Why You Hate Your Voice and How to Fix It | Tim Newman Speaks

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Have you ever listened to a recording of your own voice and thought, “Who is that?” If you’ve ever cringed at the sound of your voice on tape, you’re not alone. In this episode of Speaking with Confidence, I dive into why our own voice sounds so strange to us on a recording—and more importantly, what you can do about it.

I’m Tim Newman, your host and a recovering college professor turned communication coach. Today’s episode is all about bridging the gap between the voice you think you have and the one the world actually hears. I’ll show you why you don’t need to “fix” your voice, but understand what’s happening behind the scenes—both physically and psychologically—so you can finally build confidence in how you sound for your presentations, meetings, and important conversations.

There’s no guest this week; it's just me, sharing techniques and insights straight from my own coaching experience. If you’ve ever felt hesitant to speak up because you’re self-conscious about your voice, or you want to project more authority and command in your professional life, this episode is for you.

Here’s what I cover:

• Why your voice sounds so different—and often “worse”—when you hear it recorded, thanks to the physics of bone conduction versus air conduction.
• The phenomenon I call “imposter voice syndrome” and why it fuels self-doubt and anxiety.
• How exposure therapy can help you get comfortable with the sound of your recorded voice and shift from self-judgment to self-acceptance.
• Practical, immediately actionable techniques to power up your voice, including diaphragmatic breathing for resonance and steadiness, finding your optimal pitch with safe and easy exercises, and the strategic use of pauses to add authority and presence.
• Tips for using volume and articulation to ensure your message lands—so you never mumble or fade out at a crucial moment.
• How the way you use your voice transforms your leadership presence and credibility.
• Tactics for handling high-pressure situations, reading the room, and dynamically adjusting your delivery for maximum impact.
• Developing a simple, five-minute pre-speaking vocal warmup routine to make confidence a habit instead of a hope.
• The mindset shift from self-consciousness to audience focus so you stop apologizing for your sound and start using your voice as a strategic communication asset.

By the end of the episode, you’ll realize that your voice is not something to hide or “fix”—it’s your unique communication signature. With some deliberate practice and self-kindness, you’ll be on your way to speaking with authentic confidence, no matter the situation. If you take away only one thing today, let it be this: your voice has the power to change the world, starting with how you think and feel about it.

For more resources, remember to grab your free eBook and check out the Formula for Public Speaking rules at speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com. Until next time, embrace your voice and keep building that confidence!

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Episode Transcript

Tim Newman (00:08):
Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence, the
podcast that helps you build thesoft skills that lead to real
results.
Communication, storytelling,public speaking, and showing up
with confidence in everyconversation that counts.
I'm Tim Newman, a recoveringcollege professor, turn
communication coach, and I'mthrilled to guide you on a
journey to becoming a powerfulcommunicator.
Have you ever hit record,listen back, and you think, who

(00:30):
is that?
That instant cringe when youhear your own voice is almost
universal.
It sounds higher, thinner, orjust plain weird compared to the
rich, confident voice you hearin your head.
And the problem isn't justmomentary discomfort.
That feeling makes youhesitant.
You start holding back inmeetings, when calls, or when

(00:52):
presenting because you'resubconsciously afraid of how
you'll sound to everyone else.
But here's the truth.
Your voice isn't the problem.
The disconnect between what youhear and what the world hears
is.
And this isn't about changingyour voice into something it's
not.
It's about understanding whythat disconnect happens and

(01:12):
learning practical techniques tobridge the gap so you can
communicate with the confidencethat's already inside you.
So why does your own voicesound so foreign when a
recording?
It's not an audio glitch.
It's basic physics and biology.
When you speak, you hear yourvoice through two different
channels simultaneously.

(01:33):
The first is air conduction.
Sound waves travel from yourmouth to your ears just like you
hear everyone else.
But the second and moredominant channel for you is bone
conduction.
The vibrations from your vocalcords resonate through the bones
in your skull and jaw, whichadds a layer of lower frequency
resonance.

(01:53):
And that's the rich,full-bodied voice you're used to
hearing.
The voice on a recording ispure air conduction.
It's the unfiltered, objectivesound that everyone else has
been hearing all along.
Your brain has simply never hadto process this version of your
voice as you.
And this creates what I callthe imposter voice syndrome.

(02:15):
You hear the recording and feellike a fraud, like the voice
doesn't match the person youknow yourself to be.
And this dissonance creates areal communication anxiety.
It makes you second guessyourself, speak more quietly, or
avoid speaking up altogetherbecause you're subconsciously
trying to avoid the sound ofthat imposter voice.

(02:36):
The first and most crucial stepto fixing this is exposure
therapy.
You need to normalize the soundof your recorded voice.
And this doesn't mean listeningto a presentation and
critiquing every um and uh.
That's called judgment, and itreinforces the problem.
Instead, the goal isnon-judgmental listening.

(02:57):
Record yourself reading aneutral passage from a book or
article for about 60 seconds.
Then listen back with onesimple goal to hear the sound
without attaching any negativeemotion to it.
Don't analyze the content oryour delivery, just listen to
the timber, the pitch, thequality of the sound itself.

(03:19):
Do this for just a few minuteseach day.
After a week, the cringe factordiminishes significantly
because your brain starts toaccept the sound as part of your
identity.
From a leadership perspective,this is critical.
Leaders don't speak withapology in their voice.
They speak with conviction.
They own their natural soundbecause they know the message is

(03:42):
more important than themessenger's self-consciousness.
Overcoming this initial hurdleof self-perception is a
foundation for projecting theauthority and confidence that
commands a room.
Now that we understand why thedisconnect happens, let's talk
about how to build a voice youcan be confident in.
These aren't about creating afake radio voice.

(04:04):
They're about optimizing theinstrument you already have for
clarity, power, and presence.
The first power-up isdiaphragmatic breathing.
Your breath is the engine ofyour voice.
Most people breathe shallowlyfrom their chest, especially
when nervous, which results in athin, weak sound that's prone

(04:24):
to cracking.
Diaphromatic breathing givesyou a solid foundation.
Place a hand on your stomach.
As you inhale through yournose, focus on pushing your
stomach out, filling your lungsfrom the bottom up.
As you exhale, your stomachshould naturally draw inward.
Practice this silently for aminute.

(04:45):
Now let's add some sound.
When you're exhale, make asteady s sound, like a tire
slowly deflating.
The goal is to maintain aconsistent airflow and sound for
as long as possible.
This builds the core supportneeded for a resonant voice that
doesn't waver under pressure.

(05:05):
The second power up is findingyour optimal pitch.
When we're nervous, our pitchtends to creep upward into a
less authentic range.
Imagine being in basic trainingwith a drill sergeant with a
high-pitched nervous soundingvoice.
That wouldn't work.
Your optimal pitch is whereyour voice feels most

(05:25):
comfortable and resonant.
A simple way to find it is ahum and sigh exercise.
Start by humming a comfortablenote, not too high, not too low.
Feel the vibration in your lipsand face.
Now, as you sustain the hum,slowly open your mouth and let
it transition into a relaxedsigh, letting your pitch glide

(05:49):
down naturally.
The note you land on at thebottom of that sigh is likely
very close to your optimalspeaking pitch.
Try speaking a simple sentencelike good morning, starting from
that note.
It should feel easy and soundricher.
The third power-up is masteringstrategic pausing.

(06:10):
Yes, strategic pause can beused here too.
Filler words, um, like youknow, are often crutches we use
to fill silence while our brainsearches for the next word.
But remember, silence ispowerful.
A deliberate pause gives yourwords weight, allows your
audience to absorb what you'vesaid, and makes you appear more

(06:32):
thoughtful and in control.
Practice this with a simplereading exercise.
Read a paragraph aloud andchallenge yourself to replace
every potential filler word witha complete silent pause.
It will feel awkward at first,but it trains your brain to
embrace silence as a tool ratherthan a vacuum to be filled.

(06:53):
Beyond these three, work onvolume control, not just being
loud, but using subtle increasesin volume for emphasis and
dropping to a quieter tone todraw people in.
And finally, articulationdrills ensure your message isn't
lost to mumbling.
Exaggerate your mouth movementswhile saying tongue twisters

(07:14):
like red leather, yellow leatherto warm up your to warm up your
articulators.
The key to all this isconsistent deliberate practice.
Record yourself doing theseexercises for just five minutes
a day.
Don't judge your performance.
Just observe the progress.
Over time, the changes becomeintegrated into your natural

(07:38):
speaking style, building a voicethat feels and sounds
authentically powerful.
Now that you have thesetechnical building blocks, the
real magic happens when youshift from practicing exercises
to applying these skillstactically in real-world
situations.
And this is where your voicestops being just a sound and
starts becoming a strategictool.

(08:00):
Think about matching your vocaldelivery to your specific
intent.
If you're delivering difficultfeedback, your voice should
reflect calm authority, slowerpace, lower pitch, deliberate
pauses.
If you're energizing a team,you might use a slightly faster
tempo and more variation involume to build excitement.

(08:21):
The technical skills give youthe control to make these
intentional choices rather thanjust reacting nervously.
And this is especially criticalfor developing what I call the
leadership voice.
It's not about being theloudest person in the room.
It's about projectingcompetence and conviction
through vocal stability.

(08:41):
When you speak from asupportive breath at your
optimal pitch and withcontrolled pacing, you signal
that you are in command of bothyour message and yourself.
People subconsciously equatevocal control with general
competence.
It's one of the fastest ways tobuild credibility.
Handling high pressuresituations is the ultimate test.

(09:04):
The natural response is tensionwhich creeps into the throat,
raises the pitch, and speeds updelivery.
The counterintuitive move is todo the opposite.
When you feel that pressurebuilding, consciously drop your
shoulders, take a deepdiaphragmatic breath before you
speak, and intentionally slowyour pace by about 20%.
This doesn't just help yousound more confident, it

(09:28):
actually tricks your nervoussystem into calming you down.
You're using your voice as alever to control your state.
A huge part of tacticalapplication is learning to read
the room and adjust accordingly.
And I talked about this inepisode 94.
If you see blank stares, itmight be a sign of confusion,
not boredom.

(09:49):
And that's your cue to slowdown even more, articulate more
clearly, and use more pauses togive people time to process.
If you see fidgeting oryawning, the energy might be
dropping.
That's when you increase yourvolume variation and maybe even
stand up or move around tophysically shift the dynamic.
Your voice is your primaryinstrument for managing the

(10:11):
energy in the room.
To make this sustainable, builda simple vocal warm-up routine
you can do in five minutesbefore any important speaking
event.
It could be one minute ofdiaphragmatic breathing, one
minute of the hum inside to findyour pitch, and then running
through a few articulationdrills.
This isn't about a majoroverhaul each time.

(10:32):
It's about creating aconsistent ritual that cues your
brain and body to perform attheir best.
Consistency turns thesetechniques from something you
have to think about into yournew normal.
And the final and mostimportant piece is the internal
shift.
All the technique in the worldwon't help if you're still
fighting a mental battle againstyour own voice.

(10:54):
The goal is to move fromself-consciousness to audience
focus.
Your voice is your uniquecommunication signature.
It's part of what makes youyou.
So instead of seeing it as aflaw to be fixed, start seeing
it as an asset to be optimized.
The confidence you build byknowing how to use your voice

(11:16):
effectively translates directlyinto leadership presence.
When you're not worried abouthow you sound, you can focus
100% of your energy onconnecting with your audience
and delivering your message withimpact.
This shift happens throughsmall, consistent improvements.
You won't wake up tomorrow witha completely new voice, and
that's not the goal.

(11:37):
The goal is that each time youpractice diaphragmatic breathing
or using a strategic pause,you're reinforcing the belief
that you are in control.
Over time, these small windsaccumulate into a fundamental
change in how you show up.
You stop apologizing for yoursound and start owning it.
If you take only one thing fromthis, make it this.

(12:00):
Before your next meeting orimportant conversation, take
sixty seconds for intentionalbreathing.
Find a quiet space, place ahand on your stomach, and take
five deep slow breaths focusingon filling your lungs from the
bottom up.
This single act does twopowerful things immediately.
Physically, it oxygenates yourbrain and grounds your voice.

(12:23):
Psychologically, it signals toyour nervous system that you're
preparing to speak withintention, not anxiety.
You'll notice that your veryfirst sentence comes out with
more resonance and steadiness,and that small shift increases a
positive feedback loop thatchanges your entire delivery.
Start with this one practice.

(12:43):
Don't try to master everythingat once.
Embrace the process of gettingcomfortable with the sound of
your own voice, because that'sthe foundation of communicating
with true confidence.
That's all for today.
Remember, we're looking forprogress, not perfection.
Be sure to visit speaking withconfidence podcast.com to get

(13:05):
your free ebook, The Top 21Challenges for Public Speakers
and How to Overcome Them.
You can also register for theformat for public speaking
rules.
Always remember your voice hasthe power of changing.
We'll talk to you next time.
Take care.