Everybody.
This is Freddie Rodriguez.
And Wilmer about the rama. Welcome to those amigos. We're back.
We're back episode two.
Baby.
That's how fascinating she are it required a second episode.
Samara, she's a coach.
She's a Coacha is a very very giftedll coach, someone that really helped me in the earlier years actually mid years of my career. And we were talking about, uh, the way you help leaders and actors convey story uh. And in the same subject, the simplistic version that I tell myself is the more prepared I am, the less pit stops I have to make in order to make my point.
The pit stop is the like.
Uh, these are the pit stops that you're like you because you're trying to piece it together. Now, not all conversations require you to stop your arms.
Like right, like you're talking to people. It is what it is.
But what I found myself and I'm curious to see you know, for you as a storyteller, as a you're one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. You're also like you as one of the best spoken people I've ever talked, you know, and you know and also You're one of the most brilliant actors I've ever seen in my life. This guy has been able to to uh, you know, to really and I'm trying to really sound smart there you see that, Okay.
I'm getting.
What I'm saying is like the idea that you have to portray these characters that for the most part, you're leading the story, you're driving us forward. And now I don't want to say anything, but you're gonna play a different ethnicity guy that's absolutely so far removed from who you are, that that's going to be the next role you're gonna take.
The people are going to be blown away by.
And you are going to have to learn the accent and in the actual language, yes, to.
A place in the world that you've probably never been.
Maybe you haven't, you know, through the years, but like, but you've never lived there to understand why those dialects and why then you know where they come from. So so for me, the thing that I realized the more I understood, I used to say, like, and I'm so much more back in the day when I was trying to fit into so many smart conversations because I.
Knew I had an opinion about the things that was being said.
But I've never communicated with those rooms before, so I thought I had to really take my time in putting these sentences together. So like, for example, you know, I had to search my words more often than I could.
If I was just kind of flowing.
The more confidence I became in what I exposed myself to.
The Easter was to take those things out right. The other thing is like you're.
Telling you talk about in your subject, but I look for you, Freddie, what has it? Does this relate to you? Does it trigger any emotion or memory or anything?
Sure?
Yeah, I'm from Chicago, right, And my first movie I had to have a dialot coach because my Chicago accent, which you can probably still hear, I'm told still there. So I was nineteen years old. I was on the set of a pretty big movie and it was my first movie.
Was the movie.
It was called The Walk in the Clouds and it took place in the nineteen thirties.
And here I was just like Chicago urban like street kid.
All of a sudden thrust it into this movie with like Anthony Quinn and Caanu Reeves and gian Carlo Janini, and I had to sound like a kid who went to Stanford in the nineteen thirties, and it was it was incredibly difficult, and had I had a dialog coach for like three months while I was on that side, who was who's doing everything? You just said, you know, I do a take and they would come and whisper in my ear and her eye was. It was like the first time I was ever in front of cameras
like that or around big actors like that. So it was really I want to say it was difficult, but it was a lot to process as like a nineteen year old kid. And so I've had dialogue coaches. That wasn't the first time. You know, my action has always been really difficult to overcome.
I never knew that about you.
Yeah, yeah, I mean you can hear it right, like you know, this is sort of how I sound.
You know, I'm not here diagnosed.
Yeah right.
And so when we was saying I I haven't announced it yet, but I'm about to play someone who's who's of German descent, and I was like me and they were like, yeah you And I was like, okay, give me a dialart coach.
And so I'm.
Supposed to be starting with one.
I don't quite know who it is someone who's sitting across from me right now, and so it's.
Gonna be nuts. Nudge.
Did you want Lucille Ball?
Can you teach with the Lucille Ball accent?
Uh?
Yeah?
So so it's I've been struggling with it for a long time too. I mean I've gone into rooms. I remember in the nineties, I would audition and they would say, he sounds a little too urban, you know, man, I I had read for something, you know, geez, like like eight years ago and then and the guy was from Chicago and they were like, oh, he just sounded too urban.
And I was like, what do you mean from Chicago?
I sounded like, oh, I sounded And so my accent has always been something that's been a little bit.
Of a thorn on my side throughout my career as well.
Yeah, I find that a lot of the work I do with people, whether it's in the hull onllwoold realm or in business, is often unpacking some of those early comments or early you know, like judgments that were thrust on us. Often it's like people go back to like second grade, Oh really their parents there's you know, it's like trauma attached to it. There is, and it's like it's like subtle enough, like lowercase T trauma that you kind of can go like, why am I not over it?
That's what it is. And then I give people permission to be like, let's just honor that not only are you not over it, because it's like real and it wasn't being able to get processed. But now there's like this added level of like self shame of why did I let that get to me? Why did I let that one guy in second grade who said that my voice is annoying get to me? What's wrong with me? And so many of us do that, and it's like
the spiral around our voice. And this is why I wrote this book and I sold it in this like crazy bidding war at the top of the pandemic because I just feel like no one.
So there's a therapy aspect attached to what you do as well.
I mean, listen, I.
Mean said therap but here's how I here's how I say it. There is inevitably an element of therapeutic as to this, which means healing. You know. It's like, yeah, ultimately we're just like, oh god, my mom said that to me, I really, like, you know, internalized it. I forgot it came from that source and she has her own stuff, and I just thought it was a truth about me. Oh wait, do I need to keep that story going? Is that helping me? Is it helping the
next generation? Is it helping my kid? Me continuing to carry that burden of in this case, you know, like my voice is annoying or whatever. Who's that helping? Is that helping me? Like, like, do my best legacy work in the world? If not, what can I like lovingly do to release that?
So how do you how do you hand I mean, that's not part of what you signed up for, right, So how do you handle sort of you're coaching somebody, all of a sudden.
They break down.
They're like in the second grade somebody you know, and then all of a sudden that they go right, the trauma was.
Released, Say, I love those moments, but I kind of loved those, But.
How do you how do you handle that?
You were clearly like you know what they say, like shamed dies in the light. It's like once they know it, I don't need to do anything. Now we're like you that's a thing. Hey, that's a thing.
Yeah, I had to undo a bunch of stuff the beginning because when I was, when I became an actor, if you had an accident in school, you were seen as inferior, as uneducated. If you had an accent, you were uneducated, even though I was a straighted student, because in Venezuela.
There was two years ahead, you know.
When I got here, I had traded to and I didn't even have to speak English to me, but thought I was cheating. I think we talked about it on the show before, and I had an accent. So people are like, how is you how you even like acing the test?
I'm like, it's math, like like I mean you know, or so on and so on.
But question for you when it comes to nationalities and all that, what is the common thing that Latino speakers you don't have to undo in order to embrace an American accent?
And I'm and I'm asking for a friend. I'm asking for a friend.
Okay. The main thing with the main thing with Spanish speakers is that y'all have five vowels. And although in the written English we look and we say we see ae, I ou sure, maybe we have five two if you think about it, and like dialect alert here I'm getting, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get technical because you asked it. You know, even for the letter A alone in English, if you see it in a word, you don't know.
It has five different pronunciations, the letter A. So it can be all like about alc apple, all like father, all like awesome, or a like.
Eight mm hmmm. And so that's confusing.
That's a lot. And when it comes to some of those sounds, they exist or some version of them exists in Spanish. Right, the a father is like our closest American version to the ah. But then what's what happens when you get to a apple? So for a lot of Spanish speakers, they're they're, they're there. English is amazing, right, this is not about this is no judgment on their right acquisition of English. But if they always say apple
and now they have to go a apple. And now, by the way, for American speakers out there, we also do an uglier a a in front of an er and emorin ng sounds. So we go like ah, like family. And if we go at apple family, people think we're English British family. That's that's what I mean West. That's almost all of the US almost uses that little tiny dialect thing, and it's almost to tell if you don't use it. So you say a family, family, it's a scandal.
Where's she from? She does not sound like she's from anywhere. She sounds she's in like neutral land right anyway?
So we three hundred teaching teaching what a movie three hundred where they're just like, we're from what is that Atlantic?
What is it?
Was?
Mid Atlantic Atlantic, which is like British Buddy's not.
It's a made up nineteen thirties accent where everybody sounds fancy, but not from anywhere the middle of the Atlantic where there's no land exactly exactly.
Oh my god, she's from somewhere like lower of the rings.
Right exactly exactly fairy sound.
I've had to audition with that accent before, didn't know it. Did you call me?
You know?
One of my.
Dreams is my one of my dreams is to perfect a British accent.
I don't know why. I've always been like.
Why because the bridge come here and they get the American action?
Yes, yes, because I.
Feel like it's just as if I go get James Bond, you know, the Brits in the Australians get all the all American. You know, thank god for Chris Evans because he finally was Captain America. But everybody else is Australian and British, you know, playing these American comic book heroes.
You know, you think you can do a British accent.
I don't know.
I know I can't, And that's why I know I can't.
I can't.
I can't.
Have you considered maybe you have a person, like a specific person with a British accent that you could Craig. Have you listened to him? Have you like repeated back?
You know, but he's so.
But the thing about his accent is he he's so settled it almost doesn't sound British anymore. Have you heard the last couple of James Bonds, They're like, his accent is he's there in a couple of ways, you know, where he just kind of, you know, kind of undertones it. But you know, but there's other characters that it's heavy.
So if I were to just like prod a tiny bit, you might want to find someone else who also feels more like your vibe. I mean, I'm not saying you don't give Daniel kredit.
That's not what I'm asking.
But I'm just I mean, but I'm but I'm just saying, like it is fun, unlocks something.
But you asked me.
What I dare you and I would love it. What What is the James Bond accent? I mean, Pierce President, who have coached is Irish and he did he went for like a straight British sound, right, It's not like he just brought his natural accent, but.
He's from there, so he grew up with all those influences around him, right, So it's like the British grow grows up with all Hollywood movies, so they're therefore they they understand.
And you know many of them use dialect coaches.
Well for sure, but I will also say that they grew up watching these movies, so they can imitate until then they coach to kind of perfect. I've never had to imitate a British accent because the first half of my life I was watching everything that had a different accent and English in Spanish, right, so everybody had a Latino accent when I was growing up, even James Bond and.
Even Americans don't grow up watching British materials, so.
Like, yeah, also, this is a pitch, you know, that's the next that's the next bond sound. I think we're ready.
For for a lot of accent, for a little bonello, a little spice.
Who are you got a mellow bond?
I think we really welcome to.
This is a little bond.
Who is this?
I don't know, but that you said it's ready for a new direction. I'm giving the narrative. So speaking of British accents, just bringing it back.
So the the I A e ou there's They pronounced those a lot more closer to what Latino does right in a way to way like ah a if.
That helps you as a bridge, I don't want to take it away.
Bridge, But it's more like.
You're just saying because they do pronounce the words like over here you said you we have those five for the A. Yeah, it seems like they're pretty consistent with their No.
They've got the same it's just that they don't do that that ugly family. But yeah, it'd be like family. The apple sound.
Is just uh, we say can't.
We say can't and they say can't. But that's the awe sound like father father.
So is that the key to learning that action is learning where the inflections go.
Oh, there's so many parts. Okay, there's so many parts. When we're learning English as a first language from another part of the world. So this is Australian and British and Irish and Scottish, South African. It's the most complicated that the most sounds change constants and vowels. So you know, the question is like, what would be some of the main ones that you could focus on. I love what you're saying with kant. This is technically called the ask list.
It's literally just a list of words. It's like three pages of words that like the word ask. In American English we would say apple ask and in British they would say, oh, father osk and they don't even know. I mean, I don't want to speak for all British people, but I've talked to it and they don't realize that. They say can and kan't.
They don't hear it. They don't hear it.
I'm like, is the word castle on the ask list? And they're like, castle, Yeah, what's the list?
Right?
It's like, oh, okay, right, right right. But the main thing is the RS. So I don't This is like way technical. But the rs at the ends of words in English, in American English and in British English are actually vowels. They're not the same our our mouth doesn't do the same thing as a beginning are. So like the word red, do the word red, river field, what's happening your mouth redd?
Right?
Like what's happening? There's like a coming together everything red. If we did that at the end of the word father, we would end up with father. It's like a it would be a it's a dialect father. So what are we really doing?
Father?
Or our mouth stays open? The definition of a vowel. Can't believe IM talking about this, you guys, This is like no, Yes, definition of a vowel is that your mouth stays open and sound keeps coming out. This is why we can sing on vowels. So if your mouth is staying open on they are on the end of father, it's a vowel father, or just has some what we call our color father, unless our color would get you father, that's British.
What would be some initial exercises that you do with with with actors when you first start working.
With I mean, I kind of build the exercises based on what they need, because often certain sounds are just like oh I got that, and I'm like, we don't need to be a dead.
Like do you remember do you remember the exercises? What did we do the pencil?
Did you do the pencil?
Yeah, so it's just like you put.
The pencil here and make sure that your mouth is so wet in between your teeth.
Just activated, It activates, you know. The main thing that happens is that we're all used to how we sound, like right, but we're all used to how we sound. So certain muscles get used and the other muscles are like, no, I'm good.
Yeah, I've never.
Been activated in the last twenty years. And then here we are being like, let's activate those muscles, and so doing a pencil or a cork like.
From okay, so what does that do if you put a pencil in between your teeth?
What's to just work a little harder?
Now I have to like really do it. You're not gonna you're not gonna have a.
Pen because because you're exercising certain.
Most yeah, yeah, it's just part of a warm up.
Also, honestly, I also phone, especially when I do a lot of the procedural stuff. I just got to warm up my vocals. You can't come in and just you know, do it cold. So I you know a lot of the jaw exercises.
Yeah, you know.
I like to joke that I have a long history of telling movie stars what to do with their tongues, and it's true, although it's not the whole job.
Is that in your book?
I think I came up with that during the rest.
After the book.
And see.
That somebody quote she tells the levers what to do with they're tengue in the book?
Do you find that when actors have to play a Latin character, it's nobody cares as much because they're just like, oh they're have like some weird acting, we'll buy it.
Yeah.
I don't want to throw under the bus what I was about to say, but yes, I have worked on projects that take place in very specific in a very specific place and have been like, hey, but there's like ten actors who you cast, and ones from Spain and ones from Colombia and ones from you know, Venezuela, and one's from Mexico. Shall we try to make them sound the same.
If they're speaking English? Yeah?
Yeah, And I'm like because if they're speaking Spanish, I would hope that an actor does.
Is it, because the perception is that they all sound the same from whoever the.
Yes, correct, Yeah, if you speak Spanish as your first language, when you speak English, you're all going to sound similar, which you.
Don't know when I hear from so many I mean friends as well as clients who are like offended, who are like light offended, right, Like, of course, if you're seeing something that's like a Cuban show and they didn't put any work into making them sound Cuban, you're like, cool, thanks for putting millions of dollars into that show, but not that part of it, right.
No, And by the way, I mean there was a lot of criticians that have you ever done God for playing the cr nest, you know in the LBC aerosorcin movie, because you know, there was not that emphasis of like, oh, when I speak English, I'm going to sound I'm going to also have the undertone.
Of a Cuban man, you know. So people just bought it.
They're like, he has an accent, so right, so he sounds like Ricardo, I guess, you know, but that yes, it goes it's just about also the actors should probably be a little bit more hungry for that part, you know, but look, how you ever done as one of the best actors of our entire generation, So he can do no wrong.
In my eyes, I love that man.
I think in general as a rule of thumb, for most actors and for all young actors who are listening to this thing is you know, it's what separates you from you know, from the rest of going for the same thing. It's like that little extra layer you put in there. It's what keeps you on a set.
And to circle back to your German right Like, yes, of course understandably you can. You anybody can get stuck in like that's so different from me. But ultimately, what you're going to be inside of, inside of a creative process is like the curiosity and the wonder and the beauty of like.
Who's this guy?
How do I this guy?
And that?
And that is such a more generative and creative space. Then shit, I'm not this guy, you know.
So we're both by lingual.
We speak Spanish and English, right, well I kind of speak English, but he doesn't want But so the so for for people like Freddie and me who are bilingual and quite quite bi lingual, and I'm.
Both English and Spanish.
What are the accents that are probably the low hanging fruit for us? What do you think, like will be the accents that we'd be like very good at because you have the understanding of how to pronounce stuff in Spanish and.
How to pronounce okay, you tell me, what do you think.
A British accent like James Bond?
Is that.
There for you?
I guess other other Latin actions. Have you ever had to do anything other than an American accent for.
For a project?
A lot, like for different Mexican accents, Yeah, like northern, the fa you know, you know, like have you have you gotten very specific about the mean? Yeah, in Mexico you think, okay, this manta, this man, I think this manata way right. And if you're in Colombia and there's like three different Columbian accents, rights see, and you know I'm an, I can butcher a Puerto Rican. I can butcher the Dominican, right, I can also like Argentina.
It's like you know, you know, was a key landed their nose and.
So everybody has like this little singer and I'm gifted on all those South American accents because I grew up with them, and I grew up imitating them, right, just like the British grew up imitating all different American accents, the American, the New Yorker accent or the Boston accent, you know, like.
All those guys. So I knew how to do those. But yeah, that lot.
But and so if I were to speak in English as one of these nationalities, I could write, it's a Cowana. I mean, you know, when I speak to Amelia seven after I hang up the phone.
So I'm speaking Cuban.
Really were, But that's that's the thing. But yeah, I mean I don't know, but commonly, you.
Know, for you is the only other one I would add to that. I mean maybe Portuguese, right, maybe maybe maybe Brazilian or Portuguese like.
Some of the.
And the other one, although it's like, you know, there's a little bit of a dance over to it.
But Italian, oh yeah, Italian, I think I could probably.
And I you might have caught this on on that list of names that you said earlier, but I got to coach American crime story versace, and that's Edgar Ramirez, your countryman. Yeah, yeah, I love them, Penelope Cruz and a little bit of Ricky Martin.
Oh my god, and were completely different places.
And none of them Italian.
Yeah, right, yeah, And Ricky's from the island. That that's a whole other different sort of rhythm, you know, the Puerto Ricans from the Eye Island in the Puerto Ricans from like New York or Chicago. And my experience has
been different. And sometimes I'll go to Puerto Rico and I listen to people in the island, I'll be like, what, you know, I don't know if it's the speed or or or there's something in the dialect and the and the rhythm of it that that sometimes and Puerto Rico, yeah, I mean it's the island where my family is from.
There's sometimes I have to kind of slow down.
And just.
Money swallow other words.
Right, it's a different it's a different rhythms.
In the world.
In order to make people feel like they haven't us, which also means then that there's them, like there's this there's this amazing quote from a from a woman I quote in the book talking about how like put put the same group of people on two sides of a mountain range and within like months, they'll start to sound different within generations. Obviously they're like fully drenched other languages, like we do this, it's a human thing.
We do.
You talk about the Italian accident for that specific movie, did you feel that the fact that they spoke Spanish was in advantage for their Italian accents or everyone had to have.
To ask them, You have to ask them. Yeah, I think yes, But also like, okay, what's the what's this?
This is?
This is just like fun geeky, but like, what's the biggest difference between the Spanish and Italian when speaking in English? There's this, right, There's something about the musicality, and there's also that I can't say this is not sounding like being me and to Italian speakers, I am not. This is just how sounds work. Spanish speakers know how to stop a word on a consonant. Italians have literally never done this in their life, so they will always add a vowel on the end. So often we were like
artificially adding in a vowel. So if it was like the word stop, you know, like stopped on a tell or something, it'd be like stop, you need like the little oh yeah, right, And so giving them the permission to find like how to have more of a through energy instead of a you know.
Yeah, I remember reading Marlon Brando when he played Sabada and he was saying, I wasn't really trying to learn an accent, but I was. I was just trying to learn the rhythm. And so when he did that movie, it was more about the rhythm that made it believable to him.
Is there a difference?
So like I was like, oh, that's an interesting thing to say, you know, Like, is.
There also once we're doing English as a second language, we're speaking in English, right, We're not doing language work, that's its own thing. But we're speaking English as somebody who grew up speaking Spanish or you know, Italian or whatever whatever. There's range no, no, two people who were in that scenario speak English the same. Because when did you learn it? How what was your like interest in learning it? What was your inner resistance? What is your
like vibe around? How dare I have to speak this language versus I want to soak.
It all up? Right?
This is all super personal. So that does actually give us freedom also as as you.
Know, flipping in a little bit on your leadership work and with those individuals that have to you know, talk to whole company or do a key, don't speak, or they're just in politics.
It's an interesting thing to ask for me because.
We know multiple cultures that are listening to our to our to our show and very different you know, origins of latinos as well when it comes to leadership, being noticed, being you know, being listened to with a with a sense of respect and authority. What what advice do you give those who are embarking into like I want to unlock a different world for me, And that doesn't mean that I'm pretending to be someone else, because it's not
that you're changing who you are how you're talking. You're just tapping into a different form of expression that allows you to really you know, submers yourself in a different world.
I mean, you get it.
That's it.
That's it. There's so much of the work is like, Okay, we'll have in front of us, say a speech or a panel that we're prepping for or whatever, like, and that's the deliverable, that's the thing, And we know we're kind of doing the thing. We need the thing to be good by that date, but we also know that we're kind of using that as maybe a trojan horse to work on the other stuff, which is like, how do I show up? What is this like thing? What happen like spiritually?
Right?
Like, how does the spirit of me show up in these spaces, regardless of accent, regardless of my old stories of my voice is annoying or film the blank? Right, what does it take for me to like really really
show up in these spaces? And for each person it's a little different obviously, right, It's like it would not work in any way to be like, here's my framework, you have to do this to do that, right, Like this this is not this is not it, although there are universal themes that do that do come up a lot, but ultimately this is about visibility. This is about what does it feel like to be seen? What does it
feel like to be seen? And also claim how I mean I lovingly use the word weird, but it just how how unique we are, who we actually are, what we actually care about while being seen and continue to like, continue to see, continue to make it about who we're
talking to and not about us. Right, So some of this is practice, some of it is new perspective, right, like how do I switch up my approach so that I stop being like in the moments before I go on, all I'm thinking about is I hope they don't notice that I dot that dot and into something like I can't believe I get to talk about my favorite thing. My goal is that by the end, here's the new thought that they will have, right, Like, there's just healthier mindset.
What is your intentions right before you even speak?
And then when we talk about accent, it's like, yeah, of course there is sounds right if you've never made a teach sound in your life, Like, this is the thing we can work on. And maybe the teach maybe getting the tongue outside of your mouth, which is what has to happen, only tiny bit, but it has to happen to make a teach happen. Maybe that will unlock
a sense of confidence. But maybe that's not it, or maybe that in concert with and what's the with and it's like different for everyone, but the spirit of it is, what if I'm exactly right? What if I am the right person to be on that stage talking the way I talk with a little bit of my own personal mischief, like the twinkle in my eye because I'm up to something, right.
What made you transition from dialect coaching to public speaking, Like, like, what inspired it to talk to me about the what that journey?
I'll tell you. It was the twenty eighteen midterms and I was coaching gal Gado on Wonder Woman Too. I got to do the US portion in DC before they shot most of it in London, and I had downtime because there was a lot of stunt sequences and she wasn't even like like hooked up to a microphone, and so I was like in DC for a month, we had like washed, not washing what's it called Pennsylvania Avenue,
like shut down for stunt sequences. And I was just wandering, being like I'm not needed, no one needs me.
What am I doing?
I'm I'm not great with like not feeling needed, you know. And in the midst of that, I got this call from move on dot org, which is one of these organizations that finds good candidates and then is like, we'll give you resources. Maybe that means money, but maybe that means training. And that was the year that became the Blue Wave, a huge amount of first time candidates, a
huge amount of women candidates. One but we didn't know that the summer before all we knew that was that there was a lot of first time candidates, which is another word for members of the community who were like, oh god, is it me? Should it be me?
Oh God?
But why did you get a call if you're a dialect coach?
A friend recommended me, interesting, but she'd be good for this. But an activist like I care about the world a lot, so he knew that. And but the call came out of the blue, and they literally were like, we have no money. This is not that, that's not that's all this is.
That's all this is.
But there's all these candidates. Could you do a zoom call here and there?
And I was like, but why did they feel you were qualified to do public speaking if if all you had done before that was dialect coaching.
They were right, no, no, absolutely, such a sense.
To no, no, No.
It is because I mean, I think it's because I was doing activism work and I had been coaching my clients who were doing public speak, and like, I think my friend, his name is Joel, My friend put it together before I did, and I told him this. He came to one on book signings and he fully cried because I was like, it's that dude.
Oh so he's the one.
There were a lot of touch points. There were a lot of touch points, but that that moment when I got that call from move On, how easy was that? Right? They came to me and they were And it wasn't like they were like, we're gonna throw you a bunch of first time candidates for office and then we assume that you're going to probably leave your career behind and make a big pivot and then write a best selling book. They didn't say that, right. They were just like, try
this thing. It's free, maybe you can help. And I was like, sign me up. And then while I was coaching those women, I was.
Like, oh, the whole history of the world of public speaking is so mean. So it's so fear based, it's so mean.
You're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong. You better get this right, don't fuck it up. Do this with your hands or everyone will laugh at you. Like right, like some version of that we've all gotten m And I was like, especially maybe for women, but also especially for people of color, especially for queer folks, especially for English as a second language, Like anybody who feels internally marked as different in how
we sound or how we seem. Right, I said early on, like we get treated differently based on how he'd write. This is where I was like, oh, we need a different rule book for public speaking. That is like, I mean, you know, the opposite of fear, they say, is life. What is a love based approach to public speaking? How do we talk about what we care about so the care spreads? How does that change the world? How does that change whose voices get heard?
From your perspective? What makes a good leader when it comes to public speaking?
Like? What is that? What is that trade? What is that? I don't want to call it character trait? But wait, what is that? What is the aleming?
What is the thing that makes a good leader when it comes to public speaking?
I feel like we could all answer this so many different ways, sure, but what came to mind instantly when you said that is like a real commitment to showing up human.
For it not to feel forced or over our over.
And like the vulnerability laced with strength, right, vulnerability doesn't doesn't have to be in weak weakness, but saying when we don't know something, but saying you know, like we all know there's a way to say, I don't know. That makes us feel instantly powerless. I'm tiny. Why should
I be here versus the I don't know. That's just like, that's just such a good question, let's find out, right, And this comes from like being in our spine, being in our chest and really having the compassion for ourselves
and for others. That makes us be like I am going to take up the amount of space in the world that is like that is that is going to offer humanity and like, you know, humanness, I mean like our animal body, like the truth of oh my god words, right, I don't know, but like this thing that feels very human, I'm going to take up enough space that everybody else also feels like they're allowed to be human, and then we make rooms better.
Right.
And I often say to my clients, like, think about the the type of leader you wish there was more of in the world, and then just show up that way, like do it today. We're not we're not gonna be perfect, but like do it today.
And if you're in the business more yeah, And if you're in the business of leadership, I mean that's one thing you have to really believe to your court that you're standing on that podium for a specific purpose, and you intentionally have to move to actually get to where you're you're preaching.
H you heard it. You have to you have to earn it, you know.
Obviously this is there's like a Brazilian categories that we'd love to talk.
To you about.
I mean we this might be in this might be a two episode, you know, a two episode.
This is very h yeah, vast yeah.
And we didn't even open a little can of worms of like what were my biggest problems? When you can speaking about it like an American accent. I think for me, I couldn't get out of my own way. There's the mold story. Like I think that as soon as I knew that there was a word that I had a problem with, I could flow.
Through the first three sentences.
And as soon as that word wasn't you know team minus five seconds for me pronouncing it, I started falling apart. And I think it's because I didn't want to let people down around me as supposed to just like, let me just tell the story.
Okay, I need that tool, Okay, let me do that. I'm you said here boom, you.
Know, I'm a little more matter of fact now, but you know back then, you know, I was giving roles nobody's ever given me before. You know, So when you talk about leadership, when you talk about community, delegation, right doing specifically when it comes to communicating, whether it's change, inspiration, you know, unity, all these things. You know, you have to kind of find that those tools that allowed you to unlock these destinations.
Do you have any other thoughts or questions?
I just think it's great that you pointed out that there was a particular friend who saw something in you, uh that that other people also started to see, and how that eventually led you to where you're at now. You know, sometimes life just kind of takes you in different directions, right and.
Like here you are and that you're you're an author now and you're you're.
Doing something completely different than what you initially intended to do.
And I think that's great.
You know, sometimes we all have these talents that it takes other people to see within us.
But I think it's wonderful.
With what you do.
I've worked with dialect coaches in the past and it's helped me so immensely, and I can just imagine how what a profound impact you've had on other people, especially like Wilmer, right, which is one of the reasons why you're here now.
So thank yeah.
And also a big, big shout out to your book Permission to Speak.
Permission to Speak, you do it by now.
So did I do the audio?
I'm I'm very, very.
Proud of my audio books. Yeah, and I've I've been told here's my favorite compliment I've ever received. This is not true, but it feels like it. I have been told that I've ruined all other audios.
You ruined because yours is so good?
Is that why?
Implication?
Because you're like, you.
Know, look, some nonfiction that gets read by the not author but bless you know, has this kind of detached vibe. I'm going to try to sound serious by saying these sentences in this certain way. And I was like, I'm going to, you know, I mean, perform, right, but not perform like fake you fake perform like make come alive. We have this the word in in the you know, acting world of lifting, right, We're lifting the words from the page. It's like we're lifting these ideas.
And so you were a tad more animated than I mean, probably the average.
Listen y'all listen and report back. I don't.
That book anyway.
You get your books or audio books, and thank you so much and thank you so much for being part of my journey and uh and being so instrumental to how I'm speaking on a podcast.
Now she's going to give you notes once we're done with this.
Wilmer, You're welcome.
It's a podcast part well that would be a bit more English, Yeah.
Yes, yes it would.
This is Freddie Rodriguez and.
I'm Wilmer about the rama.
Thank you for watching this, uh, two part episode in Venezuela.
Chauma Samara, Yes.
Okay, I'm seeing.
Is a production from the V Sound and iHeartMedia's Michael through That podcast Network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez, and Wilmer Valdorama.
Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burleson and Sophie Spencer zabos.
Our executive producers are Wilmri Valdorama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson, and Leo Klem at WV Sound.
This episode was shot and edited it by Ryan Posts and mixed by Sean Tracy, and features original music by Madison Devenport and Helo boy.
Our cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed by Deny Holtz.
Claw And thank you for being at Third Amigo today. I appreciate you guys always listening to those amigos.
More podcasts from My Heart, visit the R Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
See you next week.