This no great epiphany, at least not a recent one. I discovered years ago that listening to a recording of my own voice would make me cringe. I joined the speech team in college and one of the methods for memorization was to record your speech and listen to it over and over again. The first time I tried this I notice two things, one, my voice isn’t the deep baritone I hear in my head, and two, I sound like I’m whining. How could anyone stand to listen to me for a minute let alone 10 which was the standard length of my speeches? I sounded like Ratso Rizzo… “Hey, I’m talking here”.

Leading up to my very first competition, at Harvard University, no less, I was genuinely nervous. After spending two weeks memorizing my speech and listening to the prepubescent boy voice that I new was my own, I was sure my time at the Harvard speech tournament was going to be painful and degrading. It was a competition after all, and we were being judged on our public speaking skills. Worse yet, the judges would be writing down their critiques and I’d get to read and reread just how badly I had performed for weeks to come.

At the tournament I was entered in to the After Dinner Speaking category and although I kept getting compliments from my fellow competitors, I had yet to see how I was scoring. I was sure the compliments were just good sportsmanship in an effort to hide their true feelings of pity. In the middle of the second day, the finalists were announced. You could only get a slot in the final round if you had scored high enough in the preliminary rounds. I saw my name listed but could hardly believe it. I still wanted to believe that the sound of my voice was like fingernails on the chalk board to the judges. There must have been some mistake or an error in someone’s math. During the final round I kept telling myself ‘at least I have the speech memorized’ or ‘well its too late to ask me to leave now’. After the final round there was an awards ceremony, where the winners would be announced. They announced 6th place first which is the lowest ranking, it wasn’t me. Then they announced 5th place, then 4th place and finally 3rd place, it still wasn’t me. When I started the weekend, the idea of second place seemed like a fantasy, especially considering the nasally squawk-box I had for a voice. Then they announced 2nd place and it still wasn’t me. I was actually disappointed for a second because I didn’t get 2nd place. And then it hit me. Well actually my teammates hit me… on the back with slaps of congratulations. Then they announced 1st place, this time it was me.

On the long ride home from the tournament, I got a chance to read the judges scoring sheets. Almost all of them complimented me on the conversational sound of my voice as well as the variety of my pacing and inflection. After reading most of them I decided to listen to my recording again. I figured the win would exorcise my demons and I would no longer hear the whine and I would actually like the sound of my voice. Boy was I wrong.

And it hasn’t changed to this day. I still can’t stand the sound of my own voice, but I have learned to get over it. I relate this story now because in this podcasting class I will be forced to listen to my voice over and over again, but now at least I know I am my own worst critic. I offer this up as advice to my fellow students who may find that they too don’t like the sound of their voice. Trust me, you sound great.

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