Why Your Accent Isn’t the Problem: Building Clarity and Confidence in Communication

Tim Newman [00:00:10]:
We've all heard someone say, I have an accent, so people don't take me seriously, or they can't understand me. But what if your accent isn't actually the problem? What if the real issue is something almost every, every communicator struggles with, even native English speakers? Today we're talking about confidence, clarity, and why being understood has a lot less to do with your accent than you think. Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence, the podcast that helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results— communication, storytelling, public speaking, and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I'm Tim Newman, a recovering college professor turned communication coach, and I'm thrilled to guide you on your journey to becoming a powerful communicator. Today's guest is Jay Poulton. Jay has spent over 2 decades working in communications and coaching, and for the last 9 years, his clients have come from more than 35 countries. They're leaders who are exceptional at what they do but need their voice to match. He has worked with leaders at some of the biggest names in tech— Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta— and his focus is voice— how you sound, how you're heard, and why those 2 things are rarely the same.

Tim Newman [00:01:21]:
Jay, welcome to Speaking with Confidence.

Jay Poulton [00:01:23]:
Thank you very much for having me.

Tim Newman [00:01:26]:
You know, you've got such a diverse background, and I kind of love that, the whole idea of that your voice and how you sound are 2 different things. Was there one moment early in your career that you realized this is what you're supposed to be doing?

Jay Poulton [00:01:43]:
Good question. I've always been attracted to voice work. It is a dream of mine, if anybody's listening, to be a voice of a cartoon character, by the way.

Tim Newman [00:01:55]:
Oh, wow.

Jay Poulton [00:01:56]:
So I've always kind of been drawn to how people sound. My entire life I've been surrounded by different accents, growing up in a different multicultural household in a French-Canadian city of Montreal. So I always had that kind of stuff around me and You know, I probably never could have envisioned this career when, you know, if you'd come back to me 10, 13 years ago, I probably would've been like, yeah, there's— what is that? What is that kind of thing? But it kind of developed over time, like many, many things in life, that the different paths I have taken have pushed me over into this direction. But it kind of started, I think, the The beginning of it all started when I started working with doctors when I was at the World Federation of Hemophilia. And they would ask me, how do I say this? Or how do I say that? And that was kind of the, the nascence of, of it all, the birth of it all at that moment. So yeah, I'd have to maybe look back to that as, as the moment.

Tim Newman [00:03:02]:
How did you teach them to, to, to, to say things so that they could be— so that they were clear, could be understood, especially, you know, when, when that type of work that you were doing there, it's so important to be, to be clear and to be understood.

Jay Poulton [00:03:16]:
That is the basis of communications, as you know. Clarity is essential when it comes to that. So in medical communications, you have to basically take these very difficult subjects and make them understandable. So when they would come to me, it was mainly about the phonetics of it all. Yeah. They would ask me about a particular way to say a very difficult word in medical terminology. One is not coming up right now, but here, here's one. Theoretically.

Jay Poulton [00:03:47]:
That has so many different parts to it that you have to say the th, the vowel sounds, the schwa, the stressing and the unstressing, and the flap t. Theoretically. It's not theoretic— theoretically or anything like that. So you have all the mechanisms in that one word. And so I would teach them that and they would break it down in that way so that they can make those individual sounds. That's kind of the way that you get people to start to feel comfortable with that word. For example, I don't know if there's a particular word that you always come up on and you trip over that word. It happens to me in French.

Jay Poulton [00:04:26]:
So when I come up to a specific word, I trip up on that word. But now that I know how to do it, I now am confident to go through that word and not get tripped up.

Tim Newman [00:04:37]:
Yeah, it's an interesting way of looking at it. You know, I come from the sport background, you know, in marketing and so forth, but also teaching movement. Speech is really the same because, like I said, if there's a complex word, you break it up into smaller parts, just like if there's a complex movement, you break it up into small parts. And there are times in human development that you can't, you're physically unable to do certain things. My guess is the same thing, um, in, in voice work.

Jay Poulton [00:05:15]:
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's if, when you are When you have control of your instrument, I look at this as an instrument. The more you practice your instrument, the better you will be. That's just the basis of it all. And I try to teach all my clients that same thing. You have an instrument, you practice that, you will be good at it. If you don't, it's not this God-given talent that you have.

Jay Poulton [00:05:46]:
Some people, yes, are born with that God-given talent, yeah. But if you don't practice that thing, it's not going to end up being the right way. That you want.

Tim Newman [00:05:55]:
Yeah. And I think you can tell the people that have the God-given talent. I remember when I was a young professor, I heard an individual that was outside my office talking, and he sounded like he was a seasoned professional radio broadcaster. And he walked into my office, Kid was 18. And I mean, he just, you know, when you hear people, you can tell, you can feel the presence, you can feel the emotion, everything that goes into it. And he had it at 18. And now he calls baseball games for a living. I mean, he's a baseball announcer on radio.

Tim Newman [00:06:39]:
So it's one of those things that if you have it, you still have to— You still have to practice it. You still have to work on your craft. But getting to that point naturally, just like anything else, those people are the ones that really kind of shine.

Jay Poulton [00:06:54]:
So if you break down what that guy has— presence, you said it, presence.

Tim Newman [00:06:59]:
Yes, presence.

Jay Poulton [00:06:59]:
What is that thing? You know, you look at people like— I often give this comparison— Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. You look at Bill Gates, you listen to any of his presentations, and it comes across robotic. You watch Steve Jobs, who was renowned for his ability to speak as a public speaker, to get people excited about a little piece of technology. What is it about that? Well, you can actually break that down into its individual parts. What is the presence? He enters the room and he speaks to you like he's talking to you in the room, and he makes you feel something. That's what that guy did. With the voice, when you land on the last couple of words, when your breath is supporting all of that and you resonate, you don't go to the vocal fry all the time and do this awful thing with your voice. So a lot of communications coaches look at the, you know, the how you're standing and what you're saying and all of that.

Jay Poulton [00:07:56]:
For me, it was always about how do you sound first? That's the basics. Get the basics right and the confidence and everything else and the presence will start to flow. Because if you don't have proper posture, let's say your voice is not going to sound right. Because I'll lean over like this and all of a sudden I've lost all the resonance and power. in my voice. But if I suddenly sit up, I have that ability to sound like I want to because I have the access to the air and the resonance, for example.

Tim Newman [00:08:28]:
Yeah. And you talk about resonance and I immediately go to, to the military and drill sergeants or people that call cadence. Right. And they have that resonance where they're not Yelling or screaming, but, but they— it almost feels like that you're, you're pulling it from, from your stomach up through your lungs and out. And there's, there's no real— it doesn't seem like there's any real effort to that.

Jay Poulton [00:08:55]:
Yeah. Yeah, you can project. That's a way that I do that. I don't have to yell, right? Because I can just put the sound here and have my whole chamber do everything for me. That's called chest resonance. If I want to, I can do this kind of resonance and nasal resonance, but that's not the kind of voice that I want.

Tim Newman [00:09:14]:
Right.

Jay Poulton [00:09:14]:
So you go to that lower spot, you can— the voice can carry with a lot more weight, is what I tell most people. And most people want that kind of weight when they're speaking, is because that carries the authority that I often talk about. So at the beginning you said, what is that gap that most people have? And it's through the voice, because you may enter the room, Tim, and you, you've got all this experience All this marketing, communications, teaching, wonderful experience. But if you can't tell people why you're amazing and deliver that in a—

Tim Newman [00:09:48]:
Yes.

Jay Poulton [00:09:49]:
Confident manner, you're dead in the water, man. You're dead in the water. So if you arrive and say, hello, my name is Tim and I'm here to teach you, you're dead no matter how much experience you have. And I've hired people because they have the ability to communicate. Versus people who are more experienced. I'll hire the person that has those skills way more often.

Tim Newman [00:10:13]:
Yeah. And that's something that I hope our listeners truly understand, that it doesn't matter what you know if you can't communicate it and communicate it confidently and effectively. It just truly doesn't matter. And that's what I talk about with Gen Z right now. I tell people that As far as I'm concerned, they're probably the smartest generation that I've ever worked with. They're the most entrepreneurial generation I've ever worked with, but their communication skills are probably the worst. And that's, that's the thing that's holding them back.

Jay Poulton [00:10:45]:
Amen. Amen. I, I am infinitely impressed. Some of my clients come to me and they're in their 20s, and kudos for them for searching me out, that they've recognized that this is a problem of theirs and they need to fix. So And once I start working with them, I'm like, I can't imagine of having that amount of brainpower at that age and doing what they're doing now. So I 100% agree with you, but it's what the internet does and it disconnects a lot of people from having those social connections that you and I formed just what, 15 years ago when we were young? Like that, so yeah.

Tim Newman [00:11:25]:
Well, see, I'm only 12, so we'll just say 10 years ago maybe. You know, you made me smile when you opened with you've always wanted to voice a cartoon character. But to me, that says something about you as an individual that also the young, fun type of person that you really have to be in communication. I mean, especially communicating with the younger generations, right?

Jay Poulton [00:11:55]:
Oh, yeah.

Tim Newman [00:11:56]:
And it was about 2018. When I was really frustrated, when I realized that I wasn't connecting with my students like I used to, and I couldn't figure it out. And I was going home frustrated. I was frustrated with the students. I mean, it was really bad. And then, you know, somebody said to me, Tim, you've gotten old. You're older now, right? In 2018, most of our students hadn't You know, weren't alive during 9/11 for us.

Jay Poulton [00:12:29]:
Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:12:30]:
And so, so you've— I lost sight of who my audience was and I had to get back to doing those types of things. And for me, you know, being able to connect with younger people, learning how they think, how they talk, their vernacular is something that's so important when you want to engage with them.

Jay Poulton [00:12:50]:
Yeah, it's It's difficult though to make it sound genuine and not forced. As someone who is walking around saying— what were the kids saying a couple years ago? Skibidi toilet and all the weird stuff that they were saying.

Tim Newman [00:13:04]:
Yeah.

Jay Poulton [00:13:05]:
It comes out as disingenuous from an older person to a younger person. But I always go back to the essentials of connecting from one human being to another. If you can show a little bit of humility and a little bit of, you know, self-deprecation, that goes a long way with any culture, with any generation that you have. I mean, I've got clients from, I think currently let's say 61. I hope they're not listening and I got that wrong. Down, I've had clients as young as 10.

Tim Newman [00:13:39]:
Yeah.

Jay Poulton [00:13:39]:
And so if you connect with them on that human level, because that's what Comms is basically, it's being able to tell a story that connects with a 10-year-old that equally would connect with a 61-year-old. So that's, that's a skill, being able to know your audience is number one. And you recognize that, you're like, oh geez, I don't know these kids anymore. What is it about them that I'm not connecting with? And that's the first step is awareness.

Tim Newman [00:14:06]:
Yeah. And, and so my, my, my daughters are They're old enough now that they're actually leading teams and those types of things. And every once in a while, I'll throw in some of their vernacular or some of the kids' vernacular. And they just look at me and said, Dad, don't ever say that again. And I laugh. And I said, well, as long as you understand that you have to learn the things that I teach my clients, you have to learn how to be able to connect with them because now you're Your generation is not— isn't going to be able to connect with, you know, the Gen Zs and the Gen Alphas that you're going to be leading if you don't start learning how to make those connections.

Jay Poulton [00:14:52]:
Yeah. Yeah. And this is what the— I wish school curriculums would do more of, put this stuff into their curriculums of teaching kids to get up, do public speaking, do debates. I don't think my kids have a debate club in their school. I remember growing up, there was always a debate club. That's kind of what set— there's another thing that set me off on my path. I lost the debate when I was in high school.

Tim Newman [00:15:14]:
Oh wow.

Jay Poulton [00:15:14]:
And I was so mad because I had all my facts right, but the other guy was more entertaining and he won the debate because it was judged by this— by the students. And I was so mad after. I went to the teacher and he's like, well, you lost because you were boring.

Tim Newman [00:15:30]:
That's it.

Jay Poulton [00:15:30]:
Oh, oh geez, really? That matters? Yes, it does matter.

Tim Newman [00:15:35]:
And, and, and now we Well, I don't think we even really debate anymore. It's we scream at each other.

Jay Poulton [00:15:42]:
Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:15:43]:
And we don't listen.

Jay Poulton [00:15:44]:
Right.

Tim Newman [00:15:44]:
So I don't want to go too far down that road, but that's a different topic and a different skill set that if we learn to be better listeners, how much more clarity can there be in our communication as well?

Jay Poulton [00:16:02]:
Yeah. I give your listeners a test. Start listening to someone, have a pen next to you, and mark down every single time your brain goes off into some other realm. Somebody's telling you a story about their day and they tell you about a hamburger they ate, and then you start thinking about a hamburger that you ate. You're not truly listening. So that exercise taught me a lot about how people actually do listen or don't listen to others. Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:16:31]:
Yeah. It's so true. You know, there was something that you said during our pre-interview talk that really kind of has stuck with me. You said the accent isn't the problem. Clarity is. Can you, can you unpack that a little bit for me?

Jay Poulton [00:16:47]:
Sure. Uh, I like to give the example of actors because actors are specialists in language. Take a look at Javier Bardem. When he opens his mouth in English, he is very articulate and clear. He has to be, he's an actor. So when he's doing that, he still has the accent. You still hear him say things like, I was on the sheep, but he's saying everything clearly. So being understood, taking your time, the accent starts to get diminished.

Jay Poulton [00:17:24]:
So it's called accent reduction for a reason, is that it's really, really, really hard to lose an accent completely. It will always pop up. For example, my Canadian sorry will sometimes come out. As much as I try to block that, it will come out at times. But being clear is a process of knowing and understanding what you're saying and try to say it with as much pace that the English language allows for the listener to hear. So, that's articulation. That's saying all the syllables and sounds clearly and properly, not going through and just saying everything really fast and like eating words, which a lot of second language speakers do. So it's not the accent that's the issue, it's how you're structuring the language.

Jay Poulton [00:18:15]:
And then you can start to pick apart the accent stuff after to get the— to rough out the edges, so to speak. But I always tell my clients, if you can say a couple of lines With pace, with proper chest, with proper resonance and articulation, your accent will be very small compared to what it was before. And I record people live and then I play back that same clip for them and their faces are like, oh my God, I can't believe I just did that. Yeah, you did.

Tim Newman [00:18:43]:
Yeah. You know, you said some things in here that really kind of, you know, triggered my brain. Obviously, I'm a native English speaker. It's actually the only language that I know how to speak. But I'm a fast speaker and it takes a lot. It takes a lot for me to slow down. It's primarily because my brain is moving so fast that my mouth is trying to keep up with my brain. That doesn't happen and it can't.

Tim Newman [00:19:14]:
So it's a lot of work and it's a lot of effort for me to slow down. And I think noticing that is— doesn't really matter where you are in your path. Noticing that there's that issue is part of the problem or part of the solution. Noticing is part of the solution. And I spoke— I had a conversation with a woman who's Russian, oh, maybe about a month ago. And I didn't know she was Russian. I mean, there was a little— I mean, you could tell that there was a little bit of an accent there, but you couldn't really tell. And I compare her, and I brought my wife into this the other day.

Tim Newman [00:19:58]:
I said, compare her. I said, this woman is Russian. And then there's Alex Ovechkin. You know, I said, you can't even tell that they're from From the same country.

Jay Poulton [00:20:11]:
Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:20:12]:
You know, they're speaking 2 different languages. They're speaking 2 different— they're using different words and the way it's coming across. And this lady that I was speaking with obviously has spent a lot of time to get to that point. And it's not, like I say, it's not easy. It's not something that just happens overnight. It does take time. It does take work and effort.

Jay Poulton [00:20:36]:
Yeah, I'm going to take a cause with one of your examples. Never use a hockey player in terms of language skills. All those hits to the head.

Tim Newman [00:20:48]:
Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and, but, but that's, but if you think about it too, somebody like Alex who spends so much of his time in front of a camera.

Jay Poulton [00:21:00]:
Yeah, I know.

Tim Newman [00:21:01]:
Right. And there's, and there's, and there's still, still that. And, and, Um, that's obviously, that's not where he, that's not where he makes his money. Right.

Jay Poulton [00:21:12]:
Right. So, so on the field and on the ice and he's, he's happy with it there. A couple of hits to the head, but I understand your point. It's, it's having certain people pick it up a lot faster.

Tim Newman [00:21:24]:
Right.

Jay Poulton [00:21:24]:
My wife is Polish and I've met Polish people that have been in North America a lot longer. than her and have a thicker accent. She has the unfortunate existence of living with an accent coach who corrects her all the time, so she has that advantage. There you go. But it's remarkable how different people kind of approach this exercise, and it's not always a guarantee. But I always do guarantee people, if you have the awareness, if you're willing to look at yourself critically and feel uncomfortable That's the only way you're going to get to the comfortable part.

Tim Newman [00:22:01]:
Right.

Jay Poulton [00:22:02]:
So I think that lady had that in her head the whole time. Ovechkin just didn't want to. I scored a goal. Gold is good.

Tim Newman [00:22:11]:
Yeah. Oh gosh, it's, it's, it's great. Um, one of the things that I love about what you do is, is you're working with people all over the world and it gives you that, that worldview. And that's something that I've learned, you know, with, with doing this podcast is I, as I also talk with people all over the world. And what I found was that we're all really kind of dealing with some of the same communication issues. Doesn't matter where we are, where we're from. So what are some of the common communication mistakes that, that you've seen regardless of where we're from?

Jay Poulton [00:22:47]:
Oh man. In, so the one that you said, Thinking too quickly and not having your mouth catch up is probably, regardless of language, is one of the more common things. And this happened to one of my Indian clients who was professional in the States, and he said, I just— all the ideas are just flowing out and then the mouth doesn't catch up. But you have to pick the right ideas for the audience.

Tim Newman [00:23:17]:
Right.

Jay Poulton [00:23:17]:
And that little moment of, oh, oh, okay. So him being able to just slow that down increased his ability to focus on the articulation of the sounds that he needed to make instead of going through and saying things really quickly and just getting all these ideas and then the mouth is having trouble catching up.

Tim Newman [00:23:39]:
Right.

Jay Poulton [00:23:39]:
Taking the time is one of the biggest things that most people have Um, speed through all languages. And then the resonance bit is probably one of the bigger ones. Different languages resonate in different spots. French can be nasally and forward in the mouth. If I say je m'appelle Pierre, je m'appelle, I use the forward part of my mouth. Coming over to English is really hard when you and I are using the throat as our main resonance area, right?

Tim Newman [00:24:12]:
Right.

Jay Poulton [00:24:12]:
So just say the word bouc in French, it would be bouc. In English, it's book. That for them is really hard to do. That's another big leap for a lot of my clients as well.

Tim Newman [00:24:24]:
Wow, that's so interesting. I never really thought about, thought about it from that perspective, um, about where the resonance comes from because—

Jay Poulton [00:24:36]:
It's a big factor. It's a big factor into how things sound.

Tim Newman [00:24:41]:
What about— where does Spanish come from? Is that a— is that not, not the language Spanish, but where's that— where's the resonance come from?

Jay Poulton [00:24:49]:
It's more forward in the mouth. Hello, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Instead of nice to meet you.

Tim Newman [00:24:56]:
Gotcha.

Jay Poulton [00:24:57]:
So you can clearly hear it when I do it. Like Indian, for example, I can do the accent just by placing the sound in my mouth. I can say the word vowel A The same way I'm saying it now and just go vowel A and then sound Indian.

Tim Newman [00:25:12]:
Vowel A. How come you're not a cartoon character?

Jay Poulton [00:25:16]:
I see. See, I need to be on the show.

Tim Newman [00:25:18]:
What are you doing? What are you doing with your life, Jay? Come on, you're better than that. That is— that's amazing. It's amazing that—

Jay Poulton [00:25:27]:
It's so much fun once you can control those little muscles. It's, it's a lot of fun.

Tim Newman [00:25:32]:
Well, now, now that I I understand it a little bit. It makes sense why there are some people that are really good at impersonations. If you— because if you, if you can understand where, where and how to make the sound in and throughout the whole system, it— I guess it just, it becomes easier. And then the more you practice it, just like anything else, the better that you're going to get at it.

Jay Poulton [00:25:56]:
Yeah, there's some really great celebrity mimics out there that explain how to do that. And there's some amazing voice actors on TikTok that will tell you all about these little tips and tricks of placement versus sound. If you want a breathy, sexy voice, you can go down here and just do a lot of air and just play with the different placements of sound and just get a little silly sometimes. And then you can find those places. So I ask a lot of my clients to get a little silly Sometimes I even ask some of them— it doesn't work with everybody— I say, do your worst cowboy impression of an American cowboy. And when they do that, they sound regular American. It's funny that they're— they think they're going out there and doing all kinds of stuff, and it sounds just like they think they're going out there and doing all— it sounds just like you and I do, for example.

Tim Newman [00:26:54]:
Oh, wow.

Jay Poulton [00:26:55]:
It's so weird. It's infinitely interesting, this stuff, and the kind of people I meet is just so cool.

Tim Newman [00:27:02]:
It really is. And it's got me thinking now because I tell people, you know, I've got a face for radio and a voice for silent movies. Now I know how to change my voice to, you know, to maybe help people listen a little bit better. But that's— it's so interesting that that's how it's done.

Jay Poulton [00:27:21]:
Yeah, yeah, just a couple of little muscle changes and relaxing and tensing up in the right spot, and you could have all kinds of different abilities. This is what I learned early on growing up around all my friends. We were called the United Colors of Benetton, if you remember those ads.

Tim Newman [00:27:37]:
Oh yeah, I do, I do.

Jay Poulton [00:27:39]:
Of all the different colors of the world, that was my friend group. Filipinos, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladesh, uh, African, and all kinds. French Canadian. Jamaicans, all kinds. It was something I loved to play with.

Tim Newman [00:27:53]:
So let's take that a step further, right? So how do you help somebody become easier to understand without sounding like somebody that they're not? You know, when you talk about those united colors, right? Because, you know, who they are, you know, Filipino, African, Italian, French Canadian, whatever it is, that's still the essence of who they are. Because we don't want to— we don't want them to lose that identity.

Jay Poulton [00:28:19]:
Right. Yeah, I don't— that's never the goal. And I always tell them, if that's what you want to do, it's going to take you years if you want to just completely absorb and mimic a particular sound, because the American accent, to be honest, is all over the place as well.

Tim Newman [00:28:40]:
Yes.

Jay Poulton [00:28:41]:
As you know, you go north, you go to Boston, you go over to Texas, you go over to California. It's very different. And so it's very hard to just suddenly do that. So that's why I always talk— let's, let's speak about clarity first, because I don't want you mimicking some robot. And I've heard a couple of other people, hello, how are you? It is nice to meet you. I am American friend. How are you? That's not what I'm after.

Tim Newman [00:29:08]:
Right.

Jay Poulton [00:29:08]:
That's fake. It's forced. And your audience is going to hear that. You're looking for that genuine experience so that people hear that you're from a different place, which opens up all kinds of communication avenues on top of it, right? So never hide that, but just emphasize and bring out your natural ability to be a good speaker. There's a great speaker, uh, if I can't remember his name, he won the 2015 Toastmasters So if you just Google 2015 Toastmasters champion Muhammad something accent, but holy cow, what a clear speaker. So you don't hear the accent after 2 seconds. You just hear a beautiful speaker because he's resonant, he's paced, he's controlling, he's pausing. He's not saying like or, um, and he's delivering a very good story.

Jay Poulton [00:30:04]:
And that's what we're after. That's what I'm after with all my clients. Understand that and the accent just gets smaller and smaller till the point it's there, obviously, but it disappears for your audience.

Tim Newman [00:30:18]:
Yeah. Talk about telling stories. And if you're working with somebody who— oh, let's just take an example. Just take somebody from Texas.

Jay Poulton [00:30:34]:
Mm-hmm.

Tim Newman [00:30:34]:
Okay, who's got— who's, you know, they've got the normal Texas dialect and they're telling a story about something very Texas, whatever it is, and they really want to have that accent. How do you get them to tell the story with the accent, but in a way that people can still understand the slow draw that they have, if that makes sense.

Jay Poulton [00:31:09]:
So you want them to use the accent to highlight the nature of the story that they're telling. Like, I was a rancher one day and tornado came and kind of thing. So there's many uses of that case where I often think of actors because they're always using different accents. Use the accent to highlight the main part of the story that is the driver and the emotional heart. So, if you want to highlight an accent, like say if I were to tell you that my father used to work for the Montreal Canadiens and I grew up, I loved hockey in Montreal, I'll use a French-Canadian accent to maybe highlight a piece of that story. Is that what you mean?

Tim Newman [00:31:55]:
Yeah.

Jay Poulton [00:31:55]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you use accent if it's native to you in a genuine way. If I use other accents, it's going to be mocking. And so you got to be very careful of how you do this. But I would use it to then highlight that piece so it brings out the genuineness of the story, for example.

Tim Newman [00:32:15]:
Yeah. And it's— and I'm glad you said that because, you know, I don't know about in Canada, but here in the United States, politicians will go someplace and do a fake accent that is just— doesn't— it just doesn't match. And they become— it doesn't matter. Again, to me, it doesn't matter what message they're saying. They immediately become unrelatable to me because it's not who they are.

Jay Poulton [00:32:42]:
Yeah, you see it in movies that the actor's trying and it just doesn't work. And so the role doesn't work. So it— geez, there's even a story in the Bible where a guy visits another town. They caught— they catch him out because his accent's not the same. So this goes back all the way, way, way, way, way, way back in terms of literature. So it's, it's essential to who we are when we make that connection. For, for example, the reason why people come is because it's hard for others to listen to those that don't have the same accent. You and I listening to a Chinese guy speaking to us, our brains literally have to work harder.

Jay Poulton [00:33:25]:
It's the same thing if you and I were to be speaking Chinese to him. He would have to work 10 times harder to understand, to fill in the gaps of what you and I are not giving him in terms of his language or in terms of our language. So if he's not saying with the rhythm of English that, that goes up and down and that hits on certain words, our brains have to fill that in. And I have countless clients who tell me that people always misunderstand my intention. It's because you don't know where to put the emphasis in the sentence to give it the emotion that you're looking for. So I've— I have clients who are in the office and people think that, oh, it's because I'm Russian, I have no emotion, but I am very emotional. But you don't know how to do that in the language.

Tim Newman [00:34:11]:
Right.

Jay Poulton [00:34:12]:
So they're often struggling with the people around them. So understanding that it's not just the accent, that it's up and down, it's rhythm, it's the passion that you put into it and the cultural experience of being American on top of it. All of that goes into the voice. It's infinitely interesting about the things that I could go down the path to with this sort of thing.

Tim Newman [00:34:35]:
Yeah, it is really interesting. You know, take it a step further. I was talking to somebody who had an Irish-sounding name.

Jay Poulton [00:34:47]:
Mm-hmm.

Tim Newman [00:34:49]:
To me, he sounded Irish. And then when I saw him for the first time, he was Oriental. And I couldn't— it was so difficult for me to comprehend that. So I could understand what he was saying for a good piece of— if I was just listening to it. But when I looked at him and the words were coming out, it made it so much more difficult for me to understand. Why is that? Is it just a perception thing?

Jay Poulton [00:35:20]:
It's a cultural expectation. You walk into a specific— you expect a white guy to come out and speak to you in an Irish accent.

Tim Newman [00:35:27]:
It's—

Jay Poulton [00:35:28]:
I had an Indian client who's had a completely English name. And then he would come and he lived in Ireland, so he had more of a North American accent with an Indian background with an English name. Very strange. So it's that expectation that you're just waiting. I was traveling once and I went to Italy and I went to a Chinese restaurant and they were all speaking perfect Italian. It was— for me, it was like, oh, that's kind of strange. That's kind of strange. But growing up as part of the United Colors of Benetton, you kind of experience that over time.

Tim Newman [00:36:00]:
Right.

Jay Poulton [00:36:00]:
So it's a cultural expectation that you have. And with the global world now, it's just you got to forget that kind of stuff because, yeah, you're going to have more and more and more and more people that look a particular way and you expect to sound a certain way. And that doesn't come out. Do you ever go to take a drink and then you think it's—

Tim Newman [00:36:22]:
Oh, yes.

Jay Poulton [00:36:22]:
7-Up and then it's water and you're like, oh, Jesus, that was weird. It's that initial thing and you get over it pretty goddamn quickly.

Tim Newman [00:36:29]:
Yeah, yeah, really quick. It's just talk about the water for a second here. Uh, somebody gave me a cup that I thought was water and was vodka. And no, no, no, just—

Jay Poulton [00:36:43]:
That's a harsh one.

Tim Newman [00:36:45]:
That's— that was very harsh. I said, no, water, water, please, water. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's bad.

Jay Poulton [00:36:53]:
Uh, but on the internet, I remember of a guy who a white guy who grew up in India and now his accent is Indian. So it's the reverse version of it where you see this guy and you're like, whoa, what the heck is that? And it's just like just a white guy with an Indian accent.

Tim Newman [00:37:09]:
That's crazy. But like you said, it's becoming— those types of things are becoming more common and we should be— I wouldn't say— not that we're open to it, because it is what it is, but recognize it or, or, um, flow with it a little bit better as the more that we see it, that it becomes, um, normal. Yeah.

Jay Poulton [00:37:36]:
Just what's your story? That's, that's a cool opening. What's your story? How did that occur? Because I, I had a Polish lady who speaks English with a Scottish accent for some reason. And so it was, What's your— where were you in life to give you that accent? That's a strange one. I want to hear the story.

Tim Newman [00:37:55]:
Please.

Jay Poulton [00:37:55]:
And tell me that one. So it's, it's infinitely interesting, the people I see, uh, and they're— the stories that I hear of how they developed. Uh, one lady born in Georgia spoke Hebrew, German, English, and Georgian on top of it. So 5 different languages affecting her English accent. But then again, the essentials are the same. If you want to learn this accent that you and I are using in general, the sounds are all still the same. A short O is the sound of ah. A short U is the sound of uh.

Jay Poulton [00:38:30]:
A short— a long U is the sound of ooh. They're all, they're all basics. So if you can get yourself down to those basics, don't matter where you come from. Learning this, a North American accent, It's easy as long as you learn the sounds. I often tell people, if I could teach you blind, I would, because written English seeks to confuse you. Wow.

Tim Newman [00:38:52]:
Okay. It does.

Jay Poulton [00:38:53]:
Just the sound of long U has 23 different ways to write it. The oo sound, like Tuesday, student, uh, you, youth. Just those words alone are all written differently with the same sound. English is a terrible language.

Tim Newman [00:39:10]:
You're going to have me thinking as I'm typing things out and I see those words now.

Jay Poulton [00:39:15]:
Oh, I got more for you. Do you know the TR? TR is never said TR. You never say tree. You say tree. It's a CH. It's a ch sound. That usually blows a lot of people's minds.

Tim Newman [00:39:33]:
Thank you for that. I appreciate it.

Jay Poulton [00:39:35]:
You're welcome.

Tim Newman [00:39:35]:
So as I'm talking to my 6-year-old granddaughter and I'm teaching her how to read and And write letters. Those things are now going to be popping up. I appreciate it. She's going to look at me. Oh, boy. But you work with a lot of people preparing for interviews. What's some communication mistakes that immediately hurts a candidate before they even answer the first question?

Jay Poulton [00:40:00]:
Oh, that's a good one. So number one is I've had people not knowing their audience. So they walk in completely unprepared.

Tim Newman [00:40:11]:
Oh yeah.

Jay Poulton [00:40:12]:
And I know that immediately, that they haven't practiced, they haven't spoken these things out loud. The number one communication tip I'll give a lot of people as well is if you ever have a presentation or something coming up that's really important to you, speak it out loud, practice it out loud. I used to, for job interviews, I'd be in the car talking to myself for an hour if I was stuck in traffic, and I would just answer, what are your greatest strengths? What are your greatest weaknesses? Tell me a little bit about yourself. That preparation set me up to walk into that room with confidence.

Tim Newman [00:40:51]:
Yeah.

Jay Poulton [00:40:51]:
And that's the number one. I can tell when a person walks in that they haven't prepared.

Tim Newman [00:40:55]:
Yes. Yeah. And And it's so— there's, I think, and I think you bring up a good point. There's different types of being prepared, right? There's the type of doing the research on who it is you're talking to, what it is that you want to talk about. And then there's the preparing of, like you said, actually voicing it, putting together the framework or the structure. I'd be interested in hearing your perspective on this. I wouldn't encourage somebody to script everything out, but to have the bullet points or to have the framework to be able to roll off as they're talking about it. But there's those 2 different types of ways to prepare.

Jay Poulton [00:41:46]:
I know when somebody prepares the other way. I know it instantly because if I ask a question, which I always do because I'm a bit of a jerk when it comes to that in those meetings, I'll always ask something off-color and weird to see if they're ready for their brain to switch and be able to answer that question.

Tim Newman [00:42:06]:
Yeah.

Jay Poulton [00:42:07]:
I've had some strange answers in interviews to questions they're not expecting because they were caught off guard. Oh crap, that wasn't on my notes. I don't know what to say. And that's going to happen to you in real life.

Tim Newman [00:42:20]:
Yes.

Jay Poulton [00:42:20]:
When you're in a presentation, Jim is going to lift his hand up and ask you a question. And if That's off script. Good luck getting back on script. So this is where the brain has to catch up to the mouth and that you have to make those 2 things work at the same time. So everybody, I say, when you're practicing for an interview, lay out a couple of good stories that you're willing to relate to things that are part of the job. So if you've done projects, think about those projects from A to B, what happened. And then how you can relate that to the thing that they're asking you, because those examples will be able to feed off of your greatest strengths. Tell me about a time a project went well.

Jay Poulton [00:43:02]:
Tell me about a time a project went south and what was your involvement? All the standard basic questions. Once you're prepared like that, it's just a matter of practicing it out loud. That's how my brain works, because if I start hyper-focusing, And writing everything down, I'm, I'm just gonna try— my brain's gonna try and go there, and I'm, uh, anytime anybody asks me anything.

Tim Newman [00:43:26]:
Yeah, and that just really reinforces something, you know, for me. Like, so this morning before we, before we did this, I was on a call with probably 30 other people and a communication coach, and we were listing out things that we should be doing in terms of clarity? And the number of people that said, speak it out loud, speak it out loud as soon as you can, and then you can start to refine it as you go along. But the more we hold it in, the more we think about what we're saying as opposed to just saying it, the harder it is for us to be able to get that clarity.

Jay Poulton [00:44:06]:
100%. It's a great life trick too, as well. Just say it out loud. Just say it out loud. Stop hiding from it and just say it out loud. Because why keep it in? Because it's not going to serve you well in the moment you need it. So that's the greatest tip I can give anybody in an interview. Say it out loud.

Jay Poulton [00:44:26]:
Practice it beforehand. Don't forget to breathe. Don't forget to breathe. That's one of the biggest things because it's literally a reset. I talk about breathing A lot, and it sounds silly, but if you're adding tension to your voice, a simple deep breath— taking one deep breath can reset your— it literally lowers your larynx, easier to resonate. Your heart slows down, your breathing slows down, and then you can answer pressure questions. I have an articulation exercise where I get people to read increasingly difficult Sentences. And I do not instruct them on how to do that, but invariably they will start to speed up through those sentences.

Jay Poulton [00:45:11]:
And I always stop them. I say, I never told you to speed up. And they're like, shit. And they go back and they go and they go and they go and they're reading and they're reading. It's you that is adding the pressure, not me.

Tim Newman [00:45:23]:
Right.

Jay Poulton [00:45:24]:
So it's a great test in that mindset of, you know, take your time with everything. Because you're going to do a lot better job if you give yourself the time and the space to do so.

Tim Newman [00:45:36]:
Right.

Jay Poulton [00:45:36]:
I had one client, just really quickly, he was going into a very tense meeting with a former business partner, and it was a business deal worth a lot of money. I told him, before you go in, and the lawyers are there and the accountants are there, whenever you are asked a question, Pause 2, 3 seconds before answering that, 5 if you really want to unnerve them. And then when you ask a question, pause after that question and don't forget to take a deep breath in the middle of it. And that little pacing trick that he did, he walked out and his lawyers were like, what the hell did you just do? He was like, I just took my time.

Tim Newman [00:46:17]:
Yeah.

Jay Poulton [00:46:17]:
And that comes— that confidence in being able to do that Once you get there, it's kind of addictive.

Tim Newman [00:46:24]:
It is. You brought up Steve Jobs earlier, and he was a master at pausing. I mean, he was a master at waiting, at pausing, at gathering his thoughts and delivering either a response or a message that was very poignant and sharp to whatever it was that he was asked. Whether it was a, a, uh, I, I go back to, to some of his videos. He paused for 20 seconds in this one video that I watched. 20 seconds. He was asked a question and he paused 20 seconds to gather his thoughts and he gave a phenomenal answer to that question.

Jay Poulton [00:47:06]:
Yeah. I think that was, uh, one guy asked a very difficult question. He's, uh, the audience member. I know that one. And I'll say something controversial for the American audience. I think Michelle Obama is better than Barack at speaking. Barack has a very interesting, unique way. She's got a more natural cadence to the way that she speaks.

Jay Poulton [00:47:28]:
I saw the Chicago thing where they did the opening for his presidential center. She was phenomenal the way that she was speaking. Phenomenal.

Tim Newman [00:47:38]:
Yeah, when President Obama speaks, it's like 3 or 4 words and it's a bit of it and then a bit of it. And it's— and it does— to me, it doesn't flow very well. I mean, obviously it worked for him. I mean, he's an amazing communicator, but I agree with you that Michelle Obama is a much better communicator from that perspective, for sure.

Jay Poulton [00:48:01]:
Yeah. Barack comes from more of the church tradition. So I was going around the corner and he would—

Tim Newman [00:48:09]:
right.

Jay Poulton [00:48:09]:
It was a buildup. It was a buildup, but she was just straight into it. And I was, I was like, oh yeah, she is actually quite, quite better than he is at speaking. Yeah, it was a funny one.

Tim Newman [00:48:21]:
So, so Jay, if someone wants to communicate more clearly, become more confident, or stop repeating themselves every day, where can they connect with you and learn more about what you're, what you're doing, what you're coaching?

Jay Poulton [00:48:31]:
Right. I'm on the interwebs. You can find me at theaccentcoach.com. I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook, I believe, under Jay the Accent Coach. You'll find me there somewhere. Somewhere, and that's the main way to reach me.

Tim Newman [00:48:44]:
And I'll make sure that those links are in, in the show notes. But Jay, thank you so much for joining us. I love this conversation. And, um, when you get your, your, your cartoon character, please, please let me know.

Jay Poulton [00:48:58]:
I hope so. You'll be the first to know, Tim. Thank you so much for having me.

Tim Newman [00:49:02]:
All right, take care. Talk to you soon.

Jay Poulton [00:49:04]:
Take care.

Tim Newman [00:49:04]:
Be sure to visit speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com to get your free ebook The Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and How to Overcome Them. You can also register for the Formula for Public Speaking course. Always remember, your voice has the power to change the world. We'll talk to you next time.

Jay Poulton [00:49:27]:
Thank you.