9 Habits for Clearer Speaking (I Wish I Knew Sooner)

How do you speak clearly without overthinking every single word? You know that moment when you’re talking and halfway through your sentence, you don’t even know what point you’re trying to make. My name is Vin. I’ve coached millions of people to improve their communication skills. And the nine habits that I’m going to share with you in this article are going to help you become a clearer speaker. I wish I learned these lessons much sooner. I’m going to break them down into three groups: Delivery habits, vocal habits, and cognitive habits.

Let’s focus on delivery habits, group one.

Do you want to sound more confident? Do you want to sound more intelligent? Do you want to also sound more trustworthy? If you do, the secret is to pause more. And this is easily one of the most overlooked tools in communication. That’s why every single time I post a reel on Instagram about the pause, the damn thing goes viral every single time. Because people are always shocked at how this simple change can create transformations.

Our brains crave white space. It’s the same reason why paragraphs exist in writing. Look at this paragraph for example versus this other one. Which one looks more digestible? Now that we’ve had a look at this visually with the paragraphs, I want to give you an example auditory wise. Watch what happens if I just keep talking without pauses and I create no spaces within what I’m saying and I just keep going. Everything starts to just blend in together. And do you notice how when there’s no separation and there’s no pauses, after a while everything I say just becomes mumbo jumbo and nothing really sticks. Only when I do that example in that exact way do you understand that without pauses your ideas blur together. With them, though, they land.

And here’s the beautiful irony. People who pause more are perceived as being more confident, not less.

Now, if you pair delivery habit one with this next delivery habit two, you’ve got a powerful combo. Slow down to highlight. Often most people, they speak at one speed, one tempo, one rhythm. And often the rhythm is fast. This is one of the biggest problems growing up in the Vietnamese and Chinese culture. My default speaking rate is extremely fast. And old habits die hard. So the moment I am nervous, just 10% nervous, I am off to the races. I thought that if I learn to speak really quickly, that means I can share lots of information per minute, and that means that I’m going to have more impact. And I didn’t realize that speaking like that reduces and dilutes impact instead.

When you speak really fast all the time, nothing stands out. It all just blurs together. It’s like you’re reading a book and then you’re just highlighting the whole damn page. Let me show you this example here. You tell me which one hits harder.

“I just want to remind you that your voice matters and your communication skills is one of the most important skills that you’ll develop in this life.”

Versus:

“Your voice… it matters. Communication… it’s not just a skill, it’s a superpower.”

Now, you tell me. Did you feel the difference? Did you notice how when I combined slowing down my speech with a pause, oh, it’s just beautiful. And I’m not saying always speak like that. I’m saying speak like that when you want the point to land, when you want to be more impactful with your words.

Now, as we move on to delivery habit three, most people ramble a lot, and that’s because they haven’t learned how to use declarative statements. And again here I want to remind you that these are all skills that you can learn. You are not stuck with your communication skills. These are just habits and you can change habits.

And often when it comes to rambling, this happens when your mouth moves faster than your thoughts. You’re literally thinking while you’re speaking. That’s rambling. So when you learn how to make declarative statements, it helps you reduce the ramble. And these are just short, concise, to-the-point sentences that have a full stop to them.

So, an example of rambling would be: “I was thinking maybe we could, you know, potentially look at the other ideas that we had, you know, the ideas when like um we’re going to like post on social media, you know, like more often. So, yeah, I think it’s, you know, um it’s kind of important to maybe consider the timing um of the launch too because, you know, it could possibly affect our uh engagement level…”

I used to talk and it was a mess. It was vague. And the worst thing is it makes you sound unsure even when you are sure and you know your stuff.

Now I want you to contrast what you just heard with this next example where I’m going to use a declarative statement: “Timing and consistency with our social media content will directly impact engagement.”

Bam. How much better was that? I basically had the same message, yet it just came across 10 times more clear and coherent.

Great delivery isn’t just about what you say. It’s how you control your delivery and energy when you say it. The pause creates space for your ideas to land. Slowing down acts like a verbal highlighter, signaling that something important is being communicated. And declarative statements remove the guesswork. It replaces hesitation with clarity and conviction.

Together, all these three delivery habits transforms your voice from being background noise into something that people want to hear.

Now, let’s get into group two: vocal habits.

When we’re thinking about vocal habits, let me ask you a few things to kick things off. Do you ever feel like your throat gets sore after you are speaking for an extended period of time? Do you ever feel extremely fatigued after a presentation? And do you ever lose your voice? Or do you ever feel like your voice doesn’t sound strong and your voice feels weak and you think to yourself, “What’s happening with my voice? Why is it being like this?”

Well, if you relate to any of the things that I just said, you need to understand vocal habit number one. Warm up your voice before you use it. Your voice is a muscle system, and just like any muscle, if you go straight from cold to full exertion, then you’re going to strain it and it’s going to underperform.

But here’s the thing, vocal warm-ups, they feel awkward and you sound weird while you’re doing it and it takes a lot of effort. And also because nobody else around you is doing it. And because no one does it around you, you end up skipping it and you don’t do it, too.

Here’s my go-to warm-up. If there’s only one thing I can do, this is what I’d do: Lip trills. The first thing is for a full minute on just one note, I’d do a lip trill. So, I’d do this. (Imagine the sound of a lip trill) Yeah. Do that for a minute. Now, if you struggle doing this, don’t worry. Your lips and your mouth, it’s not broken. All you got to do if you struggle to do this is take your two index fingers, push your cheeks in, and then try. (Imagine the sound) Huh, it works. You’re not broken. Some people can do it without. Some people need a little bit of support. It’s okay.

You do that for a full minute and breathe obviously as often as you need to while you’re doing this.

Then second part of the exercise. Now lip trill your favorite song. So here I’ll do mine. See if you can guess the song. (Lip trilling a tune) Can you guess what song it is? Only the best song to be written by the best boy band ever.

So then you lip trill your favorite song and then the last one, this is the last lip trill exercise for you to warm up. Do lip trills in short bursts and do that for a minute. So essentially what you’re doing is you’re going: (Imagine short, staccato lip trills) And by doing this you’re warming up your vocal folds without straining them. This helps you reset your breath support. And it also helps you reduce vocal tension. And just remember, do this out of sight. Don’t do this in the middle of the work meeting. Don’t do this while you’re in the interview room. Do this while you’re in the car.

And as you start to do this more and more before you need your voice, you’ll notice your voice getting clearer. You’ll have stronger projection. And most importantly, you’ll have less vocal fatigue.

Let’s move on to vocal habit number two. Now, this is going to sound a little bit strange, but this habit is going to help protect your voice when you are not speaking. Okay? We have massive chunks of the day where we’re just sitting by the computer and we’re working on our own and we don’t talk to anybody. How you breathe during those moments can either be protecting your vocal instrument or damaging it.

A lot of people without realizing while they’re not using their voice, they’re defaulting to mouth breathing which dries out your throat and your vocal cords. It leads to shallow breathing and you often feel more fatigued as a result of mouth breathing. Whereas if you start to train and develop a new habit and you always default to nose breathing, the benefits are just crazy.

We take over 20,000 breaths a day. So, if you can just learn this one simple habit, replace mouth breathing with nose breathing, it’s going to optimize how you feel. It’s going to optimize your health dramatically, and it compounds fast.

When you breathe with your nose, one, it humidifies the air. Two, it keeps your throat and vocal cords hydrated and moist. Three, it improves oxygen efficiency by 20%. Four, it also activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which helps you relax and feel more calm. And five, when you breathe through your nose, it filters out all the bad stuff. That’s why we all have hair on the inside of our nose. So, you shouldn’t wax it. Don’t wax it. I’ve seen those waxing videos. Why would you do it? It looks so painful.

I bet this is something you’ve never thought about. You just thought, “Oh, breathing is just breathing. Whether I breathe through my mouth or my nose, it’s the same thing.” So, this is an important habit check. Just check what’s your default breathing method. Is it through your mouth or through your nose?

And now, moving directly into vocal habit number three. Use more volume when you speak. Now, keep in mind, I’m not talking about shouting. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about speaking with more presence, with more vitality, with volume that fills the space.

When you speak in a healthy volume, you’re not just sharing information. You’re transferring energy. Every time you speak, your vocal cords, they vibrate. And those vibrations, they travel through the air and they hit other people’s ears. And it tells them something before your words even land. Do you know what they say? They say, “I’m alive. I care. And I believe in what I’m saying.”

People don’t just hear what you’re saying. They feel it. Volume isn’t just about being heard. It’s about being felt. People subconsciously link vocal strength to personal strength. When your voice is small, they assume your ideas are small, too. But when your voice carries, so does your conviction.

A lot of people tend to think that speaking louder is being too much. When what’s actually too common is playing too small. If you don’t speak up, people can’t connect. They can’t connect with your voice. They can’t connect with your energy. They can’t connect with you.

All right, let’s move on to group number three: cognitive habits.

Cognitive habit number one. If you want to sound more clear, if you want to sound smarter, and you want to sound more confident, finish one thought at a time. When you don’t finish a thought before starting the next one, your listener has to mentally chase you. And most of the time, they actually won’t chase you. They’ll just zone out.

Imagine I did this: “So, I think we should run the marketing campaign next week. Oh. Oh, and and and I also thought um did you see what the team said about the conversion rates on the landing page? And and and oh, sorry. Uh the other thing is did you also watch the football game last night? It was a crazy game. What a wild night. And and actually, sorry, let let’s let’s um stay on topic and talk about uh the football game at lunch because that’s where we should talk about football, not not in the middle of a team meeting. Oh, by the way, did you want to head out for lunch today or do you want to eat in because I think we also need to rethink the budget that we’re spending on the marketing campaign as well.”

Oh, far out. Making this part just makes me feel bad because I used to do every single one of these things wrong.

And did you notice in that example of me just rambling there? No structure, no clarity. Your brain is multitasking mid-sentence. It’s trying to say something while also thinking of the next thing. And that creates fragmented speech and it sounds unsure, scattered and messy even if your ideas are brilliant. And that’s the painful part.

Master communicators do this instead. They start a thought, they finish it, then they pause and then they move on to the next idea. Here’s the example: “Listen team, we should launch the campaign next week. Let’s make sure the whole team is aligned on that as a goal.” (Pause) “Everyone also raised a good point about the landing page. Let’s put in a plan for conversion rate optimization.” (Pause) “And I also want to ask you all for a big favor. We might have to do a working lunch today. Is everyone cool with that? Is everyone okay with that?”

Those were the same ideas, but now that they’re structured, it’s digestible. It’s more persuasive.

And let me ask you this. Have you ever had a great idea, but halfway through explaining it, you could see people getting confused? Look, we’ve all been there. You’re not the problem. Your structure is. And that’s why I want to show you a simple three-step framework to make you a better communicator. And that’s cognitive habit number two: learn to use frameworks.

Let’s use an example here together. Let’s say you were talking to your boss about releasing an online course with a tight timeline for the business. And often without frameworks, this is how we would do it. This is how you do it, right? You do it like this: “Um, hey boss, I’m so sorry about this, but I was looking at where we are with this current project and what has to be done by the editing team and the marketing team agrees with me because I’ve talked to them about it and I’ve also talked to the general manager and they said that if if I don’t tell you this, I mean, I need to tell you this, we’re going to need more people on the project because if we don’t get extra support, I don’t think we’re going to be able to hit the deadline and we will disappoint a lot of customers because we sent out six promotional emails saying that it’s going to be ready in 4 weeks. And if it’s not ready in 4 weeks, what’s that going to do to our branding?”

Oh man, I said it and it was hard to listen to and I was the one talking.

So, here’s a simple framework and it’s called CCC and it stands for Context, Core, and Connect. And what this framework does is it allows you to turn complex ideas and explain them in a way that actually makes sense and in a way that’s simple.

Here’s how it works. Context. Set the scene. Give people the why before the what. Most people rush towards the what their content. Don’t give them context first. Then you move to the Core. Deliver the main idea. Keep it clear. Keep it simple. And there should only be one main idea here. And then Connect. Show them why it matters to them, the relevance.

So, for example, if you bring that all together, here’s how it works: “Hey boss, as you know, we’re about to release the new online course and the timing is tight. (That’s the Context) Look, we are going to need extra editors if you want to meet the deadline. (That’s the Core, the one main idea) This is going to allow us to finish on time and without burning the team out and at the same time protect the brand.” (That’s the Connect)

That’s the power of frameworks. You stop overexplaining. You stop losing people and you go from rambling to resonating. And beautiful communication is when you’re able to be clear, concise, and coherent.

And look, if you’re new around here and you want to learn more frameworks because after learning CCC, you’re like, “Wow, I love frameworks.” Then I teach three of the most powerful frameworks in the world of communication inside a free resource I’ve recorded for you.

And now, let’s get on to the final cognitive habit. If you learn how to use this final cognitive habit, you’re going to be to explain complex ideas with absolute ease.

I remember this one time my mom was trying to explain to my dad how compounding interest works. Mom was the book smart one. Dad wasn’t. And this is how mom explained it to dad. Mom said: “Okay honey, you ready to learn. Okay. The compounding interest is the exponential growth where the interest start to accrue not only on the principle but also on the previously accumulated interest.” Dad replied: “Huh? You understand Hane? So stupid.”

It’s so ridiculous, right? Because while I was listening to my mom, I didn’t understand it. My dad didn’t understand it. So, do you know what my mom did? She said the exact same thing. She just said it slower. And just by saying the exact same thing slower, she expected him to get it. Yeah. My dad and I, we still didn’t get it.

So, the next time someone doesn’t get what you’re saying, instead of just explaining it slower or harder, explain it differently with an analogy.

Analogies are shortcuts to understanding. They take something complex and they tie it to something simple and familiar. And that’s what makes them powerful. It connects the unknown to the known.

Now, let’s go back to the example of my mom trying to explain compounding interest to my dad. Instead of using that overly complex definition, she should have just used the classic snowball analogy.

“Compounding interest is like rolling a snowball downhill. At first, it’s really small, but as it rolls, it picks up more snow. And the bigger it gets, the faster it grows. The earlier you start investing, the bigger your snowball becomes. And it’s actually scary how big the snowball can get. And if you start investing early, soon the snowball rolls faster than you can run.”

That’s way easier to digest, right?

And because my mom was always the more educated one in the family, she would always educate my dad and me and her sisters. And because of that, my dad was able to buy his dream car when I was young. My dad, yes, he had a dream sports car. He owned a Nissan 300Z. Oh my god, it was one of the most sexiest cars I’ve ever seen in my life. Get back on point, Vin.

When you use analogies, you tap into visual memory, emotional resonance, and real world logic all at once. Analogies do three things. First, they make your message stick. Two, they make complex ideas simple. And three, they make you relatable and more memorable. So, if you want to be remembered, stop explaining and start connecting the complex and the unknown with the familiar and the known.

These nine habits have completely changed the way I communicate and more importantly, how I connect with others. The better you speak, the more of your true self the world gets to see. And if you ever doubted the power of your voice, let me leave you with this beautiful quote by Maya Angelou who says, “People will forget what you’ve said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

So go practice. Go get better. Not to impress anyone, but rather to connect more deeply. Because when you speak more clearly, with more clarity, with more confidence, and with more care, guess what? People start to listen.