Becoming Distinctly Vocalized Conversationalists

People have different conversational voices all the time. You communicate with a very sensitive and meek, or paranoid person with a very slow, quiet, benign inflection and deliberate inflection. You talk to someone in wild and rambunctious tone with a deliberate, aggressive, roaring tones. If you chose not to use a different, compatible conversational voice, the former (anxious person) might be incredibly offended, even frightened by an uproarious voice and would shut-off and close-down everything you were saying. Similarly, the fervent, extroverted person would be bored or pathetic towards a dry, predictable vocalization, possibly finding it monotonous. The point is that the recipe for success in the conversational arena is authentically being able to not just speak with different intonations and intensity levels, but to take up almost distinct personalities to connect with the myriad different temperates and dispositions of the listener.

I remember talking with a colleague who would definitely fall into the category of the sensitive, anxious, quiet type. Whenever I approached him in a rambunctious, excited or aggressive manner, the conversation would go no where. I could be talking but nothing would be being heard because he would have closed me off. Fervent, robust communication with incompatible with my taciturn chum. I had to become, almost through "method" acting (a form of acting developed by Stanislovski where the actor doesn't mimic a role, but actually takes of the emotions of the character) a personality that possess a compatible voice. Similarly, with the extroverted, fervent person, I had to become a very robust speak, taking up a rich and resilient, sharp and sonorous voice. This is the opposite of guile; it's connecting with people in a much more real and direct manner because you still say the same message and talk about similar things, but through an interface of heightened compatibility.

Frequently, different "voices" create seemingly different interests, which, in reality, are manifestations of one's cohesive core. I remember trying to major in a Communications Media major in college, combining psychology, English, politics, drama, and computers. Got it passed by a committee but not the academic Board. So I had to craft my own unofficial pursuit of that major and in that process I realized similarities to those five areas of academia to five major qualities in each of my five family-members. My dad, with his strict regimen of being consistently on-time to work and his formulaic-like pattern of doing accounting at the end of everyday at the kitchen table was comparable to computer science. Mom's "whoops" and loud, articulate laughs and sayings was the equivalent of drama. My brother, James, with his deliberate studies and papers on political science symbolized political science. My fervent interest in personality, consciousness, motivation, and emotion made me somewhat of a symbol for psychology. And my brother, Thomas, with his lucid and sagacious judgment, frequently utter the wisest word choice in a simple conversation represented English. The point is that your interests are crafted from those surrounding you. People are the core of those interests and in five representations above, I had manifested my interests in people into academia (and vice versa, possibly). English, psychology, politics, drama, and computers were all aspects of my core personality, just displayed through different, but interconnected voices.

Using a variety of conversational demeanors and personalities is anything but disingenous. It is connective and more real because you connect to people on level that is compatible with them; a stance that will generate more from the relationship. If you were in a different, incompatible conversational demeanor, dialogue would not occur, so having the capacity to adapt with that dialogue is even more vital and important.

You can maintain an interconnected mentality and resonance by integrating the ideal self with the dream self. Rogers -- a prominent psychologist who put forth, among other concepts, "client-centered therapy" -- claims that the self directs behavior, and that there exists a conflict between the real and the ideal self. Why not let the ideal self become the real self? Why not embrace the process of dreaming and use those aspirations as stepping stones for the creation of this real self? Abandon the internal conflict. Create the external dream with an intrinsic intention, meaning that the process -- and transforming dreams into reality not instantaneous, but a process -- is cherished as much as the end-result.