The Radical Act of Being Cool With Your Voice

Gettin' hot and existential about how you sound and why it matters 🔥

You sound different from any other human on earth. Which is so yay and so boo.

Boo because our offices, schools, and other such social structures are in now way designed to celebrate that level of diversity.

Yay because we can. You’re a unicorn and I’m a unicorn and the rainbow of micro-movements our tongues make every single day does NOT get loved on enough and here’s where we get to celebrate the F out of how we sound.

Linguists will tell you:

Your voice reflects your unique life—every adjustment you’ve ever made to get by in that room, get approval from that boss, get love, get entree, get heard, get a smidge more power. When any of us opens our mouth to speak, what comes out is a combo of the choices each of us has made (to leave home, date that person, go for that job, sound like that other person who knows what they’re talking about) and what we weren’t allowed to choose for ourselves (where we grew up, how expressive we felt safe to be, how grownups spoke when we were little—formal or casual, with an accent that blended in or one that stood out, talking over each other or not, reserving big bursts of emotion for only the highest-status members of the household or anyone feeling feelings).

Do a search for any interview with a celebrity who looks like you and try to repeat back their phrases; you’ll feel what a different lifetime sounds like in your mouth.

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How do you sound different?

Maybe your voice includes the vocal markers of elder millennial derby girls or growing up with deaf parents or living on the border between two countries or any of a billion intersecting identities that are intrinsically you or that you’ve tried on for size: adding “like” into phrases that don’t strictly speaking require it, deep-cut generational references, your own blend of high-brow and low, sweary or clean, the ways you weave in words from other languages or dialects, punctuate your humor with vocal fry, sound like your mom, code-switch, or sling internet slang that’s new to spoken English. What trendy inflection is your bestie using these days? Have you picked it up too because duh? Because often we sound the most like who we love?

Indeed, your communication style is how you negotiate for what you want in the moment but it also signals your identity and your tribe, which linguists suggest may be why dialects around the world even arose to begin with. As Katherine Kinzler puts it in her book How You Say It, “Separate two groups by a mountain range, and they will quickly evolve different ways of speaking.” This is about how we choose—whether we know it or not—to perform our identity to signal who we are and who we are like.

Which side of the mountain we call home.

And this happens in all kinds of ways: our clothing choices, our hair, our gestures, our work, our friends, what we choose to post, and of course, our voices. James Baldwin said, “a language comes into existence by means of brutal necessity, and the rules of the language are dictated by what the language must convey.” It may not always feel so violent, but each flick of our tongues is an homage to something that exists for a reason, and likely exists in us for a reason too.

When

Ilyse Hogue

came on my podcast back in 2020, I asked her what she would tell someone who wanted to run for office for the first time, who didn’t look or sound like what we’ve all been taught power and authority looks and sounds like. She’s a powerhouse Washingtonian who’s on a first name basis with every Congressperson you probably admire; she helped many of them campaign. I knew she’d have valuable advice—but she didn’t tell me the secret to raising money or how to take a risky policy stance or how to brush off sexist comments when they inevitably find you.

She said simply: be proud of your life. The one you’ve actually lived, including the setbacks and mistakes, what you might be ashamed of or not yet over or what happened to you when you didn’t get a say in the matter.

Take the time to own all the parts.

If you’re going to speak up in any way, own all the parts. You don’t have to speak about them all—but show up as someone who doesn’t need to hide. I’ve thought about this advice every day of my book tour, every interview, every stage, every chance to direct my energy toward the loose and open work of showing up, or the tight and closed work of hiding.

I was reminded of it when I read

Anne Helen Petersen

this week and she said:

It sounds basic, but people who like themselves are likable. Not because they’re “happy” (liking yourself and constant happiness are not the same thing) but because they’re at ease. They’ve done the work of getting to know themselves, of sitting with the parts of themselves they might sometimes dislike, of working on rejecting shame society has invited them to feel, of seeing themselves and their needs clearly. And that sort of ease? It’s magnetic.

And we get to bring this work to our voices: what would it take to be proud of yours? To actually be cool with it?

As you notice your unicorn-ness—the way you say things just a little bit differently— and as you reckon with the story of why, think of it as an invitation to own all the parts, the on-purpose bits and the accidental ones.

No one else on the planet sounds exactly like you.

You are the human experiment right where you are, and your voice is its hypothesis and its conclusion.

Of course, you might hate the sound of your voice even after this pep talk (hi, I see you). You might have an accent that’s driving you batty. You might still have a can’t-put-your-finger-on-it sense that you’re talking wrong. But as you get in there and explore it, I dare you to work toward a kind, curious, spirited relationship with your voice—by which I mean, a kind, curious, spirited relationship with the life you’ve led.

AND—turning up the heat here—don’t leave it at that. Because this work isn’t about reconciling ourselves to how we sound, even if it’s in our way. I will never say get over it or bliss out on a puffy cloud of self-acceptance. That’s an easy sentiment but in the real world, it’s not fair and it’s not realistic. (Future post topic: voice biases!) Instead, I want you to turn a steady eye on the life you want, too. We’re all meat sacks with dreams and our dreams matter. If you’re drawn to shifting some of your speaking habits you’ve outgrown, if you’re curious about uncovering a voice that’s more true and more powerful than the one you’ve happened into, yes. Yes. Welcome. This is about holding how you sound firmly and with great love while you consider all your options.

This is about giving yourself permission to do so without shame.

Because you’re inside your voice story, not at its end.¹

And even hotter: this effort to own how you sound is activism.

It’s larger than any one of us. Because the forces making us question our voices are larger than any one of us. There’s a reason NPR White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe’s accented voice stands out, or “Call Your Girlfriend” co-host Ann Friedman got hate mail for speaking with authority while vocal frying, or US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s political career has been so breathtaking despite being a Somali refugee and sounding like it.

There’s a cult of “standard English” we’ve all grown up associating with professionalism and power. These rare and absolutely instructive exceptions point to a revolution in what professionalism means and who gets to have power.

So who will you be an instructive example for? How will your choice ripple?

I had a client once who had pitched herself to host and produce a new podcast at a famous media company and gotten a yes. But she was feeling unsettled: she wasn’t sure which version of her speaking style she should be using for her extensive voiceovers. How detached and even or personal and dynamic she should sound. Generic newscaster… or friend? She thought she could pull off either, which only confused her more.

She wondered aloud, is there a “neutral” sound for podcasters or a standard? And—the question under the question—did she have to meet those requirements to be taken seriously? After all, her voice would inevitably become part of the show’s brand; her voice might determine whether it lives or dies.

She and I had a single session, and all we did was talk. But I told her what I’m telling you—that our voices reflect our life experience. That our life experience counts. That owning it is the new sound of power. That if authenticity means talking about what you care about it like you care about it, the YOU part matters. How do you sound when you care?

And that she had permission to honor her own style, which she told me she knew was whimsical and quirky and playful in her more carefree moments.

Look, if you’ve got whimsy dancing inside you, I’ll always encourage you to let it out.

Do it for you.

But also, do it for the rest of us. It’s a fiery revolution simply to open your mouth and speak with confidence in a voice you claim as your own.

We ride at dawn. Unicorns, all.

🦄🔥,

Samara

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👉🏼 Today’s post is adapted from Permission to Speak—currently less than $17 on Amazon?! And a more reasonable $26 at your local indie bookseller «ehem ehem». The audiobook is in my own unicorn voice BTW and people write me every day to tell me how much they adore it (total dream come true). Also avail in 5 languages! Am dropping this pic because as you read this, I’ll be in Mexico giving myself all the permiso!!! Hola!

👉🏼 Next Zoom Q&A is 10am PT, Friday March 8th. Comment on if you want a weekend or a different time next time—it’s still all a big experiment ‘round here! ❤️

👉🏼 Schedule yourself a private session with me if you’re needing to change your voice story and/or work your upcoming pitch or presentation so you get ALL THE YESES.

1. To get more specific: maybe this is your chance to explore a life-long discomfort with speaking even in relatively comfortable situations. To look closely at what’s been holding you back from stringing together thoughts out loud in a strong, clear voice. None of us will sound free as long as we’re stuck constantly worrying that we’ve got something to prove or something to hide. One impulse keeps us pushing outward (look at me!), one keeps us pushing inward (please don’t!). Neither lets us be.

Maybe for you this is a chance to celebrate the version of yourself that (shhh) you actually super duper like in private—when you catch yourself around people who make you feel safe, when you have something you just have to share, when you’re a little tipsy or just drunk on joy, when you trust that you know how to tell a story that’ll land and then you land it to wild acclaim. For you, the question is how to scale that magical creature up into more public spheres without losing her rainbow sparkle. The scaling is HARD. Dormant messages wake up and distract us away from our sparkle. This is THE WORK.