Drift: good sensors do not drift and maintain a baseline. This is analogous to brain maintaining focus.
Signal-to-Noise Sensitivity: ability to detect a signal in the background of noise. Analogous to the brain being able to pick out a sensory signal such as someone calling your name in a crowd.
Resolution: the ability of a good sensor to differentiate between two close lying signals, like a brain being able to distinguish between two similar things.
The concepts of Sensitivity and Resolution are contrary: you can’t have both of them. The idea is to know what it is you want and find a balance between the two.
Almost everyone I know who is successful has some sort of a daily meditation practice. Yet this is one habit that has been difficult for me to adapt to my routine. There are many types of meditative practices, and one of the challenges has been to pick one that suits me and fits my time slot.
I recently found one that was 20 minutes and it was quite good. I have distilled it down to about 6 minutes (2 minutes each section) and here is how it goes:
6 Minute Meditation
And that is it. You can do this in your mind, like how the monks do it, or you can do it on a journal by writing things down.
If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, did it make a sound?
The sound of your voice tells a lot about your personality. Are you someone who is confident, in control, or are you someone who needs to be told what to do. It might seem unfair that when you meet someone for the first time, you are judged based on your voice first, then other parameters. But, you do the same to others. It is one of the many mental heuristics put in place by evolution.
Our ears are different from our eyes in that there is no “lid”, or an “off” switch. Our ears are always on. They must constantly deal with Signal to Noise problems. Realizing this, we need to make sure our audience is hearing what we are saying.
So the next question is, what can I do to make sure I am heard? Excellent question. I have put some thought on this topic, and based on what I have read, seen and heard, here are 3 things to help you be heard.
1. Breathing from the Diaphragm
Have you ever seen a baby sleep? When they are breathing, pay attention to their bellies – they expand and contract like a balloon. This is the most efficient way to breathe. You pull your diaphragm down and allow air to fill up your lungs completely, then deflate using your diaphragm again.
Proper breathing is the first step to proper speaking. This will facilitate point # 2 below. There is an excellent article on diaphragmatic breathinghere.
In addition to these conscious breathing exercises, a couple of additional things you can do:
Meditation: which is simply conscious breathing, while keeping your mind clear of any thoughts
Swimming: helps with efficient breathing and forcing diaphragmatic breathing
As an added bonus, breathing from the diaphragm will passively improves posture, which will in turn improve confidence.
2. Location of Your Voice
When you speak, sound waves need to first bounce within your body before you send them outwards. This can happen in one of three places:
Nose: very nasal sounding voice
Throat: somewhat deeper than nasal
Chest: very deep voice, public speakers and leaders typically speak from down here
Try this yourself, you can pick which of the above three areas your voice comes from. This will affect how authoritative you are perceived as.
3. Vocal Exercises
Like any muscle in the body, your mouth organ needs to be exercised for optimal performance. There are numerous suggestions on this by the experts (which I am not), but here are a few that I like.
Julian Treasure has made a career out of this subject. He is an expert on this and has several TED talks and books written.
You may bot want to be a public speaker, or the next great military leader, but being conscious of what you sound like is something we can all benefit from in our daily lives.
