Most Replayed Moment: Captivate A Room Even If You’re Shy! - Vinh Giang

Steven Bartlett (0:03)

I was looking earlier, there's almost like a billion search results on Google for people trying to figure out or trying to provide answers to how to communicate successfully. So let's get into it. So you use this term vocal image. Yeah. What does vocal image mean?

Vinh Giang (0:18)

It came about when I realized I spend, and I think most of us spend a lot of time on our visual image, right? How we look, our body language, the way we dress. But very rarely do people spend time on their vocal image.

Now, I'll make it make sense. When people see you and you reveal your visual image, they make assumptions about you pretty quickly. So they form assumptions, oh, this person seems friendly. Maybe they're confident because they got good posture. Maybe they're smiling, they're friendly. And then all of a sudden, when you open your mouth and you speak, they now turn these assumptions into beliefs. So what may be assumptions before, now they go, oh, you are friendly. You are confident, right? Or they might think, oh no, bit of a wanker. Right? And you've had these experiences before, I've had them before where you assume you see someone, you're, oh, that person's really good. Go meet them, you're, ah, not really nice. That's weird. So it's another layer that we don't think about though, because we again think we're stuck with our voice. We think we're stuck with the way we communicate. We think there's no way for me to ever change this.

Steven Bartlett (1:15)

So let's talk about how one can improve their vocal image so that they're effective across context. You mentioned melody, volume, hand gestures. If we start with melody, what the hell is melody?

Vinh Giang (1:26)

The different notes you can hit with your voice.

Steven Bartlett (1:28)

Okay, so is that variety?

Vinh Giang (1:29)

Yeah, variety, pitch variety, pitch and melody. Because there's a melody that lives underneath your voice. All right, let's do an experiment. I'm going to play you a piano song, and I want you to listen to this, and then you're at home right now. I want you to listen to the track and see what words come to mind. So we'll play the song.

Steven Bartlett (1:52)

Okay, yeah, all right, sadness.

Vinh Giang (1:54)

Right, and then if listeners at home could have a voice here too, that's maybe, say, that's a somber, nostalgic, right? All these words would come up. And again, if we sat with this for a while, we would get plenty of words. Let's try another one. So let's change the mood. Let's shift to something like this.

Steven Bartlett (2:14)

Inspirational, motivational.

Vinh Giang (2:16)

Good, see, all of a sudden now, and I'm thinking running towards something, right? And again, there's a part of me that thinks, oh, cheesy commercial, right?

There's that part of it too, so you can hear all these different things. Let's try one more. This one, we'll shift gears again. What about this one?

Steven Bartlett (2:35)

Like a horror movie, it's scary.

Vinh Giang (2:37)

About to die. Yes. Something bad's about to happen. Omnius.

Steven Bartlett (2:40)

A little three-year-old stood on the landing of the staircase at night time.

Vinh Giang (2:44)

Yes, with long black hair.

Steven Bartlett (2:45)

Yeah.

Vinh Giang (2:45)

Yes, correct. So that, again, all of a sudden paints all these different vivid pictures in your head. The reason I did that experiment is there were no words in any of those tracks. Yet think about all of the words that rushed to your mind as you were experiencing the melody, the different notes. What people fail to realise is that you have a melody in your voice. This is why when some people walk into our lives, it could drain the energy from our lives. And when they walk in, you feel the impact of them walking in, right, in the negative way or a positive way. Some walk in and you go, Oh, I feel good. I feel great. What is that? It's the melody in which they come in with.

Steven Bartlett (3:27)

Can you have a pretty limited range, a limited melody, but still hit people with scary and sad and inspiring?

Vinh Giang (3:36)

I believe you can.

Steven Bartlett (3:37)

Yeah.

Vinh Giang (3:37)

Again, because we genuinely don't have ADA keys, right? So again, it's one of those, it's a metaphor, but I believe that we can create so many different songs with our voice if we learn to treat it as an instrument. And we can play with the technique to help you increase your vocal range if you want.