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Episode: AEE 2327: What’s Your Secret Sauce?

Author: Lindsay McMahon and Michelle Kaplan
Duration: 00:15:59

Episode Shownotes

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Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_00
This is an all ears English podcast episode 2327. What's your secret sauce? Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English?

00:00:16 Speaker_00
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American hosts, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer. coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.

00:00:38 Speaker_00
To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your seven-day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slash app.

00:00:58 Speaker_01
How can you articulate when a business or a company does something especially well? Today, get a new term to talk about special abilities and qualities with native speakers.

00:01:13 Speaker_00
Hello, Aubrey. How's it going today? I'm great, Lindsay. How are you? Good, but I have a great question for you today. You ready? Yes. Let's hear it. All right. So what do you think when you hear the phrase, the secret's in the sauce?

00:01:25 Speaker_01
Oh man, I think of fried green tomatoes. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I haven't seen it in a while, but I'm sure it holds up. Have you seen that film, Lindsay?

00:01:35 Speaker_00
Of course I have. It's one of my top favorite movie. It probably is in my top three favorite movies of all time. It's fantastic.

00:01:42 Speaker_01
If anyone out there, if you haven't heard of the film, Fried Green Tomatoes, right after you finish this episode, go watch it. Hopefully it's available on streaming somewhere. It is so excellent.

00:01:51 Speaker_01
And there is a part where we're not going to tell you why you have to watch the movie so we don't spoil anything, but they say the secret's in the sauce and you have to watch the film to find out why.

00:02:00 Speaker_00
It's definitely a twist in the movie for sure. So go and check that out. Today's episode is inspired by a question from a listener in Instagram, right, Aubrey? Would you like to read the listener's question?

00:02:13 Speaker_01
Yes, this was from Anastasia Stacey, who said, hi, do you think you can make an episode about the following expressions? Secret sauce and a diamond in the rough. So we actually did talk about Diamond in the Rough recently on an episode.

00:02:27 Speaker_01
It was you and Michelle. So stay until the end. We'll give you that episode number so you can check that out. All about that expression.

00:02:34 Speaker_00
Yes. We'll let you know where to go at the end of the episode. But for now, let's hunker down here and talk about, you know, secret sauce and special sauce. Right. So we're going to start with special sauce. Tell us about this.

00:02:48 Speaker_01
Yeah. So we use this two different ways. The first way is about cooking usually, right? It's a sauce that adds an important element to a dish that has ingredients that are typically kept secret. I think of Raising Cane's.

00:03:01 Speaker_01
Do you have Raising Cane's where you live? They have this like fry sauce. I looked up a copycat recipe and the secret ingredient I think is Worcestershire sauce, which is funny. People say this differently in the US. They say like Worcestershire sauce.

00:03:18 Speaker_00
Interesting, interesting. Okay, so here's some sample sentences. My grandma created a special sauce for her cinnamon rolls. That sounds delicious.

00:03:27 Speaker_01
Right? So this is like the frosting on top, who knows what she puts in it, maybe molasses or honey. And if it's a special sauce, she maybe keeps it secret, right? You might ask her for the recipe and she might say, nope. That's my secret.

00:03:39 Speaker_00
Right. Right. And then sometimes these recipes get passed down among families when someone they leave a cookbook and it gets passed down within the family. Right.

00:03:48 Speaker_01
Exactly. Yes. Very often. Or you might say the diner is known for the special sauce they put on all their sandwiches. And this is the same thing. You would be like, I don't know what's in this. Some kind of aioli. It's delicious. But it's good. Yeah.

00:04:01 Speaker_00
And then restaurants will try to guard that recipe.

00:04:04 Speaker_01
Right.

00:04:04 Speaker_00
Absolutely. Yeah.

00:04:06 Speaker_01
I worked for a restaurant here called Cafe Rio. It has franchised since, so you've maybe eaten there.

00:04:11 Speaker_00
Nice.

00:04:11 Speaker_01
And they make their pork. They marinate it in Coca-Cola and brown sugar.

00:04:16 Speaker_00
Oh my gosh. That's really neat. Are you supposed to share that?

00:04:20 Speaker_01
I can't tell you like numbers. I never knew them, right? But I would watch them like fill the thing with Coca-Cola and go put it in the pork. And I think they tell people that, but that was their secret ingredient was Coca-Cola for the sweetener.

00:04:32 Speaker_00
Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of places will put, you know, their sausage in beer or, you know, marinate things in beer, that sort of thing. So the more unique you get, I mean, you just have to have a good chef who is willing to experiment, right?

00:04:43 Speaker_01
Absolutely. Right. And they can come up with all kinds of interesting flavors by adding different things. But we also use special sauce, totally unrelated to cooking. Yes. To talk about people's qualities.

00:04:55 Speaker_01
Maybe this is like an ability or a practice that makes someone or something more successful or more unique and distinctive.

00:05:04 Speaker_00
Yes. So for example, I've been impressed with the leadership at this company. They have a special sauce of making team members feel valued.

00:05:11 Speaker_00
So it could just be a team value, like a company value, the things that matter to that company and the people in that company, and it kind of emanates out to all the people.

00:05:21 Speaker_01
Exactly. Right? And we'll call this a special sauce. It'd be like, oh, the leadership at that company is amazing. That's clearly their special sauce.

00:05:28 Speaker_01
And you're just sort of saying like, there's something that they're doing that's working, that's really unique, and just call it a special sauce.

00:05:35 Speaker_00
Nice. Or we could talk about software. So for example, this software's special sauce is how well it integrates with social media. Yeah.

00:05:44 Speaker_01
So I mean, it's like it's quality, right? It's some kind of element about it that is really at work, is really making it successful.

00:05:52 Speaker_00
I mean, I think most companies do need to develop this. Most companies, some do it better than others, but they need to develop what they call a unique mechanism.

00:06:02 Speaker_00
The way they teach something, the way they build something that is different from other companies, but it's more effective for some companies than others, I would say.

00:06:11 Speaker_01
For sure. Something that makes them stand out and makes them distinctive. That's really what leads to success when you really have your niche.

00:06:18 Speaker_00
Yes. I love it. Okay. So now let's go into secret sauce. Yeah.

00:06:22 Speaker_01
Yes. And this, I feel like it's pretty interchangeable. There's maybe a slight difference here where this someone might be even more secretive about this.

00:06:32 Speaker_01
So if you're talking about, you know, you say the diner is known for the secret sauce they put on their sandwiches. This is definitely implying that don't ask for the recipe because it's a secret.

00:06:41 Speaker_00
Yeah. And I think just to call out what we talked about at the top of the show, this could get confusing for our listeners because the quote from the movie is the secrets in the sauce.

00:06:51 Speaker_00
And so it's a little bit, it could also be a secret sauce and it probably is, you know, it's, it's, it was a soup, right? Is that what it was? Yeah. Or like a barbecue sauce. Right.

00:06:59 Speaker_00
It's a sauce, but it's also, I just want to show the difference between the two phrases here. Yeah, good point, right?

00:07:06 Speaker_01
So you kind of can say this two different ways, right? That the secret's in the sauce. It is in the sauce. And then we use this more like an adjective, secret sauce.

00:07:15 Speaker_00
Yes. And they essentially mean the same thing. Yeah?

00:07:18 Speaker_01
Yes, exactly. And same with like software or companies or employees, right? You could say the software's secret sauce is how well it integrates with social media. Same meaning it's really pretty interchangeable.

00:07:30 Speaker_01
You're just saying there's something really special and distinctive about it. And yes, in this case, it's how it integrates with social media.

00:07:37 Speaker_00
Yes, I love it. And then so some sample sentences for secret sauce. The diner is known for the secret sauce they put on all their sandwiches. Okay. Yeah.

00:07:46 Speaker_01
And just that little, the tiny difference of it's more secretive, right? They're likely to, and I think you could, you can say special sauce, secret sauce.

00:07:56 Speaker_01
The main reason they would say secret sauce is if it's more of a family secret or a trade secret.

00:08:01 Speaker_00
Right. It's something they actively protect. Right. Right. They will not share it. But the special sauce could just be, hey, we make this all the time. It's why our sandwiches are good. It's not a secret.

00:08:10 Speaker_00
You can have the recipe if you want, but we do it here. Right.

00:08:13 Speaker_01
And I think something interesting to think about is that everyone has a secret sauce or a special sauce. Right. So everyone out there listening, there's something about you that makes you unique and distinctive. Something special.

00:08:24 Speaker_01
So we got to figure out what that is and look for it in others. Right. What a great thing to connect about.

00:08:30 Speaker_00
Yeah, I mean, and we can, I mean, this brings up a bigger conversation, but I love this topic.

00:08:34 Speaker_00
I mean, we can get to this through assessments like StrengthsFinder, looking at our unique ability, our unique genius, all these, there are lots of assessments and self-inquiries that we can do.

00:08:45 Speaker_00
We can go on that journey and figure out what it is that we value, what it is that we do well, right? Yes, figure out our strengths and our secret sauce. Absolutely. Yes. Okay, Aubrey, let's dive into a role play. And here we are working in a restaurant.

00:08:59 Speaker_00
Yeah, I'll start us out. Difficult. Yes. Yes.

00:09:02 Speaker_01
Do you know what's in this special sauce? Everyone loves it. No, they've kept the recipe secret. I'm dying to know what's in it. Well, the chef's secret sauce is making amazing meals, I guess, because this place has been packed since it opened.

00:09:17 Speaker_00
We can take some credit too.

00:09:18 Speaker_01
I've seen a lot of great reviews about the service. I guess you're right. Our secret sauce is excellent service.

00:09:25 Speaker_00
Nice. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. It's true. It's a good conversation that restaurants have to have with their management level and decide what do we do better. There's one restaurant that used to exist in Boston called Durgan Park.

00:09:39 Speaker_00
Have you ever heard of this? No. where their trademark, their secret sauce was that they would be really rude to customers in a jokey way. They would actually not scream at you, but kind of tease you based on what you've ordered.

00:09:52 Speaker_00
And that was their secret sauce. They trained people on that.

00:09:55 Speaker_01
People would go to get ridiculed.

00:09:57 Speaker_00
Yeah. And Boston can be sort of rude. People can be a little abrasive there. So it kind of worked in Boston. I could see that.

00:10:04 Speaker_01
It would be entertaining. You never know what you're going to expect.

00:10:07 Speaker_00
Yeah, unfortunately it closed. It's so sad. So much personality, but anyways. Bummer. All right.

00:10:13 Speaker_01
Well, let's go through this. I first said, do you know what's in this special sauce? So it's some kind of sauce that maybe they're putting on sandwiches. Like everyone clearly loves it.

00:10:22 Speaker_00
Yes, perfect. And then I said, no, they've kept it a secret. And then you said, well, the chef's secret sauce is making amazing meals. So now I'm going more broadly. I'm saying that is his secret skill or his special, unique ability. in a way.

00:10:38 Speaker_01
Yes. And this would be a kind of a fun way to play on words. If you're already talking about a secret sauce, a special sauce, a literal one at a restaurant, then to be like, well, the chef's secret sauce is creating these amazing meals.

00:10:49 Speaker_01
And now we're using it in this more idiomatic way of saying this is his special talent.

00:10:54 Speaker_00
Yeah. That's a really creative way to take that term and bring it out into a bigger conversation about people, which is kind of more interesting in a way. Right.

00:11:01 Speaker_01
Absolutely. Right. Just talk about someone having a secret sauce. Their secret sauce is something they do well.

00:11:07 Speaker_00
Yes, totally. And then at the end, you said, Aubrey, what'd you say?

00:11:10 Speaker_01
You said, our secret sauce is excellent service. We were talking about the good reviews and we're giving ourselves a pat on the back here.

00:11:19 Speaker_00
Right. Exactly. I love it. So good. And I love, again, how we've brought that out to talk about personality. So I think, you know, the call to action for our listeners today will be to dig into what is your secret sauce, right?

00:11:31 Speaker_00
Check out some of the tools that we mentioned earlier and dig into that because we all do have one.

00:11:36 Speaker_01
Absolutely, right? Find out your strengths and then you can use them to be successful at work and in life. And we did promise to share the recent episode where you guys talked about the phrase diamond in the rough. What was that, Lindsay?

00:11:50 Speaker_00
Yes. Yeah, that was 2169, Pearls of English Wisdom. I love that title. Yes, so good. Secret sauce is titling. No, just kidding. So check out that episode. We went pretty deep into this concept. And you and I did an episode on diamonds, too.

00:12:06 Speaker_00
The Diamond in History.

00:12:07 Speaker_01
That was interesting. Yeah. So you guys talked about that actual idiom, diamond in the rough, on that one. But Lindsay and I did an episode about diamond mining and sort of the controversy behind that.

00:12:17 Speaker_01
So if you missed that, maybe just search diamond on the website and you'll find them all.

00:12:22 Speaker_00
Yep, just come back to allersenglish.com and type that in. And I guess a final thought would be not just taking that step of figuring out what your secret sauce is, but learning how to articulate it.

00:12:33 Speaker_00
Because it's only half the battle if we know what it is, but we want to articulate this to our boss at work and to our co-workers and to our families and our friends so we have more opportunities to use our secret sauce. Right, Aubrey? Yes, absolutely.

00:12:46 Speaker_00
I love that.

00:12:46 Speaker_01
And to find out what is the secret sauce of those you know and work with, because what a great way to connect. And also, you'll be able to be more successful working together if you know their strengths as well.

00:12:58 Speaker_00
Yeah, maybe we'll have to do an episode. I'm not sure if we've done an episode on that, on how to introduce your unique skills and talents, how to talk about what you do better than the average person.

00:13:09 Speaker_01
And how to do it without bragging or without seeming like you're just overtly bragging. Exactly. Because sometimes we need to do this in a way that's a little more humble.

00:13:17 Speaker_00
Yeah. So we're going to do that in another episode. Guys, hit the follow button right now on All ears English if you love our style with a focus on connection, not perfection. All right, Aubrey, have a good day. Talk to you soon. You too.

00:13:28 Speaker_00
See you next time. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our two minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score.

00:13:45 Speaker_00
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