Welcome to How to Show Up, with me, Samara Bay, bestselling author of PERMISSION TO SPEAK 🔥

The main thing is, this isn’t public speaking or media training.

I mean, it IS. But with one very important, feel the tingles down your spine, shift:

Showing up is a spiritual practice.

The self-work it takes to show up for that big pitch or meeting or pod or scary convo — not just with your body and some memorized words but with your spark — means you actively choose love and connection and integrity. You choose a better world with better leaders, right where you are. Showing up is a vote for humanity.

Including yours.

BUT here’s a thing I know from coaching mega movie stars, and activists, and billion dollar business leaders on how to move their audience and move the world:

Showing up that wild and free is hard for just about everyone.

We’ve got SO. MANY. STORIES. Cultural stories, personal stories. Tender, shamey myths about how we’re supposed to sound and what we’re supposed to seem like to get taken seriously. And so many mislabeled risks (AKA is it more dangerous to be seen and heard, or not to?).

And they get in the way of us showing up and showing out for our greatest ideas and our dearest people.

The stakes are HIGH: think of all those unspoken ideas, unshared tales of odd-shaped heroism, discarded plans to advocate for ourselves and our ambitions and get our long-yearned-for yeses. Think of the impact of that absence ON THE WORLD AT LARGE.

So here’s where we get to exorcise that shit.

Because! I know for a fact those stories don’t belong to us. And a weird, fresh, soulful, aligned way of showing up is possible. A not-hiding. A new sound of power.

And you’re it.

And HERE — in this Substack project — we get to relish our mischievous, awkward, heart-soaring attempts at showing up a new way TOGETHER. With full permission. Centering our own joy, honoring our wily spirits, speaking to ourselves with great love, and bravely doing the thing and not NOT doing the thing, even in front of lots of people while sharing our freshest take and feeling all the feelings.

And THEN reporting back ‘cuz hi, we’re here for you and have a vested interest in you showing all the way up.

What do I get if I subscribe? (free!)

✨The reader/viewer experience ✨

1. Wednesday newsletters full of practical guidance, big ol’ cultural myth busting/truth telling, and calls to your greatness.

2. Sometimes the Wednesday posts will be videos for you. I used to do weekly reels over on IG, but I’m bringing the love over here now. And recs, memes we all need, and goofy surprises straight to your inbox.

ON WEDNESDAYS WE PERMIT.

But what about as an all-access subscriber? ($8/month)

✨The community care experience ✨

1. The above PLUS you’re a full-throated community member. The comments section will be turned on for you and you’ll be able to post your responses to delish discussion prompts and other folks’ replies.

2. Workshops and Q&A’s!! ONLY all-access subscribers get invited to monthly Q&A’s with me on Zoom and workshops like my super popular HOW TO PITCH one. I’ll host new trainings on topics like: how to tell your story, how to prep a TEDtalk style speech, how to warm up for the big thing with all the nervy nerves, and divining what exact myths are in the way of your freest, show uppiest self. Q&A’s are ask-me-anything style (YES I’VE GOT JUICY BTS FOR YOU FROM MY CELEBS, BUT ALSO HAPPY TO COACH YOUR FACE OFF MY LOVE). ‘Cuz when I say community, I mean it.

But, like, who exactly are you?

OMG me?!

I’m a huge fan of naps and friendship and questioning the rules and laughing with tears. My love language is the opposite of small talk. I do better with yoga and warm oceans in my life and endeavor for more of both in 2024. I’m on the east side of Los Angeles (Sunny! Trees! Running into mom friends at Trader Joe’s!) with a husband and a nearly-9-year-old who’s a serious soccer fiend — pictured here with puppy who still poops in the house (send help).

I’m a geriatric millennial who gets a kick out of the ambiguity of both my age and the “but where are you FROM from?”—umm hmm—and spent years coaching Hollywood actors on their accents, which was always as much about holding space for the biases with no name. I’ve written on the new sound of power and justice and liking your voice for Time and Fast Company and my work’s been featured in Glamour and NPR and The New York Times Magazine (re: dialect coaching) and Vanity Fair and The Wall Street Journal. You can watch my chat with Deepak Chopra. Or me on Tamron Hall (OMG she called me effervescent) and CBS Sunday Morning (start 4:15min in).

2023 was a VERY BIG YEAR with my debut book coming out via Penguin Random House (and in 15+ countries! Just got spotted in Taipei!), and I’ve gotten to speak to/coach/show up for thousands and thousands of folks over the last year at book events as well as a global MAC Cosmetics conference, SXSW, Telemundo’s #MujeresImparables, with high school girls through Democrashe, and for the women of Google in the US and internationally.

What I’ve learned from all that showing up will be here, in this Substack, for you.

If you’ve read my book you know:

“Ultimately, this is about daring. With breath, with belief, with our arms around each other and our hands resting on each other’s backs. We must do this work, each of us, for ourselves, but we must not mistake that for doing it alone. The first step in opening a door to any space not made for us is to take a deep breath and will ourselves to hear in the silence the collective breath of millions of others, daring us on.”

Love you, here for you, making this for you with my whole heart.

SB

PS. Pop up rules for the community!

1. Chat is encouraged (your voice matters — you have… permission to speak haha)

2. Bring mischief in (we get reaaaaal curious about the socialized “shoulds” here and we do so with play)

3. Justice is the goal (because what happens when we give ourselves permission and center our own delight? THE WORLD BECOMES MORE JUST AND JOYFUL RIGHT WHERE WE ARE)