***Paint a Picture With Your Voice and Your Audience Will See It!

Do you know what it means to paint a picture with your voice? Sean Connery can do it and so can Kevin Spacey. Kathleen Turner can do it as well as Diane Sawyer. And, in the world of public speaking, no one does it better tha Zig Ziglar.

When Kevin Spacey does the car commercials, you can see the car in your mind just from the way his voice describes it. Likewise, when Diane Sawyer gives the news, you can picture what she is saying just from the way she says it. And when Zig Ziglar recounts an anecdote, you can see every detail of his story.

Painting a picture with your voice means speaking with emotion, with color, with life. You can emphasize a particular word or two; you may speed up or slow down for effect; you should definitely pause; you could change your inflection, going higher or lower on a syllable; you can stretch out a word or decrease your volume on a certain phrase. And, these are just a few of the possibilities.

Look at the following example:

• The crippled old man in the tattered coat hit the starving dog with his cane.

There are literally hundreds of ways of painting a picture with your voice when you read that sentence. By emphasizing or using force on just one of those words, you could be saying that the old man was mean; however, you might be saying that the man was defending himself.

Were you to stretch out the 2 words starving dog, you are showing sympathy for the animal. Moving quickly on the 2nd half of the sentence and lifting the pitch of your voice on the word hit could be telling your listeners that the man was indeed trying to defend himself.

Say the sentence with no expression whatsoever, and your listeners have no idea what took place aside from the fact that a ratty old man hit an emaciated dog. In this particular instance, the why is never satisfied.

Zig Ziglar is one of the best storytellers today in public speaking. The reason is because of his wonderful way of describing his stories just with the vocal variety of his voice. You do not need to watch him to ‘see’ the picture he is painting. And, his slight drawl adds to the interest of the ‘painting.’

When you speak, do not be afraid to use the many and varied vocal techniques that are within you to paint the picture with your voice.