Four Ways To Improve Your Voice Quality and Tone

The way in which a person speaks can contribute either positively or negatively to a perception of magnetism. Often, more significance is attached to the way something is said than to what is actually being said. A forceful voice, which includes a consistent tone without vocalized pauses, connotes power, control, and confidence, thus contributing to a perception of magnetism. On the other hand, a whispery, wimpy voice detracts from a person sounding confident and being able to take charge to influence others. Avoiding an annoying voice quality can have a positive impact on others.

One research surveyed a nationwide sample of 1,000 men and women, and asked the question, “Which irritating or unpleasant voice annoys you the most?” The answer was a whining, complaining, or nagging tone. The same research concluded that we are judged by the way we sound and that careers can be damaged by an unpleasant voice. People judge our intelligence much more by how we sound than how we dress. However, the conclusion that voice quality contributes to or detracts from magnetism does not imply that there is no room for individuality in this dimension. A nice, pleasant and magnetic voice can encompass a wide range of regional accents, such as the former business executive and Reform Party presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and financier Donald Trump.

The following are techniques that you can practice on your own to improve your voice quality:

1. Listen to your voice on either a tape cassette, videocassette, or voicemail system. Keep repeating the same message until you are satisfied that you sound like a confident and magnetic person.
2. While listening to your voice, search for common voice problems such as a monotonous tone, squeakiness, an accent that is too thick or tendencies to mumble or to talk too fast.
3. Several times per week visualize yourself speaking to work associates and practice using the voice quality you think will convey the impression that you are personally magnetic.
4. Consult a speech therapist or coach to help identify any facets of your voice that detract from your image.

Changing the quality of your voice dramatically would take years because one’s voice is composed of so many ingrained, long- term habits. Though, just by modifying a few of your worst habits you might be able to make noticeable improvements. For example, by learning to exaggerate your lip movements you could substantially reduce that mumbling quality that has been driving your friends crazy for years.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Give Your Dreams & Goals Priority Time

Clearing out your time schedule is a vital priority for living your dream. “Do you know how busy I am? I couldn’t possibly take on one more activity!” This is an exclamation we often hear from active, involved individuals. Even when we’re not spending our time exactly as we would prefer, we commonly feel that the demands pressed upon us preclude our having much of any choice in the matter. But if our dream is a last priority in our daily plan, it will also be the least likely outcome of our day, and our life.

If you go to a doctor or diet clinic for help in losing weight, you may be asked to keep a diary of your food intake. Only when you know what you are actually eating can you know what changes need to be made. The same is true of managing your time. It’s important to begin keeping a record of how your time is spent. Once you have conducted a realistic assessment of the time available to you and the requirements made for your time, your options will be more apparent.

Begin by keeping a list of your activities during each of the seven days of one week. Write each activity in a column down the left side of a page, and write the days of the week across the top. Tally up the amount of time spent in each activity per day. Leave space for totals for the week on the right side. Your page might look something like the “Time Spent on Activities for a Week” chart.

When you have filled out this chart for one week, study it carefully. Are you surprised at what it reveals? What do you observe about the way you spend your time? What changes can you make to manage your time optimally? Make a list.

In observing small children at play, I have noticed almost without exception their innate tendency to dump out the whole toy box before beginning to interact with the toys. They knock all the blocks down before beginning to build something new. Every piece of the Tinker Toy set must be pulled apart before a new construction is begun. Children inherently know the importance of starting anew, from the empty box or the blank table, when they want to create something new, all their own.

Your time is your creative medium of expression, just like the child’s box of toys. When you want to create a new set of priorities that highlights your dream, start like the small child with the blank table before you. Take a clean sheet of paper and write your Dream Statement across the top in large letters. Draw a chart where you can show activity time segments for an ideal day. Decide which activities you want to accomplish each day. Begin by allocating set periods of time to work on your dream - periods that are unlikely to be interrupted by other demands. Many people find that rising earlier in the morning serves this purpose. Once you have set aside times for pursuing your dream, list your other activities in time segments, to represent the way you intend to spend your day. Combine optimal productivity with spaces for relaxation and rejuvenation.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Remembering Speeches

Probably the worst mistake you can make is to try to memorize a speech word for word. First of all, it isn’t really necessary. The assumption is that if you’ve been asked to deliver a speech on a particular subject, you know something about that subject. Secondly, memorizing the speech word for word will make it sound that way when you deliver it—memorized. And, finally, when you memorize a speech word for word, you’re taking the chance of fumbling over one word you can’t remember.

Reading a speech doesn’t work either, because you want to hold the group’s attention, and reading to them is likely to put them to sleep. Even if you occasionally look up at your audience as you read, it won’t help much.

The best way to deliver a speech is to talk it in your own words, thought for thought. A speech is a sequence of thoughts; if the thoughts are out of sequence, the speech won’t make much sense. First, write out or type your speech, including all the things you want to say about all the ideas you think are important. Read it over to get the gist of it. Now for that “other idea”: Select a Key Word from each thought that will remind you of the entire thought.

This is easier to do than it might seem. There is rarely a thought, whether it is to be expressed in one sentence or two paragraphs, that cannot be brought to mind by one word or phrase. It is these Key Words (or Key Thoughts) that you Link - at which point you have the speech memorized thought for thought.

Popularity: 32% [?]

How To Become Successful By Working Less

You have been told the hard and simple truth: if you aren’t getting much out of life emotionally and financially, then you must look at what you bring into life. Clearly, to get more out of this world, you must make some changes in your life.

Now for the pleasant truth; success has little to do with hard work. The natural order of the world doesn’t dictate that you have to work hard to earn a good living and get more out of life. On the contrary, working fewer hours than most people, and at a more leisurely pace, may in fact help you to get a lot more out of life - financially and emotionally.

Most people over-dramatize the value of hard work for acquiring wealth and happiness. The late Joe Karbo, author of The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches, coined the saying, “Most people are too busy earning a living to make any money.” What Karbo meant was that most people are too preoccupied with their demanding and unfulfilling jobs, as well as with frivolous after-hour activities, to devote some creative effort toward generating alternative, less demanding means of income.

In truth, the most difficult way to make a good living is to work hard for it. Hard work is no match for relaxed, creative action. Unlike people who preach the virtues of hard work, the relaxed achiever knows that important, imaginative projects lead to a lot more impressive financial results and personal satisfaction than does working long and hard. By choosing this route, you become a peak performer. You don’t have to work hard to make a decent living; you have to work smart, however.

Poet W H. Auden wisely expressed his views on work: “In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it: they must not do too much of it: and they must have a sense of success in it.” The second of Auden’s three ingredients is the one that most people in the modern world overlook and violate. Most people in Western societies today put way too much time into their work lives and not enough into their personal lives.

With all the modern technology at our disposal, none of us need slave away to the extent that people did twenty or fifty years ago. Greater opportunity to seek a balanced and wholesome lifestyle exists now more than ever in the history of humankind; unfortunately, most people are too uncreative or too afraid of freedom to benefit, however. Today’s prosperous times should be able to support millions of people seeking their true selves through creative pursuits and self-expression while working only a few hours a day.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Is An Addiction Preventing You From Success In Life?

If you are like many people attempting to live your dreams and become successful, you may find that addictive behaviors may get in the way or prevent your success altogether. Addictions by definition are self-destructive. They erode self-esteem and cause gradual health problems, and impairments in social, occupational, physical, emotional, or spiritual functioning. Our society condones addictions. So much of the social fabric of everything we do involves the acceptance of addictive thinking and behavior that we have become almost unaware of it.

If you may have a problem achieving your goals because of an addition of sorts, then the following list of possible addictive hindrances may help you identify your personal demons and eliminate them totally from your life:

Immediate gratification: All addictions produce instant gratification. You feel better as a result of your involvement with the substance or process in which you indulge. It is enjoyable to experience the altered state (at least temporarily).

Simplistic thinking: You believe that “it” will make everything all right. You believe that “it” is something that is capable of inducing positive psychological, emotional, and physical states, as well as relieving negative ones.

Distorted priorities: Your priorities become distorted, and you become consumed and obsessed with your addiction as the most important thing in life, above and beyond everything else.

Skewed perspective: Your perspective becomes skewed and inaccurate. You are unable to perceive reality accurately. You begin to see people and situations as exaggerations of what they normally are.

Symptoms of withdrawal: As soon as you are deprived of the substance or the process, adverse consequences appear immediately. You experience unpleasant physiological, psychological, and/or emotional symptoms. You experience trauma at the thought or reality of separating from your addiction.

Overwhelming attachment: You are so dependent upon the addiction that you feel unable to function without it. A need/dependency relationship evolves between you and your addiction. You need it to be happy and your well-being is contingent on having it available to you.

Complete loss of power: You feel powerless to alter your situation. You have relinquished your power to something or someone outside yourself. The situation has become bigger than you are, and you are unable to affect a change. You are a slave to your addictions.

Binary thinking: You are a victim of binary thinking. You view situations as black or white, either/or, right or wrong, good or bad, on or off, wonderful or awful. Life is perceived as a zero sum game in which the pendulum swings between two polar opposites with no happy medium.

Popularity: 23% [?]

11 Character Traits Of Highly Motivated & Successful People

Motivation is a powerful tool for success. The degree to which you can remain motivated and continue to make forward progress determines whether you realize the life goals that you establish. But the reward for being motivated isn’t just raw goal accomplishment. The accompanying benefits of being motivated are numerous - and they can change your life.

When you fully understand these benefits of motivation, you can make motivating yourself a lifelong habit. Take a look at the following motivating traits and choose which ones (or all) can help you:

1. Creativity: Motivated people think more clearly. They focus more intellectual resources on their current project, and the result is more creativity.

2. Energy: People who are motivated actually need less sleep - not because they’re on a constant adrenaline rush but because they possess a genuine, energizing excitement.

3. Flexibility: Motivated folks have discovered that flexibility is a developed skill that doesn’t depend on circumstances. When their circumstances change, they’re more open to bending to deal with the situation rather than being rigid about an outcome.

4. Health: People who have a positive feeling about their life and its potential have reason to get and stay healthy. They have experienced the difference in energy and healthfulness during non-motivated times, and they prefer the motivated lifestyle.

5. Magnetism: A motivated lifestyle is attractive, and motivated people have a certain magnetism. Others are naturally drawn to winners who are energizing by nature and habit.

6. Momentum: Motivation is self-perpetuating. It gathers speed as it rolls along in offices, homes, and communities. Living out your motivation gets easier because it becomes a habit.

7. Multiplication: Motivation is contagious - it spreads and multiplies. The people around the one who is motivated “catch” that motivation.

8. Recognition: When people live out a motivated lifestyle, they stand out. Others respect them for their achievements, admire their spunk, and, because they want to be associated with winners, offer their assistance.

9. Optimism: Motivated individuals have found out that optimism opens more doors than negativity. They have discovered a life pattern of finding the silver lining or the potential in any turn of events. They aren’t thrown off course by change. They find the good in everything.

10. Productivity: Motivated people get more done. They move with a spring in their step, and they attack tasks with enthusiasm. They move quickly, deliberately, and with a concern for maintaining a can-do attitude along the way.

11. Stability: Folks with motivation are focused and are not easily distracted or dissuaded from their destinations. They are tuned in to the object of their motivation.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Organizing Old Documents: Find Out How Long You Really Need It

We all have paper we need to save for various reasons, but most of us end up hanging onto it much longer than we should. Find out from your tax preparer, financial advisor, and lawyer what documents you need to keep and for how long.

Since doing this is part of your organization plan. Weigh the cost in storage space and time required to hold onto these documents against the costs involved in recreating them in the event you might need them in the future. What is the likelihood? How difficult would it be to obtain them again?

Make sure to purge your files regularly (every three to six months), using the guidelines your
professional advisors give you. Write on the hanging folder (or attach a note) to remind you.

It’s easy to forget and just allow these mounds of paper to accumulate. If you keep going through them regularly, replacing the oldest year’s with the newest, you’ll still only need the same amount of storage. That means that once you set up storage systems for these long-term records, you’ll probably never have to add to them.

Popularity: 21% [?]

You Are What You Think

I was quite young when I first heard the Biblical passage which reads, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” I recall shaking my head, thinking that could not be. How could we possibly be what we think? After all, isn’t our physical self one thing and our private thought another?

Little did I (or most of us then) understand that the Biblical passage had hit the nail of truth squarely on the head. It would be years later, however, after much research, and following the discoveries through which modern-day neuroscientists had begun to unlock the secrets of the human mind, that I would come to know just how correct, how scientifically correct, that Biblical passage had been.

In the last two decades we have learned more about the workings of the human brain than was known throughout all history prior to that time. We now know that by an incredibly complex physiological mechanism, a joint effort of body, brain and “mind,” we become the living result of our own thoughts. Through scientific discovery we have proved the relationship between our own “mental programming” and the matter of whether we will succeed or fail in any endeavor we undertake in life, from something as important as a lifetime goal to something as small as what we do in a single day.

Popularity: 23% [?]

The Importance Of Leisure Activities For Stress Reduction

When author Hans Selye first published his now-classic book on the stress of life, he made the proposal that “no one part of the body must be disproportionately overworked for a long time.” It’s like carrying a heavy suitcase for an extended period of time with one arm, when you feel the pain (stress) of that arm, then you shift the bag to the other arm, so that the stress is equalized and no one set of muscles is overworked.

The same holds true in life as well. If we spend most of our time working, or relaxing, or doing too much church work, then we are overtaxing one part of our personality, and this is tension-producing.

As we have discussed in previous articles, many people today have become raging workaholics. They spend long hours at work and although they are enjoying what they are doing immensely, these people are not leading a balanced lifestyle. Eventually, through sickness, heart attacks, or other physical problems, nature catches up with them and they are forced to slow down.

A better way to start slowing down is to change our attitudes. We must recognize that leisure is not wrong or unnecessary and is not a misuse of talent or even a waste of time. Just like work is crucial to life, leisure is just as important. If we fail to take time for recreation, we may be successful at our career, but lose our family, friends, and even our health in the long run. Even just short breaks that are taken frequently can rejuvenate our mind and body and make our work more effective.

Once you have decided that leisure is important to you, next decide just how you plan on unwinding. That is difficult for most people, but a good place to start is by searching your past. What were some of the things that you enjoyed doing when you were younger? What were the hobbies that got you interested? What were the things that you always wanted to get into but never felt you had the time for? Work on relaxing in a way that is different than your work. If your job is sitting at a computer all day crunching numbers and writing text, when look towards outdoor activities like playing volleyball or hiking through nature. If your job is one that is very physical then look towards leisure activities that allows you to relax your body, like reading a good book, or going for a boat ride.

Popularity: 34% [?]

4 Tips for overcoming shyness

Shyness; almost everyone has been a victim of it at one point or another. Research has shown that men go through more of it that women do. On a subtle level, the shy person is an introvert and a little reserved. On the more drastic level, why people a constant feeling of insecurity and fear around other people that is so overwhelming they often stay home and avoid the social scene altogether.

What is the cause of shyness? For a lot of people, shyness is a result of what happened to them in the past. As children, they may have felt rejected and criticized by their peers or their family. Their parents may have taught them not to be assertive or too aggressive. These kinds of behaviors are carried on in their adult life and turned into insecurity or fear of being judged by other people.

For some people, shyness is inherited. They are born with what is called “stranger anxiety” which is caused in part by chemical imbalance in the brain. Researchers also found what is called “switching center” in the brain that results in stimulating fear and withdrawal reactions.

Whether your shyness is instilled or inherited, you don’t have to live with it. By increasing your level of confidence, you can overcome your shyness and live a more carefree life.

Here are some tips to help conquer your shyness.

1. Remember that overcoming shyness starts with building up your self confidence. Consider yourself as your own biggest fan, not your worst critic.

2. Act the way you want to be and feel. Try this exercise in the privacy of your home. Stand up straight, chin up, puff out your chest and raise your voice as you walk around the room. Practicing this helps you get rid of hidden anxiety, awkwardness, and embarrassment. After doing this exercise, you will feel more refreshed and rejuvenated.

3. Try affirmations. Tell yourself that you are a worthwhile person and that you deserve the best of what life has to offer. Do this everyday at least twice a day. I find that the best times to do affirmations are first thing in the morning and before you go to bed at night.

4. Try and figure out why you are shy. What are your fears and insecurities? You may realize that other people don’t see what we call our imperfections the way we do.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Next Page →