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so studies show that listeners physically mimic emotions like tension that you might have in your

voice so if you want people that are listening to your show to your episode to be engaged in it to

be alert you actually have to feel something like that too so the question is are you actually

delivering emotion like that of some sort in your episodes. Because emotion is how you signal

to your listener what's important in the things that you're saying and how you actually feel about

them, how you care about the topic that you're delivering. So let's get into the science about

this thing, because this goes a lot further than just adding charisma or doing some acting.

to add this element to your episodes because it isn't charisma and it's not just acting alone.

And if you understand how the brain links emotions to the sounds it hears,

you're going to be able to do all of this in a lot more effective way.

Welcome to the Podcast Performance Lab. I'm your host, Jen deHaan, and in this show,

we take the most effective tools from unscripted improvised performance and behavioral psychology

and apply those things directly to your video and audio content.

So think about that sort of stereotypical NPR voice, or the kind of voice that a typical news

broadcaster might use. Now they're flattening the effect of their voice, and they're often doing

this to sound objective or authoritative on something. And you could also think about an

actor like Aubrey Plaza in Parks and Rec, where she plays April Ludgate. She plays that character,

if you haven't seen it, really deadpan, sort of dry, apathetic a lot of the times, or on the surface

apathetic, and she usually uses a fairly flat vocal delivery, so doesn't use a lot of pitch or volume

or speed change in the things that she's saying. Now, for all of these situations, these things might

really well. Like in the news, for example, you want to be really impartial. You don't want to put

your emotion in that kind of content. And for a character like April Ludgate, being monotone is

the point of the character, and it's a really good character. But in the realm of podcasts, that

kind of delivery just doesn't work too well for most of our audiences. For example, if a listener

is adding that much emotional context of their own into your episodes, they might as well read a book

or an article or something like that where they have to do it anyways. The reason our human voices

prefer a lot more musicality in them, our ears, is to give us context to the things that we're

listening to. And that actually has a name in science. It's called emotional contagion.

Specifically, this is related to the auditory mirror neurons in our brains.

So research has identified an area in our brains that responds specifically to the sounds of these words that we hear, the actions.

And this sound creates some kind of like an audio motor link in our brains.

So when a listener hears a host that they're listening to with these kind of characteristics, acoustic characteristics, like they're really angry or they're really excited about something, the speaker, the person delivering the podcast, is tightening like their throat muscles or they're changing the pressure of their breath or their cadence to express these things.

And the listener, so that's you, in your own motor cortex, in the brain, you're simulating

these physical actions.

You're simulating the emotions that you're hearing.

And that's to understand the emotion.

And that thing is called simulation theory.

It's why we want to show more than we actually tell in words as humans, right?

Like, I can't tell you fully, like, the full picture of how emotionally invested I am in the rise and fall of Beanie Babies.

Like, I'm not going to be able to tell you the whole story unless I use some kind of emotion in my voice.

Like, I'm not going to be able to tell you exactly how intrigued I am by the part of the wombat physiology that makes their poop cube-shaped.

I can't do that unless I express it in my voice to be believable.

So I can show you that intrigue and that investment.

And this is really efficient doing this sort of thing

because I can show you on the screen if you're watching me

or in the microphone if you're listening to me,

and you're going to hear that instead of me just speaking the words out in monotone,

the words that I mean.

That would take a lot longer to do, a lot more effort.

Because if I was to read out, you know, facts and stuff about the wombat poop in a really neutral

way, your mirror neurons, they're going to remain unused. You're not going to have any

emotional feelings, that intrigue or that enthusiasm from the things that I say. And

therefore, there's not going to be any emotional transfer happening between us. Like you're going

to feel nothing because I'm effectively giving you nothing through my voice, right? I'm projecting

nothing from there. So you're just going to get bored, you know, like you'd be kind of over

listening to the podcast at that time. And really, if I'm delivering nothing, I might be kind of

over recording it too. But the important thing here is it's impacting your comprehension of the

information that I'm dropping. So what you're using here is called prosodic cues. And those

are the changes in the pitch and the duration of the words I'm saying and the volume of the words.

And I'm doing those changes to create an information hierarchy of the things that we're

learning. So I'm telling you what's new or noteworthy or really important by the way that

I'm using my voice. So new critical information. I'm going to be speaking slower and a little bit

louder because we're being really clear about this information. It's new. It's really important. You

got to listen. But if something's not all that important, you don't need to care as much about it

or maybe I've already talked about it. I'm going to be telling you that through my voice by speaking

a little bit faster, maybe a little bit lower volume, a little bit quieter, right? Like you

probably you probably already knew that from being a human see that wasn't as important right so

and i'm going to leave that in i normally i would cut that out but it's the example so i need to

leave it in so if you were to leave all of those cues out deliver it just dry monotone like a robot

talking your content is actually going to be harder for the listener to understand and you know and

And then at that point, they might be over it and, you know, click away or click stop or whatever.

They're going to delete your episode, maybe.

So we're adding emotion into our episodes.

You might worry about seeming inauthentic or you sound like you're acting

or you sound like you're just angry and ranting at the microphone or at the camera.

But we're not aiming to do that kind of thing at all.

What we want to do is called deep acting, which is real.

We're adding authentic emotions into our episodes.

We're reflecting on what we're actually feeling about the things that we're saying.

It is still genuine emotion.

We're making sure that we communicate what we feel when we're delivering the content that we're putting out there.

And we're not pretending.

That would be more of like surface acting.

So you're actually accessing the feelings that you have, these genuine feelings about your topic, to make sure that the audience has an accurate understanding.

So for your episodes and the content itself, the words and the things that you're saying is really secondary.

The main goal, your primary goal of your episodes, are the emotional choices that you're making.

And that comes from your why, which is a really good place to start when you're trying to figure out a topic for a podcast, by the way.

So we really need to attach the why to how you're actually feeling about that passage, the segment of your episode.

And for example, in acting or in improv, if I do a scene about feeding a cat on its own, imagine watching that in a theater.

It's probably not going to be all that great.

Like you're sitting there going,

I don't want to watch an improv scene about feeding a cat.

Like I deeply do not want to see that scene.

But if I do a scene, for example,

that's about feeding a cat that I'm actively,

not passively, actively terrified of

because Dr. Crepes, I mean, she gets really upset

if I don't give her the chewer tuna paste,

the tuna and scallop actually,

in a very particular manner.

Now, that scene as a whole,

the one with Dr. Crepes,

has a lot more opportunity of being interesting,

like has a better chance of being a good scene

because me, the character,

is really emotionally invested in that situation

of being terrified of Dr. Crepes because of the Chiru.

That character caring is really the thing

that drives the scene forward,

not just the facts, the facts of the scene, right?

The feeding of the cat.

So we can apply that to your episodes, right?

Like the character or you in the episodes,

if you're just kind of over it,

you don't care what happens in the scene.

I don't care about Dr. Crepes.

I'm just feeding a cat.

I'm just delivering facts in the episode.

Well, both of those situations,

it's a lot harder to drive that content forward.

You're just making things a lot more difficult for yourself in either of those scenarios.

So how do we apply this learning to your episodes?

And this is why we're going to take a why pass of your episode content, your notes or your script.

Whatever you're doing to deliver your podcast, you're going to ask yourself, why do you care?

This is also going to help for your podcast overall.

Because if you're not sure why you're actually doing the episodes you do,

you need to figure that out or make some decisions based on that,

like maybe pull some stuff out.

So the first step is going to ask for each section or each segment,

why do you care about that thing that you're talking about?

You're going to go through your notes or the script for each of those segments

and write down why do you care.

And then you can choose if you want to cut some stuff out.

For example, in the segment, does that segment, that topic, make you feel really frustrated?

Or are you really excited about it?

Or maybe it's something that's a relief to you or your listener.

So the next step for your notes or your script is you're going to go ahead and heighten the emotions that you write down.

So this is a really fun part to do.

Like you get into the headspace and it's going to be pretty fun because what you're going to do

is take each of those emotions and read through your script, heightening that emotion up to

like number 11. Really, really intense. Just overdo it. You're going to practice that section

using that emotion that you write down. Overdone. So for example, if you're just really concerned

about something, you're going to heighten it up to like you're absolutely furious about it

instead of just being mildly concerned. Reality mildly concerned for this exercise. Absolute

ferocity. You're just really, really mad. All right. So the third step, you're going to go

through and use some physicality. So you're going to use your body to help you display these

emotions. It's like you often you gesture when you feel something really strong, like you're

really angry about something, you're hitting the desk, right? I'm not going to do that because

that's going to sound really awful in this microphone. If you're really shocked about

something, you're clutching those pearls, right? So dial it up to 11. See what that does. Maybe

it helps you feel those things. Do it while you read through your notes, read through your episode.

So you're not going to actually record this level 11 dialing up thing for your actual episode. You're

how you genuinely feel about it. So say mildly concerned, but you're going to see what just

practicing dialing it up to 11 does to your actual read. You can imagine these things in your head,

like hitting the table or clutching those pearls. Do it inside your head. Think about that thing and

see if it affects your read. So the neutral read, like the news broadcaster read, that neutral flat

delivery. That's where we might all just sort of start out. That's where we might naturally first

go to seem really professional or to keep us safe because, you know, being vulnerable and adding

these emotions into your podcast, it's hard. I want to acknowledge it's really hard to put

ourselves out there emotionally, especially because, you know, many of us are recording

this out into the void, especially if you're starting out with a new show. You know, you're

putting yourself out there, you're putting it all out on the microphone, and you're getting nothing

back. And especially the more emotional, the more vulnerable you might be, it's harder when you're

sending things out into a void. But really, we got to think about our audiences, you listening out

there, like we all want to know what each other actually thinks about the things that we're

invested in. And we're listening, like you're probably invested, you care about the topics that

you're choosing podcasts for and choosing to spend, you know, 20 minutes or an hour or more

listening to something, you care about that. And we want to know what each other actually

thinks about something. And especially when we're learning things that are new, you know, and

especially now that the internet just seems to be getting more and more full with things being made

by not humans, by bots, right?

And I think this is going to mean

that it's going to be harder to find things

that are genuinely human

and generally have the feeling in them.

And I reckon that most of us making podcasts,

we want to actually be who we really are on the microphone.

So really try feeling those emotions.

Turn them up to 11.

Just get in the mindset, have fun with it,

and give it a go.

And then after you're done trying that out, stop, take a breath, shake it out and go again and see what kind of difference that makes.

See if it's easier to kind of just get those emotions in there because you've been thinking about how you actually feel about your topics.

And then you're just going for it and, you know, going a little bit wild for a while.

And for these exercises, if you want them as written text, that's maybe easier for you to archive or refer to later, just sign up for my newsletter at StereoForest.com and I'll send them out in a text-based format so you can have them there and save them if you want.

So let me know how these things feel. You can leave comments on a lot of different podcast

websites. I know Spotify has it. I know not many of you are on Spotify, but they're around or you

can always email me if you have any questions. And I'll be back soon for another episode. Bye for now.

You have been listening to the Podcast Performance Lab. This show is created,

written, hosted, edited, and produced by Jen deHaan. You can also find the video version of this

episode on YouTube and contact information on Stereo Forest. Find the links for both of those

things in the show notes. Thanks for listening.