Lioness Conversations: Brave Stories of Women Leaders & Female Founders | Women leading with confidence, empowerment, entrepreneurship, innovation, impact

Jen Porter (00:00)
Hey, Lioness, welcome to the show, "Lioness Conversations", where we help women be brave to lead with confidence and joy and to find your path to the most meaningful work of your life. I'm your host, Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach for ambitious and heart-centered women. You can find out more about the Lioness community at jenportercoach.com. Today, we have the privilege of having you meet my new friend, Deena Kamm.

Deena is a veteran performer, a voice coach on a mission to help people reclaim and embrace the full power of their voice. With over 30 years in the music industry, she's helped thousands break through fear and self-doubt to speak and sing with confidence and authenticity. Through her Voice Up program, her original work Voiceless, a musical, and her upcoming book,

Deena empowers people to express themselves with clarity, passion, and purpose. Her belief, if you can talk, you can and should sing loud. Deena, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you here and have this conversation with you.

Deena Kamm (01:12)
Thank you. Bye.

Thank you for having me. love having this conversation.

Jen Porter (01:21)
Well, you and I met through a dear friend, Erin, and

when you and I connected, we realized we had so much in common. We both do a lot of work around the voice and helping, particularly for me, I help women find their voice. You help women and men find their voices. And we have a mutual love for authenticity and the lion, the lioness, the lion imagery is meaningful to both of us. So it was like kindred spirits when we met.

Deena Kamm (01:28)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep, yep.

Yeah, I know it sort of fell right into place the minute that when Erin, well, I guess you sent it over. guess Erin gave you my info and she's so great. I love Erin so much. mean, yeah, I mean, talk about power. my God. She's like, keep your eye on her because she's she'll change the world for sure. Yeah, she is. She is. She's amazing.

Jen Porter (01:59)
She nominated you.

I know, I know, Erin Foot Morgan, who's who we're talking about, a powerhouse in her own right.

She's amazing.

She will, she is, yeah. One amazing,

meaningful project at a time.

Deena Kamm (02:21)
Yeah,

yeah, one of my favorite people. I love being with her. We're both way too busy. We never see each other. But when we do, it's just like, love you. Yeah, yeah.

Jen Porter (02:24)
Yeah.

Love, love, love.

So let's start with where you're focusing your effort right now. You're doing this huge musical. You're writing and producing this musical called Voiceless. What is that about?

Deena Kamm (02:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I have a writing partner and it's loosely based on her actual story. It's about a woman who loses her voice physically from a neurological response to stress and trauma. And it's a condition called muscle tension dysphonia, and it's MTD for short. And it's a real thing. I actually work with people who have

different versions of dysphonia and this is one of them and the story is about a woman who's dealing with a lot and isn't dealing with it and so she loses her speaking voice and I'm not allowed to give it away but it's a it's a her journey back to it basically it's but it kind of ruins the show if I tell you

The really cool hook in it. There's a really cool hook in it.

Jen Porter (03:41)
Sure.

What made you take this on? This big project?

Deena Kamm (03:48)
Well, I have been wanting, so I'm a singer-songwriter. That was my very first thing that I did in music. I was a singer and then I turned into a songwriter. so I had been wanting to write a musical really for like the last 20 years. And I kind of loosely started and stopped several times. And nothing really like hit me that I wanted to tell.

to make it my whole life. A musical is so much work, oh my God. Never write a musical, it's so hard, it's so much work. It's endless amounts of work. I thought it was just gonna be, oh, I'll write 25 songs and be done with it. It has been all consuming for five years. I've always wanted to write a musical and then I'm sitting in...

Jen Porter (04:21)
cannot imagine, Deena. I cannot imagine.

Deena Kamm (04:40)
the bathtub one day and I'm scrolling through my phone and I always get like downloads in the bathtub. I think it's because the only place I can't do anything, I just stop. And so for that reason, I never take baths, but I just can't, I'm a shark. And Google dropped an article that my writing partner, Anne, Anne Fenn wrote in my feed. And it was something, I think it was, well, this is gonna give away the show.

Jen Porter (04:53)
You

Deena Kamm (05:09)
but it was the year I couldn't talk. I think that was what it was called. And I read the article and it was really funny and turns out she was a comedy writer in Toronto, Canada and she is hilarious and a seasoned writer. That's all she's done as work. She's a writer and a comedian and the story was so great and it was, her story was like an amalgamation of all my clients' stories.

Jen Porter (05:12)
Okay.

Wow.

Deena Kamm (05:39)
So it was like, and then the doctor in her story was me. I'm not a doctor, but it was like all the things he was telling her was like, that's what I do. I know, no, I mean, I really can thank Google for this. So sometimes that them spying on you is a good thing. Cause we all know, like how did you know Google? I know. So,

Jen Porter (05:44)
Yeah.

And you had not met her before that point? Okay.

you

We do know this.

Deena Kamm (06:08)
I sent her an email. found her. I stalked her online and I found her and I read through her. I guess there was a website. I think she had a website at that time and I read through the website and I was like, I love this lady. And I sent her an email and I was like, hey, you don't know me and I'm not weird and I'm not trying to kill you or anything, but do want to write a musical together? And she wrote back like, yeah, that's really weird that you sent me an email because

I was just telling my best friend yesterday that the only thing I've ever wanted to do that I haven't done in my life is write a musical. And she's like, yeah, let's do it. So we met in LA about, I know, I know, I mean.

Jen Porter (06:46)
What?

Okay, let's just pause there.

This is incredible when this happens. Isn't life just beautiful and mysterious and a wonder?

Deena Kamm (06:57)
And...

Yes,

and every step of the way with her has been the most organic work I've done. I mean, both of us. It's been easy, we don't fight, we just have such a good rapport. Our story came together easy. We don't make any decisions without each other. And it's just like she's been such a great partner. it's crazy. Like how...

She's on the other side of the country. Well, the other side of the continent.

Jen Porter (07:28)
Did she, does she still live in Canada?

Did she move to Bend to work on this project?

Deena Kamm (07:33)
no, no, we did it all online. Did all of it online. Yeah. On, you know, internet calls basically. And we've, we've only ever really met like in person, I think three times. Three times. Yeah. we don't know. We're not sure. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of, I know, but there's a lot of things going on right now at the Canadian border. So we don't have to talk about all that, but.

Jen Porter (07:36)
Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

And she's coming for the big launch.

I can't imagine him not being there.

Sure.

Yeah. Okay. Wow. And so you have been in the, well, let me start with this. What is your vision for this musical? What do really want this to be?

Deena Kamm (08:03)
So that's a whole thing.

you know, it's a that's a funny question because when it started out it was like I want to write a show for me to do I want to write my own show about something that I care about and so I am for this incarnation of the world premiere which is happening in July of 2025 I am the lead but it's gotten so far beyond me like at first it was just I want to do a show for me I just want to do something for myself

Jen Porter (08:31)
Yeah.

Deena Kamm (08:49)
And it has turned into, I mean, the reach is so incredible already and it hasn't even started. And just, we have two production companies working with us and a teams of people from all different areas because there's a very big autism piece to this show. There's a, it's centered around the lead character starts an autism.

Jen Porter (09:10)
Okay.

Deena Kamm (09:17)
a company to help her niece with autism so she has a job. And so she only hires high functioning autistic, not high functioning, but like functioning autistic people that wouldn't otherwise be able to get like a job, that kind of thing. And so there's a really big piece to that. And the great part about that is that, and I didn't plan on that, it just fell into place because my writing partner and her niece has autism.

Jen Porter (09:23)
Hmm.

amazing.

Deena Kamm (09:45)
And she's very, very, very close with her niece. So this is part of her story. And her niece helps her all the time with her voice because she calls her out all the time. Why did you say that? That's not true. That's not honest. You know, there's a common thread through a lot of the autistic community that they don't do the superficial stuff. They don't really, they're not filtering.

Jen Porter (10:08)
Yeah, they're not filtering everything they say.

Deena Kamm (10:12)
And so we use that in this show as the voice of honesty where, you know, we make fun of neurotypicals, which is people who are not autistic. So that has become a very big piece of it. I had to dive hard into the autism community and research because I had to write from the autism perspective, which I had no idea what it even was when I started.

And now I'm like, I'm involved in the communities and I feel like I really speak, I shouldn't say I speak on their behalf, but I think I speak for them in a very, like I really worked hard to make sure that it was A, not offensive, not demeaning, not degrading. That's number one, like right out of the honoring.

Jen Porter (11:05)
honoring, right?

Deena Kamm (11:08)
We

really lift up the beauty of this culture in the show. And so that was hard for me and not hard for me, it was time consuming.

Jen Porter (11:19)
And then

what about Voice Up? What is that program?

Deena Kamm (11:23)
Voice Up is my corporate coaching company. So I have a local company called Sing Bend. I'm from Bend, Oregon. I live in Bend, Oregon. And Voice Up is the corporate version of that. It's sort of my umbrella parent company. It kind of umbrellas everything. It's got my musical under there and me as an individual, as a speaker, I teach. So I work with people who are public speakers, attorneys.

Jen Porter (11:51)
you

Deena Kamm (11:51)
anybody

who has to use their voice for a living. I've worked with social media influencers where they're online all the time, specifically women for those in that area because women tend to have much more tension in their voice than men. And it's harder for them to lose than men. So voice up kind of covers all of that, but it's more of my co-

corporate angles. So I'll do.

Jen Porter (12:21)
Yeah. And

what does tension in the voice mean?

Deena Kamm (12:25)
that's a long answer, but the short answer is you're not using your diaphragm to support the instrument. The diaphragm is the motor of the instrument. And if you don't use the diaphragm, the only other option to motorize the instrument are the throat muscles. And it's not built for the throat muscles to motorize the instrument. So...

Jen Porter (12:46)
Yeah.

Deena Kamm (12:51)
when we use this instrument with the throat muscles, what we get is like a ball of tension in our throat. And when that happens, our sound comes up here a lot of the time. So a lot of fatigue very easily, you lose your voice probably all the time. But also it usually sounds tight and it sounds uncomfortable, but

Jen Porter (13:03)
And it would get fatigued, right? More than the diaphragm.

Deena Kamm (13:19)
In our culture, we don't really pay attention that much to sound. What we do pay attention to subconsciously is the tension coming out of your voice physically goes into my body because tension is carried through sound. So absolutely, yeah.

Jen Porter (13:36)
like energy.

Okay, so what's super cool about what you do is you talk about the physicality of singing, of using your voice. And you also compare singing to yelling. And so with your clients, you get them to sing by yelling and understanding the connection between those. Tell the story about when a baby is born.

Deena Kamm (13:49)
Yeah.

It is.

Yeah.

Well, when we are in utero, we are pulling in amniotic fluid into our lungs and pushing it out of our lungs. That's our diaphragm working. Our diaphragm contracts down, sucks fluid in, and it relaxes, and it pushes fluid out. The diaphragm's a whole other thing. I could talk 15 hours about it. Then when we're born, the diaphragm pushes that fluid out. It's the very first thing that happens in every single healthy baby.

doesn't matter who you are, where you're born, what you associate, economic nothing. The first thing that happens is the diaphragm pushes the fluid out of your lungs, it contracts down and sucks air back into your lungs. So now you're breathing. That's all healthy babies. Almost always the very next thing that happens with every single healthy baby is they sing. That's the very next thing. That's their very next move. And singing is the only

natural physical thing that we do that presses down the diaphragm at any length of time. And the reason that's important is because when the diaphragm is pressing down, it's hitting the Vegas nerve, the top of the Vegas nerve, and it's triggering the parasympathetic nervous system, which is our regulatory system. It helps us calm down and it creates happy, feel good hormones, serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine, and endorphins.

And so the very first thing we do when we're born is calm ourselves down by singing.

Jen Porter (15:42)
That's so interesting, I would think that using our voices in a big way would actually elevate our nervous system.

Deena Kamm (15:51)
It absolutely does not. It absolutely does not.

Jen Porter (15:54)
And it's actually, a calming,

there's there's endorphins and dopamine hits and all that.

Deena Kamm (15:58)
It is the only

thing that you can do that will hold. You can hold, because the diaphragm is a long hold muscle, but the only time it long holds is when we're singing. Because the only time that you're long holding is when you're contracting on an exhale. That's the physicality of it. It's a little more complicated than that. It takes me about an hour to explain it well.

Jen Porter (16:10)
Wow.

Yeah.

Deena Kamm (16:22)
So I won't get into it, but what's happening is physiologically, when you sing, when you hold down the diaphragm, that is the motor of your singing voice. That's how you create air pressure in the upper thoracic cavity, which is basically your long chest area. And that...

Jen Porter (16:40)
Mm-hmm.

Deena Kamm (16:48)
creates air pressure, it pressurizes it, and when it pressurizes it, that plucks the vocal cords. So that's how the voice works. It's the only way the voice works.

Jen Porter (16:59)
And what other health benefits are there to singing?

Deena Kamm (17:02)
my God. How much time do we have?

Jen Porter (17:06)
Enough for you to give us an overview.

Deena Kamm (17:08)
Okay, overview. Well, that particular activity creates that long hold on the parasympathetic. So that is a happy feel-good regulatory. It's responsible for your feelings and emotions. And so if you're feeling upset or, excuse me, anxiety or stress, they say to breathe. But what they're...

what they really mean is hold trigger on that parasympathetic. Because one of the things that when you have a really racing heart rate and you're really upset and people say, take three deep breaths. Well, I'm not really sure what people think that means, but what's happening is the diaphragm is a big muscle right underneath the lungs and right underneath the heart. And

There's fascia, which is a web-like substance that goes on top of all muscles. It connects all of our muscles and all of our throughout the body. And there's fascia on top of the diaphragm. And then it goes up underneath the lungs and it wraps around the heart. So every single time you can track down, which is an inhale, your heart slows, it expands, it grows. So it is responsible. The diaphragm is responsible for calming the heart rate down.

Jen Porter (18:29)
Is that why we feel a release after like a good cry or we yell and vent or...

Deena Kamm (18:36)
Those are two different things, but yes. But yes, the cry, yell and cry is the parasympathetic and you flood, you open the floodgates of the parasympathetic when you yell or cry. Crying usually comes with some version of vocal, audible cry. But I don't know exactly, I don't actually, I've never actually been asked about crying, so that's really interesting and I'm gonna look into it. But.

Jen Porter (18:38)
Okay?

Yeah.

Hmm. Well,

I'm recalling from our first conversation that don't people tend to cry when they use their voices newly?

Deena Kamm (19:09)
Yes. Yes,

yes. And that is the release of the parasympathetic. Yeah. Because if you are never holding down on that parasympathetic, then you don't have that exponential release of hormones. Because the only way to get that exponential release of the four happy feel-good hormones is to hold it down. And the only way to hold it down naturally is to be vocalizing.

Jen Porter (19:34)
Yeah.

Deena Kamm (19:34)
You can

do it on your own without, I mean, you can consciously do it. You can hold your breath. I do exercises with my clients where I show them how to do it without vocalizing, but singing's the best. Here's the other thing it does. So when your diaphragm is contracting down, you are massaging your interior, your internal organs for your lower thoracic. You're also triggering, it's responsible for nasal health because when you're,

using really deep breaths. Usually you're breathing through your nose. This is mostly diaphragm and not singing. But they're so connected that I always talk about the diaphragm and the health benefits of it because the only way you can really get those health benefits is by singing. So I like to talk about diaphragm first and then I say, that's why you should sing. So yeah, it's nasal health, lung health, internal organ health.

Jen Porter (20:25)
Incredible.

Well, and mood,

right? Mood, which is huge.

Deena Kamm (20:34)
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, yes, but they're all connected, right? Because your mood, if you don't feel good, then your mood, you're always in this low grade, know, malaise. There's always some version of not right in your body. And the diaphragm is really connected to all of that and the best way to exercise the diaphragm and keep it strong so that all of these body parts work is saying, it's...

Jen Porter (21:04)
And so

when people come to you, they are often really intimidated to sing.

Deena Kamm (21:10)
Almost always, they're almost always terrified. They're almost just always, it's very unusual that I get, I'm from LA, but I live in Bend, Oregon. If I was a singing coach or a voice coach in LA, I think I would have a lot of actors and singers and they'd be not intimidated. But in this town, the majority of my clients, in-person clients are honestly older people, which I'm so happy about.

because they come in and they're just like, just know something's wrong. I just know it's been my whole life and this has been stuck my whole life and I'm tired of it. And they just get to the point where they just don't care anymore. And then they come in, but then the idea of actually doing it is a whole other ball game. But I create it, I mean, I have to create an extraordinarily safe, very friendly to fail environment. I don't believe in failure, but...

Jen Porter (21:52)
Yeah.

Right,

right.

Deena Kamm (22:06)
But people

who are singing are like, I'm gonna sound bad. That's all they think. I'm gonna sound bad. First of all, who cares? Let's be honest, who cares? You know, like, so what? Like nothing's gonna go wrong if you sound bad. But mostly they don't sound bad. Almost nobody ever sounds bad.

Jen Porter (22:15)
sorry.

And then how do you start with yelling to help people find their voice to sing?

Deena Kamm (22:29)
Well, physiologically, the function of voice only works one way. And singing, speaking, and yelling are all the exact same physiological function. So if you are talking, you are singing. If you are yelling, you are singing. I don't know if I'm gonna overdo the, if I'm gonna do it, but I don't know if I'm gonna blast, it's probably gonna not pick it up. Let's try. So if I'm going, hey!

Jen Porter (22:39)
Mm.

Go ahead.

Deena Kamm (22:57)
Okay, I'm yelling at somebody, hey! Can you hear that? Did it cut it out? Okay, that's exactly the same thing as hey! There's no difference. It's the exact same function, feeling, everything about it's the same. One is musical, one is not. That's the only difference.

Jen Porter (23:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's totally fine.

I love it.

And one, you're controlling your voice a little bit more and you're sort of moving up and down. That takes some talent. But you're starting with the yelling and it's like, people would probably agree that anybody can yell. Maybe we don't do it often, but we know we have the ability to yell.

Deena Kamm (23:23)
No. No. It doesn't take talent.

Yeah, yeah, but the problem is we associate the volume of our voice with negativity. If we are loud, this is what my book's about. This is why I call my company Voice Up. If you are using your instrument properly, your diaphragm is strong, healthy, and everything about your body is better, period. If you are using it in a way that's keeping it quiet,

Jen Porter (23:46)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Deena Kamm (24:03)
We're built to project, so if you don't project, then what you're doing is you're turning down the volume knob, and the volume knob is the contraction of the diaphragm. And if we don't have... Yeah, yeah.

Jen Porter (24:13)
I want to pause on one thing you said there. We

are born to project.

Deena Kamm (24:18)
We are born to project. That's how the instrument works.

Jen Porter (24:22)
So do you remember our first conversation where I said, Deena, why is it that when people, coaches around me, people have said roar, use your voice and roar like a lion, like a lioness? I said, why does that feel so vulnerable to me? I really didn't know. And this is what you told me, this is the connection, is that we are nurtured to be quiet.

Deena Kamm (24:32)
isn't that funny?

Yeah.

Yep, loud is bad. And it.

Jen Porter (24:48)
And say

more about why that is, culturally.

Deena Kamm (24:51)
Well...

I don't know why it is culturally because it's old. This is old stuff. This is not just America. There are cultures that are loud. Italian, there's a lot of African cultures that really celebrate the voice. Native American, indigenous cultures are usually pretty loud. But we are in a culture specifically in the United States where, I mean, the United States is huge, but most cultures within it are

You know, we're born, so I start my talk off by saying the crying thing, the baby, okay? The very first thing we do as a baby, we come out and we yell, we cry, we whatever you wanna call it, we sing. And it is immediately stifled. Stop the baby. Something's wrong. It's a negative thing. And we're doing our job as parents. We're doing as our job to protect our children.

Jen Porter (25:45)
Right.

Deena Kamm (25:54)
But then what happens is we go throughout childhood and the volume of our voice is continually talked about as negative. Nobody ever has to teach a kid how to be loud because they're loud beings. Well, what is that? Think about that. If a baby is loud, if a baby's vocal cord is the size of the tip of my pinky, okay? And they're the loudest people in the room, what's wrong with that picture?

Jen Porter (26:16)
Yes. Yes.

Deena Kamm (26:22)
They came out perfect and they came out doing what they did to help regulate themselves. They knew it intrinsically. We've been singing since 3200 BC. They have proof, archeological proof somehow. can't remember. I've got the article somewhere. that humans were singing long before established language. why are we so anti the volume?

So we go throughout childhood and everybody's telling, be quiet, hurting my head, go outside, use your inside voice, you're interrupting, don't interrupt, raise your hand, quiet in the halls, cover your mouth. It's nonstop, nonstop. You have to be quiet, go to your room if you're gonna be loud, go outside. So we, you will get in trouble, always. You'll get bad grades, you'll get hit, you'll.

Jen Porter (27:00)
Wow.

So the message is always, you will get in trouble. There will be consequences if you are left.

Deena Kamm (27:14)
And then what happens is as you grow up and you get you turn into a teenager, I work with so many teenagers and you turn into a teenager and you've already been taught loud is bad. And now, you know, by that point at age 14, 15, 16, you've shut that volume knob off. Well, the volume knob is the diaphragm. The diaphragm is, I believe, the most important muscle in the body. It controls

It's the only thing that can help control and regulate the heart. It's the only way we can get to the heart. It's breathing. The diaphragm is the breathing muscle and it's controlling all these other functions too. Again, honestly, 15 hours minimum, I could talk about diaphragm. It's the most, it's like everybody should be researching the diaphragm. That's part of, this is all in my book and this is why I had talked to you earlier about like, I'm hoping to start centers where we start talking about.

Jen Porter (28:01)
And this will be in your book, yes?

Deena Kamm (28:13)
diaphragm and how it connects to the voice and how the voice is so imperative for healthy living. So anyway, so we grow up learning to be quiet and if we're in a room and we're the loudest person in the room, we're self-conscious. If we have to sing, we're self-conscious. The number one, two, three, four, it's always in the top four, fear. People would rather die than

Jen Porter (28:17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Deena Kamm (28:43)
public speak, do public speaking. So why? That's your voice. Why? Well, we get taught very, very early that it's not good to be heard. It's not safe. Yeah, we will get in trouble. We are not pleasing our adults. We have to please our adults because we're tied to them.

Jen Porter (28:43)
Yeah, it's true.

Why?

It's not safe.

That's the message.

How did you find your voice? Were you a kid that was quiet or were you always a loud kid?

Deena Kamm (29:15)
Never, I've never been quiet a day in my life. Anybody who's ever met me will be like, yep. I've always been loud. my God, I was so loud. And I was actually told, my mom hates when I say this, but I was told by my mom not to sing. She told me when I was young that I had a bad singing voice. But my mom was amazing. There was nothing, my mom did nothing wrong. She just fell in line with what everyone else did.

Jen Porter (29:21)
Even as a little girl, you were loud.

Yeah.

Deena Kamm (29:41)
I call myself an extreme extrovert. just, nobody could ever pin me down. I mean, I came out of the womb like, ba-da-da-da-da-da, like, ha-da-da-ha, let's do it. I mean, was six weeks early and they sent me home in like an hour. And I rolled over like in the first like 30 minutes I was alive, I rolled myself. I was, I was like, let's go, move it on. I wanna get out of here.

Jen Porter (30:06)
you were ready to live life.

Deena Kamm (30:11)
I've always been that person. I that is just who I am. used to, I guess I used to apologize for it a little bit because it was, well, my mouth is always running. So I find, you know, when your mouth is running all the time, you're gonna apologize more often than most people. Because I say, I just say what's on my mind. And then I kind of like mop up after I go, God, sorry, didn't mean to do that. That wasn't my intention, you know?

Not so much anymore. I'm older now, I'm wiser, but when I was younger, I was regularly offending people. But I was just loud. I was big. I got kicked out of every classroom I ever sat in. Was always in trouble.

Jen Porter (30:56)
Because you were talking and you were loud.

Deena Kamm (30:58)
No one could stop it and and because of that I am able to I was I was able to do what I do for a living and It's it's been It's kind of a the gift that I have is that I have I don't have fear like other people of being heard and being seen

Jen Porter (31:21)
How did you learn that courage? I mean, I know you were loud and you had a lot to say, but when do you remember having to be brave as a child?

Deena Kamm (31:25)
I

Well,

yeah, my dad was not a great guy. He was abusive. And I remember as a very young kid, my first memory was me, him basically doing something horrible that would be considered abuse. Definitely today, but it was even considered abusive back then, way back in dinosaur age. And I just remember being, you know, three or four and looking at him and

saying to myself, I will never let you do this to me. I will never let you take the fire out of me and stomp me out and I will never let you do it to my family. Well, he did it to all of us, but I think I've always been kind of the person in my family that's the one who I call out the elephant in the room before the elephant even shows up into the room. It's just always been, I don't know, something in me was just like, uh-uh, you're not doing it to me. And he did, he did it to me my whole childhood, but.

Jen Porter (32:21)
Wow.

Deena Kamm (32:30)
It never broke me. He never broke me. I, not to say I wasn't broken, I had a lot of therapy and I was very angry at men for a very long time and I was very aggressive. first, my personal music project in my 20s was all just like female empowerment and rage and I shaved my head and I was screaming and I used to scream through a bullhorn on the microphone because the microphone wasn't loud enough, you know? I have the bullhorn right here.

Jen Porter (32:41)
Yeah.

Deena Kamm (33:01)
So yeah, I've just always been this way.

Jen Porter (33:02)
Soop.

So I know you did ballet as a young person before you were a singer. So when did you first start singing? Was that also as a child?

Deena Kamm (33:10)
Yeah. Yeah.

No, no, definitely not. I didn't really sing. I didn't think I had a good voice I didn't think of myself as a singer at all and then a friend of mine

heard me singing karaoke or heard that I was singing karaoke. And then he called me and asked me if I would do the background vocals for his album. And he had just gotten signed to a record deal, to a record label. And so he was making an album and he needed a background singer. And he called me and I was like, you're a fool because I'm not a singer, but let's go, let's do it.

Jen Porter (33:58)
You were still willing to do it.

Deena Kamm (33:59)
yeah, yeah. I mean, I am an extrovert. I am a performer. I am a big personality. I am usually the biggest personality in the room. Yeah, yeah.

Jen Porter (34:05)
Yeah. And you had been, so you had been performing as a dancer to that point.

So you were very comfortable on stage.

Deena Kamm (34:16)
Very, I feel like that's my home. Like I know there's nowhere I'm more comfortable than on a stage, which I now know as an adult to be 100 % true and that that is unusual. I know that that's not a normal thing. That's definitely like, that's sort of little bit of my superpower. Yeah.

Jen Porter (34:31)
Yeah.

And so you were in LA at the time,

right? And then you are now a backup singer.

Deena Kamm (34:42)
Yeah, then I became a backup singer. And so that one job, I did one song and, excuse me, that one job turned into I did the whole album. And then I started touring with him and doing his shows with him. And then long story short, I ended up in my own band after that, but I never ever thought of myself as a singer. I never thought I was a good singer. I never thought I was supposed to sing. I only thought of myself as someone who kind of fell into this thing.

and I was making money at it. the same time I was doing that, I was a voiceover artist doing parody songs of all the songs on the radio. And I was getting, I was working basically almost every day doing a song for a company in LA that syndicate radio all over the country. And...

Jen Porter (35:19)
I

And then how did you

start your own band?

Deena Kamm (35:37)
I just, well, with the first guy that I was singing with, we started a band, he got dropped and we started a band, so I started songwriting in this kind of safe space of he was already the guy doing it and I just started doing it. And once I realized songwriting was another version of my voice, I mean, absolutely a version of my voice, and I really liked being in control of the...

the narrative. So instead of, yeah, I had a lot. Well, I was angry. I was mad at my dad. I was mad at men. I was mad at the patriarchy, which we didn't call it that back then. But that's what I was mad at. And I started yelling on behalf of all women. And so my first album was called Story of a Girl. And that whole album is just about me basically yelling on behalf of women. I was just yelling.

Jen Porter (36:08)
Yeah, you had a message to share.

I

mean this may sound like a funny question, did you see yourself more as a yeller than a singer? You did.

Deena Kamm (36:40)
Yes, I did. That's actually

a really good question. I never ever have thought about that. But good call, Jen. That is like, I felt like my job was to scream on behalf of the world. And it and because it was in the form of an alternative rock music project, it was legal. No one got mad at me for doing it. You know? Yeah, I never thought about that.

Jen Porter (37:07)
You had a platform.

Deena Kamm (37:08)
I never thought about that. really interesting. Very good connection there. So yeah.

Jen Porter (37:16)
And your band was Unruly Helga. That was your stage name.

Deena Kamm (37:17)
Unruly Helga. Yeah.

Yeah, basically. Yeah, I was Helga. Yeah. And it was a really good project for a really long time. We had a lot of success and it was fun. And I was a rock star for a little while. Little. Yep. Yeah, I was totally independent. Yeah, I was too loud to be with a label every time I would sit in the meeting with someone.

Jen Porter (37:36)
And you represented yourself, right? You weren't with a label.

Deena Kamm (37:46)
who wanted to sign me, I was so obnoxiously like, no, who are you? Who are you? How dare you? I refuse. I'm not signing that pathetic contract, you know, and I meant it, but it was, you know, it was part of my work to not lay down for them. You know, it really was. So it was hard. It was hard to say no to money. I was always broke. was...

Jen Porter (37:59)
Yeah.

Yes.

Deena Kamm (38:15)
always broke. But I don't regret one moment of it. I feel like I have my self-respect intact. I feel like I practice what I preach. I always have. And I feel like I own all of my history and who I am and nobody can do anything with it but me. I'm the only one who owns it. you know, it's hard.

But it's like, when you work hard, you usually have benefits, you know, but sometimes you don't see them. I see them now in my old age, you I'm 53 and I'm... I feel very wise, you know?

Jen Porter (39:02)
Yeah, when you look back on that period of your life and wow, you've been a lioness your whole life, like since you were three or four, it sounds like, maybe before that, maybe when you were born, in the womb. When you look back on that period of time where you were really challenging things, pushing against the status quo, you were exerting your power and trying to stay in your authenticity when you could have sold out.

Deena Kamm (39:12)
And I'm a Leo.

Jen Porter (39:31)
Right, so as you move through those years of being on stage, not being with a label, doing your own thing, booking your own events, what do you now look back on that and see that it did for you?

Deena Kamm (39:38)
Ugh.

Well, now I know that it set me up to accomplish whatever I decide I want to do. I mean, this musical is a really, I thought the musical was going to be easier than my music career and I was wrong. I thought my music career was hard work. It is a 10th of the work that I'm doing now, but I am, I feel just,

Jen Porter (39:59)
Wow.

Deena Kamm (40:13)
I feel capable, I think, because I can, you know, I can do hard things and survive and feel good about it. And you know, do I do it all perfect? No, I make mistakes every second of the day. I'm constantly making mistakes. I have right now in my room, if I turn the thing around, I'll show you. I have, I'll just show you. I don't know if you can see that. It's my board up there.

Jen Porter (40:41)
Okay, what does it say?

Deena Kamm (40:42)
It says a person, let me come back over here. It says a person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new.

Jen Porter (40:49)
That's absolutely true. Yes. Will you show us your lion?

Deena Kamm (40:50)
And that's Albert Einstein, so he was smart. I didn't say that, he did.

Yeah, so there's the lion. Let me put it up. Let's see. There's the lion.

Jen Porter (41:01)
amazing, amazing.

I'm gonna show you mine. So there he goes.

Deena Kamm (41:06)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's so similar. Yours has the colored eyes, though. This is cool. I know I look at that thing every day and I use that with my clients. I'm constantly telling my clients like, I want you to roar. Let's hear it. Like, who are you? You're a lion. Everybody's a lion. Everybody's got this incredible instrument. And the only reason they're afraid to use it is because they've been taught that it's not polite to be loud. So who said that?

Jen Porter (41:11)
I get to see him every day.

Yes!

Deena Kamm (41:38)
It's so healthy, it's not the healthiest, but it's one of the most healthy things you can do.

Jen Porter (41:40)
Hmm.

Yes, well,

I think about the consequences of not doing it. Not only health-wise, but relationally, self-image. mean, we're, you know, almost so much of the work I do is helping women be brave, big, take up space, audacious, bold, dream big, say it out loud.

Deena Kamm (41:54)
Absolutely. Yeah.

take a date, audacious, yes, yes,

yes, girl, that is what I'm talking about. And you're helping women and I, you know, I love that, but men have it too. It's really, it's really interesting. was something that became, it was something that this thing is really driving me bananas, but I'm just gonna deal with it. Sorry, I keep moving it around. Men have,

Jen Porter (42:19)
Yeah!

Deena Kamm (42:35)
They don't have the stifled voice. This is in my, this is in what I've seen. This is not every man, of course. But they don't have the stifled voice, but they do also have that same like, I'm just yelling. You're just having me yell. Yeah, we gotta find that. You know, gotta find it and feel it and know what you're capable of. It's like, you gotta swing the pendulum all the way to the other end. Cause we've been so quiet for so long.

Jen Porter (43:04)
So say more about that. What is that struggle for the men? Are they afraid to be loud? Is it a fear of being too aggressive? Too powerful?

Deena Kamm (43:08)
Well, they just don't, you know, they... yeah! my god.

I don't see that, but I think that it's just, it's that same, like, insecurity about self-expression. And I think it all kind of boils back down to when we were infants and we were, our self-expression was, it was stifled. And so we get, we get taught over and over again that your self-expression is

really not welcome, you know, as a kid. And then we grow up and we have to hire Jen Porter to help us figure out why we don't have self-expression, you know? I mean, it's not that mysterious. No one's really allowed to fully express themselves in a big way unless you're on stage. And on stage, you can do anything you want.

Jen Porter (43:48)
Mm.

So you seem like, I would say that you're rare in the sense that you have always had your voice. You've always been comfortable being loud. And so sometimes when we're listening to people who that's their story, it's harder to relate because we've, know, part of my work I told you is like, it has been finding my voice and this is part of it. Like this moment right here is part of it.

Deena Kamm (44:21)
Yeah,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jen Porter (44:42)
But there are ways that you have to be brave, right? There are things that you, feel, that feel, make you feel afraid or fearful. What are those things?

Deena Kamm (44:55)
Yeah.

you know, I recently did a movie called "Confidence" with a friend of mine named Bola Gbadabo. She did a movie about confidence called "Confidence" and I was in it and as myself, it wasn't, it's just a, like a documentary style. And I struggle with this answer because

Everyone in the movie, we do panels for her when we do the movie, when she shows the movie. everyone in the movie talks about this question that you just asked. And my answer is always, don't have, I don't really have fear. My only fear is are things surrounding my kid. I am like terrified of my kid getting killed in a school or.

Jen Porter (45:51)
and

Deena Kamm (45:51)
you know,

doing a drug and getting hooked on fentanyl or something like that. Those are my fears. I am fearful of my child's safety. But I don't really, I don't know what's wrong with me.

Jen Porter (46:00)
Yeah.

It's alright. No, it's alright with you.

Deena Kamm (46:10)
I just I don't know if it's all right. I just don't have I think what's important to know I don't call it like a lack of fear what I call it is I Trust that everything's gonna be okay. I don't I Don't look at a problem as a problem. I look at a problem as do I need to handle this? Do I need to do something different?

Do I need to learn from this? Do I need to apologize to somebody? Do I need to, you know, and if the answer is yes, I do all those things and then I move forward with my life. don't, I don't get stuck on anything and I don't know why I'm different. To me, it's just, it's so easy. It's so much easier, you know?

Jen Porter (46:56)
incredible

Yeah, yeah,

it's fascinating. And, you know, my thought is, well, maybe it's because you put yourself out there so young, right? You've tried so many things, you've done so many things.

Deena Kamm (47:11)
Maybe because I, yeah, because I, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, when you're dancing on stage with these beautiful dancers and you look back at the video and you're like, I don't look like that. It's like, but I survived, you know, it didn't stop me from doing anything. It just made me go, okay, that's not me. What am I good at? This is what I tell my clients you probably do too. It's the...

you know, especially my clients that are going into an audition and they want to work on something and they're working on their voice, they're working on their song. And I will say, that's so great. You sound so good. I don't care. Who cares? Who are you? Show me who you are. Because that's what's interesting on a stage. You know, that's what people really want to see. They want to see your authentic self and in the form of whatever lines you're doing or whatever show you're in. But it's like,

I don't care if you can sing well. Boring. Who cares? What I care is, what I want to see is, who are you? Are you having fun? Are you enjoying yourself? Do you mean something? Do you have angst? Are you trying to communicate something? Show me something real, not technical. Technical is so boring. Who cares? Doesn't matter.

Jen Porter (48:23)
Wow.

I didn't

know that. I didn't know that, because I thought it was about the technical expertise.

Deena Kamm (48:34)
I mean that's part of it. I'm not gonna downplay it. Like you probably do have to be good to get in a show. You know, have to technically know.

Jen Porter (48:39)
But what

you're saying what sets people apart is when we can see who they are.

Deena Kamm (48:43)
Yes. Yes.

Think about it. Think about all the, think about people like, I don't know why this guy popped into my head, but like Howard Stern. He's interesting. You know who he is. He's authentic. He puts himself out there.

Jen Porter (48:52)
Yeah, you know who he is.

You know,

I can connect the work that I do around leadership with this because there is no formula for being a leader. There are some best practices. Yes, there's some things that you want to do to be an effective leader, but that's not what the essence of leadership is being authentic, is showing up as your true self.

Deena Kamm (49:09)
Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jen Porter (49:23)
is bringing your unique style and gifts and talents

and ways of seeing the world into the work that you're doing.

Deena Kamm (49:29)
Yeah.

And I always tell my clients when they're, when we're talking about being on a stage and this will directly connect to what you just said from a leadership standpoint, when you're on a stage, you're in the leadership position. You are running the room, whether you're doing it as an actor, a singer or a public speaker, however, you're running the room. They're sitting there. They have, you have their focus. So if you're running a room, your job is to carry it.

Jen Porter (49:46)
Hmm.

Deena Kamm (49:59)
you have to carry everybody in that room. And if you don't believe that you can carry it and that you can carry yourself, then you're not gonna do a good job carrying the room. So you have to be able to like really believe in yourself. Like I can stand on a stage and know who I am. And if you don't like me, you can go, but more often than not, I will connect with you because

Jen Porter (50:06)
Yeah.

Deena Kamm (50:28)
I'm just myself and I know who I am and I'm putting it out there and people love that. I mean, we're humans. We're humans. You know, we want to see human.

Jen Porter (50:36)
Yeah, it's like the

energy of the authenticity is what is connecting. It's not that you're like me. We don't have to be the same in order for me to like you or connect with you. It's that we intuitively understand when someone is being real.

Deena Kamm (50:44)
Exactly. Exactly. Right.

Yeah, and like I show myself as a human. I get up on stage, I make mistakes, I go, that stupid, I sounded really bad or whatever, you know, like I don't do that, but I would never do that in a show. But I have a public rock choir. My public rock choir is built just for this exact thing. And when I run the room, we're just singing songs. It's an event that I do so that people have a place to get loud with, not only are they allowed to get loud, but I don't let them not be loud.

Jen Porter (51:09)
Okay.

Deena Kamm (51:22)
I'm let's go. So in those moments, you know, I pick the music and sometimes the songs are terrible and we have a terrible and it's awful and I'll just go, well, that was horrible. That was my fault. Move on. Let's go. Let's keep moving. know, and it's instead of just when nobody's perfect and nobody's getting it right all the time. But I don't know. We don't have to like what's getting it right. What is that? What does that mean?

Jen Porter (51:24)
Hahaha!

Yeah

so good.

No, nobody.

not necessarily living.

Deena Kamm (51:54)
Yeah.

Jen Porter (51:56)
So what is next for you?

Deena Kamm (52:00)
well I'm working on this musical and then July 24th, it's a two week run which is pretty long for this town. and then it goes and ends on my, it closes on my birthday. yeah which is very cool which is gonna be a nice little bonus that was an accident but it was like just cool. And then, my writing partner and I are

Jen Porter (52:04)
and it comes out as a lie.

Amazing.

Love it.

Deena Kamm (52:28)
trying to bounce it into bigger markets right away. So that's one thing that I'll be focused on. I won't be...

Jen Porter (52:31)
Mm-hmm.

Which markets

are you? So I'm thinking people are listening to this. They may be able to help you make connections with other cities across the country. What would be most helpful?

Deena Kamm (52:40)
yeah!

I mean Broadway is where it's going ultimately, but you know, she's in Toronto. Toronto would be very helpful because Toronto is kind of the Broadway of Canada. But just any bigger city where there's a theater culture, yeah, know, really anywhere is fine. mean, the show is already taken on a life of its own, so it's living.

Jen Porter (53:02)
arts is big.

Deena Kamm (53:13)
outside of me now and so that's, it's a very, and that was to wrap it back to what you originally asked me. was like, when I wrote this show, I was just writing a show for myself to get up on stage, because I'm a little bit of a stage whore. I like to be on stage. So, but now it's so beyond me. It's really grown into, so I have to facilitate that and manage it as the owner of the show now. So that,

Jen Porter (53:27)
You

Yeah.

Deena Kamm (53:43)
goes into licensing and working with production companies and things like that. So that's one thing that I'll be working on. I have my book, which I was really hoping would come out in tandem with my show, but it is just not gonna happen at this point. And that's another, like, my brain could say, I failed. I didn't get my book out on time. But instead it's like, it'll get out next year. Maybe there's a, it'll be good. I'll be able to focus 100 % on my book, which I'm really excited about.

because my book is funny. It's basically about your voice and my voice and how they work in the world. And that could be really boring. So I tried to keep it really fun. And I'm excited about my book, but it's also super powerful stuff that I'm really excited to share with the world. And then I definitely want to do some laundry and like do some yard work.

Jen Porter (54:26)
Okay.

Deena Kamm (54:40)
It has been like, God, my... All consuming, yeah. Like, my yard is so out of control.

Jen Porter (54:42)
This has been all consuming for you, hasn't it?

What's your vision for the voice centers? What would that look like?

Deena Kamm (54:51)
yeah,

the voice centers is where I'm really hoping to go. So my goal is to have this whole big like just conglomerate of voice activity. And then what I would like to open up centers where we're talking about connecting trauma with the voice and healing with the voice.

And so maybe my voice centers have a trauma center in it where you can go to therapy and then you bounce right over into your voice lesson and you work it out vocally. I know, well, that's one of the problems I have is that I have a lot of people who come in here as therapy and I'm not a therapist, although I have a chapter in my book called The Accidental Therapist because I really am a therapist in some ways. You probably get that. You probably feel that.

Jen Porter (55:24)
my goodness.

Yeah.

Yeah, people

feel that. It's very therapeutic.

Deena Kamm (55:43)
Yeah. So then that, and also breathing, we're mostly breathing wrong in our culture. Belly breathing is not a thing. There's no such thing as belly breathing. It's a very old name that we use in yoga and meditation. We call it belly breathing, but you don't breathe with your stomach. You breathe with your diaphragm. So I...

Jen Porter (56:10)
Mm-hmm.

Deena Kamm (56:12)
would love to incorporate breathing. It's so important that we get back to breathing the way we're built to breathe. I do believe this is all part of my ultimate intention, especially with my voice centers. I do believe that one of the reasons everybody is stressed is because we breathe up instead of down. Down is the only direction we actually inhale. And when we lift up to breathe in, we're actually triggering cortisol and stress hormones. And we're taught

Jen Porter (56:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Deena Kamm (56:42)
by default, I do believe it has to do with the volume. If you can't breathe down, because if you strengthen your diaphragm and you keep breathing down, you're too loud. So if you have to turn down the volume of the diaphragm, then the diaphragm has to sort of stop working as deep. And when it doesn't go as deep, you learn to breathe up now instead of down. And you'll never see a baby lift their chest when they breathe.

Jen Porter (57:00)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It's really a stress response.

Deena Kamm (57:10)
They'll never go, or I should say lift their shoulders.

It is, but it's also learned behavior in our culture. So they say belly breathing to get it away from here. And that's better, but it's also super toxic because you're missing the mark, which is the diaphragm. we're, yeah. So anyway, so I'm hoping to have voice centers where we connect the voice to culture, to community.

Jen Porter (57:18)
Yeah.

Yep.

health benefits.

Deena Kamm (57:41)
The number one easiest way to connect with people is to sing with them because you literally

Jen Porter (57:46)
So

before we wrap up, I want you to tell us about this. What happens when people sing together?

Deena Kamm (57:53)
Well, scientifically, the vibration of the sound that you're singing, if you're all singing the same song, then you're all on the same note. And every note carries a wavelength and every wavelength has a specific vibration. And that vibration encompasses wherever you are and you, your body sinks to that vibration and your neighbor's body sinks to that vibration. So vibrationally, everybody sinks up.

from a chemical, physical standpoint. And when you're in sync with the person right next to you, it's not just an expression. Let's get in sync. It's literal. You connect. It is easier. Brains connect. Your emotions connect. It's so easy to connect with somebody when you sing with them. Singing is magical. It's absolutely the one thing missing from our culture.

Jen Porter (58:50)
was checking out your website and there's a YouTube video where people are singing and they're putting their arms around each other, right? It's very naturally.

Deena Kamm (58:58)
Is that my video?

Jen Porter (59:01)
Yeah, it's it's used talking and then it's I think this is probably brought fire.

Deena Kamm (59:04)
is it about my rock choir? It's about my rock choir. Yeah,

yeah, yeah, that's my rock choir. Yeah, I mean, those people are all strangers. They all walk in strangers and they all leave friends every single time. I mean, it is a, it's not, I am not doing anything except for enhancing what we're naturally born to do really well. So.

Jen Porter (59:09)
Yeah.

Wow.

Deena Kamm (59:29)
I don't think I'm that talented or magical or anything. There's nothing about me that's special except for that I demand that it's getting done. That's it.

Jen Porter (59:37)
Yeah, wow. Okay, so how do you want people to find you? If they're curious about your work, whether it's the rock choir, the musical, the voice centers, what's the best way to get in touch with you? Or for them to find out more.

Deena Kamm (59:50)
This

is a hard one for me right now. I would say if you're out of town, you can go to, I've got so many different things going on and none of them encompass everything. But I would start with getyourvoiceup.com and then, yeah, and you can find me there. And then you could also just Google my name, Deena Kamm, and you could just put in Deena Kamm Sing.

Jen Porter (1:00:04)
Yeah.

GetYourVoiceUp.com

Okay.

Deena Kamm (1:00:20)
and everything will come up. That's because, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that is gonna pull up my musical, Voiceless, a musical. That's gonna pull up my rock choir. That's gonna pull up my sing-bend singing practice coaching. And it's gonna pull up GetYourVoiceUp.com, which is my voice-up coaching practice. And then there's probably a bunch of other stuff in there too.

Jen Porter (1:00:22)
And that's D-E-E-N-A K-A-M-M.

Yeah.

Wow.

Deena Kamm (1:00:48)
maybe some embarrassing stuff. I don't care. I don't get embarrassed.

Jen Porter (1:00:50)
And

what advice would you give to particularly women and girls who are still struggling to find their voice to embody their vocal cords and their diaphragm and their voice in the world?

Deena Kamm (1:01:05)
Thank

Well, I would start by saying it is healthy. It is not a crime. You are not doing anything wrong. And then I would also tell everybody that you are definitely not alone. You are not the only person who thinks you have a bad voice, that you shouldn't sing, that you should be quiet, that you're not allowed to speak up. You are not alone. is a, it is an epidemic and

The only way we can change it is to do it. You have to be the change. You have to be the one that just tries because it's really rampant and it's, you know, we gotta do it together.

Jen Porter (1:01:50)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, and my belief is that there's a lot at stake if we don't. That we are all made to have an impact in this world, a unique imprint. If we're not using our voice in the way that we're designed and created to, then the world misses out on what it is that we have to offer. And we miss out on that experience of being able to step into it.

Deena Kamm (1:02:06)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Yep.

Absolutely. And

everybody has something unique to give. And if you don't know what that is, that doesn't mean you don't have it. And if you do know what it is, that doesn't mean you're obligated to give it. But everybody has a right to a voice. It is the most important piece. It is the only piece of who you are as an individual.

Jen Porter (1:02:27)
Yeah.

Deena Kamm (1:02:47)
Your voice is everything that represents you as an individual. So make the physical voice matter because it's the foundation of the emotional, the communicative, the expressive, the individual voice. The physical voice is first. So use it. Use it. thank you, Jen. Thanks for having me. Thanks for letting me talk.

Jen Porter (1:03:03)
amazing.

Deena, I love what you're doing. I love what you're doing. I can't wait to just elevate and share what you're doing. I can't wait to read

the book. I can't wait to hear the music. And these voice centers, it's just a powerful concept that you're talking about. So people reach out to Deena Kamm. If you have some ideas about how to support her work, to spread it beyond bend to these other parts of

Deena Kamm (1:03:17)
thank you.

Thanks, yeah.

Thank

Jen Porter (1:03:36)
North America and maybe beyond, who knows? Reach out to Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing your story and you're such an inspiration. I just love the work that you're doing. You're welcome. And if you want to learn more about Deena's work, Deena Kamm, check her out. You can check out more about the Lioness Community at jenportorcoach.com.

Deena Kamm (1:03:39)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, yes.

Thank you, Jen. That's so nice of you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm

Jen Porter (1:04:04)
There are group experiences, there's one-on-one coaching that I do, and you can be part of the Lioness community. The other thing I want to share is if you know someone who wants to be a Lioness and be on this podcast, you can nominate them. Nominate them at jenportercoach.com, go to the contact tab, and there's a form that you can complete to nominate, and you can absolutely nominate yourself. I would love to consider you for this.

Deena Kamm (1:04:21)
Thank

I love that.

Jen Porter (1:04:32)
this podcast. So thanks for being here and until the next episode, the lioness in me sees the lioness in you.