In this episode, I sat down with Polly to talk about why recording yourself is one of the most powerful tools for improving your pronunciation and confidence. We explored why hearing your own voice can feel so awkward, how that discomfort actually leads to growth, and why embracing imperfect recordings can help you become a stronger communicator. We even connected the idea to the Greek myth of Athena and discovered why recording yourself is really about claiming your voice.

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Telegram - https://t.me/polly_saysitright

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#accentcoach #podcast #Confidence #SelfImprovement

Welcome everybody, and you might not know this, but a lot of people ask me

who my clients are, and one group, which is kind of near and dear to my heart,

are my teachers or they're ex-teachers of English who at some point decide that

they wanna specialize in pronunciation and maybe even become an accent coach like me.

And today, I'm with Polly, one of the teachers in that group, and

we're gonna talk about how recording yourself can be really empowering.

I know that for most people, all they can think about is the cringe, but trust

me, we're gonna dive into the stress and discomfort, but also the benefits.

And you might even find some similarities between yourself

and the Greek goddess Athena.

But for now, let's get on with the show

I'm Bianca, your personal American accent coach, and I'm here to help

you master an American accent in English because your voice is your

choice when it comes to how you sound.

Now let's get on with the show.

welcome everybody.

I'm so excited.

Actually, I shouldn't even start that way.

I should say, welcome Polly, it's so nice to actually be recording with

you finally, because you've been in my teacher's academy for a while, and we keep

saying, "Let's do a podcast. Let's do a podcast." And here we are finally, and

the topic is gonna be really interesting.

But first, let's get a quick introduction from you.

Tell us who you are, where you live, anything else you wanna add.

I'm an English teacher by training.

But a- after graduation, I spent like several years working for

several international companies as an assistant or a project manager.

But in 2024, I guess it was like autumn 2024, I pursued teaching again, because I

did have some experience teaching before.

And I started working for this online school, and that's I guess, that

was the moment when I found you.

It was either Instagram or I don't really remember how I found you,

but yeah, I decided like, "This is where I need to be." yeah.

That's- Oh, that's perfect.

Enjoyed it.

And you're such a good addition, I think, 'cause you're always like

willing to try new things and, talk about things from a different

angle, which I really appreciate.

And today we've been planning on talking about we've been talking

about yeah, so you were in the teacher's club with another teacher,

and randomly the idea of dance, dance classes came up more than once.

And we thought how interesting, we have this like parallel between

dancing, dance instructors, instructing, learning, teaching.

All these interesting things and how it relates to language.

We never would have thought about it, but this was a recurring theme, and we thought

we gotta make a podcast about this.

So let's first start talking about like Instagram and things like that.

'Cause I think that when we talk about recording yourself, we mean audio.

But really a lot of people have had some of the same feelings

maybe regarding selfies, you know?

So tell me about maybe, I don't know, your experience or what you've noticed

on the parallels of selfies and audios.

Yeah, so actually dancing came up during our calls as just as a hobby, you know?

yeah, kind of started dancing a while ago.

But this idea of making videos and taking part in professional video shootings,

that's a completely different thing.

And I kind of, uh, thought of this analogy with this great practice of making

recordings of your own voice and just how much help and improvement it gives you.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Which we're gonna talk a little bit more in detail about too, but I know people are

always… well, I shouldn't say always.

I know people are often kind of terrified about recording their own voice, right?

Even in their first language.

But you know what?

There's no lack of like selfies, I think, in the world.

So maybe we can think of it as selfies and how that relates to it.

Yeah, but you know what as for selfies.

It's a bit different because we've kind of adjusted and we've learned,

like, which side is a good side.

Like, taking pictures from low angles creates this double chin situation,

so we don't usually do that, right?

And I can see up somebody's nose when they are on a laptop.

It's like, whoa.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

So yeah, and that's good.

But like at the same time, we ended up in this misleading reality.

Sometimes.

Pro- probably a lot of the time, right?

Right.

It makes sense though, 'cause we wanna show ourselves in our best light.

We wanna feel confident.

Like, If we can take a good picture, we wanna take a good picture, right?

We wanna have the, nice lighting and stuff like that.

It makes sense.

Makes total sense, but maybe we've kinda gone off the deep end with that.

And I wonder how that might, in your mind, is related to, like, audios specifically.

So we've got these selfies, and now we've got this kind of

self-recording of our audios.

Tell me what you think about that.

I mean, I'm not against selfies, right?

I take selfies myself on a good hair day, on a good makeup day.

Like, sure.

I mean, when you make recordings of your own voice and when you take part in this

professional dancing, video shootings you somehow get to interact with the

part of yourself that you don't normally have access to, you know, that other

people do have access to but you don't.

And I know for a fact that sometimes that comes with a great deal

of discomfort for many people.

The thing is, I think this discomfort gives you a lot of

information and it gives you a lot of very interesting insights.

you know, this is the power of the reality, and that is created by this

product that we call the recording, right?

It's either the recording or the video, right?

I'm talking about the dance class.

And, like, if I really dive deeper, you have the opportunity to take

part in a professional shooting.

And when it's a professional camera with a videographer, and you rent a studio

everything just looks real, real serious.

And to top it off, you have 25 people around you looking at you.

And like that just really adds up to the overall anxiety, of course.

So this is not just you sitting at home recording your own voice.

In your pajamas.

Yes.

And just listening and analyzing mistakes and what could be improved

or what could be done better.

This is the real thing, right?

That's uh, that gives you chills and that gives you everything.

Really, if you think about it, when you overcome this stress and this

discomfort, because, like, after when you watch the video, you kind of, where

you become hyper-aware of the flaws, because this is the professional setting.

Like, the makeup is off or, like, some of the movements you're not

really satisfied with the results.

There is a lot of anxiety, right?

But the next time you watch it… But you know what?

This is actually like, taking you to the next level because, like, if you

record yourself, you think about it, if you do that as often as possible you are

preparing yourself for public speaking.

I don't know if you need that, but that's a great preparation.

That's a great tool to do that in the future.

The same with the dancing.

Like, if you rehearse by yourself and you make videos and you ask your fellow

dancers to make videos of you during rehearsals, and it's gonna be easier.

I mean, it's not perfect, but it's gonna be easier to perform

in a professional setting.

Yeah.

And you're gonna pick up all those little details from the recording that because

of maybe your stress or your performance anxiety with 25 people watching you,

maybe you don't realize, you think you did something or didn't do something, and

then you have no idea until later, 'cause you can't possibly think of everything.

You know, there's a lot.

But it gets better, I think, with time.

Let's say you became a dancer who went to a professional shoot every day, Probably

that habit would then make it easier and easier and easier, and you could focus

less on the other people in the room and more on those little, tiny details, which

I think is probably similar to, like we said, audio recordings that you can do.

It's way less pressure.

You know you can do it at home.

And, you know, hair doesn't have to be perfect, your makeup.

You're not probably wearing a tight dress or heels- Right … that

make it more difficult.

So it's actually probably a lot easier, but the same thing probably, right?

I'm sure you've been with clients where you recorded yourself or they

recorded themselves, and then you heard all these extra details you

probably or they weren't even expecting.

Has that happened to you?

All the time.

All the time.

Every time you make the recording, you hear those little, you

hear these little details.

Yes.

That's the beauty of it- You have to … really.

Exactly.

You don't even expect it.

And to say something else too, we have in our, like, ecosystem, let's say.

We have our teachers club.

We have our accent academy.

We also have office hours.

And so three times a week sometimes we'll see people, and every once

in a while you'll get somebody like William, who's our moderator, and

I've done several podcasts with him.

He'll say, " I didn't just say that." And I'll be like "Oh no?

Check the recording." And he's like, "Fine, I'm gonna check the recording."

And most of the time he's like, "Oh, I did say…" And I have to admit, every once in

a while, like, he's right and I'm wrong.

So the recording exists.

Like we said, it's an objective reflection of this thing.

'Cause our memories are faulty.

Inside of our head we're thinking one way and the world sees something else.

So yeah, exactly.

Choose the seeds that you want to water, and choose the emotions that you wanna

water and bring to the surface, right?

So just shift the to the positive side, really.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

'Cause we said a lot of times we don't record ourselves because of fear

or anxiety or some other thing too.

But yeah, what if we focused on, wow, I'm gonna get a lot of

benefits out of this, you know?

Maybe it'll be a little awkward, but what kind of growth isn't, you know?

Like, like whenever we grow, it's always some kind of awkward but it's

always better, you know, in the end, so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just don't let your inner judgment override the commitment to growth.

Oh, I love that.

'Cause that's something that you could say each and every time, right?

And I wanna add that self-recording, this is a powerful too that helps you improve

your pronunciation, but if you really think about it, you know, maybe even,

like, from the psychological perspective, it really helps you claim your voice.

And when you claim your voice, it becomes persuasive, it becomes powerful.

It becomes respected.

Claiming your voice and having that authenticity behind it.

Maybe it's because we don't record ourselves and until we do, we

can kind of see through other people's eyes, like, who we are.

Maybe we're afraid to see ourselves in a way we don't want to, and

so that's why we don't do it.

Right.

But maybe one way to reclaim that is literally to start

recording yourself again.

And say

it's almost like the bravery of saying like, "Oh, this is really uncomfortable,

but if I can bear through that discomfort, then the gains are really important."

The benefits you're gonna get from that are really make it worth it, right?

They're worth the discomfort.

Of course, I mean, that's when you get into this I mean, it's vulnerable.

You kind of, face this vulnerability, but you get to be this wholly,

authentically you at the same time, and you gotta embrace that and just

Yeah

make friends with that part of yourself.

Exactly.

That's a good point, too, because, like, maybe it's related to school and how

we learned and like, oh, mistakes are bad and like only be the best and only

show your good side, that kind of thing.

But like you said, embracing the whole thing is gonna give you a clarity that

if you can see mistakes, for example, let's say you're recording yourself

and I'm telling you, I'll give you an example.

In Spanish right because I'm living in Mexico now.

In my head, my Spanish is perfect.

Let me tell you.

Like, absolutely.

But no, when I speak now, I can see people's faces they're working hard.

They're trying to figure out what I'm saying sometimes because I got the

ending of the word wrong or, you know, in Spanish and English, we write with

five vowel letters, but in English we have, like, over 20 vowel sounds.

So me going into Spanish, I'm saying all different kinds of A's, right?

They only have one A. So in my head, it's very different

than when it comes out, right?

And that's not me recording.

That's just live and seeing people's reaction.

So think about if you were just by yourself, not with other

people, you could fix that.

You could say, "Oh my God, I said ca instead of ca," or " I

said g instead of k", right?

You're like, "What's wrong with me?

I know that I can hear that.

That's not a G, that's a K. That, That's a different sound." Wouldn't

it be great if we all had a little bit of, I don't know if it's confidence

or discipline to do that a little bit more often so that you didn't end up

like me with the person going "I wonder what she's trying to say right now,"

as for, you know, this other people's reaction, I mean, I wanna

object to that because that's maybe you seeing this weird reaction.

Maybe it's not even there.

Could be, too.

Absolutely.

That could be my lack of self-confidence, right?

I think that there is a bit of a look I get a, a bit of a lean, a little-

the pupils dilate a little bit.

I do feel like there is something that I notice.

'Cause then some people will wait 'cause my Spanish is not

as good as you might think it is.

And I'm kinda was thrown into the fire with this new group that I'm

in, and so I'm speaking a lot more Spanish suddenly, but without,

like we said, revising, right?

Without, like- Any kind of pr- well, very minimal prep, let's say.

But one thing I could be doing, and I'm super guilty of this, I know other people

don't do it in English, but in Spanish I'm not recording myself as much as I should.

And part of it is because maybe I do need that self-confidence, or maybe it

is uncomfortable, you know, to do that.

So yeah.

Yeah, tell me more about either of those thoughts for self-confidence or discomfort

that you might be thinking about.

Yeah, you know what?

I'm not reinventing the wheel here saying that if you wanna work on your

pronunciation, if you wanna work on your accent making those recordings is

something that could really take you to the next level, and it's a really powerful

and helpful tool in your accent journey.

But yeah, I mean you have to overcome, you have to override this discomfort first.

Maybe like dancing, right?

So you were in this professional shooting, right?

You had a dance class and then you had this professional recording,

this session of this shooting, and did you watch the replay of that?

Did you say, "Oh, I should have lifted my leg more," or, "Oh, I'm noticing…

Ooh, I did a really good job there"?

Like, what do you feel like you learned when you were watching your recordings?

Maybe I should just go back a little bit and give you like, this backstory.

So, um, i've always had a knack for accents and phonetics, and

I've always wanted to do that.

And even when I was working as a project manager somewhere deep

inside I felt like, yeah, I think I'm gonna get there somehow one day.

And-

Nice.

Yeah.

And then I just, like past couple of years I dedicated just enrolling in different

courses and finishing the courses and getting the experience and the theory

and just getting my first students.

And I started recording myself.

I started making my first recordings, and yes, that felt

really strange at first, right?

I don't think that I've been self-conscious and about my accent, but

uh, still, I mean, that just felt weird.

I cannot really explain that.

That was me greeting and saying hello to me, you know, to myself.

So,

and that's not new, like you said.

Not just the idea of let's talk about how recording yourself is important, right?

Yeah, we're not reinventing anything.

Like we all know drinking a certain amount of water every day is really

good, and don't forget to sleep as much as you need to, right?

We know it, but how many of us do it regularly?

Like it's not the easiest habit, I think, recording yourself.

But once you get into it then, yeah, it becomes easier, right?

You see more little things the more you do it.

It just becomes a habit, we could say, right?

And to go back to the idea of like this is nothing new, I think this

has been, since like, historic times.

Basically with the Greeks, I imagine, right?

Like, I I feel like this has always been a story, don't you think?

Of course.

I happen to know this myth about Athena.

It's about like Athena and the invention of the flute.

She got mocked.

So she was playing, sh- she was playing the flute and she got mocked

by her fellow goddesses because her face started turning blue, and her-

like her cheeks were puffing out.

And they were mocking her.

They were just making fun of her.

And then she went to the forest and she looks at the reflection in the

water, right, in the river, whatever.

And yeah, she got convinced.

She saw that her face was distorted when she was playing the flute, and she

just uh, rejected the whole thing, and she cursed it, and she cursed anyone

who would ever try playing it again.

Yeah.

Can you imagine, like, uh, how relevant this is?

How that really proves the point that you really have to- she was

kind of uh, experiencing this shock.

Yeah.

The self-reflection and the reality.

And she was not ready for it.

But, you know, this is us, like, experiencing the shock

of hearing our own voices.

This is me experiencing this kind of a shock of watching this first video

that I made after like, a dance class.

Okay, let me just first finish with the story like with Athena

because I don't think I'm done here.

So yeah, the idea is had she not rejected, had she not cursed this

instrument, she would have evolved, right?

She would have progressed.

She would have made progress.

That's really important to think about when you think of people abandoning like

some valuable creations and some valuable skills because of this poor self-image.

Yes, and can I pause you for a quick second?

Because you made me think of something I think is really powerful for most people.

Two things, actually, right?

o- nu- Number one, let's say I'm Athena, and I'm like, "What are you girls talking

about? My face isn't distorted. My cheeks aren't puffy when I play the flute." And

then I look, and let's remember, she's looking down at, like, a lake, and so

probably- that also makes her look worse.

but then she's like, "Ugh, this is terrible. You guys were right."

Throw the flute in the lake probably, and curse the flute

yes, throw it away.

And never touched it again, right?

Like you said, what a pity that because of that she didn't progress, and other

people weren't able to hear the beautiful music she could have made, right?

And that just made me think that, oh my… Like, a lot of people,

when we do record ourselves the first time, this is no surprise to

anyone, guys, it's gonna be terrible.

It's gonna be awful.

The way you sound in your head, bouncing around inside your skull,

is not the way the world hears you.

And if you don't know that already, then that's gonna be a shocking truth, right?

So like, - be prepared for that.

And then, step two, get over it, because that is actually

the way the world hears you.

It's just the first time you've heard it.

Two things.

Number one, wouldn't it be a pity if you gave up after the first recording because

you yourself wouldn't improve, right?

And then the way other people hear you too, that you're almost robbing

them the benefit of your future benefits, I wanna say, right?

So, like, wow.

Like, people, just be prepared.

It's gonna sound weird.

But it's so valuable, not only because you're gonna progress, but number

two, if you record yourself, let's say the first time, and who knows,

five years later, five months later, five days later, you look at another

recording and you can compare them, then you can see the progress, right?

And if you never do it that first time, I have a lot of people who

are like "Nah, I'm not gonna do that. I'm just gonna get started."

And they do great.

And of course, they progress.

You're gonna progress.

But then they don't have anything to compare it to in the beginning,

and you can never go back.

You can never be that bad again, you know?

And I think it's a shame.

Even if you keep it secret, even if you keep it for yourself, still start

recording, you know, as soon as possible.

So what do you think?

let's go back to that.

What are some things you think are the benefits of recording yourself, right?

More specifically, what do you feel like you can learn from recording?

What do you listen for?

for example

what am I listening for?

Yeah, maybe in your own recordings, in your own experience, or maybe

in those of clients, right?

Or maybe how you even teach clients.

Say, "Hey, listen for this vowel.

Here's how you listen for syllable stress.

This is what I'm listening for.

This is what I want you to listen for."

Do you have any specific things that you say, "Hey, recordings

are really helpful for this"?

First of all yeah, I do work with recordings.

I encourage my students to make recordings.

The first thing that I'm trying to push them to notice is the progress.

You know, it's just to consciously shift their focus to the strength and

to the progress and to the positive things, because I'm a believer that

will help them progress further.

And as for, you know, this technicality, it really depends on the sound or, like,

what is it exactly that we're working on.

Uh, With the prosody, yes, it's you know, this musicality.

That's important to, like, replay the audio and tell them what is

it that I'm hearing and actually say what I wanna hear, right?

And as for the sound, I'm trying to make corrections like, on the

go when we're talking because this is the, you know, the muscle work.

I'm trying to, like, really understand what is it exactly that

is going on inside their mouth.

So yeah, I think uh, recordings are really great for prosody.

Like really fixating that progress and working on your prosody.

I wanna jump in there too for a second because you said, "Oh,

there's other things that I can focus on live too." And that made

me think, yeah, because guess what?

Like, all those skills are transferable.

Well- One reason we're recording ourself is to hear how other people

hear us and get used to that.

So that when we then talk, let's say spontaneously, right?

Then we can kinda replay that almost in our head, and we can say

like " I know what they're hearing.

I know why they find it off a little bit." Right?

I said get instead of got, for example, right?

Ah, 'cause I know what it's like to be them, to hear me.

'Cause I've heard my own recordings, right?

So the skills are transferable, and that's just so much more

effective adding that layer.

Could I do it without ever recording myself?

Like, yeah, I'd get there, but I can guarantee that it

goes a lot faster, you know?

I don't know.

Yeah.

Did you ever, um… You know the, the s- the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, No?

You've never heard of him?

Okay.

So he's probably the person who's won the most gold Olympic medals

in history, Michael Phelps.

And you think, "How did this guy win so many gold medals," right?

His coach used to say to him all the time, "Put in the tape. Play the tape," right?

"Watch the tape." And what does that mean?

Every night before he would go to bed and every day kind of during practice,

he would play in his mind, it would be like a recording in his mind that he had

created, what's the perfect swim race?

What does it look like?

Every stroke, jumping off the block, touching the wall, turning

around, every single minute.

He was watching in his head what that perfection would look like.

And he said when he would practice then, he would be matching that, right?

So I think that kind of…

I know, it's, again, it's visual, but I feel like that idea of we can practice

and we can then match these things too.

So if I have a recording of me and I have a recording of you, let's say I'm doing

a, I don't know, an old Michelle Obama speech, and I've seen her do the speech.

And then I'm gonna do the speech.

Wow, isn't that even powerful, even more powerful to compare these two, right?

Mm-hmm.

So when we were talking about that, that Michael Phelps thing came

to mind, 'cause I thought, "Oh, yeah, that's a an interesting kinda

correlation." Meaning yeah meaning, like, we can reach that, right?

We can visualize it.

And I know visualizing a tape is literally visual, but our ability to hear those

little things is way better than we at first think, and you'll get better

and better when you record yourself.

Same recording, I don't know if this has happened to you,

same recording, same client.

You're like, "Oh, did you hear that R? R, R, R, R, R." Oh, we're listening for Rs.

Next day you'll say, "Oh, let's listen for the, the THs," right?

Well, yesterday they couldn't have even heard the THs, and now they're

like, "Oh, my God, I'm hearing Rs and THs." Next day you're gonna say,

"Hey let's think about this dark L.

You said a dark L. Did you know?" "No, what's a dark L?" So you're

building, and you're building so much more, because once you get it, you

can add, I think, extra layers there.

So same recording, right?

You do the job once and you can use it many, many times.

So any other advice, any other thoughts that you have about like

what can benefit us about recording?

Like, we're getting more comfortable, we're getting more confident.

A lot of people focus kind of obsessively on their mistakes, right?

But I love your take on it because it's like, look what you're doing right.

Look at how you're progressing.

Look at all the positive things you're doing, and maybe you

didn't notice these before.

So I don't know if you've had that with clients where you've been able

to say like "Oh, remember all those Rs we used to catch all the time?

Listen to this recording.

Fabulous.

Look at that.

Pat yourself on the back." I don't know if you've had um sessions like that.

through

I've had sessions like that.

Just, that was just so cool to get that also like a very positive feedback

from a student saying that, "Yeah, finally, I finally hear that. Progress"

So nice.

And to me it comes both sides, positive, like I don't even

think mistakes are negative.

It all comes down to noticing and our ability to notice, 'cause we

kinda go through life like kinda listening rather than, or hearing I

should say, rather than listening.

Mm-hmm.

we can be quite passive about it.

But you would be so surprised, guys listening to this now, listening to the

podcast, if you start recording yourself and then you could take one recording and

listen to it on so many levels, and you'd be shocked of all the teeny, tiny things

that you maybe never listened to before.

And I'm gonna, I'm gonna take this moment to say that's what we do in our,

what we call Accent Academy, right?

We have people listening to each other, listening to themselves.

You're fantastic, Polly.

When you come to our club, when you come as a teacher, 'cause you're giving

back so much information for people that literally, literally, they can't

hear it themselves sometimes, right?

Sometimes it's what we call a mistake and people are like, "Oh, silly me, I haven't

had my coffee. I knew that." Right?

I said get instead of got.

And but sometimes they're like, " really?

That's what I sound like?

That's what, I did that?

I don't remember doing that."

And it just like, people's eyes just light up because they're noticing

something they've never seen before.

And they're so happy I think to receive that feedback from you.

So on that note, tell us where we can find you, Polly.

Like, where can other people get in touch with you now?

What's the best place?

It's my Telegram channel.

I just started it maybe a couple of weeks ago, but I'm planning

to, you know, post regularly.

And just have a great time with my subscribers, with the audience,

and uh, share my knowledge and my experience and just you know, be in

this great connection with the people.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, connection, I think you said connection.

And to me it was there was another thing you said.

So reaching out.

That was my thought here.

You're reaching out now with your Telegram channel to see people where they're

at, and say to them, "Hey, I'm here.

This is me." And we could even say there's visual, right?

There's audio, and now you're, posting, too.

That's something that for everybody, right?

There's always the first time, and the first time's not necessarily easy.

But do it anyway, guys, because just like recording, the first time

is not gonna be easy, but you're gonna be grateful that you did it.

Do it now.

Your whole point is to make mistakes.

This should be your worst recording ever, and you should see the progress.

And if you don't, that's probably the problem.

But how can you gauge that?

How can you judge that if you don't start somewhere, you know?

So yeah.

I just wanna say that you have a great tool at your disposal, and you have the

power to, I mean, make those recordings while you're feeling comfortable like

you're at home and it's all quiet.

And uh, you, can just, I don't know, just do several times and delete.

You have the power to delete the recording that you didn't really like you know?

And just do that one more time.

I mean, just g- grab the reins and do that, really.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

The delete button is really powerful, right?

Hey, if it's the worst thing ever just get rid of it.

Like, why not, you know?

You don't need to leave the evidence around.

Imagine if Athena in the past had a recording device for her flute, right?

She's playing the flute, first time ever, 'cause I think she invented it.

and then people are like, "Oh, but your face, Athena. You look terrible." She's

like, "Damn flute." But then we never got the recordings of the flute. Maybe if

she had heard her music, she'd be like, "I don't care what my face looks like.

I'm gonna continue with this music." Like, that's powerful, too.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And again, not to beat a dead horse, guys, yeah, record yourself.

We're not the first people to say it.

We're not gonna be the last.

Yeah.

And I think it's important to keep saying it, right?

So one thing that a lot of people say, and I want everyone to remember this, is

that the perfect is the enemy of the good.

We think if it's not perfect, it's not good.

Good is good enough, right?

Done is better than perfect.

So keep that in mind, guys, as you're recording.

And if you haven't, start recording and uh, we'll say, thank

you, guys, for watching this.

You know, thank, it, both of us, we can say there was a time when I had not

recorded, and I had a first recording too, and if you search in YouTube, you're

gonna see some funny stuff I'm sure.

But I wouldn't be where I am today, which still isn't great,

but I wouldn't have made the progress had I not gotten started.

Right?

So Thank you, Polly, for, like, thinking of this idea, this topic and

bringing it to fruition, and coming with me to talk about it today,

'cause it's important for everybody.

Thank you.

I really appreciate the opportunity to be here

Awesome

and talk about it today.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Yeah.

And I'm sure we'll have other podcast episodes too, so we

won't say goodbye forever.

We'll say, goodbye to the audience, and we'll say see you later, guys.

See you next time.

Bye, everybody.

Okay.

See you soon.

Well, we all have to start somewhere.

And if you want a good laugh, you go right over to my YouTube channel and

search for the oldest video I have.

Thanks for listening all the way to the end, everyone.

I always have a little secret that I wanna share with those that

stick around and listen to the end.

And today, what I wanna tell you is actually kind of related to the episode.

Because the one thing that always helps me record myself is to

have little kind of rituals.

And for me, the most important ritual is to, number one, brush my

teeth, and number two, spray a little perfume on before the recording.

Seems silly, I know, because no one's gonna see it or smell it or hear it,

but I do think that this is the way that I prepare before I hit record.

And you know, you might think it's funny, but it works for me.

I just feel like I'm putting my best foot forward.

It makes me a bit more confident, and I also, I kind of feel connected

to those future people who might be watching or listening to this.

And it's kind of weird, right?

Because I feel like I'm with you there if I put on the perfume and

I brush my teeth before I go out.

Like if I were to meet you in person.

So if you have any tips like that, I would love to hear about them.

And what you can do is just join my community of accent enthusiasts totally

for free, and you can talk about this and then send me these things.

Anything that is accent related is totally welcome.

And then finally, if you have a specific topic that you wanna hear about in

another podcast episode, let me know and I'll try to make it a reality.

And until then, I'll see you in the next episode