From the course: Communicating with Confidence

Vary your rate of speech to add clarity

From the course: Communicating with Confidence

Start my 1-month free trial

Vary your rate of speech to add clarity

“

- Rate of speech is an extremely powerful foundation when it comes to vocal mastery. When I think of rate of speech, I think of it as having a scale of one to 10, one obviously being painfully slow and 10 being as quickly as you possibly can. Now, I want you to experience what happens when I do something like this. Imagine I jumped on a video and I stuck to a really slow default rate of speech. Here we go. Hi, everyone. It's great to be here. Welcome to my online class about communication skills. You've most likely left this video open a new tab to watch another LinkedIn learning course. Now let's see what happens if I do the complete polar opposite, and I stick to a faster default rate of speech. Here we go. Hi, everyone. I'm super excited to be here to teach you all about communication skills to help you amplify the best parts of who you are. Can you notice how, if I stuck to that as a default rate of speech is not effective either? Can you see how it's not influential and it's not impactful? Now, here is where it gets super interesting. What if I stuck to a fairly engaging rate of speech like I'm right now and I maintain this rate of speech and I stick to this as a default rate of speech. Can you see how what started out as being really engaging, the moment I stick to it as a default, it becomes monotonous? The most powerful lesson in communication is this. Anytime anything becomes default with your communication skills, it becomes non-functional. The human brain is fascinating. The moment it detects anything that is repetitive, it naturally tunes out. This is why varying your rate of speech is critical if you want to engage others for extended periods of time. If you want to vary your rate of speech, vary it with meaning. All you have to do is follow this simple rule. If what you are speaking about is really important, slow down. This acts as a verbal highlight indicating to the other person: This part is important and critical. Whereas if it's not as important, you can speed up. That's it. This simple rule allows more variety, it creates more engagement and more influence. Watch me throughout the course, use the foundation of rate of speech.

Contents