I grew up in the middle of the United States, in Kansas, and didn't travel outside the country before university. But Wichita, the "air capital of the world," drew an international workforce in aeronautical engineering, and university brought me into a community of international students and professors from everywhere. I became a conversation partner for international students who wanted to practice English. I heard their stories, saw photos of their hometowns, and experienced the world through their eyes. At the same time, I was a student trying to understand professors whose accents were unfamiliar to me. In graduate school, I taught accent modification to international professors who were brilliant in their fields but couldn't express themselves clearly to their students. They taught me as much as I taught them. Later, I became an international professor myself, teaching in South Korea, and learned what it actually feels like to be confident in front of a classroom and completely overwhelmed the moment you step outside it. These experiences taught me something I've carried into every client relationship since: speech is not just communication. It shapes how others see you, and how you see yourself. When someone gains the ability to change their speech, they gain the ability to change their impact on the world.