Week 1 · Grounded Presence · Day 5 of 28 · Friday · Lesson · 15 min

How to sound more confident when you speak: pace, pauses, and landing sentences

Day 5 · The Voice People Lean Into

Nerves push the voice faster, higher, and flatter. Day 5 covers 140 to 160 words a minute, pausing instead of saying um, and ending statements with a drop.

The point. Under pressure many voices go faster, higher and flatter, with sentences that trail up. A one- to two-second pause before a key point feels like an eternity to you and sounds like authority to everyone else.

Topics: voice · pace · pauses

Learn the skill

The toolbox you can actually control

Many people change their voice in exactly the wrong direction under pressure: faster, higher, flatter, with the ends of sentences trailing up or trailing off. The clearest map of what you can actually control has seven parts: register (chest or head), timbre (warmth), prosody (the melody), pace, pitch, volume, and silence.

Picture it · 4 examples

Example Two voices, same person
Your voice in the car on the way in is warm and low. Your voice in the 9 am meeting is high and quick and ends every sentence like a question. Same instrument, different settings. Once you hear the difference on a recording, you can change the settings on purpose.
On a call Your own voicemail
You ring your own number to check the message and hear a stranger: higher and faster than the voice in your head. You re-record it a tone lower and a beat slower. A client says, the next week, “new phone?” Same phone. Different settings.
Selling Pitch night
Four founders pitch. Three sound the same: quick, high, slightly breathless. The fourth speaks a tone lower and a beat slower. The investors remember the fourth.
In the office The recording of the board call
You listen back to yourself on the recording. You sound like a nervous version of you. Everything you said was right. The voice said otherwise.

Pace, melody and the pause

Three of those do most of the work. Pace: comfortable, clear speech sits around 140 to 160 words a minute; nerves can push you faster, and rushed speech is harder to follow. Prosody: a voice that rises and falls holds attention; a flat one is easy to tune out. And the pause: one to two seconds of silence before a key point is one of the strongest tools you have. It feels like an eternity to you and like authority to everyone else.

Picture it · 4 examples

Example The safety briefing
Two managers read the same briefing. The first races through at 190 words a minute, flat. The second reads at 150, lifts her voice on “if you hear the alarm”, and pauses one second before “do not use the lifts”. Only the second team remembers to take the stairs.
Selling The number that matters
You slow down and pause before the number: “It saves each site… four hours a week.” The buyer writes it down. Said at speed, it would be just another feature.
In the office The quarterly update
You speed through the setup, slow down for the one number that matters, and stop for a full second before it. Three people look up from their laptops.
Drinks & dinners The story at dinner
A story told at one speed is a report. You speed up through the setup, slow down before the turn, stop before the last line. The table waits for it.

Land the sentence

Then there is the end of the sentence. Statements should land: pitch down on the last word. Uptalk (ending a statement like a question) can sound unsure, and in one hiring study, vocal fry (the creaky, low-energy drop-off) made speakers sound less competent. Breath fixes most of it: speak on the out-breath from the belly, not the throat.

Picture it · 4 examples

Example Decision or question?
“So I think we should go with the second supplier?” The room hears a question and starts debating. “We should go with the second supplier.” Pitch down on “supplier”. The room hears a decision and starts planning.
On a call Giving your name
“Hi, it’s Sarah?” The client says “Sorry, who?” Next call: “Hi, it’s Sarah.” Down on Sarah. “Hi Sarah, thanks for calling.” Same name, same voice. One of them sounded like a question about who you are.
Selling The price
“It’s four thousand?” opens a negotiation. “It’s four thousand.” closes one. Same number. Different last note.
In the office The deadline
“We need it by Thursday?” gets you Friday. “We need it by Thursday.” gets you Thursday.

Check you’ve got it

A clear conversational pace is about…

100 words a minute
140 to 160 words a minute
200 words a minute

Answer

140 to 160 words a minute. Clear speech sits around 140 to 160. Nerves can push you faster, and rushed speech is harder to follow.

You feel an “um” coming before your key point. What replaces it?

“Basically”
A pause
Speeding up

Answer

A pause. Silence before a key point reads as authority. It only feels long to you.

Cheat sheet · Pace, pause, land

140 to 160 words a minute

Slow down before the important bit.

Picture it · 3 examples

Example The key number
You race through the setup of the quarterly update, then slow right down for “twelve per cent”. Three people write it down. Nothing else in the update was said that slowly, so nothing else needed to be.
On a call Giving instructions
You give the client the reference number and the two steps at about 130 words a minute, slower than anything else on the call. She reads both back correctly. Last time, said at your normal speed, she rang back twice.
In the office Opening the presentation
First thirty seconds at 130. “Three things today.” The room, which was still finding seats, settles. Then you pick up the pace, and nobody notices, because they are already with you.

Pause instead of “um”

Silence is yours. A short pause rarely costs you the floor.

Picture it · 4 examples

Example The hard question
“Why did the number drop?” Two seconds of silence, then the answer. The CFO reads the silence as thought. The last person who was asked that said “um, so, well” for the same two seconds and the CFO read that as panic.
Drinks & dinners Mid-story
At the dinner you get to the turn of the story and feel the um coming. You pause instead. The table waits. The next word lands harder than any um ever let it.
Selling Before the price
A full pause before the number. “It’s… four thousand.” The buyer hears a figure that has been considered. Said quickly, with an um in front of it, it would have sounded like a guess.
On a call On the call
On the phone, two seconds of silence after the client’s question. It feels like a dropped line to you. To her it sounds like confidence. She waits, and then says your answer “makes sense”.

Land your sentences

Pitch down on the last word.

Picture it · 4 examples

Example Decisions
“We’re going with Thursday.” Pitch down on Thursday. Six people open their calendars. Last week, “Thursday?”, with a rise, got a twenty-minute conversation about Friday.
On a call Your name
“This is Tom.” Down on Tom. The caller says “Hi Tom” and gets on with it. The colleague beside you answers his phone with a rise on his own name, and is asked to say it again twice in one morning.
Hard conversation The boundary
Your manager asks you to take the extra account. “I can’t take that on this month.” Pitch down on month. She says “Okay, who can?” Last quarter you said the same words with a rise, and spent ten minutes negotiating yourself into taking it.
Selling The close
“Shall we start Monday.” Down, not up. A question that sounds like a decision gets a yes.

Vary the melody

A lift for a question or a new idea, a drop for a conclusion.

Picture it · 4 examples

Example The story
At the team lunch you lift your voice for the surprise, “and the client was already in the room”, and drop it for the punchline. The laugh comes exactly where you put it. Told flat last month, the same story got a smile.
In the office The presentation
A lift to introduce each new section, a drop to close it. The audience can hear where they are. The speaker before you kept one note for forty minutes and the room drifted off by minute ten.
On a call Reading aloud
You read the client’s email aloud on the call, varying the melody as if you were saying it. People listen. The colleague who read the contract clause in a monotone was asked to send it instead.
Selling The three features
Three features, each said on a slightly different note. The buyer remembers all three. Said on one note last month, they sounded like one feature said three times, and that buyer remembered none.

Volume is for emphasis

Project from the belly rather than pushing from the throat.

Picture it · 3 examples

Example The noisy room
The function is loud. You drop your volume slightly and project from the belly. The two people you are talking to lean in. The man across the circle is shouting to be heard, and the circle is leaning away from him.
Drinks & dinners The toast
Belly-projected at normal volume, your toast reaches the back table. The best man, pushing from the throat, strained and cracked on his second sentence and the back table missed the rest.
In the office The one line that matters
Everything at normal volume, then one sentence a notch louder, from the belly: “We ship on the fourth.” That is the sentence the director quotes back to you in the lift.

Drill it out loud · about 12 min

Warm up: hum for 30 seconds, then three lip trills, then “red leather, yellow leather” five times. (2 min on the timer)
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Warm up
  Humming in the shower, lip trills in the car, “red leather, yellow leather” at a red light. You feel silly and sound noticeably clearer at the 9 am.
- In the office In the stairwell
  Thirty seconds of humming on the stairs up to the office, three lip trills on the landing, the tongue-twister under your breath at your desk. Your first sentence in the stand-up comes out a tone lower than usual.
- Drinks & dinners Before the dinner speech
  In the bathroom at the restaurant: a hum, three trills, “red leather, yellow leather” five times. Someone walks in on trill two. You carry on. The speech is the clearest thing you have said all year.
Open Speak. 60 seconds on “Describe what you do to someone who’s never heard of it”. Target: 140 to 160 wpm, three or fewer fillers. Your numbers are kept in Me for Day 7.
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Sixty seconds, 140 to 160
  Your first run comes back at 184 words a minute with five fillers. You thought you spoke slowly.
- In the office At your desk
  You open Speak at your desk after everyone has gone. Sixty seconds on what you do. 171 words a minute, four fillers, two hedges. You save it. On Day 7 you will have something to compare.
- In the car In the car park
  You do it in the car before going in, phone on the dashboard. 158 words a minute, three fillers. Slower than you expected, because nobody is watching. Something to notice.
Now record the same answer on your phone (the voice memo app is fine). Listen back and count fillers. Then record it once more, pausing deliberately before each new point.
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Listen, count, go again
  Second take, you pause before each new point. 152 words a minute, two fillers. It sounds like a different, calmer person.
- In the office The voice memo at lunch
  You record the same answer as a voice memo in the kitchen. Listening back, you count seven fillers, all “so” and “like”. Second take, pausing before each point, you count two. The pauses did the deleting.
- At home Played to your partner
  You play the second take to your partner at the kitchen bench. They say you sound “like you on a good day”. The first take, which you do not play them, sounds like you in an interview.
Say five statements that end with a full stop. Pitch down on the last word every time. (2 min on the timer)
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Five full stops
  “The invoice is due Friday.” Down. “We’re moving the launch.” Down. By the fifth, the drop happens without pushing.
- In the office Five from today’s to-do list
  “The report goes out at four.” “Priya owns the handover.” “We don’t need the extra licence.” Five statements from your actual day, each landing with a drop. In the afternoon meeting the third one comes out exactly that way.
- At home Five into the voice memo
  Five statements into the phone, then listen. Two of them still rise at the end. You say those two again, four times each, until they land. The recording of the fourth attempt is the one you keep.

Lock it in

Tick what’s true.

I know my natural pace in words per minute.
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Know your pace
  Knowing you naturally run at 175, you now start every meeting slow, because you know you will speed up.
- Selling The pitch, timed
  You know you run at 170 when nervous. In the pitch you start at a pace that feels like walking through treacle. The investor says you were “very clear”. The recording says 148.
- On a call The client call
  Your pace on calls is faster than in rooms. You know it now. You open the call slower than feels natural, and for the first time the client does not ask you to repeat the dates.
I replaced at least one “um” with silence.
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example An um replaced with silence
  In the stand-up you catch an um on its way out and swallow it. The silence is half a second. It reads as composure.
- In the office Answering the director
  “How confident are you?” You feel the um and let silence take its place. One second. “Confident enough to put a date on it.” She writes the date down.
- Drinks & dinners Telling the story at dinner
  You reach the bit where you normally say um and stop instead. The table thinks it is timing. It was a gap. It worked better than the um ever did.
My sentences landed with a drop.
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Sentences landed
  A colleague says, unprompted, “You sounded really sure on that call.” All you did differently was drop your pitch on the last word of each sentence.
- Selling The quote
  “It’s eight thousand for the year.” Down on year. The buyer nods and asks about the start date. The last quote, said with a rise, got a “hmm” and a request for a discount.
- In the office The handover
  “Priya owns the handover from Monday.” Down on Monday. Nobody asks whether that is settled. Last month the same sentence went up at the end, and the room spent ten minutes deciding what you had already decided.

Take it into your day

Today, end three sentences with a full stop and a one-second pause before you continue. Notice how it feels, and how people respond.

Common questions

The objections people raise, and the short answer.

I hate my voice

Everyone does on first listen, because you normally hear yourself through your skull. After five recordings it becomes an instrument you are tuning, not a voice you are judging.

About: The toolbox you can actually control

How do I know my pace?

Talk for sixty seconds in Speak, or record yourself and count the words. Nerves can push you well past 160 while you feel certain you are at 140.

About: Pace, melody and the pause

Isn’t uptalk just how people talk now?

Among friends, fine. In a room where you want to be believed, a rising statement can read as asking permission. Keep uptalk for the pub. Lose it for the meeting.

About: Land the sentence

I’ll sound slow

You will sound clear. The person who speaks at 150 in a room full of 180s sounds like the one in charge.

About: 140 to 160 words a minute

I’m naturally quiet

Quiet with projection carries. The fix is breath from the belly, not volume from the throat. Hand on your stomach. Feel it move.

About: Volume is for emphasis

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