WEBVTT

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The human voice:

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It's the instrument we all play.

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It's the most powerful sound
in the world, probably.

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It's the only one that can start a war
or say "I love you."

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And yet many people have the experience

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that when they speak, people
don't listen to them.

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And why is that?

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How can we speak powerfully
to make change in the world?

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What I'd like to suggest,

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there are a number of habits
that we need to move away from.

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I've assembled for your pleasure here
seven deadly sins of speaking.

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I'm not pretending
this is an exhaustive list,

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but these seven, I think, are pretty large
habits that we can all fall into.

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First, gossip.

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Speaking ill of somebody
who's not present.

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Not a nice habit,
and we know perfectly well

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the person gossiping, five minutes later,
will be gossiping about us.

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Second, judging.

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We know people who are like this
in conversation,

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and it's very hard to listen to somebody

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if you know that you're being judged
and found wanting at the same time.

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Third, negativity.

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You can fall into this.

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My mother, in the last years of her life,
became very negative,

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and it's hard to listen.

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I remember one day, I said to her,
"It's October 1 today,"

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and she said, "I know, isn't it dreadful?"

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(Laughter)

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It's hard to listen
when somebody's that negative.

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(Laughter)

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And another form
of negativity, complaining.

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Well, this is the national art of the U.K.

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It's our national sport.

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We complain about the weather, sport,
about politics, about everything,

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but actually, complaining is viral misery.

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It's not spreading sunshine
and lightness in the world.

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Excuses.

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We've all met this guy.

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Maybe we've all been this guy.

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Some people have a blamethrower.

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They just pass it on to everybody else

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and don't take responsibility
for their actions,

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and again, hard to listen
to somebody who is being like that.

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Penultimate, the sixth of the seven,

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embroidery, exaggeration.

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It demeans our language,
actually, sometimes.

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For example, if I see something
that really is awesome,

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what do I call it?

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(Laughter)

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And then, of course,
this exaggeration becomes lying,

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and we don't want to listen
to people we know are lying to us.

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And finally, dogmatism.

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The confusion of facts with opinions.

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When those two things get conflated,

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you're listening into the wind.

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You know, somebody is bombarding you
with their opinions as if they were true.

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It's difficult to listen to that.

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So here they are, seven deadly
sins of speaking.

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These are things I think we need to avoid.

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But is there a positive
way to think about this?

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Yes, there is.

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I'd like to suggest that there are four
really powerful cornerstones, foundations,

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that we can stand on if we want our speech

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to be powerful and to make
change in the world.

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Fortunately, these things spell a word.

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The word is "hail," and it has
a great definition as well.

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I'm not talking about the stuff
that falls from the sky

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and hits you on the head.

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I'm talking about this definition,

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to greet or acclaim enthusiastically,

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which is how I think
our words will be received

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if we stand on these four things.

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So what do they stand for?

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See if you can guess.

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The H, honesty, of course,

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being true in what you say,
being straight and clear.

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The A is authenticity,
just being yourself.

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A friend of mine described it as
standing in your own truth,

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which I think is a lovely way to put it.

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The I is integrity, being your word,

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actually doing what you say,

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and being somebody people can trust.

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And the L is love.

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I don't mean romantic love,

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but I do mean wishing people
well, for two reasons.

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First of all, I think absolute honesty
may not be what we want.

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I mean, my goodness,
you look ugly this morning.

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Perhaps that's not necessary.

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Tempered with love, of course,
honesty is a great thing.

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But also, if you're really
wishing somebody well,

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it's very hard to judge
them at the same time.

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I'm not even sure you can do
those two things simultaneously.

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So hail.

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Also, now that's what you say,

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and it's like the old song,
it is what you say,

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it's also the way that you say it.

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You have an amazing toolbox.

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This instrument is incredible,

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and yet this is a toolbox
that very few people have ever opened.

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I'd like to have a little rummage
in there with you now

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and just pull a few tools out

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that you might like to take
away and play with,

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which will increase
the power of your speaking.

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Register, for example.

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Now, falsetto register may not
be very useful most of the time,

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but there's a register in between.

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I'm not going to get very
technical about this

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for any of you who are voice coaches.

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You can locate your voice, however.

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So if I talk up here in my nose,
you can hear the difference.

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If I go down here in my throat,

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which is where most of us
speak from most of the time.

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But if you want weight,

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you need to go down here to the chest.

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You hear the difference?

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We vote for politicians
with lower voices, it's true,

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because we associate depth with power

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and with authority.

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That's register.

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Then we have timbre.

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It's the way your voice feels.

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Again, the research shows

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that we prefer voices
which are rich, smooth, warm,

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like hot chocolate.

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Well if that's not you,
that's not the end of the world,

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because you can train.

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Go and get a voice coach.

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And there are amazing things you can do

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with breathing, with posture,
and with exercises

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to improve the timbre of your voice.

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Then prosody. I love prosody.

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This is the sing-song, the meta-language

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that we use in order to impart meaning.

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It's root one for meaning in conversation.

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People who speak all on one note
are really quite hard to listen to

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if they don't have any prosody at all.

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That's where the word
"monotonic" comes from,

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or monotonous, monotone.

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Also, we have repetitive
prosody now coming in,

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where every sentence ends
as if it were a question

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when it's actually not
a question, it's a statement?

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(Laughter)

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And if you repeat that one,

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it's actually restricting your ability
to communicate through prosody,

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which I think is a shame,

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so let's try and break that habit.

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Pace.

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I can get very excited by saying
something really quickly,

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or I can slow right down to emphasize,

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and at the end of that, of course,
is our old friend silence.

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There's nothing wrong with a bit
of silence in a talk, is there?

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We don't have to fill it with ums and ahs.

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It can be very powerful.

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Of course, pitch often
goes along with pace

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to indicate arousal, but you
can do it just with pitch.

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Where did you leave my keys?

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(Higher pitch) Where did you
leave my keys?

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So, slightly different meaning
in those two deliveries.

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And finally, volume.

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(Loud) I can get really excited
by using volume.

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Sorry about that, if I startled anybody.

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Or, I can have you really pay attention
by getting very quiet.

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Some people broadcast the whole time.

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Try not to do that.

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That's called sodcasting,

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(Laughter)

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Imposing your sound on people around you
carelessly and inconsiderately.

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Not nice.

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Of course, where this all comes
into play most of all

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is when you've got something
really important to do.

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It might be standing on a stage like this
and giving a talk to people.

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It might be proposing marriage,

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asking for a raise, a wedding speech.

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Whatever it is, if it's really important,

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you owe it to yourself
to look at this toolbox

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and the engine that it's going to work on,

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and no engine works well
without being warmed up.

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Warm up your voice.

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Actually, let me show you how to do that.

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Would you all like to stand
up for a moment?

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I'm going to show you

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the six vocal warm-up exercises
that I do before every talk I ever do.

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Any time you're going to talk
to anybody important, do these.

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First, arms up, deep breath in,

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and sigh out, ahhhhh, like that.

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One more time.

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Ahhhh, very good.

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Now we're going to warm up our lips,

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and we're going to go Ba, Ba, Ba, Ba,

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Ba, Ba, Ba, Ba. Very good.

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And now, brrrrrrrrrr,

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just like when you were a kid.

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Brrrr. Now your lips
should be coming alive.

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We're going to do the tongue next

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with exaggerated la, la, la,
la, la, la, la, la, la.

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Beautiful. You're getting
really good at this.

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And then, roll an R. Rrrrrrr.

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That's like champagne for the tongue.

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Finally, and if I can only do one,

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the pros call this the siren.

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It's really good. It starts
with "we" and goes to "aw."

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The "we" is high, the "aw" is low.

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So you go, weeeaawww, weeeaawww.

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Fantastic. Give yourselves
a round of applause.

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Take a seat, thank you.

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(Applause)

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Next time you speak, do those in advance.

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Now let me just put this
in context to close.

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This is a serious point here.

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This is where we are now, right?

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We speak not very well

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to people who simply aren't listening

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in an environment that's all
about noise and bad acoustics.

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I have talked about that on this stage
in different phases.

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What would the world be like

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if we were speaking powerfully

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to people who were listening consciously

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in environments which were
actually fit for purpose?

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Or to make that a bit larger,

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what would the world be like

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if we were creating sound consciously

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and consuming sound consciously

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and designing all our environments

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consciously for sound?

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That would be a world
that does sound beautiful,

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and one where understanding
would be the norm,

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and that is an idea worth spreading.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)