How to Sound More Interesting in Meetings
Jeff runs meetings. A lot of them.
He has a problem. He’s a little boring, and he knows it. No one says it to his face, but he sees it anyway. Attention drifts the moment there’s a lull.
The issue is not effort. Jeff does what corporate best practices tell him to do (clean slide decks, minimal text, one idea per slide, images when possible). All the right boxes checked. It helps, but not enough. At some point, the slides stop being the problem. Jeff needs to be more interesting to listen to.
I’ve written plenty about helping people like Jeff improve substance and structure.
This time, I want to focus on the third S: style.
Gather ye round!
Jeff wants to become one of those “you could read the phone book and I’d listen” people. He just doesn’t have time to train like a voice actor or spend twelve hours in a vocal warm-up bootcamp. What he wants are small habits (just a few minutes a day).
I’ve won about 80 public speaking championships. More than half of them were in professional communication contests since 2020. I practice vocal inflection constantly, but probably not the way you’d expect. I do not spend my days running vocal sirens or humming scales.
I read comics out loud.
To all the Jeffs of the world, here’s why this fun little habit works so well.
Why Read Comics?
They’re easy to access. Classic comics like Garfield, Peanuts, and Calvin and Hobbes, as well as modern webcomics, are free and plentiful online.
The voices are baked in. Characters are drawn and written in ways that strongly suggest how they sound. Sometimes accents are explicitly written into the dialogue.
They’re low commitment. You can follow a story for two minutes or twenty. No/minimal prep required.
How to Do It
Read with at least one other person. Skim the chapter/section once so you know how many characters there are and can divide them up. This keeps you from narrating everything yourself.
Differentiate voices using the “four As”:
Age: How old does the character sound?
Accent: Can you place them somewhere specific? Liverpool. Alabama. New Jersey. Anywhere works.
Attitude: Are they sarcastic, optimistic, tired, smug?
Animal: If voices still blur together, layer in animal qualities. A snake. A lion. A nervous mouse.
Stay flexible. If a voice isn’t working, change it. Give yourself or your partner permission to call a “new choice” and try again.
My Recommended Readings
Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
Simple but expressive illustrations paired with sharp, self-aware writing. Brosh explores childhood, anxiety, and mental health through short anecdotes. Genuinely funny, and deceptively precise in its emotional timing.
Eleven chapters and very visual. The story follows a young shapeshifter who wants to be the evil sidekick to a well-meaning villain. It starts light, then gets surprisingly deep and emotional. Memorable characters throughout.
Hark, a Vagrant by Kate Beaton
Mostly standalone strips parodying historical figures and events. Easy to jump in and out of character. Much funnier if you’re familiar with the source material, but still accessible even if you aren’t.
Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew
One of my all-time favorites. A party of adventurers tries to save the world from an evil sorcerer. Over 1,000 strips and counting. Heavy D&D humor early on, then a gradual shift from gag-a-day comedy into a genuinely epic story with deep, interlocking plot threads. Still ongoing as of December 2025.
A pastel-and-whimsy fantasy quest featuring a reluctant hero and surprisingly nuanced villains as they attempt to seal away an ancient evil. It starts bright, light, and G-rated. The depth sneaks up on you.
8-Bit Theater by Brian Clevinger
The OG webcomic. A direct parody of Final Fantasy I from the early 2000s. Not all of the humor has aged perfectly, but the characters are extremely distinct and memorable. A band of miscreants far more foolish than heroic, and excellent for voice work.
Brawl in the Family by Matthew Taranto
If you know Nintendo or Smash Bros., read this. A series of short, easy-to-read vignettes that affectionately parody beloved franchises. Includes occasional surprise musical strips. The author is also a composer, and it shows.
It’s rare for me to recommend a manga, since some readers reject them out of hand and reading right-to-left isn’t intuitive for many Western audiences. This one is too good to skip. A spy must create a fake family for a mission, unaware that the wife he recruits is an assassin and the adopted daughter is a telepath. Every character, even the minor ones, has a clear and memorable energy. The jokes are genuinely hilarious.
Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
The imagination of a boy and his stuffed tiger as they navigate a world where fitting in often feels impossible. With full respect to Krazy Kat, Pogo, and Peanuts, this may be the greatest comic strip ever made. It’s especially good for reading aloud. Every character is distinct, and Calvin alone has a dozen alter egos.
Two Tests
After you have some readings under your belt, there are two tests to pass.
Record yourself (video, not audio-only). You only need a couple minutes of content.
Then, play it back with no volume. Just look at your visual performance. Can you tell when you’re shifting between different characters/voices based on your facial expressions and body language? If so, congrats—you’ve passed the mute button test.
Now, play it back with no visuals (only listen to it, like a podcast). Do your voices sound like distinct characters? If you played it back to a friend, could they tell that both character voices came from you? If so, great—you’ve passed the podcast test.
A Message to Jeff
Start with any of those, or pick something similar that grabs you.
My wife and I were recently featured in a production of A Christmas Carol that was broadcast in Wisconsin. We both received a lot of praise from audience members and fellow actors for our character voices. It’s probably a big reason we were cast.
What a flattering angle for me!
Yes, we both did theater in high school. That helped. But we kept the skill sharp with this simple pastime.
Jeff, you don’t need to become a performer. You don’t need a voice coach. You don’t need to overhaul your meetings or redesign your slides for the tenth time. You need a low-stakes way to practice sounding interesting, a few minutes at a time.
Read comics out loud. Play with voices. Make choices. Change them when they don’t work.
Do that consistently, and the next time Jeff runs a meeting, fewer phones come out. Fewer eyes glaze over. People stay with him through the lulls.
If you want more activities like this — small, sustainable, and designed for people who actually have jobs — follow the Authentalk blog.
