Spotlight: Samara Bay
SAMARA BAY is a dialect coach for actors in TV and film and a professional speaking and communication coach. She is also the host of the podcast Permission to Speak with Samara Bay.
Samara took Concepts & Conception in spring 2019 and is a founding member of The Sisterhood. She caught up with Amelia Hruby in summer 2020 to discuss the power of public speaking, building an intentionally impactful business, and getting a book deal during a pandemic. This is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Can you tell us about yourself and your business?
I’ve done dialect and public speaking coaching for over a decade, both for actors in Hollywood on big budget television and film projects and for non-actors in a number of industries. Leading up to the 2018 midterms, I was coaching women running for office pro bono through MoveOn.org, working with first time candidates to help them tell their stories better and to help them do their stump speech better so they weren't so worried about all the things that inevitably happen when we're not used to speaking in front of people.
In terms of my business, I’m the host of iHeartMedia podcast Permission to Speak with Samara Bay, and I’m writing a book. The podcast is about helping people use their voice and believe that their voice is actually what power is and can sound like in the future. It is about changing what leadership in America looks and sounds like, but it is also on a practical level about upspeak, vocal fry, Hillary Clinton being called shrill, and all these floating data points about our voices that we don't really have the language to talk about or the space to find solidarity in. I also signed a book contract all about that this spring. So suddenly I have a book to write during a pandemic!
I love the title of your podcast. What does “permission to speak” mean for you in your work?
I think of it in two ways, because there are two things that make us able to show up literally and metaphorically when we're being asked to speak in public. In terms of “permission to speak,” the speaking part is really my “expertise.” I talk about vowels and consonants and the musicality of spoken English when I'm coaching actors. And that ends up being relevant for non-actors, because when we get in front of an audience we don't always trust our natural instincts.
That brings us to the other half, which is the permission part. Talking about how we use our voice doesn't really matter unless we have a mindset or a framework that gives us a sense of permission that who we are is actually who should show up to speak. We have these voices in our heads—one of them I call the generic monster—that tell us that surely we're not who they want. Surely listeners want the version of us that’s a little less quirky, a little less funny, a little less weird, and a little more like everyone else who does thing X. And it doesn't help that most of the public speakers that we see have either been coached to fit into or accidentally fallen into the category of what straight white rich men sound like. That’s seen as the standard and everything else is a deviation.
So part of the permission piece isn't just for ourselves. It’s also looking outward as listeners and remembering who we hear speak. I mean, it sounds comical to say, but we need to remember that AOC exists, that Emma Gonzalez exists, that Tamika Mallory exists, that the way that Barack and Michelle speak is different than how George W. Bush spoke. We have to remember that there are so many examples of people really leading the way of what the sound of the future could be. We just tend to forget them when we think about ourselves, and we hide part of ourselves when we hold ourselves to that old standard.
What do you mean by hiding parts of ourselves and how does that happen in our speech?
I think there are also two different categories of how we hide. One of them is really technical, and it’s in the speaking category. Vocal fry and upspeak are perfect examples of the ways that we use our throat in a way that our throat was never intended to be used in order to tamp down our emotions. Because perhaps our emotions aren't appropriate in the space where we’re speaking. Or perhaps we're worried that we have an accent that is going to get judged so we use a lot less pitch than our natural pitch range. Then we end up speaking a little bit more monotone. And we might actually be safer speaking in monotone, because we reveal less in monotone. Every room is different, and everyone’s situation is different, and I have to say that sometimes there are legitimate reasons to hide.
The other part of hiding ourselves is the permission part where we do all kinds of things with our body language to hide the aspects of ourselves that make us unique. I always like to say that the work I do with people is really about helping them find more freedom and joy by connecting with everything that is real. And unfortunately, on a cultural and individual level, we often associate public speaking with being seen and being judged. We feel it as having a real tightness rather than freedom and a real heaviness rather than joy.
How did Concepts & Conception change your business in a significant way?
When I signed up for Concepts & Conception, I was in the process of pitching my podcast and had just met a book agent who was interested in what I did but wasn't sure that there was a book there yet. Through Concepts & Conception I was able to think really clearly about what I wanted to do—not so much in terms of a business model, but in terms of the thing that the world needs that I'm uniquely positioned to give it, and in terms of what brings me joy in the doing.
I was somebody who had an abundance of clients through word of mouth and my agent, but I’d never done the work to capture the essence of my business. I took C&C at exactly the right time to get to the heart of what I actually cared about and how what I cared about could fit into the greater ecosystem of the world we live in and the world we want to live in. Within two months of finishing the course, I’d filed as an S Corp and within a year I’ve become a full fledged podcast host and producer and I’ve signed a book deal!
I mean at the beginning of Concepts and Conceptions, one of the very early assignments is a two year and five year vision. And my two year vision has basically all come true within one year. Which is amazing especially considering that this is such a tough time in terms of our nation's health.
What was one of the most valuable things you learned in Concepts & Conception?
One thing I learned from C&C was how to bring gentle, loving and communal thinking to business rather than hyper-focusing on the individual in business. I also learned what white supremacy culture actually means, what feminism actually means, what capitalism actually means, and the difference between having a business that is you and having a business that isn't you. So while I was coaching a lot of clients before I took C&C, a huge takeaway from that course was to think of scaling my business in terms of growing bigger intentionally, not just getting bigger because bigger is better.
I'm also one of those people who got a Master's in acting and always thought that I’d only ever encounter problems in business. Taking Concepts & Conception made my imposter syndrome around never having gone to business school go away. And now I’m glad I never went to a traditional business school, because the people who do that aren't getting what Feminist Business School lays out, which is how to bring your full self to your business so that it and you sustain themselves and make the world a better place.
Who would you recommend this course for?
I would recommend it for anybody who feels a sense of heaviness around their business and wants to feel lightness or who's feeling disempowered in business and wants to feel empowered. I think there's a real magic in the work Sister’s doing. Feminist Business School is incredibly robust and loving and exactly what somebody needs if they’re feeling stuck but also ready to make a bold move.
What’s next for you and your business?
Honestly this spring, I had all of these really cool workshops being scheduled that got canceled and I’m still mourning them. I’m also mourning the ability to write this book while simultaneously interacting in real life with real people. Right now, my business is redefining how we think about public speaking when we are redefining what it is to be in public. Part of me is overwhelmed by how different public speaking has become in the age of being afraid to share breath with other humans.
Personally I would love to find as much ease as possible writing this book and as much communion with colleagues, clients, and community as possible through the process. Partly because it'll make the book better. Partly because it'll make me the author better. And partly because it will only be possible when this pandemic is over. And I want that to happen for all of us as soon as possible.
I also have a five year old who theoretically was going to start kindergarten in the fall and who had, until March 13th, been in full-time childcare. And although I have an extremely egalitarian relationship with my partner, there is nonetheless huge swaths of mom guilt that I was not having to deal with previously. And there are huge decisions I have to make on a daily basis about what my writing style is for my first time writing a book, now that that’s happening during a time of psychic burden I didn't expect.
I'm not complaining. But it’s also real. And if I'm being honest about what saying that out loud does to my body, the answer is a lot. So I try to dance every day. I try to sit down. I try to do what I learned from Sister about really taking responsibility for my own freedom and joy before I sit down at a microphone or before I sit down at a computer every single time. Sometimes I do it resentfully toward the annoyance of the world. And sometimes I do it, and it does exactly what it's supposed to do and absolutely shifts me. Those times I am better for it and everything I'm working on is better for it.
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