W hat if I say that to be successful and prosperous, you don’t have to

be a leader or develop leadership skills, you don’t need to be rich,

famous, beautiful, sexy, or have channels? What if I say that to learn
to control people, you don’t need to manipulate, blackmail, be a far-sighted
negotiator, a communicator, and a seducer? It’s true that key to success lies
in reigning over people’s minds. Nevertheless, to achieve it, you don’t need
to be born a brilliant public speaker or spend your whole life developing the
traits that nature didn’t initially grant you. I’m sure that there are people
among your acquaintances (or maybe it’s you yourself) who took a class in
communication skills improvement, emotional intelligence enhancement, soft
skills and other trendy things. Why do they do it? Many people want to
possess the minds and feelings of others to get a promotion, to improve
their relationships, etc., there could be any purpose. However, some say
they do it solely and exclusively for themselves, but the well-known fact is
that any skill obtained but not translated into practice is useless. So first of
all we study to achieve our own goals. Yet, the way to these goals lies
through communication. Needless to say, there are such exceptions as IT,
where communication is narrowed down to the screen of your laptop, but in
most cases personal contact prevails. People keep looking for their own
responses to this challenge.

I was no exception. I was looking for the easiest way to understand people
and take control over them too. Being an introvert by nature and a
strong-willed personality, I found it hard to show flexibility and empathy.
Even the fact that I graduated from a drama school couldn’t help me to find
Research Center for Voice & Speech Ekaterina Petrova Reading the Voice ®
the right communication patterns. I took various classes in emotional
intelligence improvement and the art of negotiation, and even completed a
course in physiognomy and identifying emotions by facial expressions and
gestures; nevertheless, I hardly made any progress in terms of interpersonal
communication. I was scared, emotionally closed, and when it came to
getting on stage, my lips would tremble and my palms would perspire.
Neither public speaking classes nor attraction spells could help me.
Moreover, when I was under pressure, I completely forgot about them all,
although I practiced my skills hundreds of times. The main thing is that I
wasn’t the only one. Since I, still being a student, began to give classes in
art of voice training, I often heard my clients share their feelings with each
other. Even experienced entrepreneurs may have a lump in the throat during
business meetings despite having visited world forums of top
communication experts. So why so few people can boast of great
communication skills and finding common grounds with anyone? Why, after
so many classes, the leader is still someone else and not me? Why did I
have to make so much effort, and someone else enjoys a blaze of glory,
wealth, respect and other privileges, without doing anything?

I ’m 31 years old and I learned to do what only a few people around the
world can: I learned to penetrate into the inner life of others through their
own voices. I’ll answer the curious people’s question: this art is not taught
anywhere, I mastered it myself. The 12-year tutoring practice and the voice
analysis related to it, my music and drama education, which require being
observant and able to analyze the smallest details, helped me in part. Still,
Research Center for Voice & Speech Ekaterina Petrova Reading the Voice ®
my personal experience helped me the most. I had complicated family
relations which grew into complicated interpersonal relationships.

M ost of all I wanted to understand why, when you try to do good and
follow your feelings for someone, you get hurt. Why is it so hard to
explain simple things? Why do they call you insensitive when you
just feel different? Why does it turn out even worse when you want to reach
your loved one? Why do you always need so many words? I guess you also
asked yourself the same questions. I met cruel teachers on my way, but
thanks to them my will to understand why they are like that, what made
them become such people, grew even bigger. My desire to get into the
thoughts of others was so strong that I finally succeeded.

I t all started with little things. Once I noticed that when people are
nervous, there are not so many possible interpretations of their feelings
reflected in their voices and speech. Then I noticed the difference between
people’s voices when someone calls them from an unknown number and
when their loved ones call, and that such changes occur regardless of race,
place of residence or something else. Yet, the real impetus behind my
research was happenstance. One autumn evening I was at home with a cold,
I had nothing to do, so I started watching videos on YouTube. I wasn’t
looking for anything in particular; I just wanted to take my mind off things.
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to find the video I was watching, but it really
drew my attention then. It was a breakup dialogue between a man and a
Research Center for Voice & Speech Ekaterina Petrova Reading the Voice ®
woman. She was crying, and he told her, “I don’t need you, I’ll never marry
you.” I remember watching that scene and thinking, “He’s got feelings for
you, why are you crying?” My own thought surprised me. Why did I think
so? I rewatched the video and it dawned on me. He was speaking in a
deliberately calm manner, I’d say, extremely calm. So I thought: if I really
don’t need anyone, I will say that at my usual tempo with the intonations I’m
used to. I’ll slow down the tempo to sound more convincing only if I want to
hurt that person on purpose. The transition is unintentional but it definitely
occurs. I liked that idea so much that I spent the whole night browsing the
web and watching dozens of different videos confirming this fact.

B y morning I was absolutely sure that almost all of us change the

tempo of the speech to seem uninterested. And, judging from the fact
that I watched videos in many different languages, it was true for
almost everyone without exception. After having brewed some more coffee,
I started to search for what is already known about human voice today. The
fact that by voice alone you can determine one’s sex, age or height, is not
surprising anymore. But there was another thing: I found a lot of evidence
concerning an old belief that the voice is the key to inner life, temper,
emotions, desires and motivation of a person. Everybody hides them all so
carefully under a set of masks and disguise since they make us vulnerable.
Someone even tried to collect different combinations of voice features, such
as timbre, diction, intonation, etc., in order to create a table for analysis, but
I immediately realized that there was something wrong with them. Only after
some time of reflection, I finally found out what exactly it was: they were too
complex. If it takes just one word spoken on the phone to understand that a
Research Center for Voice & Speech Ekaterina Petrova Reading the Voice ®
person is upset, then to carry out a simple analysis of someone’s inner life
you will need to unpretentiously study the voice in parts without trying to
assemble them all into a crazy quilt. That’s what was wrong: researchers
tried to combine voice characteristics while they should have separated
them. I was so fascinated by this idea that I spent the following 5 years
immersed into thorough analysis. I studied thousands of different people
and videos, taking into account both public figures and random unknown
people; I asked my students to share their inmost secrets. I got down to my
research all alone, sparing no effort and time and not even knowing where
it would lead me. But my work paid off, and in spades. Now, having at my
command just a voice recording, not even speaking the language it is in, I
can tell you everything about the person talking, ranging from the general
features, emotional background, and hobbies, to health condition, career,
and family relations. But this is only the beginning. I can tell you for sure
what will have the most positive effect on this person and what will leave
him or her indifferent, I can precisely determine what string should be
pulled. For this, I don’t have to meet the person, or talk, or do a research; I
just need to listen to him or her. And now I teach this skill to others. I wrote
the book to make you plunge into this art. I’m striving to prove that we’re
different behind the guise, we’re more complex, and there’s no absolute evil
or absolute good. This extract is quite sophisticated but it can be
decomposed into tiniest elements; you can get direct access to someone’s
feelings, heart and thoughts and decide which communication strategy to
choose: creation or destruction.

Research Center for Voice & Speech Ekaterina Petrova Reading the Voice ®