šŸ¤– Say goodbye to monotony with this surprisingly simple hack.

And no, you won't need a voice coach.

We often associate monotony with a lack of intonation and inflection in our voice. Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about his struggles with monotony in his latest Netflix documentary (highly recommend). Increasing your vocal range requires a lot of hard work, but this tip is instantly implementableā€¦

Vary your sentence length.

I have been applying this principle for several years now after stumbling across this quote from Gary Provost:

SO jealous I didnā€™t come up with that šŸ¤¢!

Now you understand the principle, letā€™s take a look at some specific things you can do to apply this to your presentations:

  1. Use longer sentences when telling a story šŸ“–.
    They help us to build momentum when we tell a story. Long sentences allow us to set the scene, share intricate details to make our stories more vivid and most importantly of all, create the suspense needed to draw our audience in.

  1. Use mid-sentence pauses to create cliffhangers šŸ˜±ā€¦

When we present, we donā€™t need to wait until the end of a sentence to take a pause. Pauses are our punctuation! A mid-sentence pause can disrupt our audienceā€™s rhythm, help us to come across more naturally (as we do this all the time in normal conversation) and keep our audienceā€™s attention.

This is a technique that Jamie Foxx uses all the timeā€¦

That pause lasted 6 seconds!

Notice how he uses his hand to signal that heā€™s not finished speaking? Thatā€™s how he ensures that heā€™s not going to get cut off ā˜ļø.

  1. Increase your pause length for shorter sentences šŸ§Ø.
    Short sentences are often the most powerful. So contrasting them with slightly longer pauses gives the sentence more weight.

Notice how bunching some shorter sentences together completely changes the rhythm of the story and keeps us all hooked as a result.

Jamie Foxxā€™s story is the living embodiment of Gary Provostā€™s quote!

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Alex

Whenever you're ready, here are some ways I can help:

  1. Got a high-stakes presentation coming up at work? Raise your game with a copy of Make It CountĀ šŸ“˜.*

  2. Ready to become a sought-after speaker? Become a member of MicDropĀ šŸŽ¤.

  3. Looking to upgrade your teamā€™s presentation skills? Book a call ā˜Žļø.

  4. Get paid to speak? Take part in the MicDrop Open Speaker Fee Project and find out whether youā€™re charging what youā€™re really worth.

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