Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - A Rare Glimpse Into Musical Mastery | Violinist, Elizabeth Pitcairn

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

This week’s conversation is with Elizabeth Pitcairn, a world-renowned classical violin virtuoso.After making her orchestra debut at age 14, Elizabeth has gone on to travel the globe with her violin, performing as a soloist in various highly acclaimed orchestras at some of the most prolific classical music venues on the planet. Elizabeth is also known for performing with one of the world’s most legendary instruments – the Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius violin of 1720 – said to have inspired the Academy Award–winning film “The Red Violin”. In addition to her acclaimed solo career, Elizabeth is a passionate advocate of music education, and serves as the President and Artistic Director of the Luzerne Music Center in upstate New York, which provides world-class music instruction for gifted young musicians.At its core, this is a conversation about developing a relationship with mastery – the standard of perfection, being a conduit to the music, and the ups and downs of truly loving your craft._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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a high-performance psychologist. And today, I am really excited to sit down with Elizabeth Picaran. Elizabeth is a renowned classical violin virtuoso, and I don't say that lightly. After making her orchestra debut at age 14, she has gone on to travel the globe with her violin, performing as a soloist in various world-leading orchestras at some of the most prolific classical music venues on the planet. Elizabeth is also known for performing with one of the world's most legendary instruments, the Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius violin that was made in 1720. Said to have inspired the Academy Award-winning film, The Red Violin. I hope you've had the chance to watch that movie. If you haven't, you're in for a real treat. And I think we're in for a bigger

treat to learn from a true master of craft with Elizabeth. So in addition to her acclaimed career, she's also passionate about advocating music education. She serves as the president and artistic director of the Luzerne Music Center in upstate New York, which provides world-class music instruction for gifted young musicians. Elizabeth, I am so excited to sit with you. Thank you so much for being with us today. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. It's an honor to be on your

program and I am performing a concert right after we are finished. So it's all in a day's work. It's a perfect day for me. Oh, that is awesome. Do you still get nervous? I do, but I've learned to embrace my nerves as a good thing. Instead of resisting them, I allow the adrenaline feeling to course through my body to the point where I can feel it head to toe and feel the buzz and the sick feeling that comes with it and work it out of my system in advance of the, let's say the show, the event. And the farther in advance that I start getting the nerves, the better I perform when I get to the show. The worst part is to have it happen as a rush that's unexpected and your body has trouble handling the rush of adrenaline. So even though

it feels terrible, I mentally say to myself, bring it on, bring it on, just let it, let it go through. Okay. So you welcome it. You know, it's part of getting ready. It's part of the dynamic of doing anything that matters, whether that's wrestling down a bear or going on stage or having an intimate conversation. Sounds like you're metabolizing the value of it. And then more importantly, you mentioned it in two ways. You mentioned it, the adrenaline and then the sickness. Are you talking about the sick, the stomach feeling, the nausea, that type of feeling that happens as well? Yeah. A lot of people call it butterflies. And you don't. It doesn't feel like nice butterflies to me, but I can relate to the description of when your stomach feels a flutter. But I have never actually physically vomited before a show, but I have come close to it.

And then I went into the most state of calm that I've ever been in my life moments later where I could do anything. I was so calm and so focused. And it came after the most extreme set of nerves that I had ever had. Let's open that up. How? How did you do that? And let's call that a 10 out of 10. And let's call that a 10 out of 10 on a if, if some, let's call that a 10 out of 10 on a internal activation scale, let's just mark that as a 10. Cause it sounds like you haven't had, you know, bigger than that. And then we'll, so let's unpack that a little bit and then let's unpack what maybe a three out of 10 or a six out of 10, somewhere in that range feels like. And,

and I just want to set the scene and the context, how many years have you been? I know it was age three, but give me the number of decades that you've been deliberately, nauseatingly, to use that word again, deeply focused on refining your craft. How many decades? So four. I'm 48 now. I started playing when I was three. I can't wait to get into how you think about deep practice. There's only a handful of people on the planet that have the level of talent and mastery and skill that you have. So I do want to spend deep time on that, but let's stay at the surface really quickly about this nervousness, this anxiousness.

Let's Mark the one that you're talking about as a 10 on a 10. And then the moment, like what's leading to the quote unquote sick feeling. And then when you feel it, this is like a very mechanical question. What do you do with it to be able to move it? Well, the feeling generally inspires a response. It's either procrastination or it's let's get going with this and put in some serious work and it the adrenaline will allow me to practice untold hours with incredible focus and then walk out on the stage and then elevate my my game I hang around Brian too much my my game to a whole new level that my, my performance is dramatically better in the performance than the dress rehearsal. So I save something back in the dress rehearsal, but I channel the nerves into being able to play

with a tremendous amount of energy and put everything I have into it and go into a place where I'm not even aware of being present anymore, just gone. So that's what, and you want that, that help because it can bring you out if you're exhausted and you've been traveling, if you're slightly sick or if you just need energy, then it will give you like a turbo boost to do that. Okay. So you see it that it can, it does facilitate higher standards or higher, not standards, higher performance abilities. It can also debilitate. And so, okay. So step one that I'm learning is that you, you, you embrace that it is part of the equation and you've chosen this lifestyle. You've chosen this way of living. You could play

in your living room and like, that's one way of playing the violin. Or you can say, no, no, no, I need to share it and move it. Whether it's building your nonprofit or sharing the love of music, there's a public nature to it. So you've designed your life to share. And then, so that's part one. And then part two is when you feel it, you say, this does help me. So one, it's part of it too. It helps me. And then when you feel it, what, this is what I want to understand. What do you do at that moment?

Do you talk yourself through it or do you breathe your way through it? Do you, you know, do some exercise? Do you take a nap? Do you, most people can't eat because their stomach is upside down and not. It's like, what do you do? I accept it and welcome it. When I was younger, it would turn my legs and hands into jelly because I didn't have enough time spent preparing and I didn't feel confident deep down. So my answer to all of that is to prepare to the point that I know I can walk out on stage and do it even no matter how nervous I feel, because we can't lie to ourselves.

Oh, yeah. Okay, now we're getting into it. This fake it till you make it, it doesn't work. This kind of, you know, self talk that is uncredible doesn't work, and not having reps and time under belt of high activation, nervousness, nearly vomiting, if you don't get to that place, it doesn't work. You need to understand that place too. And what I love that you're saying, and it's so grounded, is that, so I work ad nauseum. I want to have mechanically high skill, high reps under my belt so that when I say to myself, I can do this, you have a whole body of work to reference. You have real history under your belt to say, yeah, I actually can do this. Yeah. If you believe you can do it, you will do it.

Yeah. Right. Sounds so simple. I don't think that you work in kind of tropes or what are those things, like phrases that people throw around all the time, like cliches, you don't work in cliches do. Well, that's an interesting observation. I, I, I don't, and I'm not even good at them. And I accept that. I'm not someone like Dave, he's so good at current lingo, but what I know is what I know and my search for how to be the best and to keep getting better. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring

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here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. You said two things that I want to open up again is you want to be the best. You didn't say I want to be my best. You say I want to be the best. So can we unpack that just a bit more?

From what I understand, the difference between being good and being great is about 2%. So if you want to live in the rarefied atmosphere of the very best that you can be, then you're driving yourself in an infinitesimal level. And that to me is fascinating to go there and live in that. And it is really hard work. You're always working and you have to be driven and not comfortable at, you know, I don't know if it's a personality thing, but just there's certain I'm fine with being a okay tennis player and going out and hitting some balls. I give myself that leniency because that I want that to be fun. But when it comes to violin, I want to be able to play the violin with mastery, with the kind of precision and

perfection and delivery of the music. And I'm frustrated when I can't deliver the music the way I want to deliver it. And that comes through studying more, understanding and connecting so many things to be able to achieve the result, which is a divine perfection of beautiful music that touches people's souls. And to do that, your technique and your mastery of the instrument and the craft connected to what you have to say musically has to be in sync. I mean, for the last 30 seconds, all the hair on my body standing up, because it's not necessarily the words you just chose, which is the delivery,

but it's where you're coming from. And you're using words that are actually jarring to me. So I want to understand them, like the divine perfection. What the hell is that? Okay. Pun intended. And then, and then you're so, and, but before we go to that, which is so that, that contrast is amazing to me because perfection to me, I'll just qualify it is like, I'm not interested in it. I'm not interested in perfection. I'm interested in artistic expression and getting right on the edges of what I know and don't know and being able to stitch it together, whatever it is in that moment. And for me, it's mostly based on relationship, words, feelings with other people, myself and others. And so there's something there that I'm more interested

in. But you used divine perfection. But before we get there, you also mentioned it in two different ways, like trying to be my best and trying to be the best. And I'm saying this out loud to myself. Come back to quotes. OK. So what is it, my best or the best? Or how do you wrap your head around those two related but different approaches to growth?

When I'm thinking about my standards, I long ago put away, I think in my early 20s, I let go of the insecurities of feeling like I wasn't good enough and started judging myself according to my own personal standards. Yes, hearing my colleagues and hearing how the best in the world did things, but then having my own standards. So I'm constantly raising the bar of my own standards. And I know there's no such thing as perfection or the best. In fact, there's one of my favorite expressions is from my USC teacher, Robert Lipset, that I studied with. And the reason I moved to California was he said, we practice for perfection. So our mistakes are not as bad. And he talked about balance and he talked about mastery in terms of having everything

in balance. And he said to me, Elizabeth, you want your playing to be overall with an evenness. You, you want a certain kind of a presentation that doesn't one thing isn't amazing and other thing drops down and it's not as good you need a certain type of a balance I'm not trying to be better than someone else what I'm trying to do is serve the music at its highest level and the better I get the more I realize what that is and to try to come close to circling back to the divine perfection. Can I explain what divine is and perfection is not there? We are not perfect as humans, so we can't be perfect on our own. And I don't know what happens when I go onto stage and I go into my zone, but something happens and I often feel like I'm a something happens. And I often feel like I'm a conduit.

And I know that what I'm doing with the music and bringing this beauty, peace and all kinds of emotions is, is a powerful thing for people, people's souls, for mine and for the audience and we go on a journey together. So it would be on my part to let them down, to not deliver that experience is not fair. And people feel when you're really able to do that and make a phrase, a beautiful phrase that's an arc. And how do you do that with a violin in your hand and a bow in your hand?

You're not a singer, but you want to recreate the experience as if you were singing. That's beautiful. Your depth of understanding has led to this question for me, and I've never asked this question, which is, do you feel as though you're a conduit of the music or are you part of the music are you the music I would say the former I would say the music is flowing through me. That's right. That's what I'm trying to sort out is you see it. So you're a conduit. So the music is somewhere and it's flowing through you and your instrument and then expressed, you know, through sound and vibrations. But so you don't see yourself as the music. I suppose I could say that I become the music. Yeah, that's the, that's, it's a new

thought for me. And it's new based on the way that you were just talking about how, um, one, there's a responsibility that you hold. There's a, a, a, a posture of serving the, the, the music, which, and the music was created by somebody put this note here and that note here and, and then hold the contour of those two, three, four, five notes in a row in a certain way. That's when I, when you start talking about balance, I was thinking about like the contour of it, the shape of it, the, and I'm not using technical words, you know, but it's just the way it feels where it's not like, oh, what was that? And so if I can, if your quote unquote divine perfection, if your high level of mastery can allow me

to get lost in the unfolding contour of the notes, then you've created an experience for me that is different than if I'm navigating when is the next sharp or funky note going to happen and bracing myself for it, if you will. Okay, this is good because you also, there's in your approach. So you started at age three. Hold on. I got to watch you play. I want to make sure everyone knows that is that it was an intimate hall. It was full capacities, maybe 200 people. It was, quote unquote, designed for the most optimal sound experience that one can have. It's at the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC.

And it's like, it's incredible the way that it just sounded. For me to be able to watch you play in that moment, I brought my son and my wife was there and we're able to just be lost in your music. So I'm saying this with a personal experience under belt that was a special moment. All that being said is that there's a responsibility that I feel. There's an intensity, a fire,

there's a serviceness that you have, and it's a really unique tension between the two. So at age, let me take a quick pass. At age three, you're introduced to music and you started practicing it. You probably had some appreciation, but there was a lot of parenting involved. I'm making up a narrative here.

And then there was a pivotal moment, I think probably in your life. And that was when you were gifted the red violin. And so can you talk about the responsibility that you feel and how some of the earlier experiences and then when you're gifted the red violin how that shaped your not only your personality but um the way that you've set up the rest of your life well absolutely there was a there was a quality of why me but there was also a quality of understanding that this was going to happen to me. I think I knew that this was going to happen to me from a young age for some reason. And I don't have a way to explain why or how, except that I was born into a musical family. And even when I was in the womb, my mother was teaching and playing her

cello. She went to the Juilliard School. And I think it started with that. I mean, on her due date, she was teaching her lessons. And so I had that sort of as a role model growing up, that kind of kind of ethic. And my father was very musical and had perfect pitch that he inherited from his mother, who was Dutch. And so I didn't know I had perfect pitch until I was 10 years old. And I didn't know that not everyone had perfect pitch. I didn't even know that for me,

hearing a pitch and saying what it is, is the same as us seeing the color red and saying it's red. I mean, an A is an A. So when 10 years old, when people discovered this and freaked out, I was surprised. At age eight, my mother had a cassette recording that she played in the car. We lived in the country, so we drove, it seemed like hours everywhere to get anywhere. And so she was playing this violin concerto over and over. I was a great violinist from Odessa and I was eight and I would lay in the backseat in the car. It seemed like hours on end. And I listened over and over to this violinist playing and clear as

day, I could see that it was me standing there on that stage playing that piece. And I asked her when I would be able to learn it. And she said, when you're 14, well, I was eight, you know, but it's the hardest violin concerto written by Sibelius from Finland. And I didn't end up learning it until I was in my early 20s. And finally, when I stood on the stage and heard the orchestra, the live orchestra, just playing that, and I was actually playing, that was quite a moment. But those things were so real to me.

And I think that my mom always planted something in my head. Maybe she said, oh, you'll have a great violin or you'll have... She knew how much a great instrument is instrumental to a young person's development and to their concept of sound. They're really... I mean, just imagine a race car driver trying to navigate a race course and they never get a decent car to drive how are they supposed to learn what it does or someone or an olympic horseback rider and they

don't have a great jumper uh to to go over the fences and so that that's kind of what that violin was and it wasn't a gift it wasn't a present it wasn't um that kind of runs around the media as an area a narrative I don't know where where it started but it was nothing of the sort it was a tool it was a working tool to have the best equipment possible at a very critical time where instrument prices were skyrocketing out of sight in the late 80s early 90s they were just going up and this was breaking and and you know and my mother was right in today's dollars you know it would be on completely out of sight unportable so that is why uh you know a 16 almost 17 year old girl uh got that violin at the time

that she did um because of those factors. And it was the timing of the red violin coming up for auction in 1990 at Christie's of London that hadn't been on the market in 45 years. You're lucky if you see one of those in your lifetime. You're not going to see it again. They don't come and go. Something of that magnitude in the top 10% of the instruments that Stradivari ever made is not going to surface repeatedly. It's going to get bought and it's going to be held for a long time.

So there's only a couple of owners that we've ever known about. I'm just lucky that, you know, and you talked about responsibility, talk about responsibility to look after it and take care of it. But a greater responsibility is what you do with it. And I think serving my purpose and serving people and helping people and my passion for youth and education has channeled all that gift into a real purpose here in my lifetime. Who were the previous owners? It was Lily Von Mendelsohn, who was the daughter. So all of the Mendelssohns are descended from the great philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.

But her father was Franz von Mendelssohn. This is in the early 1900s in Berlin. And he was a noted art collector. They were a banking family. They had a quartet of Stradivarius, which in today's would be valued at well over $150 million. If you could even get one, there's only 10 violas. And then before her was Joseph Joachim, who was a Hungarian soloist, composer, great violinist, who's one of my all-time heroes. And so I was stunned to learn that he had had it.

And that was part of the trail of discovery trying to figure out what this instrument was we still don't know between let's say 1880 and 1720 there's there's absolutely no record but the condition of it is remarkable so someone took really good care of it and then one more after Lily it came from Germany to New York City in 1956 where it was in a private collection of an amateur business industrialist violinist who never played it in public and actually traded in his own strad and additional monies to purchase the Red Mendelssohn. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus.

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and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Bring me into that moment. You're loving violin at this point. You're loving playing. It's a thing for you. This isn't like casually moms wanting you to play more often and fighting you to like get your 10 minutes a day in. It's not like that, right? Yes and no. I'm sure if my mom at that point had said, you know, when you're that age, you're exploring life. And I was always so, you know, kind of lonely growing up in the country and with not many people around. And I had a driver's license and I had friends at school and it was prom. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You just can't drop that in. I was really lonely as a kid. Keep going. Now you're painting a

different picture for me right now, which I love this contour. Okay. So let's set the stage a little bit more is that I don't know your family dynamic from an economic financial standpoint, but I know your family's family, family, like, you know, you guys have a massive industrial business. And so the shorthand is like, you guys were doing pretty well, you know? And, but I don't know that I don't know the dynamics there. And then, you know, picking up the violin at age three is a little intense. Right. And then so this is why I'm trying to understand the family dynamic a little bit.

And then you add lonely to it because it's going to set the stage of like how you practice, why you practice. And then pivotal moments that you either ignored or captured, you know, the ones that got away and the ones that you just reeled in really nicely. So what do you mean lonely? Well, at a certain point, I, I can remember and I can tell you all the things that happen, but I don't have an emotional charge behind it anymore. So I, I have the memories, but I don't, but I'm a completely different player of late because I went through that process to come back to violin with, with love and the knowledge of how to play it. But none of the anxiety and the tension and the insecurity that I felt when I was younger. So I was, we were lonely. I grew up on 80 acres in the country. We didn't

even have a center of town. We have a township. There's, there's no, and then my friends and I, and I had to practice almost four hours every day. And, and often practicing was kind of used as a weapon. If I wanted to go see my friends, I had to practice. And if I wouldn't cooperate, I couldn't go until I was done practicing. And to the point that there was never a day off. But, you know, people ask, was it child abuse? No, it wasn't. It was just I had driven mother. And everything she did was because she saw this dream of me being this solace. And she knew I had what it took. And I also believed it. And she always,

deep down, I had that belief that she instilled in me from a young age that I could be all of that. And I was, you know, of course, in your mother's eyes, you're the best. But she made me believe it. And how did she do that? She, she believed it. And so I believed it. So she would say things to me like, um, you have an extraordinary gift, Elizabeth. And she'd say that you're the way she would say, Oh, the way you play Bach. She said, she would just say, that's, that's extraordinary. And, and your, your gifts, um, she would just talk to me about, uh, how good I was. But then the flip side was that performance didn't go well. The criticism was staggering.

I would look out to see her face when I was done and then I would just hear about what I had done wrong. And fair enough, because I was never really prepared. I was always trying to get out of practicing. And I just wasn't accepting that that was my path. I was just, if I could, it's like if I could read The Power of Now and go back and be a kid. But it's what I do now. So here we are now.

I accept that the sacrifice is all the practicing, but it's what I overwhelmingly love to do. And so I don't fight it. But as a child, I kind of knew that she would make sure I got it done. So I didn't take any responsibility for myself. Hence, at that point, had she said, okay, it's up to you now. And, and you can do it or not. but if you don't do it, we're going to sell the instrument or there'll be no more lessons. I think that by the age of 14, I for sure would have taken up, taken it on and it didn't happen. I can't go back and redo it, but. Okay. So definitely pressure in the system, right? There was a high stress to practice. There was disappointment when the performance was or critique. And it's verbal, nonverbal as well, it sounds like, when the performance was below standard or just bad.

And you did have an appreciation. You had a bit of a vision. You had a talent for it. I'm glad we're talking about this because it's really rare for a six year old to be grinding, you know, to do the four hours a day type of work. So let's talk about practice. What is the psychology or the mindset that you hope people hold as they're going through the four phases of practice? So it could be something I'll give you a couple of different ones, right? Like, well, let's call it a mindset of perfection.

Like even during warmups, like this has to be perfect. Or it's like, no, I'm just, I'm cruising, I'm going and like I'm putting in the work and, you know, actually part of practice is making a mistake and figuring out how quickly I can let go of it. And like, how do you hope that they hold their mind or mindset during practice? That question right there is everything. When we actually execute what I'm going to say, this is my understanding of what to do. It is a true hold. So I'll put myself in the place and time

of the event I'm preparing for. And sometimes I'll have a flashback when I'm on stage and I'll have a flashback to the moment two weeks ago at 11am when I was tackling that particular issue in the piece that I needed to solve. And I and, and I'll have a premonition at that moment at 11am in that moment. And I think the work that you're doing right now on this passage is going to translate into your performance two weeks from now. And this is the moment where you're accomplishing that. And that's because I'm so, I almost, I can picture myself in the concert hall in real time and playing for people. So it's real. And I'm a hundred percent focused on the work in that moment. Yeah. So what I'm hearing is that you use your imagination to tune

your focus so you can stay locked in and you see yourself or the environment that you might be in later to increase the activation. And so it's a little bit like this. You're using your mind to create a stimulus that isn't naturally in the practice environment so that you can stay locked in and focused. And when you do that, it sharpens your ability to perform and practice. So I think awesome. And the discipline to do that is noted. Can you, let me ask you a handful of questions. When you use your imagination, do you see yourself in your own body or do you see yourself watching from a different perspective?

I put myself physically there, like on the stage of Carnegie Hall. I'm there in my practicing. So I put myself there on the stage. The people are there. Everything's there. I'm on stage and I'm delivering in that moment and I'm analyzing how does it sound at that moment. Are you in your own body or are you watching yourself from somebody who happened to have a seat on stage?

Oh, I would say I'm in my own body. Cause in my mind, I'm, you know, I see my hands. I see what I'm doing. I'm looking at what I'm doing.

I'm right there. And then do you see it in color? Yeah. And do you play this movie in real time or do you slow it down? I think real time because it just heightens my listening and my analytical and critical thinking abilities in the moment to decide if I just played something that no one would ever hear, or if, if I'm playing, if I'm delivering it at that moment with the perfection that I need to play it with. And it's, it makes it real for me to. Yeah.

Yep. So what you're doing is you're not closing your eyes. Let's just, let's just be really, um, concrete. You're not closing your eyes, um, in a non-practice environment and seeing yourself perform later. That's not what we're talking about. Maybe you do that, but right, right now, what we're talking about is you're in your practice chair, you're holding your violin, you've got your instrument, and then you're using your imagination for a moment to set the context of the environment of a high-pressured, a performative environment. And then that probably

kicks up your heart rate just a little bit. It dials in your focus to lock in and you are looking down using your eyes, either in your imagination or concretely looking at your instrument. But it's like the, the, the background is not the practice background. The background using your imagination is the performative environment. So you're, you're, you're amplifying the activation internally by creating through your imagination. Um, you know, it's like rubber bullets. No one's actually there. And then, and then, so just one more double click. You said, I analyze. Is that, are you coaching? Are you critiquing? Are you curiously observing?

What is that quote unquote analyzing? What's the contour of that analyzing? Well, I'm, I'm listening basically if I just, let's say I recorded it and I laid down the track and then I, and then I listened to the playback and I'm like, well, is this good enough to go out on a CD right now? There can't be any scratches. There can't be any, you know, little imperfection in the sound of the bow going across the string. You know, basically, did I like what I hear?

I had a similar experience when I was about 21. I won a competition to solo with the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was a big deal to come home. And it was a moment of truth for me because I heard I got to play with the Philadelphia Orchestra as a result of winning the competition. And it's the Philadelphia Orchestra, my hometown. And they're, in my opinion, the greatest orchestra. And they play their opening interlude. And then, um, I'll, you know,

they play their opening interlude and then I come in and with a Mozart concerto and I come in and then my first three notes are alone of the piece. I hear my sound and then I heard the orchestra and then they, they enter very softly. And now I hear my sound rising above the orchestra. And it was a total out of body-body experience I I wasn't I just stood back way back like in the hall like like a person in the hall listening and also I felt my grandmother grandfather who's no longer alive too because that's where he always went and listened

to the orchestra and I heard my sound rising above the Philadelphia Orchestra. And at that moment, I said, okay, do you like what you hear? This is it. This is everything. You've worked your whole life for this. What do you think? Do you like it? And it was the best I had ever played. I couldn't believe it.

And I thought, I've done it. I'm here. I would not. I got chills. I would not recommend that you're evaluating while you're doing it, but it does happen, right? That it does happen, but you used a question. Do you like what you're hearing? Is that what you, the question you said? Yeah. Do you like what you're hearing? And then because that, okay. So let me tell you why, like I'm being a little cheeky because this is, this is how it happens. And most people, if they open themselves up for

the question, like, do you like how it feels? It is a, it's like the hard drive is running a different program and it kind of slows everything down. So you have less available internal resources to adjust to the unfolding next moment. And so in that moment, it's dangerous, right? And, but when it happens and you, and you answer it, yeah, this is great. It is like, there's an on-ramp into like a little bit more space. But if you answer it like, no, I don't know. Will they like it? It doesn't matter what I like.

And now there's this whole other narrative going on, which is like, oh God. Right. Like, okay, we got problems here. So, so it sounds like you were in, you said out of body because it sounds like you were entering into a flow state. And I'm using that word technically where there's an action and awareness or are unfolding together. And it's just a kind of a oneness with what you're doing. And then you, you were able to manage your grandfather's perspective, your perspective, answer, ask

a question, answer the question all while being able to have your fingers be on automatic and, you know, hitting the notes on point. And so, all right. Okay. That's fun. Sorry for the long kind of narrative there, but that's really cool that the way you described it and there's two things in here. You said this was the moment. So it sounds like your philosophy is that there's two things in here. You said this was the moment.

So it sounds like your philosophy is that there are big moments in life as opposed to a philosophy, which is like, it doesn't matter if it's this orchestra or that orchestra or this small room or this large room, it's another moment to share my art. So it's another moment, another opportunity, as opposed to it's a big moment. And so I want to make sure I hear that correctly. Yeah, it was a defining moment for me. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new

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better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. You're conjuring up because of that feeling, you're conjuring up for me the gratitude I have for the person that put us together to be able to learn from you. And so Brian, word of sign, and he is, he's my financial advisor. And so like he, you know, we're talking

about podcasts, we're talking about things we're interested in. And I said, you know, I haven't had the chance to, to have a true master of an instrument on. And he says, oh, really? And so he says, well, what about Elizabeth? And I said, oh my, Elizabeth? And he says, I said, and so I got really excited that I got to meet you and, you know, listen to you play, which was from another mutual friend, David Belasco, that we both know.

He introduced me at USC to your work. Would you be OK if I called Brian right now? Because I'm super grateful and just feeling kind of flooded about it. And he's told in preparation for this interview, he told me when he walked through your life and because you guys know each other really well, it was like amazing things that, um, that he added perspective with. And so I don't know, would it be okay if I give him a jingle? Would you be cool with that? I would love that. Let's let's, let's talk to Brian. Let's see if we can do this. Okay. Can you hear the phone?

Michael. Hey, Brian, I've got a little surprise for you. Can I, can I put you on air? Can I put you, um, I'm on, I'm on, on the podcast with Elizabeth. And so you do love surprises. Okay. Elizabeth, do you love surprises? Absolutely. You do. Okay, Okay. Elizabeth, do you love surprises? Absolutely.

You do. Okay, good. All right. So one, we're talking about, thank you for the introduction. And then the second bit is like, can you explain in your understanding of Elizabeth and as you guys have been long-term friends? Well, yeah, you know, I'd love to, you know, the, when I think back over the years that we've had this great friendship, which probably is more than 10 years, maybe 12 years, I still remember the very first time I met her at her home. And she was doing a private recital for about, I don't know, 15 people. So that in itself was exciting just to be in that room. But, you know,

then, you know, I remember listening to Elizabeth for about 45 minutes and it was such an emotional experience that it literally brought me to tears. And I think in the world we're living in, there's so much that distracts us to be able to sit there and the peace and quiet of her beautiful home was like a life changing experience for me. And that really laid the foundation for what became a great friendship. So when I think about Elizabeth, I think about her just in so many dimensions. So a lot of people don't know know she's truly dedicated her life to this instrument and you know not only that but she you know she has a camp I don't know where this woman finds all the time to do all these great things but it's really um awesome and

there's just something about her where I think she understands, you know, what a gift she's been given. Brian, you put a huge smile on my face. Just hearing it makes me think of all the things we've done over the last 12 years. Very cool. So listen, relationships are what it's at. Your relationship with your instrument is fascinating to me and your relationship with the unfolding experience. And I've only have just just a handful of questions here left, just two or three questions. OK, one is. When you make a mistake, what do you do with that? How do you how do you frame the mistake? And then technically, what do you do if you're performing? We talked about practicing and what you do when you practice. The next step is practice performance. So then I have my piano

accompaniment. I mean, if I'm going to go solo with an orchestra, you only get two rehearsals and you get them when you show up and it's the day of the concert, maybe the day before. So you have your rehearsal pianist and you drill as much as possible. So back in college, for example, we would play every week in the studio masterclass and just drill it and drill and drill it until it was ready for public. That gives you a sense of all of that. So you are practicing for that ultimate perfection then when when a mistake happens um the you want to make your mistake go away before as it's happening you're correcting it and sometimes you correct it before anyone else can hear it. And they don't even know. But otherwise, if you have, you know, I trained to be able to avoid catastrophic mistakes, mostly from my own nerves, because I would get so nervous that I would create some kind of, you know, calamity.

But I taught myself how to keep going no matter what. So don't stop no matter what. And I can always get back on. So that was, you know, sort of step one to, to getting that. And then I think it's that type of, of performance practicing and putting yourself in that visualizing that you're actually in the performance so that you have ultimate command and and then studying the piece from all different angles from all the you know four types of memory from i use my visual my my my ro my analytical and my kinetic senses of memory to to lock in should something go wrong on stage. I've had a moment where I blacked out.

My mind went blank and I didn't know what came next. And my hand physically jerked to the right place, the muscles. And it was rather violent because they took over and it went there. And then I kept on going. So you can't just have your muscle. You need all of it. You need to be able to see the music in your head, in your mind, those are all safety nets.

Elizabeth, you're a legend. I wish that more people, you know, I wish we were doing this live so that I could one, hear you and feel your music, but also so more people could be exposed to it. And so hopefully there's a time that you'll be back in California and I'll get the chance to, to hear and feel, you know, your music again, but I would want to encourage folks to check out your music. Where can they find you? What's the best place to go besides your camp? You know, like that's, that's one obviously large tent pole that you've placed in the ground, but where are some other places people can go? Oh, well, I have a website.

It's called redviolin.com. Of course it is. I had some good, good friends who are savvy at business and encouraged me to, to get that website years ago. Awesome. Elizabeth, thank you for the treat. Thank you for bringing me into how you work with your mind and, you know, being able to share the story of how the red violin has helped shape your trajectory in life and also, you know, how you practice to be one of the greats of all time. And I just want to say thank you. And I really appreciate the contribution you're making to our community as well. Well, thank you. And all the things we talked about today, actually, I'll be thinking about more to put into words how it's possible. But I do want to thank you for asking the questions that you asked that allow me to talk about a really special and private part of my life in such a manner that I really enjoyed this afternoon, this day with you. I feel that.

And thank you. I'm honored that you said that as well. And so I hope you're primed and you're going to go create a special moment for people that they're going to talk about. Like Brian talked about for, you know, 10 years from now saying that it was moving and it changed me and God, what a cool way to go through life. Are you happy? Cause you masters are not happy. Are you happy? I am happy. I found a way to be happy after not being happy for most of my life. And that was a shrug. It's not that I was never happy, but I didn't have a sense of peace and acceptance. I think I was resisting what goes into it. And there's a difference.

I think there were just a few events in the past couple of years from the the death of my father and and the pandemic that shook up my world and I had a chance to um I had a chance to do some real studying and reading and learning and to um embrace that life is now. And no one makes you feel anything. You take responsibility for your feelings. And the idea of realizing that sometimes we can be addicted to stress hormones, that they can spike uncontrollably. And that negativity can also be an addiction in the mind. And to be able to find a place to drop those and also not to worry too much about the future

or to detach a bit from the outcome, let life unfold more naturally and kind of realize that, you know, there's no certainty, but to accept that. And for me, I was always a driver and I had to have things done. And it's been, I still am, I'm more effective actually slightly detaching and letting things be and and I'm just a happier person so I've to sum it up um I think that when we when we find our own place of kind of of joy in within us and that we're good with ourselves then that's truly a good place. And one of Eckhart Tolle's quotes resonated with me. He said, he said,

don't seek happiness because seeking is the antithesis of happiness, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now. Awesome. It's rich. And your commitment to growth and now in this phase of being happy and meaning to be in the unfolding present moment and having a contentment with that unfolding nature is really powerful. And so thank you, Elizabeth. Wishing you absolutely the best. Thank you, Len. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show,

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