***Your Soft-Spoken Voice Is Not an Asset – It Is a Liability!

Speaking in a normal volume of sound can be especially tricky for the soft-spoken. If you are asked to repeat yourself or are often interrupted, then you should consider remedying the problem if you expect others to hear what you have to say. Those who are unable to hear you, tire of asking you to repeat yourself. And, in most cases, you will be interrupted because those with bigger voices will take over the conversation.

The difficulty in learning how to increase your volume is that your inner ear will revolt. In the various components of voice training, retraining the inner ear to accept a bigger voice is the most difficult. You have spent your entire life speaking at a particular level of sound. This is what your inner ear recognizes as normal. Unfortunately, for the rest of the population, your volume of sound is not normal.

If Volume Level 1 is the amount of sound the majority of the population uses at the dinner table, in the car, over the phone and at work (assuming the work place is not a noisy environment) and you are indeed soft-spoken, then your volume level is 15% to 20% less than the average person. On the ‘Richter Scale’, this means that you are probably talking at a .8 or .85 which is not within the norms. Thus, you volume level is below normal. If you look at it in this light, you might be able to appreciate why you are not being heard.

If you expect others to hear your message, your thoughts, or your ideas, then you must learn how to increase your volume to a normal level of sound. Notice I did not say ‘loud.’ Loud is a term I do not use in my voice training approach. I don’t want you to speak louder – I want you to speak with a larger volume of sound. There is a big difference between loud and larger volume. Loud hurts your listeners’ ears. A larger volume of sound being powered from your chest does not.

Soft-spoken people are often considered shy, timid, diffident, weak, insecure or wimpy. The list goes on and on. Those adjectives may or may not aptly describe you but it is what your lack of volume is saying. When you learn to properly increase your sound to a true Volume Level 1, you will be amazed at the difference in your life, both professionally and personally, because others will see and hear your confidence.