But What Were You Made For?

The thing we can learn about showing up from first-time candidates, nervous movie stars, Queen Esther, and Billie Eilish.

“Would you work with some of our candidates pro bono? They could use help with their stump speeches.”

I’d never coached politicians before. But I’d worked on-set in Hollywood for years. And I’d helped some of my favorite actors when they’d lost all their movie star cool and said a nervous yes to speaking their own words—taking a stand at the UN or honoring a fellow performer at the GLAAD awards. I’d coached a handful of TED talkers and scientists and writers prepping to pitch their idea, too. A twinkle hit me, remembering how each of those sessions had been a dance between the words and the how—the real work of saying the words like a whole person.

The real work of facing why that’s so damn hard.

YES PLEASE, I told the voice on the phone, calling from MoveOn.org the summer we hurtled toward the 2018 midterms, two years into our former president’s term. It was the summer all my activist friends were burning the F out, empathy-fritzed, the chaos, the trips to the border to witness family separation, the despair biting at every edge.

He said, “The only thing I’ll offer as warning is—by and large, these first-time candidates seem to have trouble telling their origin story. Not where they were born and raised, but the moment of a-ha, when they decided to run for office. So… do that.”

Zoom after Zoom with these women—pre-blue wave but they were the sea, swirling swirling, building in confidence before the crest—I was hit with my own a-ha.

It’s why I’m here writing to you. It’s why this Substack even exists.

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These candidates were wild geniuses: their lived experience exactly what we need in office, their connection to their community and its struggles fueling exactly the kind of fire we need to push legislation through absurd and systemically rigged hoops.

I was like, oh hi, you’re my dream leader.

But they really did each have big drama about going on the mic, stepping on the stage, being seen—truly seen—by their future constituents, holding their space and speaking freely and owning their genius. They spoke too fast. They dodged telling their story because they didn’t really believe deep down that it was relevant or good enough or mattered enough. They played a game with themselves where they’d try to both show up and not show up, be there but generic.

Hide in plain sight.

I asked one woman, Deb, why she was running anyway, despite how much it tore at her—trying to connect her back to her purpose, so we could feed that wolf and not the other one. I knew it was personal for her, that her son needed the type of services that were stuck in bureaucratic hell in her state. But she didn’t say that.

She told me:

You know, Samara, it’s that Esther quote from the Bible. Her brother asks her to do a terrifying speaking-up, a seriously high-risk advocacy. When she resists, he replies, what if you were born for such a time as this?

I mean.

What if you were born for such a time as this?

What does that thought do to you?

To your spine? Your sense of permission? Your own squirrelly new-shaped power?

I thought of it when I saw Barbie.

Your own speaking up—the one you’re considering or that’s already on the calendar—may not be as high-risk, but it likely feels that way (because, bodies). Pitching to a roomful of folks with cash, or presenting your findings like the authority you actually are, asking for that raise or setting that boundary or posting that video or telling someone at a party what you do for a living without all-the-way undermining yourself.

When we sense we might be seen as the not-generic version of ourselves, every dormant message we’ve ever gotten about power and not-power wakes up. How powerful people tend to sound. How your ancestors learned to stay safe.

And yet, here we are. With our good ideas in a world that needs them.

With our big hearts in a world that needs them.

We were born for such a time as this.

What would it take for you to full-body believe that?

Or trust you’ve got a way to get back to it when you forget WHO THE F YOU ARE?

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I’ve got a few ideas (she says, steepling her Mr. Burns fingers).

So listen! Since last week’s workshop was SO damn good and the Q&A was THE ABSOLUTE JUICIEST, I’m gonna do another Zoom gathering—a big ol’ Q&A—sooner than I’d planned. A week from tomorrow. February 8th. Upgrade to join us (or watch after) and you’ll get the invite straight to your inbox. We’ve already got one community member who wrote me with SUCH a good question I was like, “show up on the next Zoom—we need to unpack that one ALL TOGETHER.”

Live coaching and ask-me-anything. We are going deep and brewing mischief.

We are discovering what we were made for.

Love and showing up for you and with you,

Samara

PS. For the next weekish comments are open to EVERYONE. As of February 8th, they’ll be for the all-access community only. We’re keepin’ this place safe ‘n cozy.

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