Weekly Voice Insights #70 -The 6–7 Hour: What the Voice Knows in Transition

Using breath and sound to restore coordination in early evening.

What the voice knows in early evening.

There’s a stretch of time in the early evening that many people recognize without needing to name it. The workday has ended, but the evening hasn’t fully arrived, and the body seems to hover between those two states. The pace slows, attention loosens, and voice use often fades unless there’s a clear reason to speak.

Lately, this hour has been showing up more publicly.

What Changes During This Hour 

Short videos circulate of people moving through the space between six and seven—walking, cooking, sitting quietly, doing very little on purpose. For the people watching, the timing makes sense immediately. You can tell where in the day this is without anything being explained.

What shows up most consistently during this window is a change in how things are being used. During this window, the supports that carried breath, posture, and voice earlier in the day begin to drop away, while the body hasn’t yet arrived at rest.

Between Drive and Rest

Early evening sits between two physiological modes. The forward drive that carries the day begins to taper, while the systems that support recovery haven’t fully engaged. That gap appears with remarkable consistency, especially in people who use their voice throughout the day. You hear it immediately when they speak.

Lower Demand, Different Use

By early evening, the demand on the voice is usually lower. The environment is quieter, conversation is reduced, and there’s less need to be audible or to sustain sound. When speech happens under those conditions, it often comes with lower breath pressure and less airflow. Over time, that can shift more of the work onto the vocal folds themselves — what voice teachers often call “talking on the cords” — which helps explain why voices frequently feel more tired later in the evening.

This develops through accumulation rather than any single cause. Nothing dramatic happens all at once. The system settles into a quieter, less coordinated state as the structure of the day falls away.

Why Vibration Matters

When voice use fades, vibration fades with it, and the change is noticeable. Vibration provides direct physical feedback. It lets the body know that air is moving, sound is sustained, and time is unfolding smoothly. When that feedback diminishes, one of the body’s simplest organizing signals drops away. That change often explains why this hour can feel flat or disconnected, even when nothing specific seems wrong.

What People Do Without Thinking

People tend to respond intuitively. They reach out to someone, step outside for a walk, put on music, or sing along with something familiar. Each of these actions brings rhythm, coordinated airflow, vibration, and external pacing back into the system. Action changes how the voice and breath are being used, often before the mind assigns any meaning to the experience.

What I Return To

For me, this is where I turn to something very simple. I’ll do a couple of Farinelli exercises, just enough to reconnect breath across the torso. A comfortable inhale, a brief suspension, and a steady release on an unvoiced “S.” That usually creates enough space to move on.

Here is the video I made showing how I use the Farinelli exercise:
https://youtu.be/wnxbD2Ueuro?si=rb1Fk5XPbYMHaYL8

After that, I’ll start singing. Often it’s Beautiful Dreamer. It’s a tune I return to, and the words matter to me. As I sing, my attention stays with the vowels moving through those words, the vibration carried by sounds that already have meaning.

As that continues, I notice that I begin taking fuller breaths, and then, without planning it, I’m using longer phrases of breath than I had been earlier. I’m not deciding to breathe that way ahead of time. The longer inhales and even longer exhales seem to follow the intention of the words and the sustained vibration they invite. By the time I’m finished, I can tell that something has shifted in my body. The hour feels different than it did when I began.

Every habit and faculty is preserved and increased by corresponding actions. — Epictetus

Weekly Voice Insights #69 -Dear Applicant, Thank You for Your Time: Why That’s Not Enough

How small details in communication reveal more than we intend

How something is delivered matters as much as what it contains.

It starts simply enough. You apply for a position, gather your materials, and send them off. In some cases, you even have a brief conversation with someone involved in the process. You come away thinking the exchange was steady and respectful. You wait for the next step.

Eventually, a message appears. At first glance, the tone seems warm. It acknowledges the work you submitted, references the strength of the applicant pool, and expresses appreciation for your interest. I read one such message recently and thought: That was considerate. It sounded as though someone had taken time to look through my CV and reflect on my experience. For a moment, that felt grounding.

Then I noticed a small detail. My name was in a different font than the rest of the letter. A slight shift in typeface, but enough to show the message had been assembled from a template. The wording suggested personal attention; the formatting suggested something else. My reaction shifted immediately. Not anger—simply the awareness that what I had read as personal was, in fact, a standard message made to sound personal.

Epictetus reminds us:

“We are not disturbed by things, but by the views we take of them.”

The letter itself had not changed.
What changed was what I understood it to be.
At first, I read care into it. Then I saw the seams, and the meaning reorganized itself. The disappointment wasn’t about the rejection. It was about the realization that the tone and the mechanics didn’t match.

Another question followed. If the intention was to write in a personal tone, why not check the details? The font mismatch isn’t a major flaw, but once you see it, it’s hard not to wonder how closely the rest of the communication was handled. Not because the writer was careless, but because the presentation didn’t fully support the message it aimed to send.

Then a practical thought arose: if an institution is going to send a message that sounds individualized, why not include one sentence that truly reflects the CV? It doesn’t need to be elaborate. A single reference—international teaching, a particular production, a unique program—would anchor the message to the person who receives it. Without that, the compliments are broad enough to apply to dozens of applicants and specific enough to sound personal without actually being personal.

This pattern is familiar from voice work. Over time, a singer learns the subtle match between the body and the sound—how a vowel feels when it fits their natural production, and how the breath settles when they’re aligned. It’s not about high-level technique. It’s about noticing. When the physical cues don’t match the sound they think they’re making, something is off, even if they can’t hear it themselves. That’s why listening—real listening—matters. Seeing the font shift in the opening line of the letter felt similar. A small detail revealed that the outward tone and the underlying structure weren’t working together. And as in singing, that small detail changed the way the entire message landed.

Professional communication is no different. A brief, direct note that reflects the actual exchange—even if it was a single conversation—often carries more steadiness than a polished paragraph meant to soften the message. Clarity is not unkind. Distance is not neutral. We hear these mismatches, even on the page.

Rejection itself is not the problem. It’s the way it’s delivered. We’re professionals. We don’t need flattery in rejection—we need clarity. We don’t need brand-safe empathy—we need real communication.

So to the organizations drafting their next round of emails: if you truly value people, write to them like people. Not just “applicants,” not as a collective, not as a category—but as humans who took the time to show you their work.

That would be enough.

---

Related Posts

Weekly Voice Insights #48 — What Tone Reveals Before Words Begin
https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2024/11/weekly-insight-48-what-tone-reveals.html

Weekly Voice Insights #54 — The Subtle Work of Noticing
https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2024/12/weekly-voice-insights-54-subtle-work-of.html

Weekly Voice Insights #61 — Epictetus and the Difference Between What Happens and What We Tell Ourselves
https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2025/02/weekly-voice-insights-61-epictetus-and.html

---

Further Resources

From Hope to Silence – Ghosting in Recruitment
https://mypivot.substack.com/p/from-hope-to-silence

Why Job Ghosting Is on the Rise and Can You Prevent It? https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brigettehyacinth_ghosted-job-candidate-5-months-ago-she-activity-7374136917455503362

6 Toxic Candidate Experience Tales: Applicants Deserve Better
https://getleadline.com/blog/6-toxic-candidate-experience-tales-applicants-deserve-better

Weekly Voice Insights #68 — What We Wear, What We Feel, and How It Shapes Our Voice

Your Voice Begins With What You Put On.

In Biarritz, during rehearsals for La Traviata, there’s an Instagram clip from our sitzprobe. A sitzprobe is a music-only rehearsal—no staging, no costumes—just the orchestra in front and the cast grouped behind them. From the outside, it looks relaxed. People wear whatever gets them through a long day of music-making.

In this clip, I’m wearing a dress shirt and my boots—clothes that help my body settle into the work. The boots give my legs a clear sense of where to stand and where my weight settles, and they help me feel where my back is aligned. The shirt has a splash of color and style, and I feel comfortable and confident in it.

Over the years, I’ve worked with colleagues who feel just as grounded in sneakers and a t-shirt. I’m not one of them. My voice responds to very small physical cues. The body reacts to what it’s wearing before the mind ever comments on it.

Many singers talk about how putting on the costume helps them “feel like the character.” That’s true, and it’s valid. But for me, waiting until Production Week—when we finally move to the stage with costumes and props—was always too late.  I needed earlier physical information. I wish I had understood this sooner in my training. I didn’t realize how much clothing can support—or confuse—the body’s ability to organize breath and alignment.

During the Traviata staging process, I rehearsed in a jacket because it gave me a clearer sense of how Germont carried himself—far more than a t-shirt ever would. The shoulder structure, the inner pocket, even the slight weight of the fabric changed how I held my upper body. Those details helped me find the role physically, not just vocally.

I’ve seen a shift in recent years. I’ve seen highly trained singers arrive in very casual clothing—short shorts or loose tank tops that expose more than they may realize. I’ve also seen outfits that simply don’t fit well: jackets too tight or too loose, vests riding up, shirts untucked. These small details matter. But it’s a different physical message. The breath they practice in that outfit isn’t the breath they’ll need in a fitted costume. In a concert tux, the collar and tie create a very different sensation through the neck and upper body than a thin undershirt ever could. None of this is moral judgment. It’s just the reality of how clothes influence the instrument.

There’s another part of this that isn’t only physical. It’s respect. In a formal rehearsal with an orchestra, a conductor, and colleagues, I’m not going to wear what I would wear at home watching a movie and eating snacks. That kind of clothing puts my body in a casual stance—and it also signals a relaxed, informal energy to the room around me. I’m not talking about being dressed to the nines. It’s simply acknowledging the level of work that’s happening and the people involved in it.

My years in Paris taught me this without anyone saying it. Not everyone walked around in elegant clothes, but you could see that people put thought into what they wore. They chose something that suited their style and helped them feel ready for the day. I lived in the 19th arrondissement, a regular neighborhood, and even there the same pattern appeared. I remember a storefront near my apartment—a mix of bakery and general shop—with mirrored panels on the outside. People would pause before going in, check their reflection, adjust a collar or a sleeve, and make sure they felt presentable before asking the shopkeeper for a baguette. It wasn’t vanity. It was a small gesture of consideration. A thoughtful detail that said, “This moment matters enough for me to show up well.”  

Another observation came from a very different part of my life—when I was a substitute teacher in the Clark County School District in Las Vegas. They called us “guest teachers,” but the students still called us substitute teachers. I remember a group coming in, seeing the regular teacher was gone, and cheering, “Yay! Sub!” It was funny, and very honest. After working at one school for several days, a few teachers finally started talking to me. One of them said, “We thought you were administration.” I asked why. They said, “Because you wear a tie.” I didn’t dress that way to be taken for anything other than what I was. I did it out of respect for the students. What I found interesting was that when I walked through the hallways, it was sometimes hard to tell who was a teacher and who was a student. I think the students noticed that I chose to dress differently for them, and they responded to it. I wasn’t trying to impress them. I simply chose something that showed respect.

This connects to something simple you can observe in your own life. At your next meeting—the kind where people pay closer attention, not just a quick stop-by-the-office conversation—look at the speaker who holds the room. Notice what they’re wearing. Everyone has their own style, so this isn’t about being “dressed up.” It’s about whether they chose something that anchors them physically. A ring, earrings, a scarf, a well-fitted shirt, a specific pair of shoes—whatever helps them settle before they speak. The choices people make often tell you something about how they want to show up in that moment.

Clothing isn’t only about how I feel in my body. It’s also about how I meet the people I’m working with.

The same thing shows up outside of performance. When I’m preparing to speak or present in front of others, I think carefully about what I’ll wear—not for appearance, but to help my body do its job. Supportive shoes, structured fabric, a shirt that sits well through the shoulders: these aren’t “wardrobe choices.” They’re technical decisions. The small details matter, just as they do with breath, alignment, and clarity.

If you’re presenting to stakeholders, coaching a team, or walking into a room where steadiness matters, the clothing you choose will influence your physical readiness. It’s not about formality. It’s about giving your body correct information. Clothing tells the body what kind of moment this is. The voice follows that information.

Clothing is not decoration. It’s part of the instrument. It helps the body understand the work ahead, whether that’s singing Verdi or explaining a plan to senior leadership. Our voice doesn’t operate in isolation. It operates inside the body we bring into the room.

"First, say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do." — Epictetus

We don’t control how a rehearsal unfolds or how a meeting goes. But we do control the choices that set us up well—the deliberate details that help us feel organized and ready. Clothing is one of those details. A quiet one, but often an important one.

---

Related Posts

Weekly Voice Insights #40 – Small Practices, Big Shifts — Building Vocal Presence in Daily Life
https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2025/05/weekly-insight-40-small-practices-big.html

Weekly Voice Insights #37 – Voice, Resilience, and Embodying Intention
https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2025/04/weekly-insight-37-voice-resilience-and.html

Weekly Voice Insights #45 – How Presence Is Experienced—Not Just Seen
https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2025/06/weekly-insight-45-presence-is.html

---

Further Resources

Enclothed Cognition (Adam & Galinsky, 2012)
How what we wear affects attention, confidence, and internal state.
https://utstat.utoronto.ca/reid/sta2201s/2012/labcoatarticle.pdf

Considerations for Maintenance of Postural Alignment for Voice Production (Arboleda et al., 2008)
A vocal-pedagogy classic on how alignment and balance influence healthy voice use.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16978836/

The Influence of Posture and Balance on Voice: A Review (2018)
A literature review showing how posture affects laryngeal behavior, breathing, and resonance.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/564d/f21f9a9aa35f5576d253d03f16cc8b821b5c.pdf

Singers’ Postural Alignment and Vocal Quality (2021)
Open-access study linking postural habits with measurable vocal outcomes.
https://www.scielo.br/j/acr/a/4kSTtQmHFWXdvtjCMwQJymp/?lang=en

---

Elias Mokole | Keynote Speaker, BA & Beyond 2025
Voice, Breath, and Clarity | Developing Your Authentic Voice Newsletter

Please subscribe here: 

https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/develop-your-authentic-voice-7337908264820453378

Weekly Insights #67 -Continuity and the Human Voice: What Lamperti, Epictetus, and AI Reveal About Clear Communication

How steady attention, living vibration, and the end of a sentence shape connection more than we realize

I was reviewing some older teaching notes and came across a short statement from Francesco Lamperti. Lamperti taught in the late nineteenth century, and his writing is plain and direct. He describes how everyday speech breaks momentum while trained singing depends on carrying vibration through a phrase. His attention is always on steadiness—how sound moves from one moment to the next without interruption.

Around the same time, I read an online reflection from someone who tested an AI system in a simple conversation. He gave it a few details and let the system respond. What struck him wasn’t depth or insight, but steadiness. The AI stayed with the thread he gave it. It responded in the order it received information. It didn’t shift focus or rush ahead. That left a stronger impression than many of the recent human conversations he’d experienced.

Both moments pointed toward the same issue: communication loses clarity when attention moves away from the line too soon.

Two recent pieces of mine look at this from different angles:

• Weekly Voice Insights #66 – When the Script Speeds You Up

This piece looks at how pacing breaks when someone relies too heavily on written notes. Silent reading moves faster than spoken language, and the listener loses the thread.

• Weekly Voice Insights #65 – Your Acoustic Signature: What Can’t Be Copied or Replaced

This piece explores how a live voice gains its identity through physical vibration—something that only appears when the speaker stays with the moment long enough for the sound to form.

These ideas sit at the center of my Developing Your Authentic Voice work. DYAV uses a simple sequence: Intention → Breath → Tone → Connection. A thought forms, breath organizes behind it, tone carries it, and the message reaches the listener. When attention holds steady, the sequence works. When attention shifts away too soon, continuity breaks.

Lamperti, Epictetus, AI, and the DYAV sequence point to the same thing: a message holds together only when the speaker stays with the moment the listener is actually in.

---

Lamperti’s Triangle and the Line of Sound

Lamperti taught that clear tone depends on three elements working together: diction, diaphragm, and focus. He called this an “eternal triangle.” Each element affects the others. When diction is clear, breath organizes behind it. When attention stays on the phrase, the vibration carries evenly. When those pieces align, the voice moves without breaking.

That same structure appears in ordinary speech. When intention is steady, breath follows it. When breath steadies, tone carries the idea forward. When tone stays consistent, the listener can follow the line.

This is why people lose clarity when reading from a script. Silent reading moves faster than spoken language, and the voice starts chasing that internal speed. The listener falls behind.

And in the acoustic side of the voice, the same pattern shows up. A live voice carries irregularities, shifts in breath, and changes in resonance—qualities that come from staying with the moment long enough for vibration to take shape. Tone forms in real time. It can’t be rushed.

---

Epictetus and the Discipline of Staying With the Moment

Epictetus teaches the same principle through attention. In Discourses 1.1, when a student asked to hear more of his teaching, Epictetus reminded him that it isn’t only the speaker who must prepare—the listener also has work to do. Hearing requires steadiness.

“The one who hears must train himself just as much as the one who speaks.”

Understanding depends on staying with the thought long enough to register it. Once attention shifts away from the end of the idea, clarity drops.

This fits naturally with the DYAV sequence. Intention completes the thought, breath organizes behind it, tone carries it, and connection forms. Each part depends on the one before it. When attention loosens, the chain loosens.

AI models this mechanically. It takes the next word, then the next. It doesn’t anticipate or prepare the next idea early. It stays with the line because it has no competing impulses. Humans often drift without noticing it. That is where communication breaks.

---

A Practical Exercise: Staying With the End of the Line

Including the real exchange from this article

This exercise shows how attention works in real time.

Use two lines of dialogue:

Person A: “I’d like you to go to the store.”
Person B: “Why do you want me to go to the store?”

Before responding, register the last word of the other person’s line—not to interpret it, but to confirm that you stayed with their thought long enough to hear it.

Person A: “To get some orange juice.”
(You register: juice)
Person B: “Is there anything else besides the orange juice?”

To do this, you cannot prepare your response while the other person is still speaking. You have to stay with them through the end of the line. The next sentence begins more cleanly because your attention remained where the communication actually was.

While writing this article, I asked the AI:

“You give all of my words equal attention, correct? You don’t jump ahead?”

Here is the exact response:

“Yes. I take every word you give me in order. I don’t anticipate the next point. I don’t skip to the end of the sentence. I don’t prepare a response while you’re still speaking. I follow the full line you give me, one piece at a time.”

This answer wasn’t produced because I “fed” it the direction of the response. It was the system describing what it actually does. Language models process input in the order received. They do not drift or anticipate. That steadiness often feels clearer than human delivery because nothing pulls them ahead of the moment.

Lamperti explained this through sound: follow the phrase through its end.
Epictetus explained it through attention: remain with what is present.
DYAV applies it to daily communication.

This small exercise makes the principle visible.

---

A steady line—whether spoken or sung—depends on staying with the idea long enough for it to land. When intention finishes the thought, breath organizes naturally. When breath organizes, tone settles. When tone settles, the listener follows without strain.

The online reflection I read made this clear in another way. The man wasn’t responding to empathy or insight in the AI’s words. He was responding to steadiness. The system stayed with his message. It didn’t anticipate or shift focus. That one behavior made the exchange feel clearer than many of the human conversations he’d had recently.

With Thanksgiving tomorrow, it’s worth noting how gratitude affects steadiness in its own way. Gregg Braden is a bestselling author and independent researcher whose work explores how the heart and brain communicate. His collaboration with the HeartMath Institute shows that when attention shifts to the heart, when the breath slows, and when a real feeling of gratitude is generated, the signal between the heart and brain becomes more organized. Nothing dramatic is required. It’s the natural effect of giving attention a clear place to settle.

That is the same principle running through Weekly Voice Insights #66 – When the Script Speeds You Up and Weekly Voice Insights #65 – Your Acoustic Signature. One looks at pacing; the other looks at vibration. Both depend on staying with the moment long enough for sound and meaning to hold together.

Lamperti described this through sound. Epictetus described it through attention. DYAV shows it in daily speech. When we stay with the moment, the voice has what it needs. When we leave the moment too soon, the listener feels the gap immediately.

The AI in that example wasn’t demonstrating understanding. It was demonstrating continuity. That’s the part humans can reclaim when they give themselves time to follow the idea they are speaking, all the way through to its end.  

Weekly Insights #66 - What Happens When You Follow the Script Too Closely

On trusting what you’ve practiced when the moment arrives

“Train your mind to adapt to any circumstance. In this way, if circumstances take you off script, you won't be desperate for a new prompting.”
— Based on Discourses 2.2.20b–25a -Epictetus

Look up, speak forward.

People often move through material faster than the listener can keep up. What feels natural to the speaker is new to the listener. The listener needs small moments to take in what they’re hearing and sort it in real time. When those moments disappear, the exchange stops feeling like a conversation and pulls toward a monologue.

This came up in my conversation last week with Susan Moore during our recent “Your Authentic Voice” podcast. Someone commented in the live stream about a line I tossed in almost without thinking: we should listen to how we sound, because other people have to hear it. I meant it half as a joke, but it’s true. Listening to yourself isn’t easy. Most people avoid it. But once you get past the discomfort, you start noticing things you didn’t know you were doing—small habits, places where the idea moved too quickly, or even moments where something came across better than you expected.

When someone is nervous, or when they’re speaking from something they’ve written out in full, the delivery changes. I noticed it in some of the Stoic Week video presentations. Stoic Week features daily videos from different Stoic teachers, and the format makes it easy to notice how each presenter delivers their ideas. The speakers knew their material well, but they prepared full paragraphs instead of bullet points. When the whole idea is written out, the temptation to read is strong. Once your eyes land on the text, the pace picks up. People read faster than they speak, and you can hear the difference.

I’ve used the Orfeo example before. He’s allowed to bring Eurydice out of the underworld only if he doesn’t turn around. Knowing the rule makes it harder not to look. A script does something similar. As soon as the words are right in front of you, your attention drifts to the page. You check that you haven’t missed anything. You try to honor the exact phrasing. It’s understandable. But the moment your visual focus leaves the listener and goes back to the text, the sound shifts. It starts to resemble reading more than speaking.

We can read silently at a much faster rate than we can speak aloud. Even when someone is trying to sound conversational, the eyes move ahead. The voice tries to keep up. That’s where the speed comes from: the mismatch between silent reading speed and spoken language.

I notice this in myself. When I get interested or passionate, I interrupt my own sentences. The thought moves ahead faster than the sound. I have to be disciplined to finish the idea I’m speaking before I follow the next one. There’s nothing wrong with the energy behind it, but spoken words need a different pace than internal thoughts. That pause is crucial for listener comprehension.

Breath plays a role here, though not in the “run out of air” sense people often describe. Breath gives the idea space. A quiet inhale before you start lets the message begin cleanly. A pause at the end of the sentence gives the listener time to take it in. These pauses don’t slow anything down. They give the whole exchange a steadier rhythm.

On video calls, especially when cameras are off, keeping a steady pace becomes even more important. Without visual cues, the listener relies entirely on the timing of your words.

One of the Stoic Week speakers handled this well. They left real pauses. Those pauses gave me time to write something down or absorb the idea before they continued. With steady pacing, their structure was clear. When a speaker keeps going without a break, you lose that chance. They’re already on the next point while you’re still holding on to the first.

I noticed this again in the BA World Day sessions I attended. One of the presenters delivered his material like a conversation. This was online, not live. He wasn’t reacting to a room. But he had so much experience in this setting that the delivery felt natural. I found myself nodding and smiling at him as if he could see me. I was completely alone. We weren’t in the same place, probably not in the same time zone. Yet it felt personal. That kind of delivery comes from practicing until “conversational” becomes something you can actually hear in your own recordings.

Repetition often shows up when someone knows a topic well but hasn’t had as much experience speaking it aloud. When a person isn’t used to giving themselves real pauses, the space that appears at the end of a sentence can feel unfamiliar. Even a half-second feels longer internally than it actually is.

That’s usually where repetition comes from. The speaker starts filling the space with something they’ve already said. They’re not trying to repeat themselves. They’re simply keeping the sound moving, because stillness doesn’t feel normal yet.

People with deep knowledge also tend to carry several versions of the same idea in their mind. If they’re not sure whether the point landed, they reach for another version. To the listener, it can feel like the same idea returning again.

Most people also don’t listen to themselves often enough to hear these patterns. When you listen back, you hear where the idea drifted or where you filled space that didn’t need filling. You also hear the moments that worked, which is just as important.

It’s something I see often, especially when someone is still getting used to speaking their ideas out loud. It’s part of learning to speak at a pace that matches the listener rather than the speed of your thoughts. With practice, you become more comfortable pausing, finishing one idea before starting the next, and letting the moment guide the next sentence.

There are small habits that make speaking clearer. None of them are dramatic. They simply steady the way an idea comes out. Taking a moment before speaking helps you choose the shape of the thought. A quiet inhale sets the rhythm. A pause at the end lets the idea land. Staying with one thought long enough to finish it gives the next one a clearer path.

Over time, the whole thing becomes more natural. You start to feel at ease with the pacing and the spacing that support clarity. It’s a little like becoming comfortable in your own skin. There isn’t a shortcut for that. You learn it by practicing, by listening back, by doing the work. And when you begin speaking, you trust that what you’ve practiced will show up. Once you’re in the middle of it, there’s no space for second-guessing. The skills you’ve built tend to come forward if you allow them to.

“Let your words be few and well-chosen.”
— Based on Enchiridion 33.2-Epictetus

When you give an idea space to land—when you stay with one thought long enough for the listener to absorb it—you rarely need to say more than what’s already been said. Clarity often comes from steadiness, not volume. Pauses do the work you used to do with extra explanation. And what you’ve practiced quietly begins to support you in the moment.

Weekly Voice Insights #65- Your Acoustic Signature: What Can’t Be Copied or Replaced

Weekly Voice Insights #64- When Preparation Meets Trust

It’s Wednesday evening, and I’m reflecting on this morning’s conversation with Susan A. Moore, Community Engagement Manager, Certified Business Analyst, and Podcast Host — and the international BAs.

As I was preparing yesterday, I kept thinking about how Leontyne Price took a lifetime of refined skill and made it feel completely human. That connected directly to what we discussed this morning. These are people who work with huge amounts of specialized information every day — tools, methods, certifications — and their challenge is the same one every expert faces: how to communicate what you know in a way that someone else can actually take in.

I had been rehearsing in my head, the way I always do. That kind of preparation helps. It gives me context and helps me find the rhythm. But after a while, you get too many ideas. You start thinking, oh, I could say this, or what if I forget that? It’s not that the ideas are bad — they’re all mostly good — but you can’t say everything.

It’s the same in performing. You prepare, you mark everything in the score, you know every note. But the moment the conductor gives the downbeat, you have to let it go. You trust that the work is there. You listen, and you react.

That’s what I reminded myself to do this morning. I had done the work. I didn’t need to control how it went. I just needed to set a context and respond to what happened.

Most of us talk about things we’ve said many times before — in meetings, in lessons, in directions we give over and over. And because we know where the thought is going, we stop hearing it. You know how that goes — not completely monotone, but flatter, less varied. We do it without even thinking about it, because the content is so familiar, and the sound follows our focus.

That’s where our own awareness comes in. If I listen to myself — really listen — I can hear whether I’m giving an idea time to land or if I’m rushing through it. The subtle changes in pitch, pacing, and tone are tied right to what’s happening inside. When I take a step back and listen the way I’d listen to someone else, I learn what needs more space or what needs more focus.

To let people know about the talk, I posted something on Instagram using one of their music options — a clip of Leontyne Price singing Doretta’s Aria from Puccini’s La Rondine. It was so beautiful and so accessible that it stopped me. The recording fit perfectly with the theme of Authentic Voice, which is what Susan had titled the session.

Singing in Italian, or really in any language that isn’t your own, and doing it loudly enough for a hall full of people — that’s naturally a bit artificial. It’s heightened, even over-the-top. And yet the great singers, like Leontyne Price, make it feel completely personal. They turn something that could seem grand or distant into something intimate and human.

That’s what communication at its best does. It doesn’t matter if you’re onstage or in a meeting — the challenge is the same. How do you make something that could feel formal, technical, or distant sound like you? How do you let your message feel personal enough to connect and resonate with everyone in the room?

That, to me, is what the work of voice really is. It’s not only about projection; it’s about connection.

When I watch people speak — at conferences, in meetings, online — you can tell who’s internalized what they’re saying and who’s still reading it off the page. The ones who’ve really thought it through don’t have to rush. They let each idea land. They trust the content.

That’s what I tried to do this morning. Prepare deeply, then trust what was there. Let the questions lead, and see what came up.

Earlier today, when I opened my planner, the quote for the day, attributed to the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, said, “Don’t just speak your training — embody it, live it.” That hit exactly where I was.

The temptation was to want to remember every single idea from these notes so I wouldn’t forget anything important. But it wasn’t a presentation. It was a conversation.

I didn’t need pages of prompts or reminders — that would have just gotten in the way. The ideas were already in me. I’d thought them through, said them out loud, and they were settled there. My job was to stay present, to listen, and to let them rise when they were needed.

That’s the discipline. That’s the work — showing up, listening, and trusting the preparation enough to let it breathe in real time.

If you’d like to watch the full 45‑minute conversation we did this morning, it’s available here: https://www.youtube.com/live/CnMOGGfk65c?si=U0aOhm43qzcmLyyv

Related Posts
Bias Alert Check‑In: Guarding Clarity in Voice and Awareness
https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2025/10/weekly-voice-insights-59-bias-alert.html

Before You Speak: The Discipline of Intention
https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2025/06/44-weekly-insight-when-voice-advice.html

Finding Steadiness in Uncertainty
https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2025/07/weekly-insight-49-breath-isnt-fix.html