most confidence and charisma, they like move and talk as if they were a lion. You know, they're slow and they're composed.

15:09Prey versus predator. I remember listening to the episode, it's fantastic. There is, it's people who are confident take their time.

15:19What's that third one?

15:21Okay, read part of it. You're more than happy to freestyle. Read part of it. "Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you have to be willing to take the hits and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you want to be because of him or her or anybody. Cowards do that, and that ain't you. You're better than that."

15:43Now, the thing is, this next one is volume.

15:47Oh shit.

15:48Yeah, volume so critical. For many different reasons. Volume is the lifeblood of your voice. Volume carries all the other foundations you're about to learn. Volume carries the melody, volume carries the rate of speech, it carries everything. And again, I think of it as having a scale from one to ten. And a lot of the times, like what you just did, people are around a three, a four. And they stay around there. When you use volume, there's two ways to auditorily highlight something with volume. Volume's fascinating because with rate of speech you slow down. But with volume, to highlight something, you could go very quiet. So if all of a sudden I wanted to say something scary, I could lower my volume and say it. But then all of a sudden, notice what happens if I just stay here now. What started as a great verbal highlight now kind of just seems... doesn't seem effective anymore. Because if you make something default, it becomes non-functional.

16:47And what signals I'm not a confident person? What side of the scale?

16:51The lower scale. On volume. Because that's one of the default shy behaviors that a lot of people exhibit.

17:00And what about leaders? Where do they land on the scale?

17:03Depends if they're self-aware. Sometimes if they're not self-aware, they can be on the higher end and that's, you know, you have someone come across as a little arrogant sometimes, it's just too much volume. Because too much volume without the other foundations, now you come across arrogant. So again, if I give this back to you and again, just for fun, like I want you to go loud. I want people to hear outside of this studio what we're doing. So just have a go. And give me a whisper too, at some point give me a whisper too.

17:31"Now if you know what you're worth, then go out and get it. Go out and get what you're worth. But you have to be willing to take the hits and not point fingers saying you ain't where you want to be because of him or her or anybody. Cowards do that, and that ain't you! You're better than that."

18:12Oh, it's amazing. What you just did made me feel. Why did I feel? What is a voice? A voice is a series of vibrations. So you just sent vibrations my way that made me feel. That's why we say people have good vibes. We kind of understand it's happening, but we don't understand it at that kind of frequency level, at the vibration level. But it's happening at a physical level where depending on how you use your voice, you're genuinely moving people quite physically. We did rate of speech, we did volume, we did the melody. And then there's two left, right?

18:49There's two left, yeah. So this one, read it as you would, parts of it.

18:54"And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

19:08What we're moving into now is the emotion that exists within your voice, tonality. This is the emotion that exists, right? So the way to add more emotion into your voice is to move your face. Because as I eloquently put it at times, your face is the remote control that allows you to add emotion into your voice. So let's play, right? So now I'll give you different faces to make. I'll tell you a different face to make, and you make those different faces and allow those emotions to come through your voice. So if it's happy, then I want you to sound really happy. And if it's sad, I want you to sound really sad. So we'll start with, and try your best to play with this. I want you to make disgust, like just "ugh," disgust. And let that come through and give me more volume. Give me disgust in three, two...

19:55"And it's not because you're lonely. And it's not because it's New Year's Eve."

20:01Surprised! Really surprised.

20:04"I came here tonight! Because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life..."

20:10Angry! Give me angry.

20:12"You want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!"

20:17Happy! Best day of your life, Steven!

20:20"You want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!"

20:25That's so beautiful. You know this already, in our brains there's mirror neurons, right? And when I see you go through these different facial expressions, I feel what you feel. Even though I know this is a situation we've created here for us to experiment in, it's a safe environment. But every time you went through any of those emotions, I felt it. Because I didn't just see it.

20:47Are men worse at this stuff?

20:49Yes, they are. Yes. Because I feel, well for me, I can only speak personally for me, I was taught to keep my emotions on the inside. I was taught that it's a sign of weakness to show you being sad, you being happy. You should just be composed. Composed at all times. And then that's what I thought, and that led me to the behavior of speaking where I'd just always speak like this. Because I'm a man and I should always speak like this. And I still remember going to one of the concerts and my wife turns over, she goes, "How do you feel?" I'm like, "This is a really exciting concert." And she goes, "Well, okay, you obviously hate it." I'm like, "No, no, I love it. I love it." And I just, I didn't know how to emote. And again, I thought I was stuck like that. Because I was stuck like that for years, and that damaged a lot of my relationships.

21:42Because here's a thing that I think, and this might be helpful for you too. When you're listening to someone talk, you don't have to react with sound, because otherwise you'll be seen as interrupting the other person, right? You can react with facial expressions. And that is one of the most powerful ways to show them you're listening and that you're following along. How cool is that? Because if someone's saying something really bad and you're like, "Oof," it shows them you're locked in.

22:08Yeah, you learn it as a podcaster. Because the audience, they're looking at you for most of the conversation, so 95% of the conversation's on you. What they don't know is that throughout that time, I'm basically talking to you with my face. You are, and you're really good at it. So if I turn my head like this, it means tell me more. So I'll be talking and go like this, and it means tell me more. And then it's interesting, yeah. And you can expand that range. It doesn't just have to be curious. And because I see you do it. I see you consistently do the different faces to give me the cue to almost go, "Oh, he wants to elaborate, oh, he's in, he's locked in."

22:45Do you know, the thing I've learned from both speaking on stage but also doing this is you can also fuck it up. You can also communicate the wrong thing accidentally. One of them that people communicate quite often accidentally is they start talking while you're speaking. Do you ever notice that, like when someone's listening to speech, they start going like this, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah"? And it means shut the fuck up, I need to, I have something to say. No, like that, but it's that kind of thing. It's like, you know, I think who was on my podcast? It was Vanessa, she said if you do the fast nod, it means shut the fuck up. So if you go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," but if you do the slow nod, it means "Oh, I love this." So if I go, "Hmm," that's curiosity, tell me more. Versus, "Yeah, yeah," with the high hand... yeah, yeah, yeah.

23:37Okay, so tonality, emotion. And that was so beautiful to see you do that. Because it just, again, we just have such great range. And then imagine you start to vary your rate of speech now, you vary volume, you've got different melody, you've also got different facial expressions. This is such a rich song that you're playing now.

23:59What you just listened to was a most replayed moment from a previous episode. If you want to listen to that full episode, I've linked it down below. Check the description. Thank you.

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