Ep. 258 ACCENT ACQUISITION WITH DR. LESLIE GORDON

Hey there, Darren Lacroix. You know what? Being from Jamaica, I've been told I have an accent, man.

Armand, I saw that in person. You're at my house, you're talking to me normally, and one of your Jamaican buddies, and all of a sudden I was like, who is that guy? He changed.

Yeah, I know. I have modified the accent. But you know what? Yeah, but the thing is, Aaron, you. You know, at stage time, we have members all over the world. India, China, Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean. And sometimes people who have accents like me. Look, we all have acc. Aren't as confident in how we can express ourselves. Well, I'm just thrilled because today we have a special guest. I call her a dear friend. We talk on the phone once in a while. We banter, we chat a little French, a little English. But our guest today, Leslie Gordon, is a speech and accent and voice Expert. Officially, she's Dr. Leslie Gordon. I'll let her tell us more about herself as we go in. But listen, I always say this, friends, if you have an accent, remember this. Your accent is an asset. Don't lose it. Use it. I'll tell you why when we come back.

All right, I'm gonna go park the car.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the unforgettable presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells story, and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation, Ahas? Let's dive right in.

All right, Darren, let's welcome together a friend of mine from NSA, Georgia, our president elect for 2025 from Athens. Is it Georgia, Dr. Leslie Gordon. Leslie, welcome to the unforgettable presentations podcast. We're Leslie fans right here.

I'm Mark and Darren. Fans, thank you so much for having me.

Pleasure.

We're glad. Glad you're here. I want to jump in. Leslie, you work with speech, with voice, with accent, and you speak three to five languages. And I see you in a different light when I get. When I see you at nsa. How did you get involved in this concern for language and accent and helping us to understand the value and power of our own accent?

Oh, thank you for asking it that way. That gives me such a fun entry into this conversation. I have been all about languages and accents since I can remember. I love to tell the story. It's part of one of my stage talks, actually, of the young version of me that played Barbies that spoke different languages to each other.

Oh, wow, that's cool.

That's adorable.

Because that was a time in my life, actually. That was a very pivotal time in my life where a lot of things were happening, and many of those things were sparking curiosities in me around languages and accents and identities that were tied to those spaces. I was. Was a child living in Texas. Our family's from Georgia, but we'd moved to Texas with my father's job. South Texas on the border with Mexico, but also a region where there were a lot of northerners who'd come to live in the warmer climate. So I was really surrounded by such a huge variety of sounds and languages and generational differences, Parents speaking one way, kids speaking another way. And it was just such a playground for my ears and my brain, and it. It started me on a path, and. And I look back on that now and think of the memories and things I was doing and. And they make sense even today for why I'm so language and accent curious.

Now, you told me yesterday a personal story of a pivotal point in a very. At your very young age that really made all this come alive for you. Can you share that with our viewers and listeners?

I would love to. It's also an opening line for one of my talks when I say I was 7 years old when I realized that the way I spoke drew a picture for some people. And in that moment, it was a visit home to Georgia from Texas. We'd been living there about a year, and I. My brother and I were with my. Our mother, and we were making the rounds visiting friends and family that we had not seen for a while. And we stopped to chat with one man that was a former employer of hers, and he chatted with her for a minute, and then he turned to the children and said, how are you, kids? And I just responded, fine, thank you. And he said to me, fine. I'm glad you're fine. You sound like a little Yankee. And he was harping on the fact that I was saying fine and not fine, like did as a South Georgian.

Yeah, so they're fine. That's fine.

Right. And of course, you know, now I know with my adult wisdom, he was just trying to be funny. But it. I. I very much remember it's crystallized in my brain, staring back at him and thinking, what did I do wrong? And knowing that from that point on, I needed to think about how I said words like fine and pen and Pin. And. And it was a lot of thoughts swirling in me. Am I Georgian? Am I a Texan? How should I sound? Do I have to change here and there? And looking back on it, I'm grateful for that moment because it started me on a path. But at the time, it was a lot to wrestle with in a young brain. Sure.

Painful turned into power.

Exactly, exactly.

I like that. Pain turned into power. But at seven years old now, Leslie, you made a statement that really made me think. It made you think about who you were, not just how you spoke. It took it to a different level at 7. That must have been quite shocking. And it makes me wonder about maybe some of your clients who are so concerned my accent is too heavy and they almost want to withdraw into themselves. What advice would you give to someone who feels, well, my accent defines who I am and I need to minimize myself.

I would say to. And maybe not this succinctly. It takes a little bit of build up to convince someone of this. But it's not the accent that determines who you are. You determine who you are. Your accent is a tool. It's a tool in your toolkit, just like your words, like your clothes, like many of the other things that you do to create a connection. Really, it's about connection. Often. Often there's worry about a perception that someone is creating. What do they think of me? Do they think less of me? Am I perceived differently? There are concerns about perception in many of the clients that come to me, but I'd like to steer clients, whether it's accent clients or other speech clients, I have steer them away from perception and toward connection because we have this variability. You said it a minute ago, Mark. We all have an accent. In fact, we have more than one. I would, I would die on that hill. Everyone has more than one. And we change them in our environments and we change them to suit our purposes and to describe two ends of the spectrum. We can change them to assimilate and to create connection and be part of a group, or we can change them to create separation, distance ourselves from a group. And that seven year old Leslie spent a good chunk of her young life realizing that as a speaker of an accent from the southern U.S. there are some negative connotations associated with that accent. And as I go here and there around the country for my education, I need to neutralize that sound. I want to smooth that out. I don't want to be identified as being a southern speaker because I don't want people thinking a certain thing of me. And it took A very wise now mentor of mine to call me out on that. Way to go. And she's also in the accent coaching world. And I. She detected a little Southern in me and. And asked me about it. And I said, oh, I'm so sorry. I try to keep that low. And she said, why? It's lovely. Own it, own it, own it. It's a layer of your story. And that's where. That's another pillar of my coaching. Whether it's accented speakers who are just living their lives and want to move in and out of these contexts and groups, or. Or to conquer that lack of confidence that you mentioned earlier, or if it's the performer that needs to take on an accent for a short term to bring some authenticity and accuracy to a character story. It is a layer of our story.

That's gold right there. I teach Darren because he's got this. I said, darren, you can pronounce the letter R. You're from Boston. How is that work? You know, and you will tease, but I acknowledge that I have an accent. It is Jamaican. It is modified to my global audience. And one of my questions for you, Leslie, I would assume also from our listeners, those who are all over the world, this idea of modifying, you know, accent modification, how much do I need to change it? Should I change it so I know where I'm from? Do you get these kinds of questions from the people you work with? And I know there's no simple answer, but is there at least one starting point for us to begin to shift our thinking about the power and value of our own accents?

Absolutely. I can easily say to anyone who asks me some form of that question, the only standard that there is is to be understood because we need to connect with other human beings, and that's what speech does for us. If not being understood, then let's take a look and see what are the dials and the switches that we can move to get clarity to help people understand you better. First, we don't need to dive deep and give you an R if you don't have one, and things like that. Let's just. Let's start with some other things that might be rate of speech. It could be volume, some, as you noted earlier. You know, if there's a lack of confidence because of an accent, they might be withdrawn. They might be keeping their. Their speech energy inside themselves. There are other, like I say, dials and knobs that we can adjust before we dig into the segmental pieces of an accent. What are your vowels? What are your consonants? Are any of those causing confusion? Because sometime across, especially if it's a. An inter language situation, a language operates on a system of sounds. And my sounds and my language might be meaningful in different places than the sounds in your language. And sometimes there's a misunderstanding because I hear a sound that creates a meaning for me that, you know, not. Not the meaning for you. And so we have to work out that translation between us. So there are some pretty predictable areas between languages. So I know if a client's coming from. One of my most frequent cases is Spanish Spanish speakers into English. I know where the, the tricky areas are going to be so we can begin to work on those. I know the consonants that are harder to produce, and the reverse is true English going to another language. So it's not all English centric for me. But yeah, there's some predictable areas. But we don't have to dive way deep and make those very technical changes right away. There might be lower hanging fruit.

I don't claim to have the knowledge base that you do. I have had people come to me with thick accents and I always try to encourage them and realize, especially if they're like, from another country, let's just say British, for example, I'm like, we, as Americans, we think you're smarter. Just because you have a British accent, don't lose it. But maybe you want to, like, have a little joke about it up front or something like that. The one thing that I was very clear with and my. I guess my question to you, what would your advice be? Is if there's a word or two that I can't understand that we have to fix because of clarity, Clarity, clarity. How would you advise that? Let's just say there's a word like crumpet that. Or are there certain words that you know in different languages that are harder for people? In English, let's use a word that you're familiar with or have worked with.

So there are a couple of things that come to mind. Your example is I understand the sounds you're making. I just don't know what the thing is. It has a different label.

Right?

Labels are easy. That's just. Okay, this is that and this is that. And that. That doesn't take that long. The harder cases are, for example, same word pronounced either with different sounds in it or perhaps with a different syllable stress. So, Mark, I think you and I had this conversation recently that the someone who said the word develop.

Yes. In India, Sri Lanka is develop. They say develop, not develop.

So that's a case where My system, my English phonology, has a preference for a certain syllable stress, word stress, even phrasal level stress. And when something comes in my input that doesn't square with that, it's going to take my perception a second to catch up.

Right.

Need that extra little beat of time to go back and figure out what that was. And those are the trickier issues that sometimes just come up in working with a person. And you can identify them one by one and take them on one by one. But if they point to a pattern like word stress, is this a difficult issue? Then let's. Let's zoom out. Let's talk about the language you're targeting and what its rules for word stress are, generally speaking. And I can tell you that teaching anyone to move through English without stumbling too much is nearly impossible because English is best in every possible way.

You know, I tell you, I tend to cheat sometimes. And I have even recently with a client, tried to find a substitute word that is less difficult for them to pronounce, particularly when some words juxtapose with others, become difficult to pronounce them together. So I'll say, well, let's change this word to that. I'll consult my word hippo or my mental thesaurus and find a different word and ask them what feels more comfortable, because that does happen from time to time. I have a hard time saying these words together. And we have to be patient and understand they want to communicate an idea. How can I, as their coach, help them to communicate that idea without causing them any more stress? So that's a kind of a. An easier way out isn't always the best way out.

So sometimes the. The new phrase doesn't capture it quite as easily as the. The one that's harder to say. So there's the magic, right? Finding the substitute that gives the same feeling and effect. That's. That's important work.

In Canada. Schedule.

Yes.

England, too. Schedule.

Schedule.

Not schedule. Yes. So sch. We say schedule. And Jamaica was. Albino, was an English colony. So we did use the word schedule. And we do spell words like honor with H, O, n, o, U, R, neighbor, color. Put a U in there, which might throw people off. We're learning to read the language. And, Darren, you and I have traveled quite a bit the last 20 years to other parts of the world, you know, Asia, Europe. You were in Europe recently in Barcelona, or Barcelona, if you're going to ask. Catalan. And as a speaker, Leslie, you speak English. Was it French? Spanish? Fluently, I think.

In Portuguese.

Portuguese. Okay. And we Will try our best when we present in foreign countries to honor their language. And I remember, Darren, you were in Barcelona, and some say Barcelona or Barcelona. I think the Catalans say Barcelona and you use the word Catalan. Darren, you're very careful to use their language the best way that you can. And sometimes we don't have time to learn it, or we forget we need to learn what their language is. Do you have any suggestions for us as to how we navigate when we're not sure how to use their language, but we want to. How would you advise us, Leslie?

I think. I think that generally speaking, around the world, other speakers of other languages are kind and appreciative, want to speak, even if it's just one or two words of their language. And it can make you more endearing when you say whatever that phrase is, a greeting or whatever, and then you follow it up with, was that right? Can you give me any corrections? Do I need to do anything differently? Great way to connect that you're not the expert in that moment, but that you're honoring.

Yes. Mandarin Chinese. Nihau. Yeah, yeah, that's correct.

But it shows that you're. You're coming in. You went out of your way to figure out that reading or that wording or that word that means something to them that's appropriate for that moment. But then, like, you're saying, Leslie, when you back up, and then you say, was that right? How did I do that? Just shows humility, and that connects you even more deeply.

Exactly.

Well, that humility piece, Leslie, leads me to a touchy subject when it comes to voice and accent. And there's a term that's been very popular the last 15, 20 years called code switching. And I know to a certain ethnic demographic in this country, the term has negative connotations. The code switch. And here's where my. I'm being fully transparent now. My Jamaican background and my years on this planet had a question mark about that. I even thought to myself, I might do a TED talk one day on the power of the code switch. But here's the background very quickly for those who are wondering, what am I talking about? I grew up in an environment where I knew on the street, we spoke Jamaican dialect patois. There's no written lexicon for that. You hear it, you learn it, you speak it. It's not written down. But in school, we were taught in English. We had to write English. We had two different English subjects. English literature was one, and so was English language. We had to read Jeffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, you Know Thomas Hardy, who were the kings of language. But with your buddies, you just talk Jamaica, you know, I mean, yeah, my. Every time. So it go. But I realized very early I had to be able to adjust the way I spoke depending on the environment. Now, in 1973, there was no term called code switching, but I did that every single day. I did it every single day. And I grew up saying, okay, depending on the environment, I need to adjust the way I speak. And I grew to believe I can play in your sandbox. Can you? My sandbox? Which may sound a little bit arrogant, but I saw value in being able to communicate in different environments with the understanding that the concept of code switching has a negative connotation. What are your thoughts for us as presenters and how we handle ourselves in different speaking environments?

I think that. I mean, you're absolutely right that there is a negative connotation around that term. For a lot of speakers around the world or. Language has been an instrument of oppression or derision or separation because it is a political tool, often a social tool. And we've seen this play out around the world throughout history where groups are told, don't use your language. It's inferior. There's a standard that we all must adhere to. So for that term to be synonymous with the experience, the lived experience of being oppressed and othered. That's one of my favorite terms, being othered. Then that connotation will. Will live out for a very long time. To speak of it just as a skill, if we can divert just a moment to speak about what it is to be able to do, that shows enough enormous awareness and skill. Linguistic skill, knowledge of multiple systems. The. The case of the. The accent example that you gave Mark. And. And I know that involves some lexical things, maybe even some. Some tactical constructions, but the fact that you could navigate those in in one way, in one second and immediately change to the other shows enormous intellect and adaptability and nimbleness. Another word I like. And for people who grow up speaking multiple codes, I cannot tip my hat far enough to the skill that that demonstrates. And there are cases where that's within one language, where you're shifting accents and you're shifting word choice and some of those other elements. But then there are cases where you're handling multiple languages. One of the books that I enjoyed reading most when I was going through graduate school, it's one of those moments where the topic interested me enough that I just grabbed a book in the bookstore and with all the other things I had to read, I sat down and read this one for pleasure, right? And it was called Growing Up Bilingual. It was published in the early 90s, I believe. And it's a longitudinal study of one block of new York City where there were English speakers, Spanish speakers, New York, Puerto Rican families, some who had come from the island, some or who were the next generation there, a few others, African American families living there, and some others as well. And this author for 10 years traced the code switching of all of these different modalities. English, Spanish, African American, English multiples, and how some of these kids at 5 years old could go in and out seamlessly. And here's the thing that most people don't realize about code switching. It is rule governed. It is not random. It's not. You're not making it up as you go there. There's a recognition of the rule systems. And those systems might be different, but you're patching it together in a way that works for both systems. So it takes incredible intelligence to be able to do this. And, you know, that's a. That's a lot to say to a person who has had the lived experience of speaking the inferior, whatever language, dialect or whatever. But if I have enough time with a person, those are the things that I like to the lines of conversation. I like to open with the person and help them understand. You're really a superhero that you can do this.

Well, you know, I smile, Leslie, because my brain went back to West Sydney Avenue, Mount Vernon, New York, where my kids grew. Up the block I lived on, we lived in a 3, 6 family house, top apartment, Italian family to our left and one down below. But during soccer football, World cup, you would see the Brazilian flags come up, the American flags go. And that one block between second and Gramiton Avenue, we had Brazilian, we had Puerto Rican, we had also Jamaicans, we had American, we had Italian background. And then I heard about Spanglish, where first generation Americans would speak half in Spanish to mom and half in English. And I worked with Italians to do the same thing. It'll be half Italian, half English. And my brain was just boggled that they would do that until I realized that in a way, I did the same thing. This past Sunday, over breakfast with Darren in his house in Las Vegas, I got a call from my buddy, a Jamaican I played football with, soccer football in high school, and he's in Vegas. And he called me and I just nonchalantly answered and began to speak my dialect. And Darren had the look. Have you ever seen a confused dog, Leslie, do one of these look on Darren's face. And I realized I was doing the same thing. But it was instantaneous. I didn't have to think about it. It happens and it comes out. And I realized I need not be ashamed of my Jamaicanness. But I've got to get past that when I'm with an audience because now I am a. I'm an expert, I'm a presenter, I'm going on stage as an authority. I've got to deal with being Jamaican, speaking English in China to a multilingual audience. And all of these go into my brain at one time. And how do we tell. How do we. How would you advise our speaker friends or clients who, who may find themselves in similar situations?

Thank you for repeating that question. I didn't quite arrive there, but yes, I would. I would go back to what I said before about what is your. What is the standard of clarity and comprehension that you must meet and what is the easiest thing that you can do to achieve that. Everyone in the audience. Audience, a mixed crowd with mixed ears and perceptions and opinions. Right. To ensure that everyone has the same good experience. And I would end with those higher level, what we'd call supra, segmental features of pace and rhythm and maybe leaning into consonants in certain places because consonants in many places, especially word initially, are sort of boundary markers. People can identify where words begin, where phrases begin, pauses in the right place. None of these are actually touching the specific sounds of your accent. The top level things that we can do just to ensure that. That you're being heard and that people are parsing your. Your speech signal in a way that contributes to their comprehension. And from there it could be a little bit more detailed work if there's a larger perception gap that might need to be reach.

Darren said earlier about being difficult to hear and comprehend different accents. So let's be direct. I come to you, I've got this Jamaican accent for over 60 years and it's heavy and I need to reduce my accent. Dr. Leslie Gordon, please help me with accent reduction. How do you respond to that request coming to me?

Can I offer you another term to consider? Consider. Let's consider this work to be accent acquisition. Way that we will work together is a process that will introduce you to new ways of moving your articulators of exploring new sounds that you have in your inventory that you maybe haven't touched in a long time or even ever. We're going to expand your toolkit so that when you get ready and the moments that are important to you or to those listening to you. You can move into new sounds and then move right back to your comfortable, authentic way of speaking anytime you want. It's about flexibility, not about taking something away from you. That's why I don't like reduction.

So reduction means to reduce myself, but the acquisition is there is more of myself. So how much of this, what we. What we see out external, the process of the words coming out, how much of that then is actually internal? Is it mindset? I mean, in as simple a way as possible to answer the question?

I guess, okay, challenge me to be simple and not nerd out. Let's see what I can do.

Not nerd out. I love that.

A little bit of nerds welcome. We just need to understand it.

Safe space for nerds. It is. It's all tied together to answer your question. Bottom line, our mindset are, and that is purpose and value and the target for our communication, why we're saying what we're saying in the first place. Right? That's where I work in mindset and confidence lives there as well. Very much about the breath in the body. You cannot speak comfortably and authentically and with good positive energy if you're trapped in a body that's in chaos. So we work the body so that then we can work the breath. Because we don't speak without breath, period. The mechanics don't work without breath. And the more easy, full energy we give with our breath, the warmer we sound and the better we feel. And these things are all laying the groundwork for anything. Then that comes through this space, and that's where we get into discrete speech segments and articulations and the vowel space and producing consonants and so forth and so on. So we, we build from the mind, we build from the body, and then we really work specifically in the articulatory structures to expand that inventory of sounds. And it's. It's work that's very. I'll just throw this in. Generations ago, 100 years ago, accent teaching was very prescriptive. Say this, not this. Now it is very. I'm glad to say we've grown away from that. I. I follow a specific teaching methodology for my accent teaching. It's the Knight Thompson speech work methodology. I'm a certified teacher of that. And this method methodology is curious. It's playful, it's about exploration, it's about addition. It is. And it's very rigorous. And so all the more reason to know how to access breath and body energy because it can get to be detailed work. And sometimes we have to step out, shake it out, breathe it out and start again. And it's. It's lovely. It's a lovely exploratory space to do this work.

It's fascinating. And I want to take that and go back a little bit to the little girl who said, oh, I must have done something wrong. How did that then inform your future approach to language speech? And did that prompt you to learn foreign languages?

Yes, I would say it started everything I. Because I began to listen. I listened to the sounds around me and I was making associations. Some may be incorrect, but. And some that were, that led me to self judgment. And that's a hard place, a hard space to live in. I told you before that as I grew and went elsewhere for education, I tried to mask my southern roots. But then at the. Probably the next big juncture for me was getting to high school and learning a second language. And the first. Another of those crystal moments in my mind, the first opportunity I had to speak aloud in class in Spanish, my teacher actually looked at me over her glasses and paused and said, where have you lived? And she said, your accent is lovely. And it was really the first time I tried it. But I had those sounds in my head from all the friends in Texas and from my curiosity that made me listen harder and play with it with my Barbies, right? I was already playing with those sounds. So as soon as someone could put them together for me in a way that made sense, I was ready to jump in. And for me, in that language as well as other languages, I have always wanted to have the authentic accent, which is itself an accent journey, because which accent? It was like my English experience, right? Okay, I can this way. I'm part of this culture. But then, oh, I like those people over there too. Can I speak like them? But those people and those people don't like the way each other speaks. So I'm caught in the middle. And so there were some choice, and I've made some shifts even in my acquired languages, from one accent to another, until I could find the one that felt like home to me. And I believe accent can feel like home, even if it's not the one you were born with. You can find a way with practice and dedication and awareness of the personal meaning that it has, you can make an accent home or some version of it. This is where I'd like to stay away from words like correct and incorrect. And it's a challenge. That's something I was wrestling with as that little girl. Correct and incorrect. And that lesson and. And all the things I've done since make me very sensitive to that issue. When I'm working with clients, especially professional clients who are high achievers and they come to me and they want to change their accent and it, it's a lot of work to get them to a point where they can release themselves from terms like right and wrong. They will ask me if I say that one more time, can you tell me if it's right? And I just don't like right and wrong when it comes to this because it's all a spectrum. My, my accent changes from minute to minute, context to context. We all do. And it flexible and nimble. So moving away from self judgment, I think that little girl was learning it in that moment and it took her 30 or 40 years. But that's the wisdom that I bring to my clients, is let go of the judgment, let's explore and let's land in a place that you feel, that you still feel like you, but you have a new set of sounds to go with with you.

And I just have to ask out of pure curiosity, do you ever use the Barbies in your presentations?

I have not yet, but I absolutely should. And it's going to open a door because I'm going to start playing with Barbies again.

Barbie came out. So you have an English one, a Spanish and a Portuguese. Is it those three languages?

English, Spanish and Portuguese? Yes.

No French, no French.

I can read French. I can make out a good bit of what I hear. I could maybe survive on the street for a minute or two. Speaking. I have a little Dutch, a little bit of German. Oh, Catalan.

But, oh, wow, it's just fascinating.

Those are, those are rusty and in the closet right now. I'd have to take them out and polish them off.

Well, you know, it's funny you say that. I don't know if I told you this, but one year ago last month, I was asked to deliver a keynote speech virtually to a group of Francophones. I did tell you, did I? Did I tell you it was absolutely the scariest and most difficult assignment I've had in 30 years of speaking. I'm not sure I would do it again, but I did. I talked briefly about it on a podcast. I did what Darren and I advocate. Get a coach if you need to get one. And one of our clients, my friend Alexander, became my coach and we worked on my speech, which I had to translate. I was using Deeple translate to get nuance and getting his opinion. And I was able to deliver it here in my workspace, standing with a teleprompter and my biggest cheerleader, my wife, right behind the camera to cheer me on. And it was exhilarating and absolutely terrifying because I don't know, I didn't know what was an appropriate French accent to use because I've heard Canadians. Andrew and I were in Nice and Marseille in 2019. So I've heard French from Paris, from Marseille, from Nice. And even regionally, we have different accents. Look at the usa. So what was the correct French accent? I have no idea, but I did the best I could. The tricky with the French are, which is a guttural sound and all of that. So it's French with a half Jamaican accent of someone living in America. But apparently they understood. I did get one comment that could have stung. Someone told me I spoke too quickly and it was difficult for her to understand me. But I did the best I could, work with the coach I could. Gave my best heart and all my being to it. Which kind of leads to the almost unfair question. And I think you may have already answered it, but it might be repeating. There was one tip you would give. Just one quick tip, an actionable that we could maybe put into place this afternoon, this evening, whenever we hear the podcast. One tip for those who are concerned about what their accent might say about them.

I think my tip would be to begin by honoring the tremendous skill that you have to own more than one sound and that you are a project in development, as we all are in every area of our lives. Honor yourself and honor your. Your true person.

Wow. Only more than one. I'm gonna write this down. Only more than one sound. This is not drumline. One band, one sound.

Or maybe a better one. A snappier one would be. Accents are layers of our story. We have multiple layers. We can have multiple accents.

Beautiful. I love that, Darren.

Very cool. Well, as Mark puts his notes together, Leslie, thanks for spending this time with us and with our listeners. Really appreciate you bringing a perspective that we don't have. So thank you. Thank you for that and serving. How would someone reach out to you if or where would they follow you if they wanted to have more Dr. Leslie Gordon in their life?

The easiest way is through my website. It's Leslie Gordon speech dot com. I'm on Instagram. Leslie Gordon speech. I also have a Facebook page and those all point to my email. So follow me multiple ways and reach out. Love to hear from anyone.

Leslie gordonspeech.com so if I am correct, I. If my dyslexia didn't type in, that's it.

There she is. There she is. And I told you earlier, I think I told you offline, Leslie, that Darren will work behind the scenes while we're talking. And you'll find information and just pop it up and there you are. Friends, I know, I know Dr. Leslie Gordon personally. We have the most delightful conversations. I respect her highly and I recommend her unequivocally. If you want to work on your accent, your speech, if you're an actor who needs to give a different accent, if you just feel you want to build more confidence, I highly, I repeat, highly recommend you talk to my personal friend, Dr. Leslie Gordon. She will help you to go leaps and bounds from where you are, from where you can be, because she also sees the you behind your accent and she'll show you how to bring that out and really bring the best you to any platform at any time. You have my full endorsement and you also have my notes of the wisdom you departed today. You imparted today, and it was quite a bit. I want to paraphrase this from your childhood. You mentioned the playground for your eyes and ears and I took away that. We, no matter how old or young we are, should open our eyes and ears. Consider where we are, a playground to learn and grow. If you had the opportunity to go to a melting pot, by all means, go in, take in the sights and sounds and listen. Go to a sporting event and go to an international sporting event and listen. It's fascinating. Okay. The way we speak draws a picture of who we are. Your accent is just another tool in your toolkit. An accent can create connection, steer away from perception and focus on connection. We all have more than one accent. Near layers to all of us. The onion Leslie can help us assimilate. We think less of assimilation and think more of connection. Key. Your accent is one of the many layers of your story. Seek to be understood and seek clarity first and be aware. Be cautious because language can be a social and political tool that may cause someone else to feel othered. Build your linguistic skill and move away from self judgment. She recommends a book, Growing up Bilingual for your edification and education. We know that code switching can have negative connotations, but it is also governed by rules. Think less of accent reduction and look towards accent acquisition. It's about your mindset, your confidence, your breadth, your. Your body, your articulation, your pace and your speed and the manner in which you speak. Above all, always be listening and hopefully your accent will feel like home.

Beautifully said. Wow, you're a great listener. Thank you.

Those are your words.

I said all that. Wow.

Nice.

Sweet. Dr. Leslie, thank you again for being here. Any final thoughts for our listeners with accents?

Oh, just lean into the work. If it's something that's meaningful to you, it does not have to be fearful or difficult. It's about self exploration and it can be beautiful. I would recommend it. If not with me, with anyone. It can be such a lovely experience.

Nice. Dive in and find the layers of your own heart, your own self and own them. Don't shy away from them. We just need to understand them and be clear. So thanks again for joining us. Reach out. Leslie Gordon was leslie gordon speech.com thanks again for being here. Mark Brown thanks for inviting her to be with us and thanks for listening to this. Hope you got some new insights and we'll give you some more next week. Join Us.

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