217. The Ingredients of Boring Speech

Have you ever sat through a talk where you just couldn’t keep your eyes open? I have — and usually, it’s not because the topic was boring. It’s how the speaker delivered it.

 As a member of a public speaking club, I’ve noticed that many people don’t realize how dull their speech sounds to others. They’re not trying to be boring — it just happens.

Here are 6 reasons why a speech might put people to sleep:

 1. Monotonous tone

Speaking in a flat, unchanging voice that makes listeners zone out.

 2. Speaking too fast

Rushing through your points so quickly that no one can keep up.

 3. Long, complicated sentences

By the time you finish, the audience has already forgotten what you said at the start.

 4. Lack of emphasis

Failing to stress the important words that give meaning and energy to your message.

 5. No pauses

Skipping breaks between ideas, so listeners don’t get a chance to absorb what you’re saying.

 6. Using jargon or heavy accent

Speaking in a way that’s hard to understand because of technical terms or pronunciation.

 The good news? These are all fixable.

 With the right practice and tools, you can transform your speaking style and engage your audience — often in just a few weeks. There’s even an app designed to be your personal voice coach, helping you with everything from pacing to pronunciation:

Ready to make your next speech interesting and memorable? It’s easier than you think!

216. Disadvantages of poor voice projection

Have you ever felt invisible? You said something, and there was no reaction. You felt that what you said was not interesting enough to pay attention to. Most likely, people did not hear what you said.

The reason is poor voice projection. The power of our voice depends on breathing and lung capacity. Actors do regular exercises to master voice projection.

When your voice has power:

  • You appear and feel confident

  • You make it easier for people to follow you

  • People will be more likely to be persuaded that what you are saying is important

To master voice projection, I recommend 5 minutes of daily exercises from the app Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause. These exercises are easy yet very effective. You will see the results in a week.

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215. Get Rid of German Accent

Two things give away a German accent:

1. Germans do not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced consonants.
For example, the words “sad, mad, Dad” with voiced /d/ ending and “sat, mat, tet” with unvoiced /t/ ending have different meanings, but Germans pronounce them in the same way.
This can be easily fixed by practising voiced consonants and voiced endings with the apps ‎‎Get Rid of your Accent UK1and ‎Fluent English Speech (British English) or ‎ American Accent App and ‎Fluent American Speech (American English).

2. Intonation patterns
They often use simple falling inflection that sounds like they are giving orders. English use more rising, which sounds like a request. Often Germans speak English in a monotonous way which makes them sound dull. To sound more interesting, we recommend working on the sentence stress and inflection and voice modulation with the apps ‎Fluent English Speech or Fluent American Speech and Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.

The same apps are also available on Google Play. The functionality is ideal: read, listen, record and compare your speech with the model. The apps have spelling variations for all English sounds and mouth diagrams to help you create the correct speech organ positions in words, phrases and poetry. When starting your practice with these apps, first go to “How to use this app” and click on the difficult sounds typical for your nationality, then click on your nationality to work effectively with a more focused approach.

The apps contain exercises for:
1. Difficult and connected speech patterns
2. Natural flow of speech
3. Intonation and sentence stress
4. Pronunciation and articulation

There are also two accompanying video courses: Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and Get rid of your Accent Part 2.

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214. Get Rid of Brazilian Accent

Two main pronunciation mistakes give away a Brazilian accent:
1. The way they pronounce the /t/ sound followed by the /ʊ/ and /u/ as in “to” and “two”. Instead of the [t] sound, they produce the /tʃ/ sound as in “church”.

2. Incorrect nasalisation of the lateral consonant/l/ as in “link”.

3. Low tongue positions for plosive consonants /t/ and /d/ as in “tot” and “done” making the sounds “dental”

For all Brazilian/Portuguese speakers of English, I recommend a tailor-made accent reduction plan that will help you sound more like a native English speaker and develop clear speech:

  1. Master pure long English vowels and diphthongs. Try to lean on long vowels and diphthongs. Don’t shorten them even when speaking rapidly. Producing pure long vowels will also improve the tune or music of your speech and help to achieve English sentence rhythm.

  2. I recommend that you practise lessons from the apps: Get Rid of your Accent, Elocution Lessons, and Business English Speech if you want to speak with the British RP accent. If you prefer to speak with the General American accent, then download the app American Accent App and Fluent American Speech:

The first stage of the accent reduction is to work on English long vowels:
- /a:/ as in "car". lesson 1
- /ɔː/ as in “storm”, lesson 3
- /ɜ:/ as in "bird", lesson 5

The second stage of the accent reduction process for Brazilian/Portuguese speakers of English is to work on diphthongs:
-  /ɪə/ as in  “dear”, lesson 19
- /ʊə/ as in “poor”, lesson 21
- /eə/ as in “hair”, lesson 22
- /əʊ/ as in “boat”, lesson 16

The third stage is to work on the correct usage of the short vowels:
- / ʌ/ as in “bus”, lesson 9
- /ɪ/ as in “pit”, lesson 7
- /ə/ as in “the”, lesson 6
- /ɒ/ a in "box", lesson 10
- /æ/ as in "cat", lesson 15

A real game changer for Brazilian/Portuguese is strengthening the back tongue muscle and keeping the tip of the tongue on the alveolar ridge, thus achieving a higher tongue positioning for /t, d, l, n/ for these sounds. This will remove the incorrect nasalisation of these sounds, a mistake typical of Brazilian/Portuguese.

To achieve that, work on consonants:
- /t, d/ as in “teach” and “did” lesson 27
- / ŋ/ as “king” lesson 31
- Lateral plosion, lesson 34
- Nasal  plosion, lesson 32
- /l/ as in “London” lesson 33, particularly at the end of the word                                

The most advanced stage of accent reduction is intonation.
I recommend the apps ‎Fluent English Speech and  4Ps, power, pitch, pace, pause to master sentence stress, intonation, the use of pauses and voice modulation.  It will make your speech easy and interesting to listen to. Practise the Silent Letters chapter with the Business English Speech app.

There are also two video courses to support you on this journey: Get Rid of your Accent Part One and Get Rid of your Accent Part Two.

Click the link below to get useful tips:

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213. Essential Leadership Qualities and Knowledge

The benefit of developing leadership qualities is to lead our lives and not be pawns in someone else’s game.
Essential Leadership Qualities are:
1. Good communication skills
2. Ability to prioritise
3. Strategic thinking and the ability to calculate the short and long-term consequences of our decisions
4. Flexibility of mind and interpersonal relations

Good leaders should know about:
1. Their own and people’s psychology and how to maximise our/their potential
2. How to make decisions
3. How to set up goals
4. How to create the vision and mission of their lives/business

I am a born leader, but I lack some knowledge and skills. My weaknesses have always been my authoritarian communication style and a lack of flexibility, which are connected to my background and limited knowledge of people's psychology.

I was born in the Soviet Union, and having an authoritarian communication style was the norm there. It was even perceived as a strength. Now, I live in the UK and this so-cold “strength” works against me.

Developing interpersonal flexibility has been on my list for skills development for a long time. It is very hard to change one’s nature. Some people who know me from my childhood keep telling me that I will never change.

BUT, as I am an optimist by nature, I want to believe that I can develop a different communication style and become more flexible in interpersonal relations. Below is the list that motivates me to continue the hard work on myself:
1. The more flexible I am, the wider my choices can be
2. Communication is a transactional process; it is about giving and taking
3. When I don’t want to be flexible, I ask myself: Why am I like this? What are my fears? What will I lose if I am flexible?

I am curious to know your thoughts about leadership skills.

Olga Smith
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212. Ice-breaker techniques in public speaking engagements

All good ice-breaker techniques have one thing in common: successful delivery that grabs people's attention and interest.

You can use numerous ice-breakers such as anecdotes, jokes, short stories, quotes and questions. However, if they are delivered in a monotonous way, with a quiet voice that people can hardly hear, it will not create the desired effect.

Make an ice-breaker engaging and powerful. To achieve this effect, use drama techniques, such as a dramatic pause or pause for effect, a loud voice or even a whisper, depending on the meaning you wish to convey. I have mastered drama techniques using the app 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause. I can recommend it.

You can also use hand gestures, visual aids, objects, music, etc.

Be creative!

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211. How to simplify technical explanations when speaking with non-technical people

This is a useful skill when pitching to investors and customers who are often non-technical individuals.
Below are my tips to master this skill:
1. Imagine you are talking to a ten-year-old child and trying to explain a difficult technical concept. Which words would you choose? Choose simple, short, non-technical words.
For example, instead of saying:
“Our software is available on iOS and Android”, you can say:
“You can get our app on your phone.”
2. Translate technical jargon into a non-technical language. For example:
software - computer game, app
data - information
hardware - computer
download - get
3. Use visual aids
4. Use rhetorical devices such as a metaphor.
5. Use pauses.
Click the links below to learn about the use of pauses and other essential presentation skills.
4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause
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210. How to deal with condescending people in professional settings

Deal with people who challenge you immediately. Challenge them by saying, for example, I find your tone condescending, and I am not prepared to continue this way.

This way, you will protect yourself and help the bully stop. Bullies, when not stopped, go into a rush and get high on the domination drug.

Work on your confidence. Develop a straight posture, open body language and good eye contact. Master your speech, namely, voice projection and articulation. Speak with authority and power in your voice, and you will be perceived as a confident person. You can master it with the apps Business English Speech and 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.

If you look and sound confident, people will not attempt to condescend to you. Bullies usually attack those who lack confidence and who are too shy to reply to them.

Click the link below for tips and free content:
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209. 7 features of the British Accent

There are over two hundred accents and dialects in Britain: Southern (RP), Northern, Scottish, Cockney, etc. RP or Received Pronunciation is taught to foreigners because it is understood around the world and is called Standard English. RP is also a compulsory accent for actors to learn in British drama schools. RP is associated with high class and good education, and many learn RP to blend in with the upper classes.

I am an expert in RP, and in this article, I will share my knowledge that will help you learn to speak with RP, the most popular British accent and avoid main pronunciation mistakes. Below are the main characteristics and patterns of the British accent.
1. Pure English vowels
There are five long and seven short pure English vowels. Each vowel has a specific speech organ position. Lean on long vowels; do not shorten them. It's important to mention that the meaning of the word may change if you shorten a long vowel. For example, if you don't pronounce long [i:] in the word "sheet" people will hear another word, "shit". Spend extra time to make sure your vowels are precise.
Pay extra attention to the long [a:] sound as in “dance”. In some American and Northern English, this sound is substituted by [æ] as in “cat”. Read my article about the [a:] sound.
2. Crisp articulation
English consonants are crisp, which makes the British accent very clear and precise.I recommend doing articulation exercises regularly. Crisp articulation is important for those who speak on the phone and deliver public speeches. The best app to train articulation is Get Rid of your Accent
3. [t, d, l, n] sounds
In RP, [t, d, l, n] are pronounced with the tip of the tongue touching the alveolar ridge. It helps to train your tongue. If the tongue is much lower, that creates a harsh "dental" sound.
In the Cockney accent, [t] sounds are substituted by a glottal stop in the middle of the word, for example, “water, later”. That makes speech hard to understand for those who are not used to hearing Cockney. In American English, [t, d] sounds in the middle of the word are substituted by the fast [d] sound.
4. Word endings [t, d. s, z]
It is important to pronounce [t, d. s, z] sounds at the end of the word in the past tense of verbs and the 3rd person singular. For example, Spanish speakers find it hard to pronounce [t] and [d] sounds at the end of the word, and that might create an impact that they don't know basic grammar, but it could be just a pronunciation mistake.
5. Spelling and pronunciation are not identical
English inherited foreign words from Latin, French, Dutch, and German. They kept the original spelling but anglicised the pronunciation.
One sound can have several spelling variations. Below are a few examples:
- The [a:] sound as in “father” can be spelt with “er” in words “Derby, clerk, sergeant”
- The [f] sound is usually spelt with “f” in words “ fake, fix, frame”, but it can also be spelt with “gh” in words “laugh, tough” or with “ph” in words “phone, philosophy”
- The [ʌ] sound as in “duck” can be spelt with "o" in words “oven, front, company”, or with “u” in words “bus, lunch, pub” and with “ou” in words “ country, double, trouble”.
6. Silent letters
Many letters are silent in English. For example:
- silent [w] in words “write, who, whimsical, wholesale”
- silent [l] in words “walk, talk, chalk”
-silent [h] in words “why, when, where”
7. The usage of the schwa [ə] as in “the” for speech fluency
The schwa is used to make the speech more fluent because many unstressed syllables and even unimportant words are pronounced with the schwa. For example, in the phrases “fish and chips, ”a cup of tea”, the schwa is highlighted.
It is used in contracting unimportant words for the meaning of the sentence or phrases.

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208. Earn Respect

The ability to own the respect of others is connected to our survival instinct. By and large, people respect us if they can rely on us, trust us, and see that we are useful to them.

I like observing people’s behaviour and reactions. I want to share with you my observations on the topic of respect.

People respect us unconsciously if we possess the following qualities:

1. Straight back and good posture - a sign of physical and spiritual strength
2. Confident eye contact and open gestures. These non-verbal clues signify openness and honesty. People who lie and lack confidence often cannot look straight in the eyes
3. Decent clothes and shoes, groomed appearance. This is the sign of high self-esteem
4. Good, clear speech. It is essential for easy communication. We maintain a friendly intonation that shows a positive attitude
5. Ability to keep a pause and talk to the point. This adds gravitas and weight to our words
6. Measured pace and relaxed way of doing things. When we are relaxed, others feel relaxed too
7. When we are grateful for what is offered to us and respect other people's space and time rather than beg, ask or push for more
8. Ability to listen to others.
9. Honour commitments
10. Respect the values of the society in which we operate
11. Respect people’s privacy

My findings revealed that people do not respect those who (despite their achievements):

1. Talk too much and do very little
2. Neither try to understand nor respect the values of the society in which they operate
3. Have a scruffy and ungroomed look that causes an emotion of disgust
4. Rush themselves and others, thus creating unnecessary stress that increases cortisol levels and damages health
5. Constantly ask for favours, try to take advantage of other people's time, space and resources
6. Rushed, unclear, badly articulated speech; intonation that transmits a toxic negative attitude
7. Make silly jokes
8. Waste their own and other people’s time
9. Do not keep their promise and overpromise
10. Have bad posture and a very hunched back
11. TMI - Give too much information about themselves and others, particularly private and sensitive information. Invade their privacy with inappropriate questions

We can conclude that to be respected, we do not have to earn millions, have a PhD or win a gold medal in the Olympics. To earn respect, we should think of the ways we can be useful and master the necessary attributes and skills that facilitate it. We should also exercise a degree of self-control. Whether we start a new job or join a new social group, often our survival in this group depends on whether we can earn their respect.

Let me bring an example from my life. When I had a strong foreign accent, people looked down on me, and my native intonation sounded a bit aggressive in English culture. These facts hindered my success. When I mastered my speech and intonation, I began to feel respected and even admired.
You can master your speech with the apps:
Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent, American Accent App, Fluent English Speech, Fluent American Speech, Business English Speech, and 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.

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207. 6 Rules of Decision Making

Decision-making is one of the most important skills we should master. Our well-being, prosperity, and happiness depend on this skill.

I have developed a set of rules that help me make good decisions.

Rule N1
Do not make a decision when you feel physically and emotionally weak.

Rule N2
Make sure that your body does not reject your decision. Control your brain and do not allow logic and mental powers to override your body and soul. Very often, mind-based decisions backfire because we humans are more complicated than robots, and our mind lives in our body; therefore, ignoring and neglecting our body and soul cannot lead to good decisions

Rule N3
Conduct a pros and cons analysis.

Rule N4
Control your brain and do not allow logic and mental powers to override your body and soul. Very often, mind-based decisions backfire because humans are more complicated than robots, and our mind lives in our body; therefore, ignoring and neglecting our body and soul cannot lead to good decisions.

Rule N5
Do not make decisions purely on your emotions. Emotions are not long-lasting, but decisions you make because of them can be. For example, I felt the urge to buy a beautiful and expensive bag, but if I cannot afford it, it can lead to frustration

Rule N6
Allow time to make a decision, but at the same time, set up a deadline by which you can take it to avoid rushed decisions and indecisiveness.

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206. PEST Analysis

PEST analysis is an analysis of political, economic, social and technical factors that shape our lives and influence business. They are interlinked and a change in one of those factors inevitably leads to changes in the others. In recent years, the changes are happening so fast, they are more dramatic and have a significant impact on us.

Political and economical changes were caused by BREXIT, COVID-19, invasion of Ukraine by Russians and most recently by the arrival of Donald Trump into the Oval office. These factors lead to weakening of global/interantional economic and social links.

Social changes also resulted from advances and rapid development of smartphone and artificial intelligence technologies. As a consequence, some parts of the current educational system are becalming obsolete and irrelevant. Futute education will be more individualised.

How can we prepare to face these changes, use them to our advantage and see them as opportunities rather than difficulties?

We can start by staying open, thinking out of the box and trying what works and what doesn’t. Then put effort, energy and resources into profitable areas.

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205. Nasal sounds /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/

Nasal consonants /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/are pronounced through the nose, however, there are differences in speech organ positions for each sound. Once you sort out the correct positioning, there is no way you can’t pronounce these sounds.

The /m/ sound as in “money” is formed by complete closure in the mouth by speech organs. The soft palate is lowered so that the air is free to pass out through the nose. The lips come together so that the breath cannot be released through the mouth. It escapes through the nose where the sound is produced.

Speech organs position for the /n/sound as in “nun”
The tip of the tongue is on the teeth ridge so that the breath cannot be released through the mouth. It escapes through the nose where the sound is produced.

Speech organs position for the /ŋ/sound as in “ring”
The tip of the tongue is behind the bottom teeth, and the back of the tongue rises to contact the soft palate, so the breath cannot be released through the mouth. It escapes through the nose where the sound is produced.

In our experience, Spanish people often substitute the /m/ sound for the /n/ sound and visa versa.
Chinese students struggle with all three sounds, particularly at the end of the word.
The /ŋ/ does not exist in Russian, for example, and they say /dʊɪng/ instead of /dʊɪŋ/.

The /ŋ/ seems the most difficult for most people to pronounce, even for native English speakers. People with a heavy New York accent pronounce it as /n/, they say /dʊin/ instead of /dʊiŋ/ and so on. Because the /ŋ/ sound is spelled as “ng” some Brits add /k/ and /g/sounds, and instead of /dʊiŋ/ they say /dʊink/ or /dʊing/.

Another spelling variation for the /ŋ/ sound is “n” before “k” as in the words:

Spelling - Phonetic
bank -/bæŋk/
honk - /hɒŋk/
wink - /wɪŋk/
As you can see in this case /k/ is pronounced.

You can master these and all sounds of English with the apps ‎Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, ‎Business English Speech.

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204. How to create a promo video

Essential criteria

  1. The length of a promo video is 30-90 seconds. It is short and sweet.

  2. Its purpose is to showcase your product or service in a way that attracts and motivates your target audience to buy it.

  3. Conduct market research and identify your target audience's demographics, motivations and pain points

  4. Make sure your visual elements and graphics reflect your company's values and please your target audience

Content creation

  1. Define your core messages.
    For example:
    - what is my product/service
    - where you can buy and use it
    - what is the competitive advantage or unique benefit of your product/service for yout customers

  2. Identify call for action (CFA)

  3. Use story telling technique

  4. Use short words/verbs

  5. Avoid convoluted language, complex terminology and jargon

  6. Ensure your content sounds natural and conversational

Promo video delivery

  1. Record your video several times and ensure good speech articulation and compelling intonation. You can master these skills with the apps ‎Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, ‎Business English Speech and ‎Fluent English Speech

  2. Use pauses and modulate your voice. Download the app and Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause to practise these powerful techniques.

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203. Impromptu speech

Impromptu speech or a table topic is a skill that requires practice. However, there are techniques to make your table topic stand out and give you confidence when delivering it.

Below are my tips.

1.       Allow yourself time to think what you will say while walking to the podium, and slowly repeat the topic. Prepare what you are going to say in your head

2.       Remember, how you say it is often more important than what you say. Modulate your voice, use pauses and articulate well. You can master these skills with the apps ‎Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause, ‎Fluent English Speech and ‎Get Rid of your Accent UK1.
For example, use a dramatic pause before saying something important and say it very loudly. This will wake up your audience.

3.       If you struggle to answer the question of your table topic, you can simply dismiss it and talk about what you want, but make it interesting. I recently received a boring table topic and instead I recited my favourite poem. I won the award for the best table topic.

4.       Smile and create zigzag eye contact with your audience

5.       Keep straight posture and use open body language to create an image of a confident person

6.       Breathe, use lots of pauses to separate your ideas.

7.       Enjoy speaking and do not rush yourself to finish it too early (speak for at least one minute), at the same time be aware of the allocated time (maximum of 2 minutes) and prepare a powerful ending.

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202. Effectiveness

I have met many people who are always extremely busy, work a lot and at the same time cannot get ahead in life.
One of the reasons is the lack of effectiveness. People with ineffective behaviour patterns:
1. Jump into doing things that are of low value too soon
2. Work in an old-fashioned way, a way they are used to and reluctant to use modern/new tools
3. Do not have a concrete plan with deadlines
4. Unsure what they want and cannot set clear goals
5. Try to do most things by themselves and avoid delegating
6. Waste time on their weaknesses instead of building on their strengths.
7. Fool themselves and avoid facing reality.
8. Multitask and jump from task to task

How can we become more effective?
How about spending an hour a day thinking about our effectiveness? I usually think about my effectiveness before going to bed (make notes of what I want to achieve in writing) and when I just wake up and have my morning tea (edit my notes).
Once you know what you want to achieve write a detailed plan of how you want to achieve it and what resources you would need for that.
Another useful tip is to understand your energy levels and distribute tasks accordingly. For example, in the morning I prefer to concentrate on the most strategic/significant tasks. In the afternoon, I do routine things that do not require mental focus and concentration.
When dealing with people, the most effective way is to follow universal principles: love others as you love yourself, do not judge others and you will not be judged, etc.
To be effective, constantly examine the tools you use. Answer the following questions: which tool is effective and which are not, are there any new tools you want to try?

I believe that effective people work less and achieve more; they free their time to do things they love, rather than working 24/7 to perform tasks that neither lead them anywhere nor make them happy.

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201. Energy management

Life is energy and no matter how much time we have if we do not have energy we can’t achieve much.
To manage energy I identify where there is an unnecessary leakage of my energy and secondly, I develop a routine to recharge my batteries.
I identify five types of energy: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and sexual.

We all know how to maintain good physical energy: eat and sleep well, exercise, avoid alcohol, drugs and chemicals in our bodies. However, I have noticed that modern society puts too much pressure on looking perfect. Many of my girlfriends waste too much energy in the gym, shopping and doing makeup to look like Kim Kardashian. As a result, they look like low-energy empty dolls. I also noticed that many men in the gym look exhausted and unhappy, they look in the phones and pretend they exercise.

Mental energy is the power of focus and attention and the ability to concentrate. Constant texts, social media, YouTube videos and people who talk nonsense are the main leakages of my mental energy which I try my best to avoid. People say that we should give a gift to listen to others. I strongly disagree because if they talk nonsense it’s a waste of my energy.
To recharge my mental energy I love looking at the fire and walking on the beach. Having the house in good shape for me is the number one condition to be able to concentrate on intellectual work.

When we feel negative feelings we drain ourselves of energy and when we experience positive emotions we recharge emotionally. After each communication, I make a note in my journal of how I feel afterwards. If the person took my emotional energy and made me feel negatively I avoid them in future.
Another leakage of my energy is the worry that is steered by fears. Most of my fears are just my illusions and whenever I feel I am worried I ask myself: what am I afraid of? What is the worst that can happen to me? Then I realise that my fear is not worth my energy because I will survive and in the big scale of things my little fear is so small.
Spiritual energy is the most powerful energy we have. The proof of that is the life of people like Victor Frankl and many others. We are being robbed of our spiritual energy when we experience betrayal, vulgarity, and being lied to.
What helps me to stay in a strong spirit is my connection with a higher consciousness - God and my strong belief that with God I can achieve anything. I like to visit churches and cemeteries and I feel recharged after that.

To manage sexual energy is very easy: only have sex with people you truly want and avoid sex with people who you do not want.

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200. How do you get started mastering your speech?

How do you get started mastering your speech?

If you are confronted by enemies such as laziness and procrastination, there are tools that you can use to overcome them:
1. 5 seconds rule. Do not allow your brain a chance to be lazy. As soon as you want to do something, your brain will try to find reasons why it would be better to do nothing, so you have just five seconds to start with what you want to do, count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and get started.

2. The power of small steps.Do small actions regularly. Small actions are not frightening for our brain and we choose to do something simple. Our brain likes to do not what is important but what is simple. Break an important task into baby steps and do them regularly. Speech is a very technical subject. To master your speech, effectively break it into simple steps and exercise regularly. My favourite app based on RP is ‎Elocution Lessons because it is very easy to use.

3. Develop a habit of achieving small goals: set up a goal, do small steps, get results, reward yourself, acknowledge your risen self-esteem, set up a higher goal and repeat the same cycle. When can we be sure that a desired action is our habit? There is a common opinion that it takes 21 days for a habit to set in. I disagree. Some habits take longer. The habit is set for sure when doing something is more comfortable than not doing it. Many people have developed some bad speech habits: they mumble, do not articulate, use too many parasite words, rush their speech, etc.

4. What do all great people have in common? They have great goals. Imagine the benefits of having good speech and how it can help you achieve other important goals.

5. Surround yourself with people who have good speech and motivate you. It can be a public speaking club and other societies.

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199. How to maintain good pronunciation and articulation

After taking our courses and classes students recognise that their speech became better but they fear that after some time bad speech habits might creep in. They are not wrong. I have been travelling to Italy for the last five years and have been learning Italian. I have noticed my foreign accent returned when I speak English although once my English speech was close to perfect.

I have started working on my speech with our apps and in this blog post, I will share my tips about eliminating a strong foreign accent and maintaining clear English speech.

  1. Working on speech and maintaining good speech is similar to working in the gym in order to develop muscles and stay fit. The muscles of our lips, tongue and jaw should be regularly trained. This means training regularly for 2-45 minutes every day every other day.
    I recommend that you always start with a warm-up: muscular and articulation exercises. You will find them in all our books and apps. Do them for 2-3 minutes at the beginning of your training session.

  2. After that work on the English sounds that make your speech difficult to understand. In our experience, almost all students need to work on pure English long vowels. Work on the same vowel for 3-4 days.

  3. Prepare what you will say in advance and record your speech. Listen to your recording noting areas for improvement; record it again several timers if necessary until you are happy with the result.

  4. Read a short text out loud and record yourself several times

  5. When working with the apps copy not only the sounds but also intonation patterns and sentence stress

  6. Slow down your speech and avoid saying too much with bad pronunciation. Remember that how you say it is often more important than what you say.

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198. Accent and voice

The main issues that our clients have are:

  1. A strong regional or foreign accent

  2. Weak voice

  3. Rushed speech

To neutralise a regional or foreign accent we recommend doing an individual speech analysis and work on Received Pronunciation - a neutral British accent. After the speech analysis, we can tell how many lessons a student might need to neutralise their accent. Accent work involves working on pure English vowels and diphthongs as well as consonants to make articulation sharp and crisp. We have three apps that help with that:
‎Get Rid of your Accent UK1, ‎‎Business English Speech, Elocution Lessons.

Accent reduction tips

  1. Identify English sounds that are difficult to pronounce for you and your nationality. For example /w/ sound does not exist in French and French substitute it with /v/ sound.

  2. Learn the placement of the tongue lips and jaw for sounds you need to practice

  3. Use the mirror to control the correct place your tongue and jaw for a particular sound

  4. Listen to the model pronunciation, copy it, then record yourself and compare your speech with the model. Do three repetitions of one exercise

    The main features of a weak voice are bad articulation, lack of voice power and high voice pitch. Students can master their voice with the app Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause. To enhance voice power we recommend breathing exercises.

    This app also helps with rushed speech.
    There can be a number of reasons to speak fast. I will focus on the two obvious:

    1. Feeling nervous. To overcome nervousness, we recommend that you take a couple of nice deep breaths to release the tension.

    2. Fast brain 

    A fast brain is something people are born with, you cannot change it.

    One may ask: can I learn to slow down and overcome my fast brain that forces me to speak fast?

    There is a simple yet very effective exercise that can help you to slow down:

    1. When you speak, try to separate each idea of thought by using pauses. Count 1, 2, 3 in your head after each idea and allow yourself to breathe and relax. Don't link all ideas; don't deliver them all in one breath.

    2. In a conversation with another person, make a pause after each question, do not jump on the answer straight away.

    3. Read out loud using the punctuation. In your head, count 1,2,3 in place of a full stop, and count 1 in place of a comma. Make even longer pauses between paragraphs.

For best results, we recommend one online or in-person lesson a week and working individually with the apps for 10-15 minutes a day.

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