The action
People talk about the importance of the journey as opposed to the destination.
As actors we’re encouraged not to play a result but to play action instead. What comes as a result of that is not our business.
It’s a hard one to grapple. But I think there is a lot of peace we can all gain by attaching ourselves to and falling in love with the action and not the result.
Fall in love with providing outstanding educational opportunities for your students.
Fall in love with creating amazing value for your clients.
Fall in love with being the most alive and attentive parent.
The action is the thing we can control. The result is not… so it’s not worth the heartache.
Fall in love with the action. Then you may get some pleasant surprises along the way.
Get to
One of the simplest shifts in language has massively changed my life.
I found myself saying things like “I have to do the show tonight” or “I have to go to that meeting”.
Shows and meetings are part of the life I’ve designed for myself- so “have to” doesn’t ring as true for me.
“Have to” is against your will. It’s reluctant. It’s “Okay, fine I’ll do that”
None of these belong in the life I want. And the good news is, we can use language te remind ourselves each moment that we have a choice.
Switch your “have to” to a “get to”.
“I get to do the show tonight”
“I get to go to that meeting”
Look at all you get to do. How lucky are we?
Setting the table
Every night in the show Mrs Krishnan’s Party we have the guests set the table with plates and cups.
Approximately 10 minutes after that they have to move it all so Mrs K can dance on the table.
Of course it’s scripted this way. We know she’ll end up on the table, so everything on the table will have to be moved.
So why set the table in the first place?
That’s a little detail I love about the show. It’s thousands of moments like that which build the illusion of reality.
In real life sometimes you do something only before needing to undo it.
So that’s why we do it in the show.
We all have a way in
The fact that you’re a human being means you have a way in.
Early on as a teacher I’d easily feel out of my depth when teaching things I didn’t have all the answers to. We get hypnotised in the culture to believing that we have to be experts.
More often than not, we don’t need to wear that responsibility. We just need a way in.
In acting, we’re encouraged to find truth in the imagined circumstances of a character. One of my teachers Miranda Harcourt calls this ‘make it true for you’. The text talks about a cousin? Build an internal reality of that person.
Make it true for you is the secret to finding confidence when we feel out of our depth in other arenas too.
I don’t know about drums and I can’t play the drums. So I have not connection to them right? No way to make it true for me?
Well I’d say the fact that I can’t play the drums is a relationship to the drums. I know what drums are. I had a friend at high school who played the drums. I’ve always liked that drum solo by Phil Collins.
I suddenly have found my way in.
No matter what we bring ourselves to, in any arena, we always have the ability to make it true for ourselves.
Education is about connection. So finding that connection to any material we teach is vital.
Make it true for you and you’ll have a never ending source of connection.
Is it alive?
A director I worked with gave me a key question that I use to guide all of my work.
It was after a show and he’d given us all a few pages of notes for things to focus on and improve in the show. A collection of ultra specific tweaks.
He turned to us, knowing that hitting all these in one show was a long shot. He acknowledged this and said simply “All I’m looking for is the life. All these notes are there just to support that. So all your job is is to search for the life.”
“{Is it alive?”
That’s it. We have tonnes of technical moments to hit, emotional beats to play, connection to each other, the material, the audience- one million things that culminate in a single outcome; life.
When I act I come back to the question.
When I rehearse. When I create. When I teach. When I converse. When I collaborate. When I build. When I help. It’s all in service of the same question:
Is it alive?
Where does confidence come from?
Well it might be the wrong question. There’s only efficiently achieving an outcome or not.
A better question might be what should I focus on and how can I use my resources to achieve it?
When I feel nervous in front of an audience, my focus is inevitably on trying to be liked by them. That is a focus that is pretty guaranteed to dull someone’s confidence.
A more effective focus? To help these people understand what I’m talking about. Or to listen intently to the people in the room.
Confidence is a by product of placing your focus elsewhere.
Fundamentals
Isn’t it interesting how we can forget the fundamentals so easily?
A walk in the middle of the day will probably improve your mood. So will some exercise.
Completing a massive task in many small chunks (not all at once) is a lot less taxing.
Getting enough sleep will make the joys of life crisper.
Yeah, those fundamentals. Move, eat well and sleep enough- and keep reminding yourself to do it!
The lucky ones
We all have rules whether we know them or not.
We have rules for what has to happen for us to feel successful, to have fun or to feel appreciated.
A good way of finding your rules is to ask yourself: “What has to happen in order for me to feel ____”
And put any desired state in there…
To feel appreciated, for instance you might have to be told you’re awesome, or you might need people to see the work you’ve done and know how long it took you. Or you might be one of the lucky ones who just need to look at themselves in the mirror and smile to feel appreciated.
I say ‘lucky ones’… but the truth is, we’re in charge of our rules.
There’s nothing that says you can’t feel successful every time you take 5 minutes to be grateful.
There’s no rule that says you can’t feel deeply valued every time you show someone else they are deeply valued.
We’re the bosses, y’all. We get to choose the rules.
And while we’re at it, we might as well set ourselves and others up to win.
Magic at work
I watched a touring company of a musical in St. Louis.
It was outstanding- the level of craft these performers have is insane and their ability to bring that every night as well as their magic human energy.
It never ceases to amaze me to see an expert at work.
When flawless craft disappears, magic emerges.
It’s inspiring and a great reminder of how important it is for us as creators to refuel. Here’s the magic that inspires us, seek it and consume it!
Be directionally correct
I’ve just started a business accelerator program for Online Kapa Haka. I’ll be coached and taken through training across this year and one of the first things they talked about is to not worry about being perfect- but just to be directionally correct.
One of our tasks in the program is to create various content assets for the business. So with that we don’t have to make each one perfect, we just need to ensure we’re in the right direction.
So as long as I’m talking about education and culture and not dinosaurs I’m doing okay.
Though I bet I could make dinosaurs connect somehow…
Don’t be perfect! Let’s just move in the right direction!