I spent more than a decade traveling and singing, so maybe it’s natural that I keep coming back to this: the way a person sings is a beautiful analogy for the way they live.

When someone sings, more is communicated than pitch and volume. There’s a vibrato — a frequency, a movement, a warmth that gives the voice its character. One person’s vibrato feels warm and inviting. Another feels strained, tired, over-controlled. It says something before the words do.

I think we all live with a kind of vibrato. It’s the frequency we bring into a room — our presence, our eye contact, the steadiness in our voice, the confidence or hesitation in our decisions. People feel it even when they can’t name it.

When the voice goes unpracticed

Here’s what I learned from singing: step away for even a short time, and the vibrato changes. The voice still technically works, but something feels unsettled. Confidence has to be practiced back into it.

Life is the same. In my medical visits, if I hesitate, if I break eye contact, if I’m uncertain in how I communicate — people detect it. They may never say “he seems unsure,” but they feel the lack of steadiness, and it doesn’t build confidence in them. My internal state becomes part of the atmosphere of the room. That’s what I mean by bravado — not arrogance, not performance, but the confidence with which you inhabit your role and your life. That kind of groundedness creates safety for other people. It says: I am present. I am not pretending.

Sing it your way

But confidence does not mean sounding like everyone else. Think of the lead in Hamilton — surrounded by technically magnificent voices that soared in ways his did not. He didn’t imitate them, and he didn’t over-sing to compensate. He leaned into what was uniquely his — rhythm, passion, precision — and because of that, he wasn’t lesser. He became unforgettable.

There’s a kind of insecurity that overcompensates — singing louder, performing bigger, proving more — because we’re afraid our natural voice isn’t enough. Maybe maturity is learning to inhabit our own sound fully. To know what God has given us. To understand our limitations without shame and develop our strengths without apology. To stop straining toward someone else’s frequency and become beautifully fluent in our own.

Changing your vibrato doesn’t mean becoming someone else. It usually means returning — to steadiness, to practice, to the grounded expression of who you truly are.

So this week, don’t take my word for it — listen for yourself. What frequency do you actually bring into a room? Is it yours, or an imitation? And what would one week of practicing your own voice — steady, sincere, unborrowed — change about the rooms you walk into?

— Reggie