It's Where I Am with Zandra Polard

Zandra Polard 0:00
This program is paid for by its where I m.com The content of this program does not reflect the values or opinions of 91.5k U and V or the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Morning Las Vegas good Zondra pollarded with it's where I am. Today. My guests are dialectical coach Samira Bay and odo laryngologist, Dr. Michael John's, today, we'll be talking about the perception of how you speak. So if you didn't know, if you look back at some of my previous shows, you'll notice that my voice changes. Sometimes it's a little breathy like this. And sometimes, it's a little softer, like this. And oftentimes, as of lately, it's strong and powerful, like this. So it's been a long road, my voice has gone through many changes, I had a goiter growing on my thyroid, which made me have to have it removed. So that happening, caused my vocal cords to kind of collapse, or paralyze. So I've been getting a little help from Dr. John's, with some treatments that have helped me to breathe better. But with breathing better, comes speaking softer, because I am getting a little Botox and unfortunately, it's not the kind. It's not the cosmetic kind. It's the medical kind. So I am getting Botox in my vocal cords, to strengthen those muscles, so that I can breathe much better. There you go. So Dr. Johns, welcome. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Johns 1:52
Sandra, thank you so much for having me. It is a joy to see you and doing so well.

Zandra Polard 1:57
So how long have you been practicing? And can you explain the difference between an N T? And what you do an oral laryngologist?

Dr. Johns 2:07
Okay, yeah, thank you. So I've been as the gray hairs show, I've been at this for a few years. And we specialize it's very complex area. Some people specialize in hearing in the ear, some people specialize in the nose and the sinus, and I specialize in the T, V and T throat on leren Golgi. voice disorders, okay, and so that's the one thing that makes me a little different from the general en t is I just do the T. Well, thank

Zandra Polard 2:35
you for that explanation. So I was when I was going through my journey. When at right after the surgery, and I couldn't speak for I think it was, oh, maybe a couple of months. And then I had a really soft voice like so soft. No one can hear me. So like if you left the room, I couldn't get anyone unless I'd knocked on a door or a wall or something. So when I got back out into the workforce and out into society, my voice was so soft that oftentimes, people did not hear me, which was very frustrating. And it made me socially mute. Just because it was just so difficult. You know, no one understood me. I couldn't go through a drive thru. I want to bring in Samira Bay, who is a dialect coach. And she has written a book that's not out yet, but it will be next year, called permission to speak you were

Samara 3:36
just talking about with Dr. John's really is relevant because each of us, each of us has a sense, although often not a lot of language for it, and not a lot of sense that everyone else is having this feeling to but see if this rings true for anybody listening, we'd sort of have a sense that how we talk how we show up in a space affects how people treat us. Yes. So you know, there's obvious examples of a sort of, quote unquote, interview voice. And there's also examples from your own life probably of speaking differently to say, a grandmother than you do to a kid than you do to a lawyer who calls and says that he's suing you, you know, the there are different voices that live inside of us. And they come out in different scenarios. And sometimes we get mistreated, because how we naturally sound isn't what that listener has decided. Respectable sound should be. So you know, I'm very quickly getting into sort of political territory here of what it feels like to walk through the world, as a woman as a person of color as an immigrant with an English as a second language, you know, sound, but it ties in with what you are doing, Dr. John's from what I can understand because, of course, when people come to you, there's a problem. And it is of course, medical, but it also is affecting their life. Not just I can't be heard without knocking. But as you say, I can't enter a public sphere and be taken seriously, right with a voice that isn't 100%. I had a similar related experience, okay, in my 20s. Okay, I was in an Acting Program, a master's in acting. So, you know, all day every day conservatory acting experience with lots of talking, lots of singing, and I lost my voice, repeatedly, it'd be lightly back in the mornings gone by the evenings, I imagined the auto laryngologist in our midst could already diagnose what was going on there. But I learned through going to an ear, nose and throat doctor that I had vocal nodules, just like blisters on your vocal cords for rocking it not quite, in my case, not quite my optimum pitch. So turn that we all have an optimum pitch, a pitch that our vocal cords wants to talk at. And if we go a little higher, a little low habitually, for social reasons that we have picked up, we can probably get by until we start talking a lot,

Zandra Polard 5:56
right? This

Dr. Johns 5:58
is such a rich discussion about voice and how our voice speaks so much about ourselves, and also how impairing it is when you lose your voice, right. And voice problems are relatively uncommon. We all lose our voice from time to time. But we don't realize how much we rely on our voices to communicate and convey Well, we the message we need to convey to the world, even in this digital space. We're spending so much time on our iPhones and whatnot until you've lost your voice. You don't really understand the importance of it. And and I think it's it's critical to to Hallmark that.

Samara 6:43
I totally think you agreed, guys. Yeah, I'm glad we're having this conversation because it's true. And and I'll add to what you said. Because, yes, when we have an acute situation, which is what happened for both Sondra and me, right, and then all of the patients that you see, of course, we are confronted with, you know, the massive value that voice has in our life. But we don't actually have to have something acute happen to start to think about how are the ways that I talk affecting how I get treated in the world. And sometimes if we're in, I'll just throw out there sort of a corporate work environment. We receive feedback from maybe even a kind boss or mentor who says something like there's a billion examples, but one that comes to mind, obviously, is don't

Zandra Polard 7:34
speak Ebonics

Samara 7:35
don't speak Ebonics, they won't say that out loud. But they'll say something like, oh, we would just like you to seem a little bit more professional, right, which is obviously code. If you keep doing up speak, or vocal fry, which are terms from linguistics for these sort of, quote, unquote, feminine markers, which is to say, women aren't the only ones who do it. But they are the only ones who get sort of maligned for it up speak is when you your sentences sound like questions. And vocal fry is when you kind of go into your throat, and so you have a lot less pitch variation. And it sounds a little bit like bacon frying, which happens, which happens habitually, for a lot of people, especially millennials and younger, at the ends of sentences. So you might not start that way. But then by the end of the sentence, you're like, are whatever. By the way, nothing is wrong with any of these linguists will tell you, we all pick up habits for a reason. I love that. Because it means that any of these things that this boss or mentor might be telling you, what they're saying is, it's not translating in this space, right? And then you get to decide, well, do I want to go through the work of translating into this space or not? And that is an interesting place to be in, but not one that anyone talks about and have language for, which is part of why?

Zandra Polard 8:47
Well, in the African culture, I do have to say we do yes, often we called Switch. Oh,

Samara 8:52
yes, yeah. Oh, yes. But what I mean and agreed, very much so. And when I talk about women and people of color, and immigrants, what I'm really saying is that actually, those groups of people do on some very deep level, understand that something is going on with the relationship between our voice and how we get treated. But what we don't always have is the language around how fair or unfair that is, how widespread that is, how systemic that is, and how there may be a path forward in actually thinking about and this is for anybody listening. What, what is power? Sound like, when you hear someone speak? What makes you think, Oh, they're an authority figure.

Dr. Johns 9:35
Oh, there's so many good things that have popped up here. You know, one is that, you know, we can change your voice. You can change your voice with training. You can change your voice with how with our mechanics and whether it's style or whether it's efficiency. And that not only plays into voice habilitation to work on Having your voice represent you the way you want it to be, but also in voice rehabilitation as well. And the power of strengthening and voice therapy. Another item that was touched on is sort of the accumulation of little aches and pains that happen, you know, over the years, we don't feel it one thing about voice and voice disorders. You don't they don't come with pain. Yeah, like, you know, if I had, you know, I've got I don't have great posture. If I listened to my mother, I would have better posture. And I probably would have less of these aches and pains and things that I'm you can get along with. And now these things can reach a tipping point where you need to address them. So no common recommendation we have is do you have unexplained voice change that lasts longer than two weeks? That needs to be evaluated, you probably should have the instrument looked at, if you will. And it's actually pretty easy to have that and that's what your nose and throat and throat specialist in particular do. But really what what an amazing interface of voice and voice change and how voice empowers us love this. You

Zandra Polard 11:06
know, if you go to my website, it's where I am.com I may or may not I'm not promising, but I may or may not post the video of my larynx. Is it my larynx, Dr. John's.

Dr. Johns 11:23
So it takes us to the voice box. And the same thing right here. We think of it as voice but it provides an airway, okay protects our airway. And it provides voice as well. voice box larynx.

Samara 11:34
So Dr. John's, would you would you help us and this is this is somewhat selfish, but I think it's useful for everybody on will you help us with understanding the relationship between breath and larynx. And one of the things that Sandra said earlier was that when she lost the ability to have, you know, her, her hair to for regular voice come out that you were helping her with breathing and the connection there. I'd love to hear more about how you think about that.

Dr. Johns 12:00
Yeah, so voice is really complex, we think about the voice box. Okay, this is what generate sound, but really not it's complex coordination of our breathing and our lungs, which is the power for our voice. That's the air stream that really delivers the sound. It's like a bellows and a fireplace. And then the larynx it really serves as kind of like the read on instrument saxophone. And the vocal cords we have two of them are folds as or more accurately called live inside the voice box. And they come together when we speak. And when we swallow, and they come apart when we breathe. So they have to come they actively open, the valve opens and we can take a deep breath in and then they come together. And as they come together lately and that power from our lungs, the air stream pushes through them they vibrate, just like your lips might vibrate given a raspberry and and that generates a buzzing quality. And then all of the structures in our throat above the vocal cords. They act like a horn, kind of like on a trumpet or any other instrument the horn it shapes and filters the sound into what we know is human human voice and it's incredibly delicate and resilient at the same time, and beautiful and dynamic.

Samara 13:22
And what happens if we're habitually under breathing, then does it put more pressure on the muscles in our throat slash larynx? Yeah,

Dr. Johns 13:30
we call that laryngeal focus and vocal fry or pulse mode. phonation is like the penultimate manifestation of that with no flow. All they're in jail focus. And we're relying on little muscles to do a lot of work versus are the big muscles of our chest wall to drive our voice. And so voice can be very easy. You can have vocal endurance. But when we get into that laryngeal focus, with no airflow that is very fatiguing and exhausting.

Samara 13:59
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, please. But my understanding is that when we're babies, we do it right. And then when life happens, we start to hold. And sometimes maybe frequently, we habitually pick up patterns, like not taking the deepest possible breath that we can, and then using these other muscles to compensate and that becomes what feels like us it feels like our sound. But really, of course, it's it's you know, the result of a lot of life, you know, because oftentimes,

Zandra Polard 14:27
I'll say because I noticed I say so a lot so when I look back on video, I'll say so so so or because and when I use those two words, it's usually my way of taking a sneak breath. So that's my managing technique. Yeah,

Samara 14:46
smart. Yeah. I mean as his by the way, silence which is very scary when you're on air. And it's and also scary when you are the spotlight in the spotlight, right. So if we're pitching an idea, and we want to actually collect our thoughts in the middle of idea to decide which direction we're gonna go in. It does feel better to go Ah, right, because it means I still have the floor. I know I'm collecting my thoughts. I know, you know, I'm collecting, rather than a one might argue, a power move of actually keeping the energy alive. But being silent for a moment, right?

Zandra Polard 15:22
It always seems a lot longer in your brain, right? It does. Yes,

Samara 15:30
yes. Yeah, this actually makes me think about one of the other aspects of what we're all talking about, which is like, there's some connection between psychology and body, right? We know this. It's obvious. But but but especially when it was a breath, like, why are we not taking as good a breath as we could? I mean, I don't know the answer. But it usually I mean, it's serious, right? It's stress or it's not wanting to feel your emotions, right, we've figured out ways to kind of cut ourselves off from the parts of our body where stuff feels less contained and manageable. There's also certainly for women, a long history of what I call suck in culture, right? Where if we suck in our middles, we'll look smaller. And then we habitually doing that right now. And then we forget to write. And then I read an amazing study about how how prevalent this woman referenced a term she made up, email apnea, sleep apnea where you forget to breathe, but email apnea where you get an email, you take in a breath in anticipation, and forget to release it.

Zandra Polard 16:35
Oh, okay. But

Samara 16:39
we're all doing that. And the stakes aren't even high. Over an email, over an email. So if we're doing it over an email, we're maybe also doing it over a difficult conversation. Sure, you know, yeah. And then we go, Oh, right. There's all that stuff. There's all that what did you call it? Dr. John's that that like the fuel for real speech?

Dr. Johns 16:59
Yes. Right, our power, your power, easy to forget, with voice, something that comes automatically we don't think about it just sort of comes out. Right? Right, we forget that it's a, it's actually a physical task, just like walking or running or any other athletics and the higher performance invoice you go, the more athletic it becomes. And it's all a physical task. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean that that's not what it is. But it's also so wonderful, because it conveys so many things about us and our emotions and our feelings and our, and our soul that comes along with it.

Zandra Polard 17:32
A lot of times, people deal with anxiety. And we know that breathing techniques are extremely helpful. So, Dr. John's thing, one

Dr. Johns 17:42
strategy that we apply commonly, for people who are feeling either short of breath, or need a moment to recharge and refresh their voice, or have chronic throat clearing, throat irritation, or chronic cough, a simple breathing strategy is this. And this is really just more for throat relaxation, and comfort. Okay, so we commonly advise, just take a sip of a healthy beverage, okay?

Zandra Polard 18:15
Just water to see play.

Dr. Johns 18:19
And breathe out

like you're searching a baby, not like you're searching a teenager, like puts positive pressure back on your throat, okay? positive air pressure, it also makes the vocal cords separate a bit and stabilize. And so it's it's relaxing, it changes the feeling that your throat is having that your brain is telling you to clear your throat or cough or it's irritated. And is a very relaxed posture, very similar, a lot of yogic breathing and other sort of breathing techniques. So that's my, that's my little nugget there.

Samara 19:02
I would add, I love that. And here's my ADD to yours. So I love the psychological hack aspect of this. How do we how do we clear out some mind gunk that's perhaps built up around how we present in public or around our own sense of power. So doing exactly what you just described. And I love that, by the way, for those of you who aren't watching this, but listening, Dr. John's closed his eyes when he did it. And then I think both of us closed our eyes when we did it too. There's something very meditative, as you say about this slow warm, shut out. And then I would also add if your eyes are closed, try this. Think about and especially if this is in the moments before you're about to do something scary because as you say, this is where anxiety tends to hit us. As you're taking that slow breath out. Think about the people in your life, who maybe one person even who really gets you who really sees you, who really admires you. Maybe a moment, even in time when someone you admire admired you back some moment when you really felt glowing with pride and felt really understood. And clear. When you close your eyes, think about them, looking at you with that warmth, and breathe that back in after you've done the breathing out. There's a lot of studies that say that when we prime ourselves for this sort of power, it affects the next moment in the next as does obviously the opposite, right? If those moments of anxiety, if we are the meanest to ourselves as we possibly can be, if the voice in our head says to us, get it together, what's wrong with you? Why can't you do this, like that person over there who doesn't seem to be having any problems at all? Well, you can imagine what that Prime's you for. And if the, if it's a binary and what we're talking about priming you for power or for feeling of powerlessness. Of course, it's more complex than that. But like, that's a pretty easy way to think about it. How loving of yourself to prime yourself for power. And power does not have to mean some, you know, sort of perverted version of power, where it's power over somebody or some sort of historically masculine coded, you know, violent power or grabbing resources.

Zandra Polard 21:24
Thanks for clarification, you

Samara 21:26
know, power can like, let's make sure when we're talking about power, that we're also thinking about power and other words that are related, like leadership and strength. We should think about those, those concepts. Really, really honoring that, when we think about, for example, power, it helps to think what is my own archetype for power? Who do I love in the larger world, or in my own life? Who has power? What's a version of power that I actually want that I want to step into? Because that's what we're talking about here when we're, you know, quote, unquote, priming ourselves for power. So

Zandra Polard 21:59
with that being said, I'd like for us tomorrow to tell us more about some of the different types of works that you do. You are a dialect coach. You have the book, we talked about the book. And you also work in the industry, you work in the Hollywood industry, and you also work in politics. That's

Samara 22:19
right. That's right. I got involved in the 2018 midterms. moveon.org was looking for people to work pro bono to coach Basically, first time exclusively, in my case, female candidates for office. So this is, you know, when you think about it, not lifelong public servants. But people who just recently who just in this in this political cycle, or in that political cycle, decided, Oh, no one's standing up for my community, I guess I have to, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they have a long history of what is it to scale yourself up? What is it to show up in public, like, the most relaxed, most powerful, most kind version of yourself, rather, what most of us tend to do, and we don't have a lot of experience speaking in public is hide, right, so we show up, but we don't show up. And by that, I mean, technically speaking, we will hide her throat will stop breathing will end up sounding a bit monotone. So like, if you sound like this, and you're saying I'm Welcome, everybody, I'm so glad that you're here, it's really hard to also show I care. Because those ways of hiding our ways of saying, Don't worry, I'm cool, I'm good. I'm not I'm not going to bother anyone with caring too much. You know, whatever, there's a bunch of different versions of this, you won't get the vote, but you won't get the vote because you won't be trustworthy. Because we actually need to see we need vulnerability. Like, you know, this is what I've been thinking about lately, because I do come from the theater and from Hollywood. And now I'm working not just in politics, but with a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of CEOs, a lot of C suite level people who really are eyeing power in a new way and frustrated with their habits, okay. And what I'm realizing is, there's a really direct connection between the Hollywood stuff, and he's, you know, him real people, which is, when we watch something, I just finally watched the second season of bridgerton. When we watch something and we really fall in love with a character. What they're doing is, is really showing up when they show up. It's a character, right? It's an actor doing this, but those moments when they are revealing themselves as as this character when they are being vulnerable, and we fall in love with them. That is the exact same thing that happens in amazing moments, viral moments of pop culture, speech giving, and we can think of moments like AOC when she was on the floor of Congress a few years back, talking about a sexist comment from a fellow Congress. Men, but actually talking about how much a lot of people around the country have to deal with those micro aggressions, or Oprah at the what was it 2018 Golden Globes, where she gave an impassioned speech. And the next day, everybody said that she should run for president. It's not unconnected. It's people who show up and say something true in a voice that sounds like their own. And we're willing to be vulnerable, just like those actors in Britain. And that is not how public speaking is taught. And it is not how this sort of sometimes it's called executive presence and more of a corporate context is taught. We're often taught in those contexts to keep our voice low, especially for a woman to keep it pitch wise, low, because low codes for power, we're told to not have a huge amount of variation up and down, because then we'll sound I don't know girly, we're certainly told to have a predominant culture, white voice, we're certainly told, you know, a number of things about PACE, a measured pace. This results in the most boring, generic version of you, rather than somebody we're going to fall in love with. And obviously, you know, in a work context, we don't want to talk about love. But we can talk about how we get somebody to care about what you care about, which is really what it is, when we're pitching an idea, or when we're pitching ourselves for office, care about this stuff with me, let's care together. You

Zandra Polard 26:30
know, if you are looking to master your voice, shall I say, you are able to, again, go to my website, and you will find Samira Bay's bio there and information on how to contact her. But for those who are listening now, can you please let our listeners know? Sure.

Samara 26:52
If you are interested in sort of diving into this and thinking about your own relationship, your own voice, which I sometimes call something, we need to detox because there is some toxicity in our culture that has a little residue in our voice and in our relationship to our voice. I have a newsletter that I've been putting out once a week that I call a love letter to your voice. Okay. This week's is actually about the relationship between body language and voice. It's just a lovely little spot to start to think about this stuff seriously. I think sometimes we don't quite appreciate that. Our own private fears. I don't like my voice. I don't I don't like this thing that my voice does, is actually the result of a history of tiny little comments. We've gotten tiny little messages we've received. And to know that it's collective to know that this is actually systemic, that we can talk about this stuff in solidarity with each other rather than like, I personally have a personal failing. Clearly, I can't hack it, as you know, makes all the difference. Yes.

Zandra Polard 27:59
Wow. Okay. And so, thank you so much for sharing this information with us tomorrow and Samira, and coming all the way down from Los Angeles, California. I couldn't not be in the room with you being in studio. It's nice to have you in studio. And Dr. Johns, I'll be seeing you really soon. And then so be prepared audience. When I come back, there might be a little change in my voice. Let's see what it sounds like. I met I got referred to you from Las Vegas because there was not a specialist for me at least not one of your caliber, here in Las Vegas. So you know, I've met quite a few people, like I mentioned before, that have issues due to allergies is one big huge reason. accidents. But I have to travel all the way to Los Angeles just to see Dr. John's and he's phenomenon

Dr. Johns 28:59
and treat people should know then listen to their voice. They might be telling them something. If it's changed, then something's not right. Get a check. It's easy to get a scope make sure that and bad's happening is treatment out there. Taking care of your voice.

Zandra Polard 29:14
His information is on the website as well. It's where I am.com and I want to thank you both for being here. All righty. Well, 91.5 Jasmine, thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next month, second Saturday of the month at 8:30am. It's where I am Hi

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