I have a friend that is pretty intelligent, but fails to accurately communicate well. It is not so much that his ideas are hard to follow, although sometimes they are really stupid and hard to follow. Almost on a daily basis he gets in serious trouble, due to lack of communication. He always tries to make an effort. So why does he fail so miserably at communicating? It is his voice, among other things.
Nothing is physically wrong with his voice, he can speak clearly. However, he often mumbles, or doesn't enunciate. He doesn't project his voice well, Then, when he is clear, he chooses the wrong tone, often sounding mean. We always have to tell him, "It is not what you said, but how you said it."
Your voice is a valuable tool, that can be double edged. You can use it to emphasize points, or if you are mean, subtly cut people down. Like I said though, if you can't control it well, your voice can hurt you. Making people loose interest in you,
Another example of this, was one of my professors, tried reading the class Dr. Seuss. He was terrible at it. He would read at a nice steady, crystal clear pace. Then, when it came time to rhyme words, he'd emphasize the wrong ones. Trying to rhyme words that had no business together. So watch your voice, it can be a helpful tool, or kill your speech. Mostly though, just kill your speech.
It is important to note that intelligent people can and will sound like complete idiots if they do not communicate well haha! In addition to having an appropriate tone, I find there are so many people who do not enunciate properly. Communicating with people who constantly mumble can be insanely difficult and they may as well be speaking a foreign language. I think people overestimate how well they are communicating because they think just because they understand what they are trying to say that other people can understand what they are trying to say as well. If only this were actually the case.
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