The InFluency Podcast

Kara Loewentheil, life coach, feminist writer, podcast creator, and bestselling author of Take Back Your Brain, explores why speaking English can feel threatening even when you know the words. They discuss perfectionism, shame, fear of misunderstanding, conflicting beliefs, and a practical “Thought Ladder” for building confidence. A revealing conversation about mindset, self-compassion, and finding your voice.

Practice English grammar and pronunciation through the verbs make, get, and take. Work through simple, continuous, and perfect tenses in past, present, and future forms, while drilling natural rhythm, contractions, connected speech, and everyday sentences.

Practice English pronunciation, rhythm, intonation, and vocabulary through an engaging read-aloud from Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead. Explore expressions for nervousness, vulnerability, audience connection, and communication that truly lands. Build confidence with shadowing, connected speech, and vivid language for handling intimidating audiences while staying grounded and expressive.

A lively Q&A explores clear communication for introverts, finding your authentic voice in English, and making practice creative through comedy, journaling, and improv. It also covers the dark L in words like “trouble,” the American Flap T, natural-sounding connected speech, and one learner’s journey from acting to pronunciation coaching.

Master the three pronunciations of English -ED endings with practical examples such as needed, played, worked, watched, and laughed. Explore how these sounds change in connected speech, tackle tricky consonant clusters, and discover why clearly preserving the final sound matters for expressing the past tense.

Three years into life in Spain, two friends reflect on slower routines, long meals, and the surprising work of building a new identity abroad. They discuss language barriers, an especially humbling Spanish-speaking experience, creative ways to practice, finding community, and learning to embrace spontaneity, uncertainty, and imperfect communication.

Warm up with playful tongue twisters that sharpen English pronunciation, from easy Peter Piper and toy boat drills to challenging phrases packed with SH, CH, R, L, TH, and consonant clusters. Practice jaw relaxation, tackle “truly rural,” and finish with a Spanish tongue twister challenge.

This conversation is a very special one for me. Danielle and I met many years ago when we were both studying acting in New York, long before either of us knew where life would take us. We were young, ambitious, certain about some things, completely lost about others, and both trying to figure out who we were going to become. And now, all these years later, I got to sit down with her and talk about her first adult novel, a story she has been carrying with her, in one form or another, for about 16 years. Danielle also shares a beautiful exercise for getting started with writing. This is a conversation about books, yes. But really, it's about friendship, identity, dreams, reinvention, and all the unexpected ways our lives unfold. Get the book "This Changes Everything" here: https://www.amazon.com/This-Changes-Everything-Danielle-McKechnie/dp/0063519399

Build a smoother, more consistent English TH sound with a focused five-minute routine. Practice voiced and voiceless TH, tricky THR clusters, challenging endings like “sixth” and “twelfth,” and transitions in everyday phrases. Drill common expressions, natural sentences, and minimal pairs such as “thought” and “taught” or “free” and “three.”

Practice sounding powerful and expressive in English with a scene from The Morning Show featuring Jennifer Aniston. Explore pitch variation, vocal emphasis, reductions, rhythm, clear consonants, and decisive intonation. Follow a line-by-line breakdown, then shadow the full scene to develop a more confident, engaging voice.