I was confident. I thought my English was excellent.
I had a linguistics degree, an MBA, and I had been living and working in London for years. I genuinely believed I communicated well.
Then one day I recorded myself.
I played it back and I was shocked. I could not understand some of the words I was saying. Not because my vocabulary was wrong or my grammar was poor — but because my sounds were unclear, my speech very quiet, and what felt clear inside my head was actually quite difficult to follow from the outside.
That recording changed everything.
Not because it embarrassed me. But because it fascinated me. As a linguist I immediately wanted to understand the gap between how we sound in our own heads and how we actually sound to others.
That gap, I discovered, is where some communication problems live.
Here is what I found after years of research and teaching:
The professionals who struggle most are rarely struggling because of where they are from. They are struggling because of unclear sounds, rushed speech, swallowed endings and hesitant delivery.
These are technical problems. With technical solutions.
I know because I solved them myself — systematically, as a linguist. And that process became the Get Rid of Your Accent series — books, apps and video courses now used by international professionals in over 40 countries.
The recording feature in our apps exists for exactly this reason.
Because you cannot fix what you cannot hear. And most people — just like me — have never actually listened to themselves properly.
Try this today: Record yourself for 60 seconds talking about your work. Play it back. Listen not as yourself — but as a stranger hearing you for the first time.
What do you notice?
That moment of honest listening — however uncomfortable — is where transformation begins.
I'd love to know — have you ever recorded yourself and been surprised by what you heard? Share in the comments below.
Warmly, Olga Smith