Shivam's Challenge: Watch your Tone over the Phone!

My first girlfriend told me some of the wisest words I have heard. She said to me “Shivam, show, don’t tell.” So I have decided that I can keep telling you the effect that your non-verbals have on the people around you, but I would rather have you explore it and figure it out for yourself.

How do I know this works and you are going to follow through with this? Well, firstly I have done this a few times and it is so much FUN! The realization that you can actually effect the conversation by something as simple as voice tone was a REVELATION to me!

I am going to challenge you a bunch of times in the future, so for now, let’s keep something as simple as using you voice over the telephone. Over the next few days/hours I want you to try this SIMPLE exercise yourself. Here it goes:

Step 1 Make a phone call to anyone: A friend, a girl/ boyfriend, a stranger, I don’t care just call someone     Say “Hi, how are you doing today?” Or any other sentence for greeting, make sure it has a similar number of words. Make sure you don’t change the exact words you are saying. You are going to be repeating the process of calling someone six times (relax, there is no time frame, you can do this to calls you were going to make eventually anyway you do not need to go out of your way for this.

      Step 2 Now here is the kicker: alternate between the energy and tone you say the greeting with. Try it thrice with a very low tone, and then try it thrice with a lot of commitment, energy. Are we clear? Just to reiterate: thrice in a very low somber almost sad tone and thrice with a very energetic upbeat tone as if you just had three mugs of coffee. In my experience adding so much energy is not too easy, so I suggest you jump around a little bit or pump yourself up.

      Take a mental note of the reactions you get. Notice how the rest of the conversation goes: which type results in a more fun, comfortable, friendly connection filled encounter?

I guarantee that even if this doesn’t help you realize that HOW you say something trumps WHAT you say in many cases, you are going to have an AWESOME TIME, it was when I tried it.

Let me know how it goes. Good luck!