In this episode of the Winning at Business and Life podcast, host Professor Pete Alexander interviews Emmy‑winning voice‑over artist, actress, speaker, and communication coach Tasia (Teja) Valenza. The conversation follows a rapid‑fire "6 questions in 7 minutes" format. Valenza explains how moving from on‑camera acting—where appearance often limited her talent—to voice‑over work liberated her powerful voice and allowed her to embody thousands of roles, leading her to develop the "Give Great Voice" platform that teaches confident verbal communication for personal and professional impact. She argues that modern business communication has become overly digitized, urging companies to prioritize compassionate, face‑to‑face dialogue and to remember when to replace texts and emails with genuine conversation. Valenza stresses that effective leadership requires true listening, noting that 70 % of employee turnover stems from feeling undervalued rather than from pay. She shares her seven‑year journey to delivering a TEDx talk, crediting mentor and TEDx coach Corey Poirier for guiding her submission and presentation. Valenza recounts her first work experience at her father’s restaurant at age nine, describing how early responsibilities—separating eggs, scooping ice cream, waitressing—instilled a deep work ethic and financial independence that later supported her freelance acting career. Finally, she provides her contact information, directing listeners to her social media handles (@tejiavalenza) and the Give Great Voice brand. The episode blends personal storytelling with actionable advice on communication, listening, mentorship, and building a professional brand.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and and what you do.
Thanks so much for having me, Pete Alexander. My name is Teja Valenza, and I'm an Emmy-winning voiceover artist and actress and speaker and coach, and I teach the art of confident verbal communication utilizing the skills of an actor and a voiceover actor in your own life so you can play your professional and personal roles with more inspiration and impact.
Tasia, it is such a pleasure to have you on the show. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?
Oh, well, you know, I do call myself a recovering actress and a fully functioning voiceover artist for a reason. Because as an actor, I was quite damaged because there was always that feeling that you're not enough. You're not pretty enough, tall enough, blonde enough, smart enough, you know. And as a voiceover actor, I had this beautiful, powerful voice that I knew how to use, and all of a sudden, the acting skills that I had but were less important than what I looked like went away. So I was released to my talent and my passion, and the confinements of this that we all experience was gone and liberated, and I could take words off the page and breathe and speak life into them. So my ability to play thousands of roles came from being a voiceover actor, and my ability to play and be joyful as a child is all part of what makes me a very successful voiceover actor. So that in a nutshell is, you know, it's Christmas on Sunday.
I love it. And the passion in your voice is just amazing, and it's coming through so well. Thank you for that. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book with—
I love that.
What you think most companies should read?
Well, based on my previous answers, I'd have to go with the ability to have confident, considerate, compassionate communication. Because truly, you know, our voices are our most powerful communication tool. And we have digitized so much of our communication and abdicated our humanity. From that. And I think remembering when it's appropriate to text or email, and then when it's time to take it up to that next level of personal interaction, is paramount to how we can have a community and a culture of communication and compassion and consideration. And you can see I love alliterations. But truthfully, it's so important, the old-fashioned ways, to speak, speak from our hearts and our minds.
I love it. So well said. Question number 4: Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
Well, going right along with communication, you can't give great voice unless you give true listening. Once again, we We have such a dearth of ability to give our full presence to anyone. We're always multitasking, we're all so busy, and we have the ability to multitask and still give of our time, and it's almost acceptable. So the ability to attentively listen to our employees, to our managers, to our culture again, and really hear them makes people feel valued. 70% of workers that quit, it wasn't the money, it was that they never felt valued. And so that is what I would offer.
I absolutely love that. And, you know, talking about that multitasking, it always makes me think about being, uh, or seeing it at a restaurant, two people having dinner, you know, and they're sitting on their phones instead of having any communication together. Yeah, exactly. And I always thought to myself, you know what, why bother even sitting down at and having the environment of the restaurant? Just take, go do takeout. You're missing the point.
It is something that I think we've kind of accepted as a cultural norm, but that's one of my passions and my missions is to, you know, I'm bringing voice back. And it's something that I really want to make people aware that our intimacy has to come from that. Putting away the phone and putting it on do not disturb. And I mean, I'm definitely guilty of it myself again, because we've kind of been primed that this is normal. But luckily I'm an old lady and I come from the old days when we had to have long conversations. And my kids are growing up without that. So I have to kind of inform them that digitizing all your communication is not normal. And it is, but again, they have a group where it's an aberration to call. It's actually aggressive and weird. So we do a lot of talking in our family to make up for that. And I just hope that, you know, I can encourage young people to, to use their beautiful, powerful voices, literally, to, to create that more intimate communication.
So well said. Thank you for that. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
Well, I had the gift of being able to do my first TEDx, and that is something that was such a gift, but truly a goal that took me 7 years to accomplish from the time that I, you know, declared I wanted to do one. And the reason I know it was 7 years is because I kept an LA Times article saying that anybody can do a great TEDx talk, and I crossed it out and put Teja Valenza, and kept that LA Times article all the way till I booked my first one, and that was 7 years ago. So that was phenomenal. And my coach, who actually, I didn't know there was such thing as a TED-Ed coach, TEDx coach, but I found a lovely man by the name of Corey Poirier, and he helped me not only kind of craft my submission based on my Give Great Voice platform, but also helped me do the process correctly, 'cause I'm one of those people who really needs, I'm audiokinetic, I can't, don't leave me to my own devices 'cause I'll just put it off because I feel overwhelmed. I'm not a visual learner. And so it was my first submission and I booked it. So he has been a great mentor to me. He has his own platform called Blue Talks. He's a phenomenal human being. So I would highly recommend him because I'm sure there's other speakers out there that would like to get on stages and virtual stages. And he's a, he's a wonderful coach.
Wonderful. And I will reach out to Corey. Thank you for that. And once again, congratulations on, on being able to get on stage yourself. That is a huge accomplishment and a Perfect example of manifestation.
Thank you. It was, it's, it's, uh, it's something that I, I feel very blessed and it's, uh, I hope that it touches and impacts people because it kind of takes this whole Give Great Voice notion and consolidates it into 16 minutes. So it's very digestible.
Great. And our final question, question number 6, please tell me about your first job.
So my first My first job, job was actually at 9, 10 years old. My dad would let me on vacations. He owned a restaurant and he really wanted me, I wanted money for gummy bears or candy at the time. And he said, you know, I want you to earn it. And I said, well, how am I going to earn it? I'm like 9 years old. And he said, come to my restaurant and I'm going to put you to work. And I was like, okay. My brother and myself went down and he put us in the kitchen. I took stems out of strawberries and I separated eggs for hollandaise sauce. I got my first taste of work and then money, and I was like turned on. And I have to say, that was the first learning of a deep work ethic because then I went on to be a hostess, and by the time I was 13, I was scooping ice cream, and the time I was 15, I was waitressing. And of course, you know, this is very different from the opportunities now, but I earned my own money. And as an actress, I had to continue to do that, but the muscle was so deeply ingrained that the independence that I, especially as a woman, I've always maintained that, you know, I take care of my own finances at a very young age and I never relied on anybody to take care of me. And that felt really good as somebody who, you know, was in very much of a freelance industry my whole life. So I'm really grateful to my father for giving me that opportunity and not just, you know, You know, it's the old fish where you can give a fish to eat, but if you teach a fisherman to fish, that's what he did for me. And it's something that I've tried to impart to my children as well.
Oh, it's a great story and such a springboard to your career success. I love that. It's great. Thank you for sharing that with us.
My pleasure.
So Tejia, thank you for being on the show. How could people find you?
So I am, you can find me a number of ways at Tejia, @tejiavalenza. I'm on LinkedIn. Tejia's like fancy. Tasia. So if you can remember, be a fan of Tasia, which my parents named me after that, but they were kind enough to leave off the fan. But it's a good hook. So you could find me at Give Great Voice. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, but definitely we met through LinkedIn, so it's a great way to find me.
Wonderful. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
