One of the most effective and subtle ways to dramatically increase your ability to impact those around you is with VOICE TONE.
Voice tone is not just a little adder on top of a conversation. In many ways, it is what makes or breaks the conversation. Voice tone is the difference between a constructive conversation or a raging fight. Your ability to use your voice to give your words meaning will determine a large part of how interesting people find you and how likely they are to do what you say.
If you are skeptical of how much more important voice tone is than the actual words themselves play around with the following example that allows the impact of voice tone to come to life. Read the following sentence aloud and listen how the entire means of the sentence changes completely based on which word you stress (stress meaning saying it louder or with an upward inflection).
" I didn't say she stole the money. "
There are millions of ways that you may strengthen the way your voice tone impacts others. Here is a foundational skill that should be practiced, considered and refined:
Command Tonality: This is where your voice takes on the feel of intensity and importance. Think of when Donald Trump talks. Does he carefully request things from everyone around him as to not hurt their feelings or does he give commands? Needless to say, anyone that has seen him speak on television has seen the presence of command tonality in many things that they says. An example of the extreme of command tonality would be a military drill Sergeant. Whenever you use command tonality it creates an automatic compulsion of whomever you are talking to do what you say.
Now here is where the magic comes into play. If you use command tonality with every word you say, it could be overwhelming for the listener. However, when you use command tonality with a single word or a group of words in a sentence it creates a very subconscious compulsion for listen to do what those words imply. This is also called an embedded command.
Examples:
Whenever I sell a product to my customers it seems as if they always WANT MORE.
(This sends the subconscious signal “want more” to the listener)
Some people lead, others FOLLOW. However in MY experience, it helps to provide DIRECTIONS.
(This sentence, has the imbedded command, “follow my directions”)
Whether you decided to CHOOSE ME or not CHOOSE ME at least you can feel a sense of satisfaction.
(This sentence has the embedded command, “Choose me” in it twice)
MAKE or break, with ME at least you get a SMILE
(This sentence has the embedded command, “make me smile”)
For most people, they let their emotions determine how their voice sounds as it comes out of their mouth. This is why voice tone is so impacting. Because people will trust your voice much more than they will trust your words. When learning how to become a master of voice tone a great step is to always pay attention to how you sound when you say things and if you would like to play with command tonality to get more of what you want, that may be a good idea too :^)
Always live with impact!
