Episode #3 of The RuleBook: Guy with a Podcast.
This week I found it difficult to pick a topic for the show, but first let me say how happy I am to be doing this. It's only been two weeks and I have maybe 50 views but it's been a huge milestone for me to share my voice like this.
I was always very painfully shy growing up. I would be loud and funny with the people I knew well, but publicly I was afraid to be myself. I didn't feel safe - so I'd usually be quiet or keep to myself around those I didn't know well and it usually gave people the impression that I was cold or stuck up. But the truth is I grew up in an environment that me made this way. I was constantly told little girls should be seen and not heard and it has done me a huge disservice as an adult woman. I've internalized it in more ways than one - whether it was through pursuing romantic partners who only valued my physical appearance, spending too much time criticizing myself instead of focusing on my strengths or being a people pleaser and wasting massive amounts of energy on attempting to control how others perceive me. Ultimately I have spent a lot of time biting my tongue for others - which why the podcast felt like a BIG step for me.
The more I thought about this part of who I am, this fear of using my voice, the more I realized that maybe there's a reason more men than women have podcasts. But hold on - before you click exit let me finish. I don't think more men have podcasts because they are better at it, I think it's because not as many men as women have been taught to be seen and not heard. Perhaps they are more confident in their voices and starting podcasts where they freely broadcast their opinions. Maybe the reason every guy you know seems to have his own show is because he feels entitled to, and I'm not ragging on that. I wish for all of us to have a fraction of the audacity that some men seem to inherently have.
I did my second episode last week and I had a friend listen to it and I asked him if i sounded like I was ranting too much? He said not at all. I listened to it an embarrassing amount of times but also because I'm the one editing it so I have to and I found myself getting increasingly annoyed at the part where I thought I sounded too animated or excited. I was like wow I'm yelling! He assured me that I was not and that it wasn't as abrasive as I thought.
And this brings me to Rule #3 - When you feel like you're being too much, just ask yourself what a man with a podcast would do?
This rule applies to all genders. I know confidence is something that men and women have to grapple with so no hate to men. But in general, the guys who interrupt, the ones who think they know everything - do you think they stop themselves because others might find them abrasive? Hell no - abrasive is pretty much a baseline it's a neutral for them.
I'm not saying to go be abrasive; I'm saying stop patrolling your every move and go live out loud. Say what you need to say and you will feel so much better.
It's not even guys with podcasts because look at the news. Look at Donald Trump and Kanye West who are both running for president, they really aren't great examples of role models but they are great examples of having the audacity, or perhaps in their cases narcissism.
Did you know that more men will apply to a job post that they don’t meet the qualifications for than women. It's because women follow directions and maybe that’s the problem. The world is clearly changing really fast and women have already stepped into roles we have historically not been in before which is even more of a reason for us to continue to adapt and rail against this "lets be seen and not heard" jargon because we literally have to if we want to compete.
Remember when the trend on tiktok came out "guy with podcast," a lot of women were putting on the beard filter and pretending to be a guy with a podcast and the opinions just flowed. The louder they were the better, the more insane the take the better and the more casual the more hilarious the video was. I did a few of those videos and i have never felt more comfortable on camera. It wasn't because of the filter but because I just felt like I could say what i wanted to as a guy with podcast so easily and not worry about it. I made so many of those videos and I even made up a name for my show "Guy Problemz," with a z. I didn’t write down what I was going to say like I do for this podcast, I'd just press record. Full disclosure when I press record to film this show I'm literally having meltdowns between takes.
There's a Miles Davis quote I really love, he says "it takes a really long time to sound like yourself." If you're a writer you can relate, if you're a singer you can relate, and if you're an actress I'm 100% sure you can relate. One of the things I learned early on in acting was the importance of developing your voice. I spent time and money trying to change my voice and it’s a major work in progress as someone who spent years clenching their jaw, and writing down her feelings rather than saying them out loud my voice has became weaker.
I remember studying with really amazing acting teachers and how bad I felt when they told me I had a vocal fry (that’s when you speak with a very tight throat) or when every sentence I said sounded like a question, making me seem unsure of myself. Breaking speech patterns is easier said than done, but it's true it takes years and years to undo the damage done to the voice and I'm still working on it.
I think it's all apart of the reason why friends from high school, college even and my own family was literally shocked when I told them I was going to acting school. I took a poetry class in college and a friend from elementary school was in this same class with me and I couldn’t even breathe when I stood up in front of the class. I turned red and have zero idea how I even made it through the poem without passing out. Anytime I'd even raise my hand in a class I'd have a mini panic attack because I knew I'd have to speak in front of others.
Years later when my same friend saw I was doing pageants and starting to put myself out there she told me how surprised she was, and I'm glad she did. She meant it in a good way. She saw how much I struggled in a class with probably 22 people watching me, so it was nice to have someone acknowledge the changes I was working so hard to make.
When I think about the fear I felt speaking, (I still do have this fear actually) I think it's why it weirdly made a lot of sense for me to act. I did not have any voice training for the longest time and I now have way more technique than I previously did, but in the beginning when everyone told me I would never be able to do it, because of my fear of public speaking, I felt like my sensitivity, all of that feeling that had been buried deep inside me for so so long, was going to take me past the fears and it literally catapulted me on stage. To this day I get physically ill before I perform nearly every time but for whatever reason I still do it and I still force myself to face it because little by little I'm growing my voice back and growing hurts like hell.
That’s why rule #3 is extra special to me, because I'm not a guy with a podcast. I'm a girl with a podcast, and I never thought I could do this and neither did anybody else but you know what plot twists are everywhere, and if I can do it then so can you.
Thank you for checking out the latest episode of The RuleBook, "Guy with a podcast."
I really hope to see you back here next week! If you haven't already please subscribe to my Youtube channel @SeriousActress and please leave me comment on any topics you'd like for me to make a rule on and don't forget to follow me on instagram and TikTok @seriousactress.
xo,
Alex
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