Just like a baseball pitcher, preparing for a World Series works at trying to eliminate mistakes while throwing that ball the successful speaker or presenter works at continuous voice improvement -- eliminating sloppiness while speaking.
Back in 1953 Harrison Karr, Ph.D. summed it all up very nicely in his book Developing Your Speaking Voice published by Harper & Row in which he said that our goals should be to build a voice that is first of all expressive -- able to capture and project all the shades of meaning; vital, -- full of energy and enthusiasm -- "strong enough to suggest strength of personality"; articulate -- able to recreate words clearly with no slurred or indistinct components; pleasant -- "with a tonal quality that attracts"; free from affectation -- expressing warmth and sincerity in a normal voice; personality -- your natural personality -- whoever you are. (Don't try to be somebody else or something your're not.)
All worthwhile goals and something all of us need to keep improving on. And one of the best ways to do this is to work on these qualities at all times -- in our everyday conversations as well as our speeches and presentations.
Just like that major league pitcher needs to keep working on his techniques between seasons so we too need to keep honing our speaking voices between those speeches or presentations.
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