The voice you have today is not the same voice you were born with. The things you experience and the media you’re exposed to, all contribute to how you sound and frame what your idea of a powerful voice “should” sound like. But when you step out of the parameters set by culture, and abandon the idea of sounding “professional” you will discover that true power in your voice.

Today’s episode is a revolution in how to think about your voice with Samara Bay, author of “Permission to Speak”. We nerd out on redefining what power sounds like, why other people’s voices and words impact your own voice, and what you can do to shift that narrative. Speaking with our “heart voice”, we dare you to consider what it would be like to have a different, more empowering relationship with your voice.

Listen in as we break down the new sound of power including:

  • How to authentically show up and be taken seriously
  • Owning the words coming out of your mouth
  • The importance of audaciously choosing to sound like you

Links worth exploring from the episode:

Engage with Samara Bay:

Connect with Mary!

Podcast cover art by Emily Johnston of Artio Design Co.

Transcript with audio description:

[MUSIC IN]

CLIP – SAMARA: I and you and all of us can fall into that trap when we do feel like we have something to prove of not showing up so free. And one of the ways we can accomplish hiding is by pushing down on our vocal cords, not just so that the pitch is lower, but so that we get really monotone and then we end up sounding like somebody who is unknowable. You cannot tell how I really feel about something.

[MUSIC OUT // PAUSE A BEAT // INTRO]

<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Welcome to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

MARY: Reveal and define your voice to speak your truth through the power of podcasting. And I’m your host, Mary Chan.

<< WOMAN SINGS: So so so so let’s go >>

MARY: Hello! This is going to be a good one. This is episode number 63, permission to speak to redefine the sound of power with Samara Bay.

[INTRO MUSIC OUT/ MUSIC IN]

The voice you have today is not what you were born with. Things change based on your community, who you grew up with, not just within your core family and who you live with, but also the media, society, everyone around you. Teachers, friends, enemies. I remember as a kid trying new words when I would hear somebody else say it and just wonder, does this fit with what I’m trying to say? And how did they say it? Can I say it the same way or in a different tone? Mostly because I looked up to them. They were older than me, usually, and I wanted to be liked. I wanted to see if it fit who I was at the time. So growing up, your voice becomes a combination of your history and your feelings. 

Your sound is created from habits you’ve picked up over the years, whether you liked it or not, if you were aware of it, or if it was all absorbed subconsciously, which is usually what happens. And then fast forward you’re a podcaster or you’re hoping to launch a show soon, and you were probably told what sounds good or bad. Anyone whose voice that doesn’t represent this societal norm in the Western world especially, definitely knows this. I, for one, have been told many times about how I need to have a lower voice or stop talking so fast or I sound really young. You’re so young. Oh, great, just because I talked way up here, all of that made me feel small and minimized because, well, I am small. I’m a tiny Chinese-looking woman. They, the ones telling me these things. The authority figures in my life, they held the power. For generations, we’ve been taught how authority should sound, but that comes from a really old model that doesn’t do us justice anymore. Things are changing. 

So come along on this episode to change along with it. I am so, so, so, thrilled you’ll hear it in my voice when I talk to her. To share with you one of my favourite speech coaches in the world, Samara Bay. Samara’s clients range from candidates for U.S. Congress to C-suite executives international diplomats, high school girls, and Hollywood celebrities. Her Penguin Random House book, Permission to Speak, is a revolution in how to think about your voice and everyone else’s. It’s out now, and I highly recommend you get yourself a copy after you hear what we talk about today. Samara and I nerd out on how to change what power sounds like, why other people’s voices and words impact your own voice, and what you can do to shift that narrative and giving you permission to speak just like the title of her book, and to do it with spirit, through your heart voice. As Samara asks in this episode, dare I consider what it would mean to have a different relationship with my voice? I want you to think of that question as you listen in.

[MUSIC OUT]

MARY: Samara, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s like, fangirl moment for me here.

SAMARA: My absolute pleasure. I’m happy to talk with you.

MARY: So my background, um, outside of working with podcasters, I started in radio 20 years in the radio industry, being a little bit in front of the mic, but most of the work, I was behind the microphone. So creating commercials, directing voices, um, doing the voiceover work. And a lot of that time and now in podcasting as well, it translates into it. People always say, oh, make me sound more professional. And I’m like, I get it, I get it. But why? Like, what is this professional, quote-unquote, sound we’re all trying to achieve here? Because in radio, the best radio hosts were always the ones that sounded just like themselves, versus how, you know, we need to sound like this broadcaster and that broadcaster and, oh my gosh, when I do this, I always put my voice in this lower register, right? So when I heard about you and your podcast and your work, I was like, oh my gosh, this person is saying all the things in my head, but have actually like, thought out all the words for it. The idea of the new sound of power. That whole phrase right there was like, oh, my gosh, this is exactly what I am thinking. So, tell me about the first time you were first inspired about this new idea of sound that you’ve created.

SAMARA: You know, it’s so funny, I don’t actually remember when I first had the thought that this is actually like a concept that I should sort of codify, right? The new sound of power. But the creeping sense that so many of us who should be sharing our ideas, who should be in leadership positions, who should be pitching our heart out and getting all of the money from the venture capitalists, you know, those of us who should who in a world that is fair, should be speaking in a voice that is free and clear and joyful and full of possibility. Are instead stifled by all of these old cultural stories about what powerful people are supposed to sound like. That was a creeping sense that I had literally from working with people. I mean, you know, part of my background is coaching actors, and then I have this moment that I write about in chapter eight, right, where I was coaching Gal Gadot on Wonder Woman Two. I was in Washington, DC. It was the summer of 2018, and the U.S. was in this wild moment when we were two years into the presidency of that dude, and we were hurtling towards our first midterm, which I think all of us, whether we were, like, professional activists or not, could sense was a real narrative moment. Like, can we rest the narrative back? 

And because of that, many, many, many, first-time candidates were running for the 2018 midterms, but they also didn’t necessarily know how to do the campaign part of it. Right? Campaigning is a lot of things. Part of it is asking for money. Part of it is speaking to large crowds, right? Part of it is figuring out their policies and what they stand for. And I was thrown headfirst into this because this really cool organization in the U.S. called MoveOn.org that finds excellent candidates and offers them various kinds of support, found me and said, would you be willing to be one of these arms of support? And I realized when I was working with these women who are running for office, that, that last thing I said. The policy, the where they stand, that they were golden on. But how to talk about it in a way that brings people in and isn’t all about their completely understandable insecurities when on a big stage? That was the challenge.

And for most of us, even those of us who are professional voice people, right? When we’re in a high enough stake situation, all of the dormant stories come alive again. And the stories are from our own childhood. The stories are from our culture at large. And this is why we need this cultural reckoning of what power is supposed to sound like, because many of us take for granted there is one way to sound powerful. You lower your voice like you just did, right? You try to go for, quote-unquote, professional. And the word professional in this case, is both a stand-in for like, the norm, just kind of a neutral. I’m not saying that it’s bad or good. It’s just the norm, especially in a, uh, journalism context, right? There’s sort of a normal way that people are trained to speak in a like, lawyer prosecutorial environment. It’s slightly different. But again, there’s a norm, in science, the way that scientists speak to each other on big stages, there’s a norm, right? None of this is good or bad. It’s just that this is how subcultures form, right? There’s things that are normal, and there’s things that are deviations from the norm. 

And then the other part of the word professional is a container word, I think, for patriarchy, white supremacy. Right? All the ways that our systems are set up to say that certain people deserve to have more power than other people. And we’ll keep it that way by allowing access only to people who sound a certain way. When I got really clear on that part of it, that speaking about voices is a social justice issue, it became like an inevitable, you know, okay, I have to go there now. This is now the thing. This is now the thing. So really, from coaching those 2018 candidates, I realized so much about how many of our brains work and what a mess it is to try to unpack. Well, then how am I supposed to show up in these high-stakes moments in a way that both gets me taken seriously and also feels good? Is it possible for those two things to be happening at once? How do we reconcile that?

MARY: Oh, yes, exactly. And two things can happen at once.

SAMARA: Well, yeah, I’m a coach, so like, fortunately, this isn’t just a theoretical conversation. This is actually like, okay, but for the person in front of me, you know, what works?

MARY: Yeah. And all the work that I do, I always point back to the question, like, how do you want your listener to feel? And I feel like the feelings part is missing a lot in the voice part when people are coming to us and they’re like, oh, I want to get rid of my, ums, or I want to sound, quote, unquote professional. But, the question I always ask people is, how do you want your listener to feel? And I think that mainly comes up because when I was a little girl, like, you were saying stories, right? I grew up being the youngest of three in a traditional Chinese household to immigrant parents. And so I was told to look pretty and stay over there, and I was this tiny, tiny little person. Like, we can’t see each other over podcasting, but I’m like five foot one, five foot two, I would like to say on my license, but you know, I’m stretching it. And I’ve always been small, and so people had always put me into this little box of small, cute little girl. I was just told, you’re small, you’re cute, you know, you don’t have feelings. And then when I go into radio school we’re told to, you are only supposed to talk to one person. And this one person was just always about demographics, you know, how old are they? Um, you know, what gender are they? But they never had feelings. They never had full-fledged feelings. And I feel like that’s always been missing in that nuance of talk about voice. And so I loved in your emotions chapter, that you address the word authenticity and how you wrote that is, you say, quote, its meaning has become murky. Such a great word, first of all, for that, but secondly, in the podcasting space, the word is so overused. And I mean, it’s good to have a word there so that we can talk about the use of feelings and emotions in our voice. But yeah, it is just so overused in our world, and so how,

SAMARA: Sorry. Yeah. Uh, you can ask a question, but I have so many thoughts about what you just said.

MARY: Uh, so what does authenticity mean to you?

SAMARA: Well, what I’m hearing in what you’re setting up, which is so cool and so useful, I think, for all of us, is this is a little reductionistic, but I’m I’m going to say it. The old way of approaching how any of us might speak into a microphone is thinking about ourselves. How do I sound? How shall I come across? And even the word authentic in this case is about that. How should I come across? Like, the me-est version of me possible? The new again, old and new. It feels like a little bit of an oversimplification, but, I’m, I’m, I’m offering it. The new way of thinking about how any of us might approach a microphone that you’re offering is connecting to our listener and making it not about ourselves, but literally our actions, how we want them to feel is, well, what do we want to do to them? And then it’s not about who we are, which raises these impossible questions about which version of us is the real us, 

MARY: Right

SARMARA: And instead makes it about connection. Which version of me matters for this conversation? Even if it’s only one-sided to happen? How do I transmit the things I want to talk about in a way that makes it matter to my listener? And if it doesn’t, and if I don’t care, then don’t do it. So there’s even built into it a litmus test of your purpose. But I will say, to answer your question more directly, authenticity, I think all of us know, is, um, meant to be a word to capture some spirit of truth. It is an attempt at getting at something that feels true rather than something that feels fake. So you know,  to tie it back into what we were talking about with the professional voice, right? Like the benefit of, uh, taking on a professional voice that suddenly sounds like everyone who has ever spoken before in a power position. Right. The benefit of it is you signal instantly to your listener, you should take me seriously. The drawback is you don’t sound like you. You don’t sound like a whole human person with a heart. You sound generic. You sound like you have done the work to make yourself generic, which is a way of breaking trust with your listener. So this is the kind of like modern media training that I think you and I are inside of where we go. Sometimes I say with pure love. Sometimes we have to just jump straight to how do I signal as quickly as possible. Take me seriously. Okay, I’ll do that old thing.

MARY: Yes.

SAMARA: And sometimes the more and more we have a little bit of power or platform or privilege, really, we get to experiment a little bit with how do I let some of that go? Worry less about other people taking me seriously, quote unquote. And instead step into the type of leadership where I have decided that going for connection, that making the person on the other end not necessarily take me seriously, but feel seen is a higher goal.

MARY: I love how your book really is broken down into all the aspects of voice coaching, like each chapter you know, breath and tone and pitch and size and all of that stuff. But you leave words until chapter seven.

SAMARA: Isn’t that wild? 

MARY: Yeah 

SAMARA: I mean, you know, I even joke at the top of chapter seven, like, Oh ha ha ha, there’s also words.

MARY: In the world in podcasting. A lot of people are so hyper-focused on words. So I love that you leave it to later. Let’s not focus on that quite yet. Here are some more important concepts. I also feel like when podcasters are talking about words, it’s more of like a symptom of maybe a bigger challenge or issue that’s happening. Like when you have a cold, you might have like, a stuffy nose or a cough, but really that’s just a symptom. And so the root of the stuffy nose, let’s address what that is, actually. So why did you choose not to talk about words until much later in your book?

SAMARA: I think that’s right. I mean, first of all, first of all, on a practical level, this book is just not about telling people what to do. So how could anybody actually tell people what words to use?

MARY: Right?

SAMARA: There was an intrinsic issue with having any chapter, no matter where it goes on words because the reality is so many different types of people are reading my book from so many different industries with so many different goals. You know, each of us is so unique and the next job in front of us and the next one is different for each of us. So it’s not like you’re going to find in the words chapter like, these are the words to use, right?

MARY: Yeah.

SAMARA: So what is the point of a words chapter in a book about how we communicate? Well, honestly, it’s about our own relationship, each of our own personal relationships, to our own sense of how articulate we are. How much we can trust that the right words will come out in the right order when the stakes are high. And that, in a way, isn’t about the words either. Right? So even the chapter on words isn’t really about words, but is about how we reconcile ourselves to the reality that I don’t think anyone talks about. Not enough at least, that communication is not about finding the right words. Communication is about trying out some collection of words in the moment for the ears that are listening. And then in complete good faith, saying or without words saying, did those words work. If not, I’ve got others. And then communicating is you know, a dance. It’s a collaboration.

MARY: It so is. And I find so many people are like, oh, but I gotta have to find like, this word needs to go with that word. And then I’m going to end the sentence and I’m like, but do we speak in sentences? Like, where do you ever say period?

SAMARA: For sure, and look inside of this? Of course, I don’t mean to be flippant, because inside of this is, again, an opportunity to look at the swirling power dynamics, the social justice component of well, why is this word, quote, unquote articulate so loaded? Because if you don’t sound like somebody who traditionally has power, by which I mean your accent codes for race or class in a way that you know, we try to pretend doesn’t exist in American and Canadian culture, and yet it’s all around us. Then being articulate, meaning putting fancy words together in a classy order. I don’t know, I made that phrase up, but whatever, something like that is a way to cut through the potential biases. So being articulate is a big deal in terms of trying to get taken seriously. Again, we’re in the trying to get taken seriously part of the conversation, but there’s a lot of things that complicate that. One of them is, wouldn’t it be nice to just name the biases and give yourself a break so you don’t have to try to make the words connect to each other in a way that makes the other person’s ears realize they should take you seriously? Like, can we just name that? That’s like a really annoying challenge to be up against every single day in, say, your workplace. Um, but also on more of like a somatic level, constantly trying to chase some version of yourself that you aren’t is exhausting and does not lead to your best self coming out and the biggest impact you could possibly make. 

So what I’m really offering with the Words chapter, with this breaking down of the concept of articulate, is, as Barack Obama beautifully modelled for us with the phrase “yes, we can”. Which he borrowed from Dolores Huerta, but with the simplicity of yes, we can rather than this long, ridiculous phrase that I made up in that chapter. That’s full of, uh, what we would call SAT words, right? Yes we can. As a reminder that often the simplest language is the best, is the clearest, is the strongest, is the most emotionally weighty, and says the thing, in a way that is undeniable. And that often the multisyllabic words that are stand-ins for like, please take me seriously, I’m fancy, don’t. And you know, I’m an English major. And I’m a, um Shakespeare nerd. So, of course, the caveat here is, like, if fancy words make you feel delight oh my god, of course words are our play, in a way. But if they don’t make you feel delight, if they trigger a sense of I’m trying to get taken seriously. Please take me seriously. We are out of alignment. We are out of our power. It sucks and it’s bad communication.

MARY: Yeah. And I feel that because in the way I grew up, I had always thought that, oh, I am not an academic, so I am not an English major. I went to a radio school program. Like, I didn’t even I didn’t want to go to university because I felt like I was never an academic because I didn’t have the fancy words. But what I do now is realizing, well, I can’t pronounce most of those fancy words anyway, and it tricks the tongue. Like, I’m just tripping on myself all the time. So what’s another way to say the fancy word that is just more to who I am. And so I offer that as well to the podcasters I work with. I’m like, don’t try and write out your script and find the fancy word, but how do you say it? That goes back to, I guess, what we were saying before, the authenticity that is more you, and that really makes you come alive. It doesn’t matter what the word is.

SAMARA: Totally. And you know, sometimes there are delicious words that are so specific that so do what you want them to do and you find them and you hold on to them and you go, ooh, when I talk about what I do, I’m going to remember to use that word because it always, like, real, you know, but that’s because you found a relationship with that word. You’re not using it for someone else, you’re using it for you. And if you are using it for someone else, it’s for them to feel things, not for them to take you seriously, right? So this is the other part of that chapter, is about having a visceral relationship to words, which I mean, I guess I should say having an acting background was actually something that we were trained in, and I know that most people weren’t. So it’s also a place to sort of offer that that we can use that great almost 200-year-old poem, We are the Music Makers, “because we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams wandering by lone sea breakers and sitting by desolate streams world losers and world forsakers upon whom the pale moon gleams. But we are the movers and shakers of the world forever, it seems”. And when we can say that or obviously anything that we’ve memorized and go, world losers and world, forsakers on whom the pale moon gleams. It’s just poetry. Like we can make it mean whatever we want it to mean. But choosing to make it mean something and allow the sounds coming out of your mouth to connect to that meaning, to connect to your heart, connect to emotion, is not just something our bodies are set up to be able to do, although many of us have many years of experience avoiding doing that. But also almost, uh, obligation. Certainly an opportunity, but I think a responsibility, if we’re going to be the one speaking and other people are going to be listening, on a stage or on a metaphorical stage, to own the words coming out of your mouth.

MARY: You know, there are so many points in your book that my copy is flagged. I’m just going to [SOUND OF FLIPPING THROUGH STICKY NOTES FLAGGED IN BOOK] this is all the little Post-It Notes.

SAMARA: That’s the greatest sound. [LAUGHTER]

MARY: But okay, so after writing all of your thoughts down, you’re publishing it into the world earlier this year, doing the book tour. What is the main courageous conversation that we’re not having right now? You’ve written it all down, but is there something that you want to highlight more of?

SAMARA: For some people, and maybe, you know, those of you listening, you’re feeling this, you hear this and you go, oh, yes, finally, right? Kind of like, Mary, your reaction, right? Oh, finally we get to have this conversation. But for so many of us, it’s really the first time that we’ve been allowed to think that hating our own voice could be solved or is a worthy endeavour. Because part of living in this you know, patriarchal, white supremacist, capitalist, colonial culture is to go, hating my voice is normal. End of story. Don’t put any effort there.

MARY: Yeah. Yeah.

SAMARA: So I think the courageous conversation for me to be having, but also for all of us to be having inside our own heads is, dare I take that on? Dare I consider what it would mean to have a different relationship with my voice and to honour that there’s a whole new set of possibilities for me, for any of us. If we like the sound of our voice or if we even just feel neutral about it, and if we approach public speaking opportunities from a perspective of love rather than fear. Because that’s the other part of hating your voice, is fearing using it. And I don’t only mean in this sort of politicized way where we say, use your voice, although obviously, I’m here for that as well. But I mean, even in more self-advocacy or community advocacy right. Or talking about your idea in a meeting, like, it deserves to be heard. And that’s really what’s at stake when we’re talking about our relationship to our voice. It’s like our relationship to how we be, out loud every day, and especially when the stakes are high and our life could be changed by how we show up or hide.

MARY: Yeah. Uh, okay. I’m going to switch gears a little bit now to specifically, more podcasting. So I originally found you down the rabbit hole of podcasts and your podcasts with the same name of the book, Permission to Speak. You have this knowledge and experience with the literal voice, but now you are behind the microphone with this podcast. What parts of creating a podcast were challenging for you?

SAMARA: Oh, I love this question. Um, okay, I’m jumping back, you know, over three years now. And not just three years, but three very formative years for me. I pitched the podcast four years ago, March of 2019 to iHeartRadio. They bought it in the room. I went hard on like, there’s no podcast about the voice on this medium that you know, celebrates the voice. And then there was a year of whatever, like, things taking a long time in the massive corporate world that is iHeartRadio. And we finally launched it February of 2020, which of course was seconds before the pandemic. So my in-studio interviews were, uh, limited and it became a home operation. And then March of 2020. So just a few weeks into the launch of the podcast, and I had a few episodes banked, I pitched my book.

MARY: Oh wow.

SAMARA: And it sold. And the clock started ticking on the book. And of course, also, as with many of us, I lost all my child care and we were in lockdown. It was a bizarro time. So in the midst of all that, I was recording this podcast and learning, as you suggest, a huge amount about my own voice. And I don’t really just mean the sounds, right? I kind of never just mean the sounds, but I mean, um, my relationship to how I sound when I’m talking as an expert, right? And part of you know, the gamble that I’m interested in for the quote-unquote new sound of power is that expertise does not have to sound like it comes from some serious, centaurian, authoritative voice in order to get taken seriously. We can still be playful and we can still swear, and we can still you know, have lived the life we’ve actually lived up until this moment, and also have collected the great wisdom that we have. And what if those things all you know, come out in how we talk? And I have to say, I got there off and on throughout my podcast, but I also didn’t off and on. I think I really started out and you know, I start one of my chapters actually honouring what a mess I was at the microphone. My very first time interviewing someone who was totally intimidating to me. And the producers couldn’t really tell the iHeart folks were like, yeah, great job for an early podcaster, for a virgin podcaster. Great job. And I was thinking to myself, I have notes. 

[LAUGHTER] 

Because I could tell that even though I’m me and I know what I know about how we fake our voice to try to sound more generic, I nonetheless was doing it. My nervous system, my body’s fear mode was doing it. And so I’ll tell you more specifically what I mean by that. I was going into more of a monotone. So not just pushing down on my vocal cords, as ah, many women do, in order to sound lower pitched, whole chapter on pitch. And that’s also obviously related to that voice that you gave us earlier. So it’s. Not just now. I’m a serious person, so I speak with a lower pitch. But also I shave off all the weirdness, I shave off all of the unpredictability. My sense of humour, my you know, sense of whimsy, the things that are so uniquely me I can’t even name them. But they’re how I show up when I’m talking to my favourite people around whom I have nothing to prove. And I, and you, and all of us can fall into that trap when we do feel like we have something to prove of not showing up so free. And one of the ways we can accomplish hiding is by pushing down on our vocal cords. Not just so that the pitch is lower, but so that we get really monotone. So that everything that we say sounds like this and there’s not really sometimes it even goes into our throat and sounds like vocal fry. Right? And then we end up sounding like somebody who is unknowable. You cannot tell how I really feel about something.

MARY: Yeah, we’re just hiding. We’re just like no, don’t peek into this crack that I’ve started.

SAMARA: Exactly. Exactly. Which made me realize, I think that “aha” happened actually when I was doing my podcast. That the opposite. Using pitch variation and I don’t mean in some sort of clownish way where we’re like oh, talking like that, right? But just the actual pitch variation that emerges when we are feeling free. When we go up, sometimes we get excited and then we go down and we’re feeling, I don’t know, conspiratorial. That kind of range inside of a single sentence and then also in you know, larger waves as we have a conversation. That kind of range codes for vulnerability. I am willing to be seen, is what we’re saying inside of that kind of range. I am willing for you to know me and to know, not only who I am, but what I care about. Because vulnerability is all about, now you know how you can hurt me. I mean, that’s the sad way of saying it, but it’s true. Vulnerability is these are the holes in my armour. But another way of putting that that’s not a sad way of putting it is, if I tell you what I care about now you know what I care about in a way that’s like the deepest form of bonding. I’m willing to say, this matters to me, and I think that actually that phrase, that thought and the emotional component that goes along with it, I’m willing to say this matters to me like it matters to me. So now you know, that is the absolute heart of the kind of communication that will change the world for ourselves, for all of us.

MARY: And I know too, when I was listening to your podcast, uh, you know, so many, “aha moments” and I think very similar to when I’m reading the book. And so if you don’t have the book yet, please do get it. Permission to Speak. Go find it at your favourite local bookshop. But also because we’re podcasters, we love listening to podcasts. So this might be like picking your favorite child. But of all the episodes that you have, which one would you recommend to a podcaster to, uh, start listening to?

SAMARA: It depends what you want and what you know, care about if you’re at all interested in politics, definitely the one with Ilyse Hogue. I-L-Y-S-E, Ilyse Hogue. She’s a big deal in Washington, and she’s a friend of mine. And her advice on how to do this thing, that, in a way, was what I was helping them MoveOn.org women with, how to do this thing where you kind of scale up your life and then talk about it is really helpful. And I quoted her in my book a bunch. But if you’re interested more in just, like, this larger conversation about identity, how we kind of us ourselves out loud, the one that just popped up as a reminder to me is Sarah Jones. Sarah with an H. Jones. And she’s a famous voice actor who does characters and has Broadway shows, and Meryl Streep has been a huge donor of her work. But she’s also a black woman in America with a you know, complicated, multiracial growing up experience. And that comes out in both her conversation and also in her work. And I think it’s such like, such a juicy way to enter into this conversation.

MARY: Okay, those will be linked in the show notes so that we can all listen to them and yeah, be with you. You’re with us, by our sides.

SAMARA: I love that, have to say, since the book has come out, I have gotten so many comments and notes from readers and from listeners. Oh, my gosh. I mean, first of all, it’s like, a better response than I dreamed of, because I don’t think I was allowing myself to dream that much about the response. Um, that was a little too scary while I was, like, writing in isolation during COVID, you know. But second of all, yeah, I think the big thing I am hearing over and over in different ways is that people are actually changing the way that they talk to themselves in their own head. That is just really moving to me. You know, what can I say? It’s so powerful.

MARY: Thank you so much for writing the book, for creating the podcast, for the work, for you, for just being you.

SAMARA: My pleasure. Thank you.

MARY: I always, uh, end this question with all my guests, though. So last thing, before you go, what are you most excited about podcasting right now?

SAMARA: Okay, I have a few thoughts. [LAUGHTER] Okay. One, I would love to have a conversation with Brene Brown. So if I’m totally being honest, I’m excited about that. I just heard her talking about armour, and the way she and I think about this is so related. But of course, hers doesn’t necessarily talk about the okay, but so what do we do when the stakes are high and the microphone is on us and we have to actually have our ideas from the inside come out. So I would love to have that conversation with her, but obviously, just in general, I love that podcasting is a real breeding ground for the democratization of the voice. We are hearing so many different people talk in so many different ways, obviously many of whom are torn in this, in between place of, how do I sound to get taken seriously, right? All those questions, but fortunately also breaking through audaciously with I’m just going to sound like me and then that becomes the new norm. And that is stunning. And that the norm is not a single thing, but a diversity of things that’s really exciting to me.

MARY: Thank you so much. Thank you again. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

SAMARA: My absolute pleasure.

[MUSIC IN]

MARY: At one time, outside of this conversation, Samara said to me, when we change what power sounds like, we change who has it. Mic drop for me right there. And that right there is the essence of what this podcast is all about and what I do, that as podcasters, we have the ability to change what power sounds like. We’ve been told for too long that we don’t matter. All these voices overpowering our own thoughts because of what should or should not be, you know, quote-unquote, should. And you know what? Listen back to this episode and listen to my voice specifically because of my excitement, because of our shared nerding out. I am more higher pitched. I speak faster on a roll with my enthusiasm. My voice was all over the place, but that was truly me in that moment, that felt good. Even though it might not sound quote-unquote, professional, it’s not a good or bad thing. You know, both of those feelings can exist. It’s something I picked up due to being the youngest in my family and literally the smallest person in the room for most of my life. I go back into that high-pitched sound and that is my enthusiasm. I have permission, and you do too, to sound the way that you do. Let your spirit guide your speech. Samara’s idea of sounding like who you love is exactly what I talked about in Episode 55, about finding your podcasting voice. And as she says, it’s about caring out loud, using your voice to care. So if you haven’t listened yet to Episode 55, I suggest you go back to that one and go through those questions because I pose a couple questions for you to step into the power of your voice. That’s a great starting point for you if you haven’t checked that one out yet. 

So again, pick up Samara’s book. Permission to Speak, get the audiobook or do both. It is so, so, good. I have so many little flags and sticky notes in it, like I said in the episode. So I’ll also have links to them in my show notes and to her podcast episode she mentioned as well. And remember that question I posed to you at the beginning of the episode? Dare I consider what it would mean to have a different relationship with my voice? What were your thoughts around that when we started? And now that you’ve heard the episode, what do you think about that now? Let me know by sending me a voice note at, visiblevoicepodcast.com. There’s a purple button. Send voicemail. Or you can drop me an email. I love that as well. Visiblevoicepodcast@gmail.com. So actually, this is going to be the penultimate. Is that the word? Penultimate? The episode before the last episode before summer break. So the next episode is the last one before I take my usual summer break. And I hope you do as well. And then we’ll return in mid to late September. So until then, that’ll give you lots of time to get Samara’s book and read it over the summer. It’s a great summer read. I highly recommend it. Okay, chat with you next time.

[MUSIC ENDS // PAUSE A BEAT // OUTRO – SHOW CLOSE]

<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Thank you so much for listening to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d love it if you shared it with a podcasting friend. And to reveal more voicing and podcasting tips, click on over to visiblevoicepodcast.com.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

[MUSIC ENDS]