Welcome To Your ICON Era

This isn’t just a relaunch. It’s your permission slip to be unforgettable.

In this premiere episode, Koco Gunn — The Voice Architect™ and the Olivia Pope of Public Speaking — reintroduces the Public Speaking Icon podcast and breaks down exactly what it means to step into your Icon Era. If you’ve been crushing it in business but still playing small with your voice, this is your call forward.

We’re talking:

• Why this podcast is back and bolder than ever
• Who this show is really for (spoiler: it’s you)
• The truth about what’s keeping high-achieving women from commanding the mic
• Why presence > perfection — and why memorizing your speech will never make you iconic
• The new rules of public speaking — and the rise of the Speaker Identity™

This isn’t your corporate communications class. This is the space for women ready to own the room, captivate with their story, and turn their voice into their superpower.

🎧 Press play and step into the version of you who’s already booked, already brilliant, and finally seen.

Transcript

0:00

Hey icons. I know, I know. It has been a minute and there's an explanation. There's always an explanation, right? But I'm excited to be back. I'm excited to relaunch this podcast and continue to connect and give you guys. All the golden nuggets around public speaking. So I'd like to officially invite you to episode one of the public speaking icon. My name is Coco Gunn, also known as the Voice Architect, and I am excited to be back in the podcast studio, which is technically AKA My closet, because this is the best way and this is the best area to record my podcast. I am coming to you guys from inside my renovated closet. I say renovated, but I think the word should be organized because at the end of 2025, I wanted to start the new year. Fresh and my closet was an absolute mess. And if you've been following me for a while, you will know that I've done a quite a few, I've done quite a few episodes in my closet when the podcast was two other versions, but it's been about three years since I've been behind the mic, and I am super excited to be back. So let's give you a little backstory on the whole podcast situation. So I originally started this podcast. During the pandemic, and as you guys know, there was lots of opinions and people had thoughts about, there was several extremes when it came to how people were living their lives during 2020. And for me, I just wanted to do what I wanted to do. And so I felt like there was a way for me to connect with you guys during the pandemic,'cause we were on lockdown. And so hanging out with your friends, having conversations was not a thing unless you had a mask on. You know? You know how it was, you know? So I started the podcast and it was just originally a journal, which was called Let Me Live Podcast. And I dunno about you guys, but a lot of people, they rebrand, they start over and at at one point or another, I thought, you know what? I may just start over from scratch, but what's the point? You guys have been listening to me even following my journey. And so as I started to develop in my career and figure out what it is I really wanted to do. Now mind you, I'm still a corporate girly, but. I knew that part of me felt like there was more, and I had no idea at the time when I started this podcast what would come of it. I just was doing it. And mind you, I was doing everything myself. I didn't take, I didn't take any podcast classes. I didn't hire a editor. I was just doing everything on my own. I had the intro song and as you guys can tell, none of that's done here yet, but I figured I needed to start and I would upgrade and do all these things. Down the road. And the important thing was getting an episode out for this relaunch. So after I did let Me Live podcast, I shifted over to a more of a women empowerment personal development concept, which was called the Unapologetic Millennial Woman podcast. And you guys really loved it. The downloads were great, the feedback was great. But as I started to go into that. That era I should call it. I realized I wanted to do a little bit more and something had to give, you know, I was working a full-time job. I had my dance team. I was engaged at the time still being a dog mom, and still of course trying to have a personal life and something had to to give in that moment. And so I decided that I would put the podcast on hold while I. Launched the voice architect and got myself up and running as a public speaking coach and started working with clients, attending events, and really just getting myself solidified in my business. I knew eventually I would bring the podcast back, but I just wasn't exactly sure when that would happen, and well, I. Now's the time, and I feel like I have clarity on my message. I have the audience that knows that they're gonna get value from me in this podcast, and it feels more aligned than in the past. And the cool thing is, is that I've learned so much about podcasting. That it wasn't that big of a deal for me to jump back into it. I just needed to decide when. Right. And now's the perfect timing. It's a new year. We are in the beginning of 2026, and I'm super excited to just bring you guys so much value when it comes to public speaking. Now this podcast is not just gonna be about. The fundamentals. The goal is for you guys to end up being public speaking icons, right? Many of you are looking to get on more stages this year. Some of you maybe just trying to do better on your social media platforms. At the end of the day, a stage doesn't necessarily mean that it is an event. Your guest speaking on podcast or your. Getting on your social media platform. All of those are considered stages, and I wanna be able to give you guys a skillset because some of you guys may be listening and thinking to yourself, I never wanna be on a stage, I never wanna speak on a stage, and that's okay too. But ultimately, if you're a business owner, entrepreneur, if you are a woman or a man that is saying to yourself, I need more visibility. I need to be able to really touch base and put myself in a position to where. I am speaking clearly, articulating my message. Then this podcast is for you. Now, the podcast will include a lot of different things. I plan on having special guests, but right now it's just gonna be me as I get the ball rolling and get myself up and moving. And I'm planning on doing maybe 20 to 30 minute episodes only because I know some of you are probably listening to this on your way to work or on the treadmill. And we all know cardio sessions, if you do more than 45, 30 minutes. You're crazy. So I wanted to make sure these are short and sweet and to the point and you guys are gonna be able to get value and not have to sit here for hours. Now with that being said, I may have a special guest or two and those po those episodes are probably gonna be a little bit longer, but for now it's just me and me behind the microphone and you listening to the podcast. And you know, when I, I thought about what I wanted this to really feel like for me is just. You're walking away or you're listening and you're building confidence, right? You're, you're building this skillset that is beneficial, whether you're speaking on stages or you are, it's hitting an event, you're doing a presentation online. Anything that is public speaking related is what this podcast is gonna be for. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, okay, do I fit into this? Into this dynamic, right? Is this gonna be a podcast that's gonna be great for me? And it may or may not be. Either way, you're here and you're listening and you're, you can decide for yourself. Ultimately, the, uh, listener that's probably gonna get the most out of this is someone who is already accomplished, right? Whether it's in your business, in your corporate career, whether you already have the ball moving, but for some reason you were hiding behind your brand. And I see it happen all the time. I think even I was guilty of it at one point. You build this incredible business. You have a service or a product that you offer. And you don't really understand that in order for you to take it to the next level, you have to become the brand. You have to speak like you are the brand. Right? Let's think about Chick-fil-A, for example. We know that the cow is the brand. We, we see a cow. We automatically think of Chick-fil-A. It would be super weird if the owner of Chick-fil-A or the franchise owners just popped out all of a sudden and decided to be the brand. It wouldn't make sense. When you're an entrepreneur or you're a business owner and you're doing a service or a product, you end up being the face and you have to be comfortable speaking and talking and interviewing because no one wants to just be doing social media content forever. You wanna do interviews, you may wanna do some podcast guests, you know, be a podcast guest, or you may eventually wanna speak on a stage and add value to an audience. But ultimately you need, in order for you to do that, you have to find your voice. You have to work on the skill sets. You have to have stage presence. You have to become an icon, and that is what I'm creating in my community at standing O with myself. I mean, the last year for me was definitely a lot of shadow work and growth. Trying to find who Coco was, and maybe that's probably the best thing I ever could do because I was doing this podcast and I felt at one point I was super corporate and it sounded so structured and so perfect. This podcast is not gonna be perfect. I'm not gonna be auditing anything at this point. If I get an intro song, great. If I don't, I'm cool with that too. But I don't want this to feel so perfect that it just becomes not enjoyable for me to do anymore. So you're getting the raw audio, whether I make mistakes, I say filler words again, I'm a human being and that is part of growth. And the last year I worked really hard on myself. I cut my hair, I lost some weight, and we'll get more into that as you go into episodes. But I just wanna give you guys a little bit of the backstory and give you an idea of what you can. Look forward to in public speaking icon. You know, we're gonna talk about speaking in front of the camera, getting on stages. You know, what a slide deck can and cannot do for you when it comes to speaking and making it so easy for you to hop on and feel so confident. That's the, that is the ultimate goal here, and I want you guys to remember something, public speaking is not about a script, and we're gonna get into that as well. You know, the memorization piece, public speaking is an art form. It's something that you have to work on and develop over time. It's not something that's gonna happen overnight. It's not something that you can say to yourself, I'm perfect, because even as a coach, my degree. My college degree is in public speaking. I am constantly working on the skillset because times change, you change your personality, changes you grow, and the way that you spoke maybe two or three months ago may not be different. You may have more structure, more clarity, more flow on your delivery, and that's the whole point of working on it. And that's the whole point of having a podcast that you can access to work on those skills every single week. Now. I have to be honest with you, I have no cadence right now. I may do four, four episodes a month. I may do an episode per week. I'm really just trying to make this align with what I currently have going on, and I don't wanna do, I don't wanna feel like there's constant pressure to perform, right? I want this to be fun. I want this to be enjoyable when I wanna be able to get into my closet and feel like this is a session where I'm giving everything and it's not under, under pressure. By any means, and I know that some of you guys listening can definitely relate to that. So that's the goal here. But you know, as we get into the episodes, this one's gonna be super short'cause I wanna just give you guys an introduction and let you know your girl is back. But ultimately, you know, I don't want this to feel like a lecture for memorization of a speech. I just don't, that's not the goal because you guys know if you memorize your speech the minute you forget a word, it's over. So we're gonna take that and we're gonna. Debunk the myth in a sense as we go through. Whether this is a season, I don't know, you know this is gonna be, but we're gonna follow that. We're gonna, we're gonna let this flow and I appreciate you guys being along for the journey. It is going to be a wild one for sure. I attended 15 events last year, and when I tell you I've got some feedback for you, we're gonna talk all about that as well in 2026. So what you can expect over the next couple of episodes over the next year. You are gonna be looking at how to craft your speaker identity. I want you guys to be able to command and own a room. Remember, if you think about the movies or the speakers that you really enjoy, it wasn't about. Necessarily what they said it was, how they set it on stage and the way that they made you feel. They were able to make you move and take action. And I'm gonna be teaching you guys those skill sets. We're also gonna talk a little bit about owning your message and your brand voice and how important it is to create what I call the Beyonce method, which means if you guys know Beyonce has a personality that she becomes on stage, Sasha Fierce. And as you grow your public speaking career, you're gonna have to create a speaker identity. Who do you want to be known as on stage? And eventually you're gonna embody that speaker because now it's become a part of you. And last but not least, we're gonna talk a little bit about networking. Like a boss. Part of growth and development, especially if you wanna get on stages, is getting in rooms and having conversations and building relationship relationships. And I can honestly tell you a lot of speakers, especially those of you that are saying to yourself, I wanna be on more stages in 2026, you're missing this valuable piece. I was literally listening, not listening, but I was looking at threads the other day and a lot of. Thread post when it came to speaking, had to deal with, I wanna get paid to speak on stages. And yeah, that's all great, but that doesn't happen after four to five to six stages you've spoken on. That comes from building relationships, and I think that's something that I really wanna hone in on and I really wanna talk about because we're missing the boat. Majority of you guys are missing the boat. You will see someone post on threads or you'll see someone post on Instagram that they're looking for speakers and you immediately. Apply or you put yourself out there, talk about what you're speaking about, but you haven't built the relationship and that's super important. You have to make sure that this audience that you wanna speak in front of is full of your ideal client. Otherwise, you're just getting maybe some photos and videos. But the whole goal is for you to get clients and to scale your business. You're speaking on stages, right? So this is not gonna be a corporate communications class. This is going to be for anyone that wants to become an icon, own the mic and own your moments on stage. So I want you to remind you. You can expect to feel seen. It will definitely have some challenges here. And you're gonna be expanded and ulti, and at the end of the day, you're also gonna be called forward. And some things may be triggering that I say some things you may or may not agree with, but that's the whole point of having a podcast. That is my podcast, is to think my thoughts and opinions and give them to you, and you can decide on what works best for you. I can honestly tell you, of course, you will also hear some truths that go against the traditional speaking advice. And that's exactly the point of why I created this. I don't want it to be or sound like anyone else because I'm me. I'm Coco Gunn, the voice architect and mu Olivia Pope of Public speaking, which I dawned on myself. So with that being said, welcome to episode one. I'm just giving you guys an introduction. Please, if you know someone that can benefit from this, please like, share, subscribe. Let people know that podcast is back out. We are up and running and I'm looking forward to adding value and connecting with you guys as much and as possible as I can. If you're interested in connecting with me, you guys can reach out to me on Instagram at the Voice Architect. You can also follow the Instagram page at the public speaking icon. Podcast, all of these links will be in the show notes. I am launching a live event next week, so stay tuned for that. As well as if you are saying to yourself, this is the year you wanna get on stages, this is the year that you are wanting to build visibility. This is the year that you want to find your voice. I started a community called Standing O that is a public speaking community where we work every single week on building and developing your public speaking skills. The link is in the show notes. Drop in, take a look, see what's gonna be, be a fit for you. And I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to bring this back and we will see you guys on the next episode. Ciao.