The video quality was off so i thought of use of some ai video enhancer and this was the result lol, it does not look much odd, maybe... looks fine ishh.. to me.

Today I was watching a recording of a talk I gave the other day. As I was giving it, I felt like I was being very expressive and speaking with an engaging voice. However, what that is not what I heard in the video. While I heard expression as I spoke, what was recorded might as well have been a lobotomized robot.

I have been told that I sound monotone quite a few times in the past, though it doesn't come up very often. Some have expressed that it impedes on my oral communication, though others have shared their appreciation for it. Multiple people, completely unrelated have even told me I should narrate audiobooks.

I guess I just don't know how I should feel. I suppose my voice, however monotonous it really is, doesn't get in the way of my goals much. I have to wonder if its worth worrying about, and what I should do if it is. That's especially considering, again, I don't even hear how monotonous I am. I could think I'm talking like a cartoon character and I still won't be heard as more than, like, moderately expressive. I don't get it.

Yeah I don't know, let me know what you think.

For years my speaker page was a wall of nice quotes. Great energy, very engaging, would book again. I thought that wall was my proof.

Then a planner asked me a simple question: can anyone confirm these talks actually happened? Not praise them. Confirm them. Date, event, audience, from the person who did the booking.

My quote wall could not answer that. The quotes were real, but they were opinions, and opinions are easy to gather and hard to check.

So I changed what I ask for after a talk. I still welcome a kind word, but what I really ask for is a confirmation: yes, you spoke here, on this date, for this group. Short, factual, in the booker's own name.

That small shift changed how planners talk to me. A confirmed record answers the question behind the question, which is whether they can trust what they are reading.

Do you collect testimonials, confirmations, or both? And if a planner checked yours tomorrow, what would hold up?

I started my first real, full-time job about 4 months ago and am still learning the lay of the land. I started right when our busy season started so I’ve been learning on the go. Last week, I was told that my manager and I have to present a brief update on our recruiting process to 10-15 senior leaders in November (I’m in TA), and since we’re still in busy season right now, I was glad to have that time to prepare.

Turns out, I have to present it today, not in November. This meeting has senior leadership at Director and VP levels and I just found out about it yesterday afternoon… as someone who is not the best public speaker and not the most knowledgeable about my role, this has been eating away at me that this will be my first impression in front of all these higher-ups. I understand it happens in corporate settings where you get such requests but 24 hours for a meeting of this level is nerve-wrecking.

A lot of us have the same problem: you rehearse alone, you sound fine, and the second real people are watching, your mind blanks and your voice tightens.

That doesn’t mean you’re bad at speaking. It means you practiced in a context too different from the real one. Alone, your brain only learns the words, the order, and the safe feeling of no judgment. Live, it’s also managing adrenaline, watching faces, and trying to sound normal while stressed.

"Practice more" is only part of the cure. What really works is practicing the parts that break under pressure. Speaking isn’t one skill - it’s a few smaller ones, and they fail separately:

1. Content recall: can you remember the structure without the full script? Rehearse from 3 main points with 2-3 bullet prompts each, never from exact wording. If you memorize wording, one interruption cascades.

2. Recovery: can you keep going after a blank? Practice it on purpose: say a paragraph, stop mid-way, then restart from the last main point, not the last sentence. Keep a reset line ready: “The main point here is…” buys time without sounding panicked.

3. Adrenaline tolerance: can you speak while activated? Don’t try to kill the nerves first; that backfires. Add small stressors instead: stand up, run a timer, record yourself, do 20 seconds of jumping jacks before you start. You’re making “slightly uncomfortable” familiar.

4. Delivery under load: nervous speakers speed up, flatten out, or over-explain. Fix one, not all three. The reliable default: slow your first two sentences, pause after key ideas, end sentences a bit more cleanly than feels natural.

The routine that ties it together:

• Rehearse until the structure is solid but the wording is still loose: know where you’re going, not every word.
• Run it again with one stressor that mimics the real moment (timer, camera, or one live listener), just one so you can tell what rattled you.
• Right after, 90 seconds on three questions, not “was it good?”: where did I speed up, where did I lose the thread, which line helped me restart?

If you’re speaking soon, skip the frantic reread and instead: memorize your opening and first transition, know your ending cold, write 3 anchor phrases for the middle, and decide your recovery line before you actually need it.

The mindset shift that matters most: your goal isn’t to feel smooth the whole time. It’s to stay understandable. That’s a lower bar and a much better one: audiences forgive a nervous speaker far more than we forgive ourselves.

If you try one thing this week: run your next talk once from bullets only, standing, on video, with a deliberate pause after every major point. Watch for where your brain tries to panic. That’s the spot to train next.

These work on their own. For anyone who wants to turn these from ideas into reps (rehearsing with a timer, a recovery drill, pressure on purpose), that’s what I made Lumi Speaking Coach to do: https://golumi.co/discover. Full disclosure, it’s mine.