If you've done what I've asked, you've now created an audio recording of yourself doing, if not a whole podcast, at least a couple of minutes to give you a sense of how it's out how you sound. Now, I want you to really, really listen to it. And I want you to take notes. What do you like? What do you not like? Now, if you're like most people, you can't stand the sound of your own voice.

Here's why. All of us hear our own voice all day long a filter through the flesh in our head and the bones in our head. So we're hearing our voice going through flesh and bone. So we're hearing it in a profoundly distorted way. So when we hear a voice coming through a speaker, we're hearing it in a much less distorted way. We're hearing it the way everyone else hears our voice all day long.

And it sounds strange. It sounds alien. I've heard people say, well, that's not me. You know, TJ your speakers are distorted. The sound will give it everyone else sounds the same view coming out of the speaker as they do in real life here, right? Yeah, it's only distorting my voice.

Why is that? It seems like that but it's not really distorting your voice. That is how you sound. Now. The problem for most people is not that they have a bad voice. The problem is, it's simply disorienting to hear your voice out of speakers or headphones or earbuds because it's not your image of your voice.

And that disconnect is what causes anxiety is just got to get over it. If you podcast enough, listen to your stuff enough. You're just not going to notice it's not going to bother you at all. I've trained more than 10,000 executives on how to speak effectively, in live audiences TV and podcast over the last 30 years. And I can tell you very few of them liked the sound of their own voices. But I can only relate One person who really had an awful voice, a wildly irritating voice that just, but everyone else, their voices were perfectly fine.

And I'm willing to bet your voice is perfectly fine. Remember, not everybody has to sound the same. The days are gone. From when every one had to sound like Walter Cronkite with a certain deep Midwestern voice. That's not what it takes to be a good communicator. Listen to someone like howard stern as sort of a nasal tone to his voice.

Barbara Walters had a list has a list. All sorts of people have odd things going on with their sound. Rosie O'Donnell. Has that borough New York accent going on? You can have accents. You can be ben stein is monotone for goodness sake.

Very flat on ben stein. Win Ben Stein's money and he made millions talking on TV and radio. So don't judge yourself too harshly and don't hold yourself up to comparison of one person because there's all sorts of people out there who have been wildly successful. greta van susteren, one of the top rated talk show hosts and all cable news channel has kind of a screechie irritating voice. Rachael Ray has a what I would say is an irritating voice. But guess what, she makes a lot more money than I do.

And you do. So perhaps we shouldn't pick on her voice and I don't want you to pick on your voice. That's the main thing. I do want you to get comfortable with it. And I do want you to use your voice in the best way possible. Now the problem for most people when they're doing a podcast, the first time is they're scared.

So people sales and will act natural, just act natural. You'll Fine. Well, if you're scared, the natural thing to do is speak a little quickly Speak softly. bubbeleh be a little bit monotone of an egg be kind of boring. That's the natural thing to do. If you're scared, so, I need you to take careful notes what you like, what you don't like.

The big question I have is, do you sound conversational? Yes or no? Are you speaking too quickly? Because you speak too quickly. People can't understand you. Or are you speaking so slowly that you sound like you're falling asleep?

That's a very rare problem to have. But in theory, it's possible. Are you speaking so softly that people feel like you're in the operating room or you're in church? That doesn't really set the right mood, what you want in your voice? And I guarantee it doesn't matter if you're watching your favorite host on ESPN or on CNN, any news channel, or any podcast, the people that you like to listen to have a real range in their voice. It's high, it's low.

It's so it's fast. There's variety. Sometimes you're louder, softer, faster, slower, pause, starts, stops, repetition of words, sentence fragments, it all comes out. That's what makes for conversation. So you can't listen to your podcast now and transcribe it and diagram the sentences. Oh, I had a repetition of the first clause three times.

That's simply not the way the year processes information. If you've ever heard Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. Lots of repetition. If you actually read that speech, doesn't read as well as it does when you hear it. In fact, when it was initially written, he didn't have The I have a dream refrain again and again and again that wasn't in there. It didn't look good in print.

But it sounded good when he said it. Never forget, if you're doing a podcast, it's for people's ears. It's not for them to read, you want to read and create stuff for people to read, go back to blogging, or blog and podcast. But for now, let's focus on your podcast. I need you to really analyze your voice. What do you like?

What do you not like? Do you sound conversational or not? If you don't sound conversational, it's critical that we figure out what it is. Are you too soft spoken? Do you speak too quickly? Are you too consistent in your volume where everything is the same volume?

Are you shouting? That's annoying? are you whispering the whole time like it's a secret. You want the full range of your voice you want variety in your voice, so I want you to be a harsh critic of your own voice. But I want you to be a fair critic and a fair critic points out, not just the bad, but the good too. So, do that right now listen to the two or three minutes you recorded and really critique your voice.

But I want fair equal play. I want you to write down as many things you like about your voice is what you don't like. do that now.