WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en-US 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.240 Have you ever been in an English-speaking  situation where you felt that you couldn't fully   00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:11.040 express yourself? You're certainly not alone. I want to introduce you to three people.   00:00:11.040 --> 00:00:18.080 A software engineer, a physician, and a senior  professional. All brilliant at what they do.   00:00:18.080 --> 00:00:24.760 All being underestimated every day because of how  they sound in English. By the end of this video,   00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:31.240 I'll show you exactly how that changes. This  is May. She's a software engineer at a company   00:00:31.240 --> 00:00:38.120 she worked very hard to get into. She's sharp,  prepared, and well respected by people who know   00:00:38.120 --> 00:00:44.800 her work. But in meetings, she goes quiet. Not  because she has nothing to say. She always has   00:00:44.800 --> 00:00:51.000 something to say. But because by the time she's  translated the thought, shaped it into English,   00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:57.280 checked it, and decided it was safe to say, the  conversation has moved on. Someone else has said   00:00:57.280 --> 00:01:04.080 it. And May sits there feeling invisible, holding  an idea that never made it out of her mouth.  00:01:04.800 --> 00:01:10.880 Then there's Andre. He's a physician. He  trained for over a decade. He's meticulous,   00:01:10.880 --> 00:01:17.600 compassionate, and deeply knowledgeable.  But every day before rounds, he rehearses.   00:01:18.280 --> 00:01:22.720 He thinks through what he's going to say,  how he's going to say it, which words to   00:01:22.720 --> 00:01:29.040 avoid because they're harder to pronounce, which  sentences to simplify so they come out clearly.   00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:34.360 He prepares twice as long as his  colleagues and still walks into every room,   00:01:34.360 --> 00:01:41.880 bracing for the moment someone's expression  shifts. That small, subtle recalibration   00:01:41.880 --> 00:01:46.480 that tells him they've clocked his  accent and adjusted their expectations.  00:01:47.160 --> 00:01:53.480 He goes home exhausted, not from the medicine,  from the management of speaking in English.  00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:59.320 And Fatima, she has a master's degree. She  has 15 years of experience in her field.   00:01:59.320 --> 00:02:06.680 She is by any measure an expert. But in job  interviews, on calls with senior executives,   00:02:06.680 --> 00:02:12.160 at conferences where she knows the material  better than half the people in the room,   00:02:12.160 --> 00:02:17.240 she feels like she's auditioning for a  level of respect she's already earned.   00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:24.720 The credential is there. The expertise is there.  But somehow the sound of her voice keeps arriving   00:02:24.720 --> 00:02:29.600 before the substance of what she's  saying, and it costs her every time.  00:02:29.600 --> 00:02:36.000 May, Andre, and Fatima all come from  different places, work in different fields,   00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:43.000 carry different versions of this weight, but they  share something. The gap between who they are   00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:48.600 and the judgment of what people think they  are based on their English-speaking ability.   00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:55.400 The gap between what they know and what  people hear, between the life they've built   00:02:55.400 --> 00:03:01.320 and the life that feels just slightly out of  reach. because of how they sound in English.  00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:08.320 If you recognize yourself in any of them, this  video is for you. Now, I want to name something   00:03:08.320 --> 00:03:14.400 because I think once you hear it, a lot of things  will make more sense. What Andre experiences every   00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:21.520 morning before rounds has a name. I call it the  performance tax. It's the cognitive and emotional   00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:28.480 energy you spend every single day managing how you  sound instead of focusing on what you're saying.   00:03:29.040 --> 00:03:34.080 It's the rehearsing before you speak,  the monitoring while you speak,   00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:40.880 the replaying after you speak, wondering how  it landed, whether the accent got in the way,   00:03:40.880 --> 00:03:45.840 whether you should have said it differently.  Native speakers don't pay this tax. They just   00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:54.120 speak. You're doing two things at once every time  in every professional situation. Communicating   00:03:54.120 --> 00:04:01.120 and managing the perception of how you  communicate. That is genuinely exhausting work.   00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:06.640 And most people have been doing it for so long,  they've stopped noticing how much it costs them.  00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:13.800 Here's what makes it harder. The performance tax  compounds. The more you pay it, the more you avoid   00:04:13.800 --> 00:04:20.560 the situations that trigger it. You stop raising  your hand in meetings. You let moments pass.   00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:29.200 You self-edit before you even begin. And avoidance  feels like relief in the short term, but over time   00:04:29.200 --> 00:04:35.880 it widens the gap between where you are and  where your expertise could have taken you by now.   00:04:36.440 --> 00:04:43.760 This is not a motivation problem. It's not a  willpower problem. You cannot out-discipline this   00:04:43.760 --> 00:04:51.520 tax. The only way to stop paying it is to change  the underlying habit. the physical habit of how   00:04:51.520 --> 00:04:59.520 your mouth, tongue, and breath move when you speak  English. This is exactly what willpower cannot do.   00:04:59.520 --> 00:05:05.040 And it's exactly what the right method  applied consistently over time can.  00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:12.120 I'm Rachel. I started my career as an opera singer  and a computer programmer. Two things that have   00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:17.880 almost nothing in common, except that both taught  me something I couldn't have learned any other   00:05:17.880 --> 00:05:25.280 way. Opera taught me the voice at a physical  level, how the body produces sound, how breath   00:05:25.280 --> 00:05:31.680 and placement and muscle memory shape every  word that comes out of your mouth. Programming   00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:37.920 taught me systems, how to take something  genuinely complex and break it into logical,   00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:45.080 repeatable steps that produce a reliable result.  Over time, these two things collided with a third,   00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:52.320 my passion for language. And for the non-native  English speakers I kept meeting, these brilliant,   00:05:52.320 --> 00:05:57.560 accomplished, interesting people who are  being underestimated every day because of   00:05:57.560 --> 00:06:04.320 how they sounded. And so Rachel's English  Academy was born. Over 50,000 students have   00:06:04.320 --> 00:06:10.680 come through the academy. And what I've learned  from all of them is this. The problem is almost   00:06:10.680 --> 00:06:18.880 never effort. May is not lazy. Andre is  not careless. Fatima is not uninvested.   00:06:18.880 --> 00:06:25.320 The problem is the tools they were given. The  apps, the group classes, the focus on grammar,   00:06:25.320 --> 00:06:31.960 reading, and writing. These things were not  built to transform English speaking skills.   00:06:31.960 --> 00:06:37.680 Here's the truth about the American accent. Most  programs don't tell you. Changing the way you   00:06:37.680 --> 00:06:44.400 speak is a physical process. The habit lives  in your body, in your mouth, in your tongue,   00:06:44.400 --> 00:06:51.360 your muscles, even your mindset. It's been there  for decades. You cannot think your way out of it.   00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:58.000 You cannot will your way out of it in four, eight,  twelve weeks. You have to train your way out of it   00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:04.840 focused and consistently with the right method  and enough time for your body to actually change.   00:07:04.840 --> 00:07:11.920 And when that happens, when the physical  habit shifts, the performance tax goes down,   00:07:11.920 --> 00:07:16.120 not because you're trying harder, but  because you don't have to try harder.  00:07:17.040 --> 00:07:22.640 That's what Rachel's English Academy is  built for. It is the habit training program   00:07:22.640 --> 00:07:28.640 that addresses the physical process. When you  join, you start with essentials. 5 to 6 weeks,   00:07:28.640 --> 00:07:34.640 about 25 minutes a day. Every day you log in,  there's exactly one thing waiting for you.   00:07:34.640 --> 00:07:40.840 I've already decided what it is. You don't waste a  single minute figuring out where to go or what to   00:07:40.840 --> 00:07:49.520 do. You just do the training. You just do the one  part for that day. The training combines video,   00:07:49.520 --> 00:07:56.480 visualization, and a significant amount of  focused audio work, listening, and speaking.   00:07:56.480 --> 00:08:01.880 You'll also record yourself regularly because  learning to hear your own voice clearly,   00:08:01.880 --> 00:08:07.640 to analyze it, to catch what's shifting  becomes one of your most important skills.   00:08:08.240 --> 00:08:14.480 After Essentials, you move into the Daily Plan.  Same structure, one step per day. And this is not   00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:20.720 a group class, which means there's no getting  behind. If life interrupts you for a few days,   00:08:20.720 --> 00:08:27.680 you come back and pick up exactly where you  left off. No lost progress, no starting over.   00:08:28.360 --> 00:08:33.920 With your subscription, you also get  teacher feedback. Real teachers, not AI,   00:08:33.920 --> 00:08:40.120 watch your recordings and tell you specifically  what they hear and exactly what to adjust.   00:08:40.120 --> 00:08:46.440 I've tested a lot of AI tools for accent feedback,  and while they do some things adequately,   00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:52.720 they miss the nuance that actually matters when  it comes to sounding natural and fully human.   00:08:52.720 --> 00:08:58.200 That feedback is built into your 25 minutes.  It's part of what I'm bringing to this.   00:08:58.800 --> 00:09:04.000 Because here's how I think about the Academy. I  take the first half of the responsibility for your   00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:09.840 transformation. The method, the materials,  the structure, the feedback, the guidance.   00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:17.680 That's all mine. All I ask from you is the  second half. The time about 25 minutes a day.   00:09:17.680 --> 00:09:23.840 You bring that, I bring everything else. For May. 25 minutes a day is the difference   00:09:23.840 --> 00:09:28.040 between ideas that stay trapped  and ideas that impress people.  00:09:28.680 --> 00:09:35.080 For Andre, it's the difference between starting  every day braced and starting every day ready.  00:09:35.800 --> 00:09:41.920 For Fatima, it's finally closing the gap  between the expert she is and the expert   00:09:41.920 --> 00:09:46.920 the room recognizes when she walks in. On the first day in the Academy, I have   00:09:46.920 --> 00:09:53.400 every student do one exercise where they record  something very specific. Then after six days of   00:09:53.400 --> 00:09:59.760 training, they record the same thing and I ask  them to go back and listen to both recordings,   00:09:59.760 --> 00:10:06.960 watch both videos. And I want them to reflect.  Did anything change? Does anything sound more   00:10:06.960 --> 00:10:14.840 natural now? And they're always surprised. Yes.  After just 6 days of this focused training,   00:10:14.840 --> 00:10:20.920 change has happened. They do sound more  natural and they do feel more confident.  00:10:20.920 --> 00:10:26.560 I didn't expect that change at the at the  beginning. I really noticed the difference   00:10:26.560 --> 00:10:33.240 by watching the two videos together. It really  changed my confidence of speaking English.   00:10:33.240 --> 00:10:41.080 When I close my eyes and listen to the second  video, I'm pretty sure it sounds very native   00:10:41.600 --> 00:10:43.334 and uh that's surprising.    00:10:43.334 --> 00:10:48.800 Does it sound more American? Yes, I feel second 00:10:48.800 --> 00:10:53.831 video sounds more American, like more musical.   00:10:53.831 --> 00:10:57.280 It flows way better. It feels way more natural.  00:10:57.280 --> 00:11:04.720 And yeah, definitely there's not like  some huge uh difference, but there's   00:11:04.720 --> 00:11:06.000 a big noticeable difference. 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:07.680 Well, I'm happy to say that I   00:11:07.680 --> 00:11:12.080 do hear the difference between the first  video to the second. I'm happy with the   00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:14.501 results. It's been a great first week. 00:11:14.501 --> 00:11:16.920 The average student spends about 6 months   00:11:16.920 --> 00:11:23.240 in the Academy. If you can commit 25 minutes a  day for 6 months, you will hear the difference   00:11:23.240 --> 00:11:29.040 in your voice. You'll feel it in your body,  you'll notice it in the way conversations go.   00:11:29.040 --> 00:11:36.080 The moments that you used to let pass by that now  you step into. Many students don't want to stop   00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:41.520 at 6 months because by then they can feel that  it's working and they want more of that feeling.  00:11:42.040 --> 00:11:49.120 This week I'm running my May sale. One  week big discounts 60% off 70% off.   00:11:49.640 --> 00:11:55.440 We have various options but you can get  started for as little as $19 your first month.   00:11:55.440 --> 00:12:02.680 And that includes community with teacher feedback. Sign up at rachelsenglishacademy.com. Sign up now.   00:12:02.680 --> 00:12:08.920 I offer a 30-day money back guarantee. If you sign  up and don't think this method is right for you,   00:12:08.920 --> 00:12:15.400 just let us know. Just request a refund and  we can take care of that quickly and easily.  00:12:15.400 --> 00:12:22.560 Visit rachelsenglishacademy.com. You've been  carrying this long enough. You bring the time,   00:12:22.560 --> 00:12:26.200 I'll bring everything else. Let's close the gap.