Present like you mean it — on stage, on Zoom, at the all-hands.
Rehearse the opening until it lands. Retake hears the monotone, the rush and the missing pause before your audience does.
NO SIGNUP · YOUR TAKE STAYS PRIVATE
Sound familiar?
- Nerves turn into speed: 190 words a minute and no pauses.
- Your voice flattens out and the room drifts to their phones.
- Great slides, but nobody remembers the point.
Say it. Get marked up. Fix one thing. Retake.
Open a talk about a change your team is about to make.
TAKE 1 — WHAT YOU SAIDHi everyone, so today I want to talk about, um, some changes that we're going to be making to how we work, and there are a few reasons for that…
Flat and fast: 182 words a minute, pitch variety 1.6 semitones — it sounds read, not meant.
Start with the change in one sentence, then pause for two full seconds before the why.
182 → 148
Take 1 → take 3 (illustrative)
Three skills from the 30-day program.
The power pause
Pause before the point to make them lean in; pause after it to make it stick.
DAY 04Escape the monotone
Choose one word per sentence that matters, and make your voice say so.
DAY 29The two-minute talk
One throughline, one story, a memorised first and last line, and silence at the end.
Hear how you really sound — in 60 seconds.
“Open a talk about a change your team is about to make. Grab attention in the first sentence.”
● Record my first take