Dan Gant 4D puzzle game TETRAFECTA in the works @dgant 2024-03-10

I took speech therapy at 20. It was life-transforming. I did eight sessions and some homework.

Before it I avoided long sentences, because people would just say “what?” I couldn’t make jokes or use subtlety. Trying to speak often felt like a waste of effort.

I think a lot of people could benefit from speech practice and don’t realize it.

Clearer speech makes you more persuasive. When you’re exhausting to listen to, people tune you out. It’s not worth the effort.

Imagine the most unpleasant-sounding person you know. Then imagine them trying to change your mind about something. It’s an uphill battle, even if they’re right.

Then imagine Morgan Freeman raising an issue. His delivery could make you take anything seriously for long enough to give it a fair shake.

Not everyone can sound like Morgan Freeman, but not trying to sound *more* like him is a choice. This is an obvious point if you think about it, but I believe most people have never considered improving their speech.

You can improve all parts of speech. Crisper sounds. More projection. More eye contact. Deliberate pacing. Putting your body into it.

What has helped me the most has been developing a background thread that’s always conscious of my mouth movement and pacing. And what spawned that thread is a few sessions of listening to myself speak and iteratively improving it. A little bit of practice generated a lifetime of benefit.

Voicemaxxing. Maybe you should.

2024-03-10

This was one of the most valuable speech therapy exercises I did: Speak, listen to replay of your speech, repeat.

You almost never get to hear yourself except while you’re occupied with speaking. x.com/visakanv/statu