Speaker 1: Today's quote is from Lift as You Climb by viv
Speaker 1: gross Scop. She's talking about this exercise where she encourages
Speaker 1: people to say their full name and their title out
Speaker 1: loud when introducing themselves because so few of us do,
Speaker 1: and she says with a lovely amount of tough love,
Speaker 1: if you cannot say your name properly and confidently, and
Speaker 1: you cannot say your job title without cringing, then I
Speaker 1: really do question whether you are using your one precious
Speaker 1: life in the way that you could be using it.
Speaker 1: It's a great exercise for figuring out whether you're okay
Speaker 1: with who you are, and maybe a sense of self
Speaker 1: is what a lot of this work is really about.
Speaker 1: Are you okay with who you are? If so, be
Speaker 1: it and say it. If you're not, then change something.
Speaker 1: This sounds easy, but it is the work of a
Speaker 1: lifetime to be at ease with yourself. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: That's all about the Voice, which means it's all about power.
Speaker 1: Who has it, how we get it, how we sound
Speaker 1: when we have it. I'm your host, Samarve, and this
Speaker 1: is permission to speak, where we can throw all our
Speaker 1: best ideas about how to get ourselves heard into the
Speaker 1: pot and Start. Today's guest is Sarah Jones. She has
Speaker 1: one Tony Award and an Obie Award for her one
Speaker 1: woman shows, starting with Bridge and Tunnel, which was originally
Speaker 1: produced by Meryl Streep and then went on to Broadway.
Speaker 1: Her TED mainstage talks have gotten millions and millions of views,
Speaker 1: and I truly hope you go and check them out
Speaker 1: after this if you haven't seen them already. She has
Speaker 1: performed for the Bamba's. I mean, she's friends with Gloria
Speaker 1: Steinham and Brian Stevenson and is a legend. I wanted
Speaker 1: to have her on for obviously all of these reasons,
Speaker 1: but also because I remember the feeling when I saw
Speaker 1: her first TED talk, which was like fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: She does funny voices, guys, but I mean she does
Speaker 1: so much more than that. She inhabits the bodies and
Speaker 1: the worlds of the people that she plays, so that
Speaker 1: the voices emerge out of the life experiences and hopes
Speaker 1: and fears of the characters, which is how our voices work,
Speaker 1: as I always like to talk about. And I mean
Speaker 1: the other thing is that the people who live in
Speaker 1: her and by the way it come out, all the time,
Speaker 1: and it is bonkers and amazing. The people who live
Speaker 1: in her are wrestling with their identities and with the
Speaker 1: promise or the fake promise of the American dream. And
Speaker 1: something that we talk about in this interview, which is
Speaker 1: the very real urge to speak when it becomes stronger
Speaker 1: than the fear of being seen and being heard. And
Speaker 1: I loved this conversation and how much wisdom she is
Speaker 1: full of as well as forces and uh, we went
Speaker 1: a little long. You'll see why this is Sarah. I've
Speaker 1: looked back over some of the videos where I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, did you really, you know, put yourself
Speaker 1: into a public forum looking like that? And what it
Speaker 1: teaches me is I'm too focused on how I look.
Speaker 1: But that's the work. The work, the opportunity is like
Speaker 1: a messy, it's a pandemic. I'm in the hospital, I'm
Speaker 1: out of the hospital. I don't know how to talk
Speaker 1: about that. I'm going to say all of that instead
Speaker 1: of hiding it. And what it has done is opened
Speaker 1: up a lot of space for me to feel a
Speaker 1: little bit more connected. Although we can talk about zoom
Speaker 1: and I'm not a social scientist a neurologist, but I'm
Speaker 1: convinced that there's a sort of a you know, like
Speaker 1: there must be a cognitive dissonance that's happening for all
Speaker 1: of us collectively because we can FaceTime, we can zoom,
Speaker 1: we can WhatsApp or whatever, but you're not here. And
Speaker 1: so I'm sort of tricked into feeling like I could
Speaker 1: reach out and hug somemorrow right now, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, there's nothing there. And I had this
Speaker 1: boyfriend who didn't like to face time, and I was like,
Speaker 1: what's down and hey, and he was like, it's not real, Sarah.
Speaker 1: He was like this Vermont snowboarder, like you know, he
Speaker 1: wanted to like hug trees and like rip them out
Speaker 1: of the ground. I don't know, but he really made
Speaker 1: this point that it's it is real, but it isn't.
Speaker 1: And there was something very beautiful about that. And I'm
Speaker 1: experiencing it now. It is connected, but I want to
Speaker 1: be clear with myself. I'm not getting human you know,
Speaker 1: unmitigated eye contact and hug. I mean, and what you're
Speaker 1: dipping into is also something that we're that we've had
Speaker 1: to deal with for our entire lives as technology has
Speaker 1: progressed like this and our physical bodies are all the
Speaker 1: bodies of people from thousands of years ago, exactly, and
Speaker 1: like there is something in our brain that is making
Speaker 1: that connection, that is saying, especially in times like this
Speaker 1: where we need connection, that is saying, this is good enough.
Speaker 1: This is a ghost hug, right, it's I will, I
Speaker 1: will envision a hug, I will see you, and those
Speaker 1: two things together will do something that's better than nothing.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, no, it's not the same
Speaker 1: as a real hug. Not the same. Sarah, Hi, Hi,
Speaker 1: how are you, my love? I'm okay, I'm okay. I
Speaker 1: mean all everything you're talking about, it's so true. I think, um,
Speaker 1: you were talking about the concept of lowering expectations and
Speaker 1: I act right and reframing it as broadening. And I
Speaker 1: actually wonder also if it's the expectations themselves that we
Speaker 1: should be taking a closer look at, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of this, a lot of what we
Speaker 1: were talking about was the expectations we've set up for
Speaker 1: ourselves of what it would look like if we had
Speaker 1: everything put together. Yes, the myth, the myth of you know,
Speaker 1: we've all talked about it, the superwoman who has to
Speaker 1: juggle everything and um, even as we try to get
Speaker 1: into less you know, gender normative conversations about family. And
Speaker 1: I'm not a mom, but I remember my mom who
Speaker 1: it's interesting in this time of COVID, I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: doctors differently. Both my mom and dad were doctors. Guess
Speaker 1: who was responsible for maintaining you know, all the household
Speaker 1: stuff and the kids. And my mom still she went
Speaker 1: and delivered babies and was still expected to keep it
Speaker 1: all together. And I think we haven't strayed very far
Speaker 1: from that. We've just sort of ignored our limitation, like
Speaker 1: our normal, healthy human limitations, and so we multitask and
Speaker 1: we buy a million systems and things to keep ourselves,
Speaker 1: you know, impossibly efficient and together. And I don't think
Speaker 1: it's healthy for anybody. I was so excited to have
Speaker 1: you on this podcast about voices, because hello, hello, we're
Speaker 1: all here. By the way, we're all here, well good,
Speaker 1: oh good high. I can't wait to maybe here a little. Um.
Speaker 1: They're all welcome, and this is my first podcast with
Speaker 1: like ten people. But you know what I was thinking is,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's such a surface level thing to
Speaker 1: say that you do voices, because you know, yes you do,
Speaker 1: and they're brilliant. And also you bring fully inhabited other
Speaker 1: people onto the stage with you. I mean, for anyone
Speaker 1: who's loosen your shows, starting with Bridge and Tunnel, which
Speaker 1: ended up on Broadway, it's it's just you, but it's
Speaker 1: also truly not thinking that you could do quote unquote
Speaker 1: do funny voices and end up on Broadway. Like you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It was so wild to me
Speaker 1: that the thing I had always done. I mean this
Speaker 1: Lorraine Levin, oh idea, I brought my glasses. She even
Speaker 1: though you can't shaming, which seems show hilly, but I
Speaker 1: I if I can't, if I don't have my glasses,
Speaker 1: I can't see any way, Sheeris started doing the voices,
Speaker 1: like she says, because her family, you know, she came
Speaker 1: from the multicultural family, the black, the white. They intermarried
Speaker 1: and all. It's very normal now. But anyway, um, I
Speaker 1: think that it kept her feeling um playful as your child.
Speaker 1: You know that she could do that, and she would
Speaker 1: do it with her friends. I would I would do
Speaker 1: I would do that with my friends. I know, I know.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting. It makes me think of you said,
Speaker 1: I believe it was your first Ted talk. This is
Speaker 1: a direct Sarah John's quote. You said, we're all born
Speaker 1: into certain circumstances, with particular physical traits, unique developmental experiences,
Speaker 1: geographical and historical contexts. But then what to what extent
Speaker 1: do we self construct? To what extent do we self invent?
Speaker 1: How do we self identify? And how mutable mutable is
Speaker 1: that self identity? You know, obviously I came up through
Speaker 1: doing dialect coaching with act or so it's in a
Speaker 1: literal way. You know, when we put on a new accent,
Speaker 1: what does it reveal to us about how that character
Speaker 1: has gone through their life and how they hold their body,
Speaker 1: and you know, how does it inform us? But it's
Speaker 1: not just for actors. I mean that's really you know,
Speaker 1: the heart of this work is what we're both talking
Speaker 1: about in different ways, is how our life experiences are
Speaker 1: reflected in our voice and what that says about how
Speaker 1: we how we are perceived by others and how we
Speaker 1: perceive ourselves. And also the part I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about is like this mutability issue, this idea
Speaker 1: that like certain things we don't have control over and
Speaker 1: then what do we do with the things we do? Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. I really as I was listening
Speaker 1: to I was like, did I say that? But I
Speaker 1: do remember writing that. I remember writing it because it
Speaker 1: felt so true for me. It felt so kind of
Speaker 1: essential as a question, who the hell am I? I
Speaker 1: mean that really it was like who am I? Anyway?
Speaker 1: Like like you said, how much does the outside gave
Speaker 1: days of others? You know, inform who I am? Decide
Speaker 1: who I am, decide whether I live or die? You know,
Speaker 1: if you're a black or brown man or woman. Uh,
Speaker 1: in an encounter with police, like how you're perceived, your
Speaker 1: voice can be the difference between your survival or not. Um,
Speaker 1: so I will. I never want to be one of
Speaker 1: those people who says, oh, you get to decide completely
Speaker 1: everything about your fate. Absolutely not Yes, And we do
Speaker 1: have right like we do. I mean the performance that
Speaker 1: you help an act or find hopefully is as authentic
Speaker 1: and beautiful as whatever they can muster using the tools
Speaker 1: you're giving them. And then like all of us are
Speaker 1: kind of performing a life right And what you're talking
Speaker 1: about is such an important distinction or like lack of distinction,
Speaker 1: which is on the one hand, performing what are we
Speaker 1: putting on? Because it's interesting because we're becoming this person
Speaker 1: because we're acting as if and what is a coping mechanism? Yes,
Speaker 1: and knowing the difference, I think there's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm paid as an as an actor to go on
Speaker 1: stage or be in a film and be someone other
Speaker 1: than I am. Then it's like, wait a minute. If
Speaker 1: I'm having a low self worth moment at a party
Speaker 1: and I turned to the guy next to me and decide,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to be a sexy Naomi Campbell version
Speaker 1: of myself or whoever, um, which I used to do
Speaker 1: by the way I would when I was really nervous
Speaker 1: at a party. If I felt like it, I would
Speaker 1: just sort of slip into this and you would not believe.
Speaker 1: First of all, I thought I was sexier, right, So
Speaker 1: then these blokes were line up around me. I had
Speaker 1: not changed one iota. My appearance didn't change. Nothing about
Speaker 1: me changed. But something about this voice, of this alter
Speaker 1: ego made me feel safer because I was fearful myself,
Speaker 1: and I realized, you can't do that. Number one, It
Speaker 1: doesn't work out well for the relationship. But Elizabeth Holps
Speaker 1: comes to mind. That's there's one cautionary tale. I could
Speaker 1: tell you a few um It definitely makes the one
Speaker 1: night stand. It's a lot of work to keep that up.
Speaker 1: You gotta like maintain you know, Um, it's not easy
Speaker 1: to maintend that. But I will say that's sort of
Speaker 1: one end of the spectrum. But somewhere on that continuum,
Speaker 1: you know, if I'm not careful, I'll pretend my way
Speaker 1: through my day, through my life, uh, even in my
Speaker 1: most intimate relationships and even with myself. And so I
Speaker 1: think it is interesting whether it's voices. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: like all my voices of like all my people. That's
Speaker 1: not just a voice, Like I'm Bella, I'm a person,
Speaker 1: you know, and like I yeah, like I exist in
Speaker 1: a context, like a radical feminist context, Abbie, And like
Speaker 1: you know, when I think about Bella, she's not just
Speaker 1: a vocal fry like a concave chested you know, self
Speaker 1: deprecating but still wanting to be you know, powerful young
Speaker 1: feminist because of her voice, Like she's it's not just
Speaker 1: a voice, it's it's all of who she believes she is.
Speaker 1: And then how that gets questioned every moment of every day.
Speaker 1: And are we present enough to listen? Like? Am I
Speaker 1: present enough to hear? Wait a minute, that was an
Speaker 1: inauthentic thing I said. Just then, I don't really mean that.
Speaker 1: I just told that person love you by do I
Speaker 1: love them like at all? Or is it you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like just checking in and being like,
Speaker 1: what am I putting out into the world? And how
Speaker 1: is there this kind of feedback loop between me and
Speaker 1: the world and what I think I need to be
Speaker 1: and how I think I need to sound or look
Speaker 1: or you know, be in my life on the socials
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then what I'm telling myself isn't adequate
Speaker 1: about me. Maybe because of that, I think there's a
Speaker 1: loop that can get started that's this is who I
Speaker 1: have to be. And then oh, look, I'm not actually
Speaker 1: really measuring up. And so I'm interested in how how
Speaker 1: can we self reinvent? You know, how can we invent
Speaker 1: ourselves or step more fully into who we actually are
Speaker 1: in a way that makes our voice more authentic, more powerful,
Speaker 1: and ultimately more loving. Right, because when you hate yourself,
Speaker 1: you go off and do things like make a giant tiger,
Speaker 1: you know, uh whatever, Like I couldn't watch the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But no, I couldn't even started. I'm too much of
Speaker 1: like an EmPATH, Like I got through it. I got
Speaker 1: through it, but I got through some of it. But
Speaker 1: it just it reminded me like, oh, when you're alienated
Speaker 1: from yourself, you don't have access to your authentic voice
Speaker 1: or your wants, your needs, And then how can you
Speaker 1: be in a community like that? So I think in
Speaker 1: some ways, you know, being in this pandemic is, um
Speaker 1: it's an odd opportunity to really listen more closely to
Speaker 1: ourselves and like ask who am I and how do
Speaker 1: I feel? And what do I want and what do
Speaker 1: I need? So I've really been thinking about voice in
Speaker 1: that context. But of course, you know, everybody else comes
Speaker 1: along too. That's Linda. Linda never comes out. You know
Speaker 1: why because my nails are not done, and um, Lindsay
Speaker 1: is like an old wool you know, New York City,
Speaker 1: Like the thing with the nails. She was like that man,
Speaker 1: you know, the manicure and um, now it's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, my nail's a naked Like she would be
Speaker 1: the person to be like, oh my god, don't look
Speaker 1: at my hands. Where did you? Where did you find
Speaker 1: Linda Long Island? I was so my mom. I mentioned
Speaker 1: my mom's a doctor. She had a private practice all
Speaker 1: Long Long Islands with a Z a z at the end.
Speaker 1: One no, just Long Islands, but you got to hit
Speaker 1: the sibilant at the end. So Long Islands, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Um, you could be from Staten Islands.
Speaker 1: But there has like a little zizzizza at the end
Speaker 1: of it, not plural, just a little little the D
Speaker 1: and the T, the D and the T can handle.
Speaker 1: And then it's also a New Jersey thing like tonight
Speaker 1: with like this little the end and um, what are
Speaker 1: we doing Tonight's yeah, I don't know. Anyway, Lindsa Lindsa,
Speaker 1: so there's even a little z in the Lindsa. Oh
Speaker 1: my gou is Lindsa. You know. Um she represented the
Speaker 1: sort of second third generation, you know, European immigrant wave
Speaker 1: that then everybody went into you know, my brother is
Speaker 1: a cop, my my sister sners, my husband's and electrician
Speaker 1: like that, you know, sort of like this solid working
Speaker 1: class um into middle class um white Long Island and
Speaker 1: that's part of my family. Oh my guard. So anyway, um,
Speaker 1: and then if you like went to nicest schools or whatever,
Speaker 1: it started to come out of you. And then you
Speaker 1: went to n y U and you completely got rid
Speaker 1: of it because it's embarrassing. You know. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of associations of class with accent. But that's where
Speaker 1: Linda came from. Was she was a nurse, so she
Speaker 1: was a she was a tech in my mom's office.
Speaker 1: There was this amazing New York Times article about you
Speaker 1: from a while ago that sort of followed you as
Speaker 1: you approached people on the street. I guess part of
Speaker 1: what I'm interested in is like, what is it to
Speaker 1: approach strangers, like what is that muscle in a way
Speaker 1: that isn't disrespectful and that isn't treating them like a
Speaker 1: subject of like a specimen. Well, and I think I
Speaker 1: occupy in interesting space, right because I'm a woman of
Speaker 1: mixed heritage black from a distance as we say, um,
Speaker 1: and on the kind of racial hierarchy and the gender hierarchy.
Speaker 1: I you know, it's very different for me to approach
Speaker 1: of sis white male, you know, straight dude and kind
Speaker 1: of larnery talks and like spend time with them and
Speaker 1: like whatever. Um, yeah, we'll leave Andrew out of this
Speaker 1: for now. But going up to people on the street,
Speaker 1: I think that, like I said, I feel a certain
Speaker 1: responsibility to remember that, especially as a traditionally marginalized person. Myself,
Speaker 1: my voice was usually you know, belittled, mocked, and so
Speaker 1: I always feel like I remember, you know, listening to
Speaker 1: a woman on the bus who hit like you know,
Speaker 1: you can hear the Russian Ukraine, you can hear her
Speaker 1: voice when she's talking. What is accent and the How
Speaker 1: does it feels to um imagine what is her life?
Speaker 1: Not only oh this is essential, I'm going to make
Speaker 1: funny voice to make fun some lady who maybe have
Speaker 1: been through hell, maybe have survived unbelievable things, Maybe is
Speaker 1: genius in her home country, but here she comes, she
Speaker 1: doesn't have what she's needing. How do you make sure
Speaker 1: your your honor this person. You'll give to them what
Speaker 1: they deserve like human beings. So that's my I always
Speaker 1: really try to imagine the internal life of the person.
Speaker 1: And then I'm not gonna get spot on every time.
Speaker 1: But I have been observing a lot of people for
Speaker 1: a long time. I lived in New York. I lived
Speaker 1: in Queen's most diverse borrow in the world, and uh,
Speaker 1: I had access to a lot of different people because
Speaker 1: of my family and I went to the U N School,
Speaker 1: So I started to get a set of like this
Speaker 1: is a person I can approach. This is a person
Speaker 1: I should leave alone. I was having a moment and
Speaker 1: it's none of my business to sneak up on them.
Speaker 1: I always when you see a photographer, and I hate
Speaker 1: to say it, but like, you know, a nice white
Speaker 1: hipster getting in the face of like some brown person
Speaker 1: in Williamsburg when I left New York. That's what was
Speaker 1: going on, Like I'm going to take pictures and be gritty,
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, dude, that's actually your white privilege,
Speaker 1: you know, and your lack of understanding that that person
Speaker 1: doesn't belong to you, even if your intentions are good. Um.
Speaker 1: So I think there's that right, like ownership of narratives.
Speaker 1: And I think it's subversive for a black woman to
Speaker 1: write for a wealthy white frat dude. That's why I
Speaker 1: enjoy doing it. Yes, indeed, um, and you use do
Speaker 1: you use voice memos and actually record them or? I
Speaker 1: mean voice memos are basically how I get by. So
Speaker 1: when I heard that I would need to have some
Speaker 1: voice memo work to join you here today, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh home, it's home of so many and I try
Speaker 1: out new Oh you'll be the I have started to
Speaker 1: work on it a little bit. Is very new and
Speaker 1: not at all where I would like it to be.
Speaker 1: But I started to think about in Nigeria or what
Speaker 1: would it be if I wanted to just work on
Speaker 1: that and work on that a little bit during this pandemic.
Speaker 1: So it's starting to be fun. I'm starting to have
Speaker 1: a good time with it. But yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: like voice memos. Give me that pure opportunity to feel
Speaker 1: into something and then try it out and let it
Speaker 1: be hairy and ugly and have words um and not
Speaker 1: be where I'd like it to be yet. Or I
Speaker 1: could just share that with your entire audience on the
Speaker 1: theme of letting perfection go exactly and also honestly letting
Speaker 1: us into the process, because that's you know, it's not
Speaker 1: like you're a magician and if you give away the
Speaker 1: there is no trick anymore. It's still magical at the end.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. Well, that's funny that you say that, But
Speaker 1: that was a huge fear of mine. I would never
Speaker 1: I mean until so my grant, my my mom, my
Speaker 1: mom's mom was Irish American and German American. But I
Speaker 1: went to Ireland. I spent a lot of time there,
Speaker 1: I spoke to loads of different people. There's so many
Speaker 1: different accents, and I thought, I've got to have a
Speaker 1: perfect It can't be like you can't think, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: did you start off in kind of County Cork and
Speaker 1: then migrate down to Dublin. But she can't tell what
Speaker 1: I was so obsessive, what schools would she have gone to?
Speaker 1: And what was the slang of the time, And it
Speaker 1: was just it's it's spilled over out of the respect
Speaker 1: for the character and into perfectionism, which is a subtle
Speaker 1: form of self abuse really and abuse of the art.
Speaker 1: So I I am mindful of that now that I
Speaker 1: don't have to present a perfect I can't. There's no
Speaker 1: such thing as perfection. I will never be perfect. I
Speaker 1: will have X. That was such a fear. Was like
Speaker 1: what I do is so important to me and I
Speaker 1: believe in it so much that I wanted to be perfect.
Speaker 1: But then it's spilled over into kind of you know,
Speaker 1: what do they say the three peace, perfectionism, procrastination, and paralysis.
Speaker 1: That's what started to happen to me as a creative
Speaker 1: person until I got some help around it. That's really real,
Speaker 1: that's really real. That's real I'm starting a new project
Speaker 1: right now, and I could stand to be reminded that
Speaker 1: those three peas are not not a path that is
Speaker 1: going to serve me, but you. But you're forgiven for
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, we're all human and we're raised
Speaker 1: in a culture. I mean, especially in Cancel culture. Right.
Speaker 1: It's like if I I mean, I don't want look,
Speaker 1: there is a great extent to which there is a
Speaker 1: reason for me one thing to I want to be excellent.
Speaker 1: I want to bring the truth and the love of
Speaker 1: this person, for example, at d who is based very loosely,
Speaker 1: loosely on the Palestinian women that I met, who is
Speaker 1: Jordanie and wanting to again what is her story? Not
Speaker 1: to judge, not to decide before that, if I get
Speaker 1: caught in my own head, then it is not about
Speaker 1: her anyway. It is about me. And what do you
Speaker 1: think of Sarah John's not what do you think of Hella?
Speaker 1: What do you think of this you know person? So
Speaker 1: I think like in a way, whatever you're working on,
Speaker 1: if you remind yourself that you are it's I don't
Speaker 1: want to say servant, but that's why I do. I
Speaker 1: think of myself as a public servant. Or I work
Speaker 1: in service of whatever it is that I think is
Speaker 1: important enough that I need to put it out into
Speaker 1: the world. And then I'm not allowed to say, oh,
Speaker 1: but I'm not perfected up. I have to just suck
Speaker 1: it up and be a worker, and you know, do
Speaker 1: what the project asks you to do. So I'm excited
Speaker 1: for whatever you're working on. Let it dictate. You don't
Speaker 1: have to do anything except show up and be you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's beautiful and really hard to do. Um, thank you, Sarah.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment, and we're back with
Speaker 1: Sarah Jones. Okay, So when your characters are on stage
Speaker 1: aware of the audience, Yeah, something happens to them. It's
Speaker 1: not just them in their natural state. It's them finding
Speaker 1: themselves in a public arena, and it feels like it's
Speaker 1: a metaphor for all of us. How do you think
Speaker 1: about that side of it? You know, it's really um.
Speaker 1: It depends on the stage, it depends on the context.
Speaker 1: And I find that they each have their own reaction
Speaker 1: and their own internal conflict, which can frustrate me by
Speaker 1: the way I want them to articulate and project. If
Speaker 1: I'm you know, at an outdoor venue in India with
Speaker 1: five thousand people. That's not the best time for you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know Rashid to suddenly start, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: saying we in India and Yo, this is crazy right now.
Speaker 1: I don't want him to. I want him to sound
Speaker 1: better than that. But he's gonna say and experience what
Speaker 1: he's experiencing. Um I remembering. You know, there's a character
Speaker 1: Pauline Ling. Pauline is not her actual name, but that's
Speaker 1: the name that she wanted me to eat use for her.
Speaker 1: And she had to be on stage in front of people,
Speaker 1: and she was very aware of it, and it's it
Speaker 1: was always a meta thing because there's the there's the
Speaker 1: stage in the Broadway House, and then there's who she's
Speaker 1: really talking to, which is a small cafe audience in
Speaker 1: her mind. And she taught she is, uh, there's people,
Speaker 1: don't she does not want people to misunderstand to be
Speaker 1: a immigrants from China, but also uh to come through
Speaker 1: Hong Kong. This is a very difficult uh time in
Speaker 1: her life that she had to explain that to strange
Speaker 1: people and uh, this is so difficult, like maybe, um,
Speaker 1: you don't want to say it can be shameful, uh
Speaker 1: to talk about yourself in front of people, But that's
Speaker 1: what she had to do for her daughter. The story
Speaker 1: in the play was that her daughter is coming out
Speaker 1: UM and at the time didn't have the right to
Speaker 1: get married to her partner who was Chinese born and
Speaker 1: needed the immigration status that she couldn't get at that
Speaker 1: time because of homophobia. I couldn't get married. And so
Speaker 1: for Mrs Ling to have to come out as like
Speaker 1: a p flag parent, you know, and just just to
Speaker 1: speak that feeling of and I will just be honest,
Speaker 1: I know that she always felt like these idiots. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I just need to say in her mind. I could
Speaker 1: feel her saying, I speak two languages. They don't know
Speaker 1: how hard it is for me to have to speak
Speaker 1: right now in front of them, knowing my English is imperfect,
Speaker 1: and that they might be so ignorant they don't even
Speaker 1: realize I am actually the badass here. And I remember
Speaker 1: that feeling for her. I remember my I would just
Speaker 1: get a little a little mix of anger, UM would
Speaker 1: come in. But and I remember that feeling of if
Speaker 1: your mission is vital enough to you, you will tolerate
Speaker 1: the discomfort of standing in front of a crowd and
Speaker 1: saying what you need to say. Speak even if your
Speaker 1: voice shakes, Speak even if you feel like your audience
Speaker 1: isn't the most friendly. I remember that. That's what comes
Speaker 1: up for me with the characters. Each of them has
Speaker 1: their own experience of reluctance or but there's a motivation
Speaker 1: that's stronger than their fear of being perceived as less
Speaker 1: intelligent because they're an immigrant and they speak halting, you know,
Speaker 1: English as a second language. That's the thing, that's the thing,
Speaker 1: and that's the thing for everybody, I mean for everybody
Speaker 1: who's listening, and for all of us. You know, obviously
Speaker 1: there is fear that comes from public speaking because we're
Speaker 1: being seen. And yet if our need is bigger than
Speaker 1: our fear, and so how do we invest in what
Speaker 1: that need is? If we if you know, if we
Speaker 1: have to public speak for our job, for our livelihood,
Speaker 1: for or whatever, how do we find the way to
Speaker 1: make it something we want to do or we need
Speaker 1: to do so hard that we overcome the fear side
Speaker 1: of it. You know, what helps me remembering back to childhood,
Speaker 1: who I was as a child before all of the
Speaker 1: kind of messaging about um you know, image, image management,
Speaker 1: how you have to sound. I mean I had so
Speaker 1: many messages had relatives or sound like that, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I'm supposed to sound like that too.
Speaker 1: I had to be from the West Indies and I
Speaker 1: have to be like this a week cool. And then
Speaker 1: I got to Washington, d c uh. My parents moved
Speaker 1: around because they were students, medical students and all of
Speaker 1: that when I was really little, and so I remember
Speaker 1: arriving at the black school and all of everything I
Speaker 1: thought was cool was terrible. You know. I was like
Speaker 1: they were like, they were like, he's not like a
Speaker 1: white girl. You know I could. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: had just so many different ways of talking to all
Speaker 1: my different relatives, and um, I had to learn how
Speaker 1: to you know, I had to learn something else Sarah Jones.
Speaker 1: You know, I had to learn how to say my
Speaker 1: name told just a different way, and I had to
Speaker 1: learn how to fake. You know. People would be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was in church. I'd be like, yeah, yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: You know. It was like I wanted to see mechanism.
Speaker 1: This is the coping mechanism. I don't know. I may
Speaker 1: have an a d h D diagnosis. I haven't find
Speaker 1: it found out yet. I think it might be part
Speaker 1: of so I don't know if I want you to
Speaker 1: medicate it. I you know, I haven't ever done the meds,
Speaker 1: which is so I mean, I think my characters are
Speaker 1: my meds. Which is not to say that I don't
Speaker 1: need additional man's but this reminds me. I have a
Speaker 1: quote I want to read of yours. You said, Um,
Speaker 1: I have to get sleep. I have to sleep for
Speaker 1: twenty people. I feel responsible for these people, so I
Speaker 1: have to treat them well and exercise well. I meditate
Speaker 1: and go to therapy twice a week if I can,
Speaker 1: because it's a lot. And this is the part I
Speaker 1: want to highlight. To feel I'm feeling people's experiences every
Speaker 1: time I do the show, and surely more than just
Speaker 1: every time you do the show. I remember when the
Speaker 1: stages started getting bigger, like Broadway is. You know, it's
Speaker 1: still six hundred people a night and you do it
Speaker 1: every night, and it's a very specific discipline. I was
Speaker 1: like a monk, you know. It really was um like
Speaker 1: this uh you know, committed relationship that I had with
Speaker 1: these characters. It was like, all right, I you know,
Speaker 1: what is it? I don't know, do you solemnly whatever
Speaker 1: I swear, remember my wedding vows? Yeah, do you solemnly swear?
Speaker 1: Do you do you? Sarah? Take these characters to be
Speaker 1: your you know, do you do you characters? Take Sarah
Speaker 1: to be your emissary, to be your vessel um until
Speaker 1: you know ticket sales, do us part or whatever? And
Speaker 1: it just ran and ran, and I remember the feeling
Speaker 1: of if I don't remember to tap into the resource
Speaker 1: of the characters. They are pure love, They're messy, they're imperfect.
Speaker 1: I have a white supremacist who won't admit he's a
Speaker 1: white Suparcy's um. I'm a European American rights advocate and
Speaker 1: that should not make anyone laugh or or or a
Speaker 1: raising eyebrow anymore than all of the rest of you
Speaker 1: women and whatever the other you know, black or I
Speaker 1: don't know if you can stay black anymore. Whatever you're
Speaker 1: supposed to say about them. They can have their uh
Speaker 1: advocate groups and we can and I don't see, you know,
Speaker 1: Sarah Jones can make fun of me all the time
Speaker 1: and call me all kind of names, But I know
Speaker 1: that I want to be able to be proud to
Speaker 1: be European, so I have to carry that dude around
Speaker 1: with me, and I take very seriously his drudge report reading,
Speaker 1: you know, Fox News believing version of America because it's
Speaker 1: the only one he has. He is doing his best
Speaker 1: with what he has. He is, you know, behaving as
Speaker 1: I would if I were born into his body, into
Speaker 1: you know, the bassinet in his house. And then remember
Speaker 1: that there's beauty. He has beauty. Like I've been I
Speaker 1: have been moved to tears by the moment of his
Speaker 1: courage in admitting how much of a failure he he
Speaker 1: feels himself to be because his son is not making
Speaker 1: more money than he did in every general I mean,
Speaker 1: like I've you know, I've done interviews where somebody interviews
Speaker 1: him or he's interviewing somebody, and the improv that comes
Speaker 1: out is like, oh, this is the pain of the
Speaker 1: white American male, you know in Middle America that I
Speaker 1: am not going to privilege right over the pain of
Speaker 1: people of color and you know, working class people in
Speaker 1: immigrants who have suffered long and hard under racism and
Speaker 1: all the rest of it. But it gets a place.
Speaker 1: But he gets a place. He gets a place, and
Speaker 1: that is work for me. I don't love having to
Speaker 1: engage that conversation. And yet I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: he that all of the characters fortify me if I
Speaker 1: let them, and I have to do the work to
Speaker 1: make sure I'm available to receive the gift of like
Speaker 1: communing with other people within my own body and my
Speaker 1: own voice. Well, and this feels like it taps into
Speaker 1: your you know, we were talking about the characters urged
Speaker 1: to speak as greater than their fear, but also yours, yes, greater,
Speaker 1: but not without a mess sometimes, and I think the
Speaker 1: willingness to play in the spaces where it is not
Speaker 1: neat and tidy. I haven't figured it out. I am
Speaker 1: not cancel culture proof. Um, you know, yeah, tell me
Speaker 1: about that. What responses have you gotten that have really
Speaker 1: challenged you? You know what's interesting? I remember performing for
Speaker 1: I mean, I did you know Ted Talks. I think
Speaker 1: it's important to say that the bigger the platform, the
Speaker 1: bigger the sense of responsibility and whoever that audience is.
Speaker 1: I noticed self I would do some self policing around
Speaker 1: who I brought out and when, and you know that
Speaker 1: I had to really look at like making a choice
Speaker 1: I went. I remember getting to perform at the White House.
Speaker 1: It was such a it was so otherworldly to like
Speaker 1: have these black people in the White House. This was
Speaker 1: like two thousand nine the first time I went, I
Speaker 1: got to perform there. Bring us back anything you want
Speaker 1: to tell us about that. We just want to live
Speaker 1: there for a sec I know, right, Can we just
Speaker 1: go back to I guess that was the last performance
Speaker 1: I did there or twenty something like that. That feeling
Speaker 1: of a democratized White House, I didn't know how to bring.
Speaker 1: I have a lady. I had somebody name miss Lady.
Speaker 1: She lived on the street, and she have you know
Speaker 1: what happened in this country when you are female and
Speaker 1: you black, and you Paul and you don't have no
Speaker 1: access to the same education opportunity or job opportunity or
Speaker 1: whatever like some other people got. Some people don't want
Speaker 1: to hear you speak and talk. They don't want to
Speaker 1: hear you. They think you sound ignorant or whatever. But
Speaker 1: I want to tell them I don't need fancy words
Speaker 1: to be uh important person. But Saide don't didn't want
Speaker 1: to bring me up in the White House because she
Speaker 1: wants to be dignified with the Obama I am dignified.
Speaker 1: I may don't have no place where I could lay
Speaker 1: my head at night. But that don't mean I'm not
Speaker 1: no dignified person, you understand. So I noticed my own fear.
Speaker 1: UH would sometimes mirror or not mirror. I guess what
Speaker 1: I'll say is I remember performing a whole slew of characters,
Speaker 1: different races, for ethnicities, different genders. This was at a
Speaker 1: medical I was like at a medical school or something.
Speaker 1: I did a show about health and ethnic and racial
Speaker 1: health disparities back when people were saying they didn't exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I came across that in your research and was like, well, hello, coronavirus. Oh, coronavirus.
Speaker 1: So anyway, back then, I was doing this piece and
Speaker 1: I still do it from time to time because medicine
Speaker 1: is racist. I grew up in medicine and my father
Speaker 1: being assumed to be in orderly because he's a black man,
Speaker 1: even though he was the doctor and the head of
Speaker 1: the department. So UM, this moment of UH performing in
Speaker 1: front of a mixed race audience where there had been
Speaker 1: some conflict and they had sort of invited me, I
Speaker 1: felt like a you know, like a diplomat or something
Speaker 1: coming to try to be like okay, everybody. But this
Speaker 1: one white woman stood up and said and her voice
Speaker 1: was shaking, and I had created a safe space and
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of myself for that. I said, I
Speaker 1: let everybody know. Look, this is racist, messy, tricky stuff.
Speaker 1: And she said, well, all of them were good people
Speaker 1: except for the one who looked like me. And I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, I couldn't even unpack. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, which one looked like you? Because I
Speaker 1: I've looked like this the whole time. I'm still I
Speaker 1: never changed color. And she I felt her experiencing the
Speaker 1: reality that she had. Her mind told her I was white.
Speaker 1: Her mind told her I was white when I was
Speaker 1: doing the character that offended her, and she said the
Speaker 1: white one And I said, well, I did a few
Speaker 1: white characters. And she didn't identify Lorraine, who's Jewish, as
Speaker 1: white like It was such a telling moment, right who
Speaker 1: this woman latched onto as the mirror of herself. And
Speaker 1: all the white nurse said was I don't see color.
Speaker 1: And you know, why do I have to be culturally competent?
Speaker 1: Why don't they learn to speak English, which is something
Speaker 1: that a lot of people say and believe, including in
Speaker 1: the medical field. So it was fascinating to watch this
Speaker 1: woman suffer. She was in so much pain, confronted with
Speaker 1: racism and confronted with you know, white supremacy and her
Speaker 1: you know, possible complicity in it. So I mentioned that
Speaker 1: because that was painful. I like to have a good time.
Speaker 1: I like to get a standing oh where everybody's laughing
Speaker 1: and rolling in the aisles and having a wonderful experience
Speaker 1: with me and goes home feeling warm and fuzzy about me.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that woman felt super warm and
Speaker 1: fuzzy in that moment, but it was teachable moment for
Speaker 1: everybody in that room. Well, and also, what's your I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a bigger question, but what is your goal? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I just told you what I like. You know,
Speaker 1: I like to feel delicious and for millions of people
Speaker 1: to watch my TED talks and tell me how much
Speaker 1: they love me. What I don't shy away from, and
Speaker 1: what I know is more important, is that people have
Speaker 1: an experience that holds a mirror up to them. In
Speaker 1: which case, boy, did you fulfill your goal? I did,
Speaker 1: and I didn't go home. You know, that wasn't a
Speaker 1: day when I got to feel like I you know,
Speaker 1: created a rollicking good time. For everyone in the audience.
Speaker 1: It was more like and in fact, I remember there
Speaker 1: was a meet and greet afterward and doctors, you know, white,
Speaker 1: very straight laced, very straight. Yeah, I was I was trying.
Speaker 1: I was trying to soften that a little bit, like
Speaker 1: very very straight, um, like super white, that dude, you know,
Speaker 1: that guy from like wherever we were, Michigan. I say
Speaker 1: this like a super straight white guy, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know what the I don't know what right. This is
Speaker 1: the superest and the straightest, okay, and the guy st
Speaker 1: And these are the men who are, you know, at
Speaker 1: kind of the center of white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy in
Speaker 1: our country. They are part of what I think of
Speaker 1: as the medical industrial complex that is profit driven and
Speaker 1: creates terrible problems for doctors, including right now in COVID
Speaker 1: they're slashing doctors salaries. And I know it's like, oh
Speaker 1: bo who doctors Listen. I watched my parents. I saw
Speaker 1: what the insurance companies, the lobbyists, all of that, what it,
Speaker 1: you know, does to our health as a society, including
Speaker 1: destroying the lives of the medical professionals we need. But um,
Speaker 1: I digress. These men, these white men, came up to me.
Speaker 1: I swear to you a couple of them had tears
Speaker 1: in their eyes, saying, I don't know how to talk
Speaker 1: about this stuff. I don't know how to talk about
Speaker 1: it with my staff. Um, I you seem nice, but
Speaker 1: I don't you know, I have black friends or I
Speaker 1: don't have black like I felt like Oprah. I felt
Speaker 1: like a fucking therapist or something who was like the
Speaker 1: maybe the one time anybody had ever said, hey, white man,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you're gonna wait until after the Q
Speaker 1: and A because you don't want to publicly say this.
Speaker 1: But people who after a couple of cocktails were able
Speaker 1: to come up to me and say effectively, this feels messy,
Speaker 1: this feels problematic. I don't want to feel like I'm
Speaker 1: complicit in any of it, but you touch something that's
Speaker 1: my work, that's my job, and it's not the Rara.
Speaker 1: It's not it doesn't get me a million followers on
Speaker 1: the Graham. It's very different work well. And also it's
Speaker 1: funny because it actually ties into our are sort of
Speaker 1: like off handed conversation at the top about expectations because
Speaker 1: you're like the whole your whole job is making people
Speaker 1: question what their expectations are for you and also for
Speaker 1: every character you bring up there, and then also for themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't pick the easiest job. Apparently I should have
Speaker 1: picked president of the United States because you, I mean,
Speaker 1: any day now, I'm happy to vote for you. I'm
Speaker 1: happy to for you. M Yeah. Well, and also I
Speaker 1: I wonder if it sounds sort of like it picked you,
Speaker 1: it did choose me. And I do have a kind
Speaker 1: of cultural a d H D probably in the sense
Speaker 1: that I want to talk about immigrants and the prison
Speaker 1: industrial complex, and you know, discrimination and healthcare and our
Speaker 1: education system and capitalism and where we are as a
Speaker 1: society economically. I want to talk about all of those
Speaker 1: things at the same time. Also, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want I don't want for my audience you to leave
Speaker 1: out cell by date, right. And the shirt I'm wearing,
Speaker 1: which says eroticide equality is a you know, it's a
Speaker 1: reference to actually glorious it's a glorious Synum quote. And
Speaker 1: it's a reference to where we are with feminism and
Speaker 1: power and sex and how we self identify and self
Speaker 1: invent as women. And we I still know that when
Speaker 1: I walk into a room filled with the white guys
Speaker 1: who still by and large run Hollywood and decide whether
Speaker 1: I get movie roles or TV roles or you know,
Speaker 1: a show on the air. Um, I promise you every
Speaker 1: single project I have ever done, a white man is
Speaker 1: right there deciding whether it gets funded or not, period,
Speaker 1: a white straight man. And to be clear about that
Speaker 1: that even with movements, you know, some subtle movement, I
Speaker 1: can count on my fingers and toes the women, the
Speaker 1: people of color who have you know, the kind of
Speaker 1: power to begin to shift all of this stuff. And
Speaker 1: I think we do ourselves a disservice when we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a hashtag now, so it's it's
Speaker 1: changed or it's really changing in a meaningful way. No,
Speaker 1: it isn't. It isn't yet. And I think, like getting
Speaker 1: clear that there's a reason we're intersectional, right, I need
Speaker 1: to bring all of that stuff into the conversation because
Speaker 1: there is no talking about women without talking about the
Speaker 1: environment and climate change. There is no talking about poverty
Speaker 1: without talking about trafficking and human beings and why their
Speaker 1: bodies are sold. Um, you know what I mean. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean when you were when you were listening the
Speaker 1: sort of themes you've always been interested in. I just
Speaker 1: was thinking the entire time, like, it's just justice. It's
Speaker 1: just justice. It's just justice. Justice. Like so when I
Speaker 1: started taking my kid to marches, which was like, you know,
Speaker 1: sadly early in his life in the world, we are
Speaker 1: not sadly but sadly that they don't needed. But you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: um what when he was old enough to sort of
Speaker 1: slightly start to ask questions, I just no matter what
Speaker 1: we were there for specifically. I mean, the first one
Speaker 1: where I remember he was actually conscious was the March
Speaker 1: for Our Lives and I was not going to tell
Speaker 1: him that it was about, you know, gun violence against children,
Speaker 1: and so I said, we're marching for fairness, and every
Speaker 1: single one of them were marching for fairness. Fairness really honestly,
Speaker 1: like it helps me a lot to think of this
Speaker 1: in terms of humanity, Like when people are you and
Speaker 1: I'll say social justice, and I'll say I'm an activist,
Speaker 1: and I'll say I'm a progressive to radical, I'm a
Speaker 1: fucking human being. Yes, yes, okay, we'll be right back
Speaker 1: after this and we will find out who you brought
Speaker 1: in for us to listen to. We're about to be
Speaker 1: back for act three. Just a note, Sarah's audio did
Speaker 1: not work for the final act, but we've got her
Speaker 1: zoom backup sound. So UM, if you don't want to
Speaker 1: listen because you are an audio purist, um bye. But otherwise, UM,
Speaker 1: I think this actually worked out okay. The technology UM
Speaker 1: supported us, saved us and and UM I loved this
Speaker 1: act so I didn't want to cut it. Here, you
Speaker 1: guys go, we're back and we're going to find out
Speaker 1: who you brought in for us? You would you would
Speaker 1: you first just tell us? So I'm very excited about this.
Speaker 1: Sonya Renee Taylor is a woman I've actually never met
Speaker 1: in person, but she has that kind of reach kind
Speaker 1: of into your soul and I think, uh, maybe ironically
Speaker 1: is not the word, but ironically it's through the body.
Speaker 1: It's she has a book, The Body is not an
Speaker 1: apology that makes an incredibly nuanced and loving argument that
Speaker 1: when we, as I think so many of us do
Speaker 1: in our culture, make our bodies, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: the site of where we fight our battle, and you know,
Speaker 1: how do I look and controlling our bodies and um,
Speaker 1: wanting to occupy a certain space in the culture, we
Speaker 1: actually cut off our soul um. Yeah, I'm going to
Speaker 1: link to her book as well. And I also just
Speaker 1: want to say, as somebody who's who's like on the
Speaker 1: voice soapbox, that you know, voice doesn't exist except with
Speaker 1: our bodies. And whenever somebody has something that's going on
Speaker 1: with their voice that makes them feel like they're not
Speaker 1: being heard or that it's not coming out, or that
Speaker 1: they're not revealing their true selves when they want to be,
Speaker 1: it has to do with their bodies. Yes, I agree
Speaker 1: with that. Okay, here she is. Every time you call
Speaker 1: truth with your body, you interrupt a system of violence
Speaker 1: and power that profits off of your self hate. Every
Speaker 1: time you interrogate the beliefs and biases that you have
Speaker 1: about other bodies, you interrupt a system the profits off
Speaker 1: of the way that you feel about other bodies and
Speaker 1: the systems of comparison that we live in. Our relationship
Speaker 1: with our bodies is our access to a more just
Speaker 1: and equitable world. Our relationship with other people's bodies is
Speaker 1: how we've been the box towards justice. When I watched
Speaker 1: her ted talk, which that's from I was struck by.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, part of the the job of
Speaker 1: being somebody who's whole, you know, being is to say
Speaker 1: that the body isn't. An apology is how do you
Speaker 1: show up on stage? You know, how do you show
Speaker 1: up with your body? And one of the answers is
Speaker 1: that I haven't seen an actor doing Shakespeare in a while,
Speaker 1: and that's you know, like, that's what she's doing. And
Speaker 1: there's a later part in that same um talk where
Speaker 1: she switches into a poetry mode where she's actually, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the verb is. I was going
Speaker 1: to say reciting, and that's so wrong. Embodying embodying, yeah,
Speaker 1: doing poetry. But you can even hear it in that
Speaker 1: clip that there's there's a way that she uses her
Speaker 1: body in connection with her voice that just feels like
Speaker 1: she's under herself. She's not beside herself, she's not next
Speaker 1: to you, she's not running after she is in it.
Speaker 1: She embodies the poem, right, she is the embodiment of
Speaker 1: the poll where she it's almost like she offers her
Speaker 1: body in service of the community. So it's sort of yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a bit of the vessel imagery or emissary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. I mean it's not the same style as
Speaker 1: a conversational style. And you know, I've I listen to
Speaker 1: some clips of her and conversation too, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of cool to to see, you know. Obviously, she's a
Speaker 1: great reminder that all of us have different modes, you know,
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that that one mode is one
Speaker 1: that you know, any of us should sort of steal,
Speaker 1: period or steal for the wrong mode or take the
Speaker 1: wrong lessons from. But to see somebody knowing that what
Speaker 1: they're talking about is big, and that they're taking the
Speaker 1: breath to support that big of a thought and thus
Speaker 1: teaching us that that thought is as big as it
Speaker 1: is is a real lesson. So thank you for bringing
Speaker 1: her in. Thank you for talking to me, Sarah and
Speaker 1: all of the people they wrote with you. Um, you're
Speaker 1: a wonder. Thank you so much for letting me just
Speaker 1: meander all over the places to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Sarah Jones for joining me. You can
Speaker 1: find out more about her in the show notes or
Speaker 1: on our website Permission to Speak pod dot com. There's
Speaker 1: also a super cool bit of bonus content this week
Speaker 1: on our Instagram feed at Permission to Speak Pod, where
Speaker 1: Sarah talks about the secret of playing cool when you
Speaker 1: meet your heroes. It's really really special and real. Um.
Speaker 1: Please also send me d M s or voice memos
Speaker 1: to at Permissions beat Pot on Instagram or the website
Speaker 1: and let me know what is going on with your voice.
Speaker 1: I would be thrilled to answer to the next mail
Speaker 1: bag episode. Also tell me what kind of guests you'd
Speaker 1: like me to have on and also what kind of
Speaker 1: questions you would like me to ask upcoming guests. I
Speaker 1: am so truly here for you, I especially I feel
Speaker 1: like during these wild and rather unsettling times, if we
Speaker 1: can think really intentionally about how our communication allows us
Speaker 1: to be more vulnerable and more heart forward with the
Speaker 1: people in our lives, that is something we should be doing.
Speaker 1: And even more than any of that, I would so
Speaker 1: love for you to just tell me what you need
Speaker 1: from me. If I can provide it, I will thank
Speaker 1: you as well to Sophie Lichterman and the team at
Speaker 1: I Heeart Radio, my family and cohort and all of you.
Speaker 1: We're recording this podcast at various locations around Los Angeles
Speaker 1: on land that is the historic gathering place for the
Speaker 1: Tongva indigenous tribe, and you can visit us D A
Speaker 1: C dot us to learn more about honoring Native land.
Speaker 1: Permission to Speak is a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Double Vision Executive produced by Katherine Burke Canton and
Speaker 1: Mark Canton. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, listen
Speaker 1: on the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your favorite shows.