Come Play This Friday

I'm back and we're back and we're showing up despite/because of the world

I took the spring off from Substack (har har did I miss anything?).

And as I sit here writing to you today while breathing in the greatest candle scent of all time I’m like, it feels WEIIIIIRD to start up again. A little rusty (I’ve thought about you, but I’ve atrophied the muscle that thinks ooh, I need to share that with you!) and a little shy like on the first day back at camp, after we’ve weathered an era without each other and, like*, do we still get the same jokes?

I’ve been away, traveling around the country and working with a small handful of clients that have made my heart burst and my spirit sing, even as the world has been trying its damnedest to do the literal opposite.

And I’ve been away, being extremely offline.

And wondering how long I can get away with it.

Which is a potent thought because, of course, the answer is always. Despite the jangle of online rhetoric to the contrary, I have the permission and the power to pick my relationship to the internet, and poke at it, and play. Maybe you do too?

And so I’m back because… I wanna be.

You guyyyyys. I legit missed you. The feeling of this community and (shh — this is just for the paying folks, IYKYK) the monthly group Zoom where we see and get seen and power the F up for the whole rest of the month. I miss that.

So I’m here showing up.

And taking advantage of the fact that it’s nearing the end of June to start a new tradition: end of the month Zoom dates! Starting THIS FRIDAY!!

Bring in your YES I SHOWED UPs, and your UGH THIS IS HARDs. Your half-formed questions and half-processed noticings about what kind of communication works now, in these bizarroest of bizarro times.

👉🏼 If you want to join us, take a gamble for one month or use your free trial and come Friday, 11a PT // 2p ET, or watch the replay after. If you’re new: hi!

It’ll be fantastically unscripted. And filled with love. And I’ll tell you about the hypnotherapy I’m getting for the first time on Thursday 🤯

As the barrage of news and fake news makes everything mean less and less, we need spaces to matter to each other and to ourselves, to make meaning out of the shit soup.

This will be that.

👉🏼 FYI paying subscribers will get the Zoom link Friday morn.

And 3 thoughts on how to show up:

1. I posted this week about seeing Jane Goodall speak, and was reminded that she was an early sparkpoint for my book and for my larger work.
   
   Her TED Talk from 2007ish?
   
   Listen — I grew up in a science household, I grew up going to conferences, surrounded by scientists. I watched it and thought: she does NOT sound like scientists are (ehem) supposed to sound.
   
   And she gives zero Fs.
   
   Probably because she lived with apes and knows what works below the level of our spirit-crushing cultural codes.
   
   The humanity that's deeper than what humans sometimes make it.

   And now I see, in hindsight: watching her TED Talk sparked my own kind of experiment -- poking at these oh-so-suspect supposed to's... where they came from, who they serve, what else is possible. Collecting data points that, when you connect the dots, reveal a whole new picture. About what power can sound like.

2. I’m still thinking about the protests last weekend — even though we’ve lived a lifetime since then — because they reminded me how creative we all are, how fury + people power leads not to violence but to art. I posted this last week, and as the news cycle whizzes on, I’m bringing it back for accountability. This is us! We are THIS CREATIVE. I wish for us that our public speaking feels this alive, always.

   

3. Speaking of, how do we show up in these exact times, in this chaos and cruelty? Self-expression IS resistance (OMG PS. for the 2 of you who don’t want me talking politics, public speaking is politics. Welcome.):

By D. L. Mayfield

See you Friday.

Love,

Samara

*this reminds me! I’m quoted in two incredible books out this month! The first is FIRED UP: How to Turn your Spark Into a Flame and Come Alive At Any Age, by

Shannon Watts

and the second is LIKE: A History of, Like, the World’s Most Hated (and, Like, Misunderstood) Word, by Megan Reynolds.

Extremely honored to be one of the firestarters Shannon interviewed, and extremely tickled that I’m referenced in LIKE in a chapter called “That’s, Like, Not Very Professional” in which the first thing I’m quoted as saying definitely tracks:

“If we’re judging people’s voices based on how much they sound like rich white men have historically sounded, we are quite frankly fucking ourselves for the types of work environments we want to have in the future.”