Asserting their grip on life and career Enhance Productions is run by Samm Brown and Gabby Sabat, with Sidney Floyd Armstrong running the Enhance blog and Christian “CJ” Jordan gluing everything together as the Enhance Editor.
Enhance Productions is the lovechild of its founders Samm Brown and Gabby Sabat. Enhance is also the product of several dreams collaborated on by incredible individuals who are just beginning to command the wealth of skills they’ve spent the past seven to fifteen years sharpening.
All members of the Enhance team are fascinated by astrology. Samm is a Pisces Sun, Gemini moon, Cancer rising. Gabby is a Virgo sun, Capricorn moon, and Leo rising. Sid is a Scorpio sun, Scorpio rising, and Taurus moon. CJ is a Pisces sun, Virgo rising, and Aries moon! We will let you take from that what you will! *Weird Wednesday episode going more into detail on each sign, their planetary parent, and sibling signs! mentioned below*
Samm and Gabby started Enhance because of the unavoidable fear that lives in us all, fear that we won’t be understood, fear that no matter what we do, we’re doing it wrong; fear that we should have dealt with trauma differently, or fear that we are not enough because of our trauma. We all have trauma. That’s the funny bit, but also what ties us all together. After 2020, with society going through never before seen (with the entire world sharing by way of social media) mental-health hardships, Samm and Gabby wanted to create something that existed entirely separate from fear. They wanted to be sure people could be heard in a safe and ethical way.
Samm Brown, when asked about his motives for starting the company, responded,
“As a society, we’ve grown to pay more attention to a person based on how many people know their name. We are also flooded daily with news of terrible things that happen around the world. I started Enhance to give everyday people something to relate to that will flood their ears with healing and kindredness rather than terror and worry.”
– Samm Brown
Gabby, Samm, and CJ met in college! It was on campus at Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL where these classmates sparked friendships that would stay with them through college. Getting acquainted through film club at Spring Hill, all were involved in the production of short film “Paint it Black”: their first project together. While all three got to know each other, Samm was the glue that brought them back together. Gabby says about her time in college, “[I was] rebuilding myself in a spiritual way,” and a lot of that change came along with her friendship with Samm. Samm Brown has a long history with magik and tarot, and spent his college years expanding his thoughts on society through the lens of others with different backgrounds and beliefs. Gabby and Samm came from different backgrounds, but found their branches intertwined when it came to the spiritual realm.
While at Spring Hill, CJ began her academic career as a health-sciences major, but found herself pulled toward film when choosing electives. She soon found she had a knack for working with cameras. One day in her photography class, her teacher asked, “Why don’t you do more work with the camera? Why are you a science major?” and that was it! She switched her major and met Samm and Gabby. For her senior project, CJ produced a film titled ‘Layla’ based on her grandmother, who suffered from dementia. CJ wanted to encapsulate what she saw her grandmother experiencing through the lense of her own anxiety and depression during that time. CJ holds the project close to her heart, and says of her late grandmother, “She taught us so much about being good human beings. Everything I learned from her, I carry with me to this day.”
As Samm Brown, Gabby Sabat, and CJ Jordan were graduating college our blog’s beloved editor, Sidney Floyd Armstrong, was testing out of high school and beginning her music career. Gabby was falling in love with the legal world, working on and off at a law firm in St. Louis, CJ was beginning the corporate side of her career, and Samm was writing what would become his first book series.
“We wanted to make a song romanticizing the toxic love lives we had outside of our house and the present, being in a pandemic. We came up with ‘DTF’. ”
-Sid Floyd
Sid grew up in Los Angeles, CA and went back and forth between Hamilton High School and Homeschooling before eventually testing out of high school via the CHSPE (California High School Proficiency Exam); which she does not recommend to anyone. Thinking back on why she left high school, “I was dealing with a lot of mental health issues and pressure from different people about what direction my life should take, and I thought less school sounded like a good option,” Sid shares. When Covid hit, Sidney was at her home in Northridge with a quirky group of humans, which ended up being pretty serendipitous for being in a world-wide pandemic crisis. Sidney, her mother, her younger brother, and their dear family friend Sylvain Lewis (who got stuck in LA due to Covid while on a short trip from Paris, France) made up residency at Casa De La Floyd from March- July of 2020. Sid and company built a makeshift (but very boho professional) studio in the garage, in which Sidney and Sylvain spent most of their time making music together. Of her debut single, “DTF” (featuring TenderKid), Sid says, “We wanted to make a song romanticizing the toxic love lives we had outside of our house and outside of the present, being in a pandemic. We came up with ‘DTF’.”
Sid moved to Texas to be closer to family at the beginning of 2021, which would be the year she produced her first music shoot and released her second debut track, “SCORPIOSZN”. Most of 2021, for Sid, was spent delving deeper into her own process of healing. “A lot of people will look at my music, and go, ‘that’s very sexy.’ But I think they’re missing the insinuations from the track’s production, they’re missing the commentary aspect of my music. A lot of the time I’m pointing at lines of thought or ways of being that are societally-accepted but detrimental to any real personal growth,” Sid says of her music’s reception and impact.
“[M]y obsession lately has been my culture. I’m a Lebanese woman and a first generation American.”
– Gabrielle Sabat
Gabby Sabat is a Lebanese woman and a first generation American. Her culture is so important to her, and recently she has been contemplating the harmony to be found between the Western mindset of individuality versus the Eastern mindset of ‘what’s best for all’. As a child, Gabby frequently had dreams that drew her toward the why’s of society and solidified her impulse to lead with love. Finding astrology in high school, she was pulled towards the realm of healing, growth, and shadow work (just a few key elements to any spiritually-based life). Gabby, Samm, CJ, and Sid all grew up with respectively Catholic and Christian upbringings/influences that they have all shed and re-incorporated in very different ways. While respecting the religion of their ancestors, all devise their own unique philosophies for life based in love, understanding, and continuous healing.
It wouldn’t be until the end of 2021 that Sidney would learn of Samm Brown’s existence, and another year until she would meet Gabby Sebat and CJ Jordan, but the company’s origin was already brewing. After college, Samm went into marketing while Gabby went into sociology, working at a crisis line for two years before joining a nonprofit to help kids fund their way through college. Working in the corporate world for two years, CJ was coming to terms with being in a career that was becoming her whole life. CJ says, of her time in corporate, that while she learned so many invaluable skills and tools for efficiency, “mentally I just lost all drive, every bit of creativity I had,” (CJ Jordan). Soon after, CJ got a call asking about a film position, and she quit her corporate job to join the film industry!
“Started with a love of film, ventured off that path, and then found myself [back at] square one”
– Christian “CJ” Jordan
Samm Brown decided he wanted to step into his passions more in 2021, when he began working in film full-time. Living the non-stop hustler life of working in film and prioritizing his own role in advocacy and activism, Samm was introduced to Sid while working on Jesus Revolution (Lionsgate, Kingdom Productions) early 2022. Both worked as production assistants for different departments (Main Office and Art Dept. respectively). They worked together over the next several months and bonded over tarot, astrology, and their general outlooks on life.
When Samm decided he wanted to start the podcast Gabby, Sid, and CJ were involved very early on. They can recall Samm sending a snapchat asking if they wanted to be guests on his podcast. Immediately, of course, Gabby was talking to Samm about partnership as she had been wanting to start a podcast for years, but no one was saying to her, “let’s actually do it!” She laughed when asked about the beginning of her and Samm’s professional partnership because everything fell into place so randomly, and even though they had been friends for years, they had never really worked together prior to Enhance (other than “Paint it Black”). It was evident to Samm that Gabby was the missing link in the podcast and company and they began working immediately on season one of the Enhance Podcast. Samm really wanted CJ to be a part of season one, and she appears on episode five of the Enhance Podcast, “Realism Vs Toxic Realism”. Samm reached out to Sid asking if she could do the podcast’s theme song, and sure enough when you listen to the podcast’s intro… those little low-fi ‘doo doo doots’ you hear? All Sid.
Photographer Credit: Lucia Camon
Around that same time, summer ‘22, Sidney began working on the concept for a blog. After finishing her projects in Alabama, Sid decided she wanted to go back to Texas, as her grandmother was battling cancer at the time. It felt like the right time in her career to refocus on writing. It wasn’t until Halloween 2021, that she and Samm would talk about joining the two projects. But sure as the thunder storm that almost blew away their Halloween plans, Enhance was starting a blog, and Sid wanted in.
From there, Sid met Gabby and they instantly fell in love.
“I mean it’s not too hard to get along when you’re both talented, powerful, boss women who support women supporting other women!”
Sidney Floyd
CJ is the most recent addition to the team, though she has been in Samm Brown’s circle of amazing talented friends for a while. She is the perfect person to be present as the team dives into deeper waters. Everyone is so excited with the company going into season two of the podcast! While so much had to happen to get us all together for this moment in the podcast’s expansion into production company, there’s nowhere else we’d rather be.
~let’s explore some of Enhance’s own historical quotes~
“Everyone has a story. From the cashier at Walmart, to the pilot of your plane, to the president [of the United States], every human has a beautiful and interesting story that is no greater or lesser than someone else’s,”
– Samm Brown
“[B]y creating a community who enjoys growing and becoming their best selves… our guests have a safe place to share their experience and bond with our listeners. Sharing one’s story is a powerful thing for our listeners to feel heard, inspired to heal, and grow.”
– Gabrielle Sabat
“I’m a person that fully believes you can speak things into fruition… the more that you speak things aloud, the more that you know you allow space for that to actually happen… it’s not always gonna be sunshine and rainbows… it’s always gonna be toxic, hard, but that’s really important that you continue to do that throughout life.”
– Christian “CJ” Jordan
“Art is another source of infinite philosophy for the human consciousness,”
– Sidney Floyd Armstrong
“shoutout Gabby. She’s been an amazing Creative Producer and I couldn’t have done this much without her.”
– Samm Brown
“Creatively I want us to all grow together and be our best selves. I want to be able to be honest and be able to give help [and] insight [in] each episode we produce.”
– Gabrielle Sabat
“The name [Samuel] means “God has heard”. Even though I’m not a Christian, I like to think that it has marked me as someone whose voice will always have a destination and never been unheard.”
– Samm Brown
“As a kid growing up all I ever wanted to do was go to the movies”
-Christian “CJ” Jordan
*Favorite episodes of team:
Enhance Productions 
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