Find Your Authentic Voice!

To find your voice you need to be grounded in who you truly are as a speaker and deliver the transformation your audience seeks. This is not the same as the cliche of finding your voice. Finding your voice has often been used when referencing people who feel like they have lost their voice due to a traumatic event or person in their life. Although this may be true, I am not talking about that. Instead,?I am talking about how a speaker can find their true voice on stage.

Using the following acronym VOICE, we will explore how speakers can develop and bring their true voice to the stage.

V is for Vulnerability of self. This means as a speaker you need to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable is being you and not being afraid of sharing who you truly are. This can be done easily through your professional story and other stories you sprinkle throughout your presentation. Many speakers think they are being vulnerable, but they are protecting themselves. True vulnerability is about being real and sharing how you feel about a particular event or situation. When you do this, your audience will connect much faster and deeper with you. This is the first step to find your voice and what you want to strive for as a speaker.

O is for Opening doors. As a speaker you want to open doors for your audience that they can walk through. Maybe it is the door of hope and through your speech you are giving them hope so they can open that door. Maybe it is you giving of yourself, opening your heart, and sharing something personal. Maybe it is opening the door of possibilities and offering a perspective your audience has not thought of before. Maybe it is the door of greatness and where you express to your audience that they have greatness inside of them that they have not considered. To find your voice as a speaker, you must open doors for your audience so they can find their voice.

I is for Interested in listening to you. You must develop your speaking abilities to ensure that the audience is interested in listening to you. No one wants to listen to a boring speaker. Every time you step on stage ask yourself, “What can I do to make this speech more interesting? What can I do to grab my audience’s attention and keep it through the entire presentation? What new and interesting ideas, teachings, principles, strategies can I bring so that they will continue to listen? If your audience does not listen, you are not going to make an impact. If they tune you out, then forget about helping them change their life. Your audience must listen to you… every word!

C is Courage for a cause. You need to have your own courage to stand up for what you believe in. The courage to right a wrong. The courage to open your mouth and say something that might be controversial. When I say controversial, I am NOT talking about politics or religion. There are more important causes you can stand up and fight for such as the end of bullying, animal abuse, human trafficking, abortion, domestic violence, and elder abuse. There are plenty of causes that you can make right with your voice. Throughout history we have seen ordinary people stand up and make a wrong right. One such person is Candy Lightner. She was a single mom who supported her children as a real estate agent. On May 3, 1980, after returning home from shopping with friends, she learned that her 13-year-old daughter, Cari, got hit by a drunk driver while walking to a church festival. The little girl was hit so hard that her body flew 125 feet in the air, and she died instantly. The drunk driver got 48 hours in jail. This made Candy mad! As a result, Candy founded Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (M.A.D.D.) and has spoken all over the world. Her courage for a cause resulted in two laws being changed: (1) raising the drinking age to 21 and (2) lowering the legal blood alcohol level to .08. It is estimated that those 2 laws have saved over 400,000 lives to date. Candy transformed a personal tragedy into a crusade against drunk driving. She demonstrated courage for a cause.

E is for Elated about your topic. You must be elated about your message. This means you need to be beyond excited. You need to be over the moon excited and cannot wait to step on stage to share it with your audience. If you are not excited, no one else is going to be and your audience is not going to listen to you. Be elated about your time, step on stage, and share your voice.

Summary: Those are five ways to find your voice. Remember to be vulnerable, open doors, be interesting, speak for a cause, and be elated to share your message.

Every time I speak and do a class, I encourage people to step up and speak, get their message out there, and change the world. That is my mission and my purpose. I am here to teach people to become better speakers, to help them get their voice out in the world, and make a huge difference.

Do you want to find your powerful voice and deliver transformational speeches? Learn how by joining us for the upcoming virtual Million Dollar Speaker Summit at https://milliondollarspeakersummit.com.

For more public speaking tips, tricks and techniques go to: https://arveerobinson.com/passionately-speaking-blog.

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