The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 051 Nicholas Pallesen: Transformative Approach to Performance Anxiety

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 51. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now, your host, Dr. Renée Paul Gaultier. Hi, everyone. Hope you're doing great. If you have any questions about performance anxiety, how to tackle it, master it, and how to perform at your best, this is the episode for you. Today, I speak with transformative coach and mental performance consultant, Nicholas Spallison. For over a decade, Nicholas has helped countless artists and people from all walks of life

Starting point is 00:00:55 tackle performance anxiety at the source and, through the process, reach peak performance. He does this by guiding them to reconnect with their innate potential and bring that potential into the world. In doing that, Nicholas has earned great respect within the performing arts community as the coach for the soul. A former opera singer himself, he performed at the Metropolitan Opera, the English National Opera, the Chicago Lyric Opera, and many other companies throughout the U.S. and Europe. He's a graduate of the renowned Juilliard School and winner of many of the most prestigious opera competitions in the U.S. As a coach, Nicholas helps artists thrive both on the biggest performance stages and in their everyday lives offstage. He works with an international

Starting point is 00:01:42 spectrum of clients from high school students to Hollywood and TV actors, Broadway performers, and artists at the top orchestral and opera institutions in the world. He's regularly invited to speak and mentor artists at conservatories and training programs in the U.S. and U.K., and he currently serves as a faculty member for the New World Symphony and the Wolf Trap Opera Company. In today's show, Nicholas invites us to take a different look at performance anxiety. In his own words, Nicholas doesn't fix people. He helps them see they were never broken.

Starting point is 00:02:19 So our conversation will have you look at the root cause of your anxiety and stress and will help you get out of your head and get into your life. You'll hear Nicholas talk about how the meaning we attach to the outcome of a performance and the need for outside validation is at the root of performance anxiety, why it's important to play to play and why it helps us perform better, why we don't need to feel a certain way to perform our best, what headspace we should aim to be in for a performance, how to better get in the zone, why we must trust our intuition, and much more. So stay tuned and get ready to be inspired. Let's go to the show.

Starting point is 00:03:01 nicholas pallison thank you so much for being on the show today thanks for having me nicholas you have an unusual journey and a very interesting background filled with a great variety of experiences. And I strongly encourage my listeners to visit your website and read your great blog and read about your work. But for now, I'd love for them to hear that story. So please tell us about your musical journey and how you got to where you are today. Yeah, so I like to describe bit is I spent over a decade wearing two hats and having two full-time careers. I spent over a decade performing as a singer. I'm a baritone and had a really cool journey as a singer. I got to perform at a lot of really cool places, the Metropolitan Opera. I actually worked at Chicago

Starting point is 00:04:08 Lyric, where I know you play. And I got to sing some lead roles at the English National Opera and did really well in a lot of the competitions in the United States and had a, had a really cool operatic career. And while I was in the middle of my career, actually, I think a better way to put it would be concurrently, you know, concurrent to my performing career. I've worked for about 17 years now providing support to performing artists for overall mental wellness, but also performance psychology work. So, so, you know, for, for a long time, I was doing both careers at the same time. And about four years ago, I had kind of this realization that I came alive when I was helping people kind of, you know, helping people become their best, you know,

Starting point is 00:05:06 helping people shine and helping them thrive in whatever ways they wanted to thrive in the world, I found myself coming alive, supporting others on their journey in a way that I didn't as a performer. And, and, and it kind of led to this realization that, you know, I, I think I want to just really focus on supporting others and, and helping others to get where they want to get in life. so I came to this realization that I didn't want to perform anymore so last summer I sang my final performance I sang Sharpless and Madam Butterfly at the Santa Fe Opera and then I retired from

Starting point is 00:05:50 performing and so for the last year and a few months now I've just been coaching artists and helping them you know to get out of their head and live more in their life and you know both in terms of their everyday lives and in terms of their performing so so yeah so it's been an interesting journey because uh you know if you had asked me i turned 40 this year if you had asked me you know even 10 years ago when i was at juilliard if i'd be doing this at 40 i mean i had already been doing this work but if you had told me that you know 10 years later i would be out of performing and just doing this work, I would have never believed it, but, but it's been a, it's been really kind of cool to see how life has unfolded. And you have a unique approach to tackling

Starting point is 00:06:40 performance anxiety. I love seeing, reading your bio, how you have really gathered knowledge and actually a bunch of certifications and all sorts of stuff, life coaching. Um, I was seeing about laughter yoga and hypnosis and you say that you don't fix people you help them see that they were never broken and I'd love to hear more about your coaching philosophy and your overall system so what's the story there what does it entail well you know I should tell you kind of then the journey of how I even got into this work so you know I just said all this really cool stuff that I got to do as a performer. But none of that had been would have ever been possible, had it not been for a lot of the work that I had done. Because when I was growing up, I dealt with a lot of

Starting point is 00:07:34 anxiety in everyday life, I dealt with a lot of depression. And, and, you know, kind of just had a challenging childhood, you know, I grew up in an abusive home, and I was bullied at school and, and and just kind of dealt with a lot of you know a lot of life a lot of heavy stuff and and that kind of bled into my performing and to the point where I had horrendous performance anxiety and you know to the point where I would have panic attacks almost every time I was about to go on stage I would always forget the words to the songs I would throw up pretty frequently which is which is not a really good thing for a singer you know to be throwing up right before you have to use your voice and probably kiss someone right yeah and probably kiss someone

Starting point is 00:08:22 you know luckily at this point I was still in high school so I was just singing you know solos and choir okay and and I didn't have to kiss too many people you know off you know on stage at least you know but um but yeah you know but you know throwing up is kind of like you know rubbing sandpaper on your throat you know and it just wasn't the nicest thing for singing but you know it would be just this meltdown every time I was going to go on stage and you know I had this realization where it was kind of two big realizations where you know number one if I like I think I want to do this as a career you know I think I want to pursue the singing thing but if this is how it's going to be every time you know first of all who's going to hire me

Starting point is 00:09:08 You know, I can't imagine if I'm having like train wrecks every time I audition, I can't imagine I'm going to get many jobs, you know, but but the deeper thing for me was, you know, if this is how it's going to be, do I even want to do this? You know, because, you know, even then I had this feeling that, you know, life is just too short to do things that we don't want to do. and and you know but like I said I I kind of you know deep down thought yeah you know I think I want to give this a go and I had tried you know all sorts of approaches to to help me with it I had done the therapy route I had done medication I had done you know all sorts of different self-help uh modalities and techniques and whatnot and and then I I came across uh hypnosis and you know, and it was something that I had never, it never occurred to me to, to try it. And I did some hypnotherapy sessions and it was very, very helpful for me. And to the point to where the performance anxiety just really stopped being, you know, an issue. And, and also, you know,

Starting point is 00:10:16 my level of anxiety and depression in everyday life had, had kind of gotten to a much better place. Uh, I was, I was able to go off the medications that I'd been taking and, and it was a really, you know, it was a really cool thing. And, and I, it had made such an impact, not just in my performing, but in my life that I thought, you know, I want to share this with other people. Because even then, you know, even when I was in high school, kind of teenage, just beyond high school years, I had kind of gotten the sense that this was something, you know anxiety performance anxiety were things that a lot of people were dealing with it wasn't just me and I I could tell that it wasn't something we were really talking about and I thought you

Starting point is 00:11:04 know this is this is a conversation that that needs to happen but no one's really talking about it so I thought well why not me you know why not I be the one to start the conversation you know because I think it's really important. So then I went and I got trained and I got certified in, you know, like you said, laughter yoga, I got trained in neuro linguistic programming, I got trained in some cognitive behavioral psychology approaches, I got trained in a lot of mind body approaches. And I and I became a board certified hypnotherapist. And, and for many years, kind of how I did my work was what we would consider, I think, the traditional paradigm of mental performance coaching and wellness coaching. You know, I mean, I had these modalities

Starting point is 00:11:56 like hypnosis, and I did hypnosis a lot in my work. I even kind of got to the point to where I became named, you know, in the top 2% of hypnotherapists in the United States. and but but my my kind of foundation at all was that traditional kind of approach that we take to it that that performances and auditions have an inherent pressure and that we and that they they can cause us anxiety that pressure can cause us anxiety and so we need to find ways to to arm ourselves against it you know we need to develop strategies you know they often talk about developing mental toughness in the sports and performance psychology world, you know, developing those mental skills to help us to manage the pressures and the anxieties that are

Starting point is 00:12:47 in performing. And, and that's really kind of what I taught for many years. And I helped a lot of people. I did, you know, a lot of cool things with it. But then I noticed something really interesting which was that despite all of my efforts I was personally struggling a lot you know like I I couldn't seem you know I I knew like every technique in the book and yet I still had negative thoughts I still felt anxious I I still struggled with a lot of things and and I noticed the same thing with my clients and and one day I kind of had this realization where that kind of started to shift everything for me which was I started thinking about when I would talk to my clients and when I would look to my own experience as a performer you know and I also worked with a

Starting point is 00:13:43 lot of athletes too and so I'd talk with them about it and and you know a question that would come up often was well you know when you're in that what we would call that flow the zone you You know, when you're kind of on and you feel, you know, you feel like you're in it and maybe you're not doing perfectly, but, but you feel like you're in it and you, and you feel like, okay, yeah, I've got this, you know, what is that experience like? And, and people would inevitably describe it in some variation of, it felt like I wasn't thinking, you know, they'd say, it felt like I wasn't doing anything. Everything just kind of felt like it was happening organically through me.

Starting point is 00:14:26 It felt like I wasn't working. I wasn't making anything happen. And that was my experience too. When I felt like I was really on, it kind of felt like it wasn't me doing it. Like I kind of felt like more like I was the conduit for this creative aliveness, for this expression to come through me. You know, it didn't feel like I was making everything happen. And I definitely felt like I wasn't really doing a lot of thinking in that moment. And I thought, well, that's really interesting. So, you know, if we humans do better when there's less on our mind, when we're not thinking so much, when we're not trying to make everything happen, then why am I giving people all of these interventions and all of these techniques to do?

Starting point is 00:15:21 Why am I giving people more things to think about if the goal is to think less? Great point. You know, because in order to do, you know, centering or affirmations or, you know, any sort of breathing exercises or whatever, you know, we have to think about it. And, and we, we, you know, and so now we've got that on our mind. And then of course, inevitably, we might start wondering about if we are we doing it right or not? You know, are we doing it, you know, enough or not enough or, or whatever? And, or why isn't this working? Why did it work better last time? And, you know, and what I started to see is that, in a way, I was innocently part of people's problem. Like, that was kind of a humbling thing for me to kind of swallow, you know, that I realized, like, I'm innocently contributing to them being more in their head. by, by, by being like, okay, you know, so while you're, before you go in the room, you know, you got to do this exercise and you got to think about this and you got to think about this. And I was putting more on their plate when we do better at anything in life when there's less on our plate. So, so that kind of really, that kind of blew my mind and it led me, it led me

Starting point is 00:16:40 on this journey where I started to question a lot of the basic premises that, that we operate from when it comes to sports and performance psychology and, and overall wellness, you know, as, as well, but, and, and it kind of led to this very dramatic shift in my work where suddenly everything I'd been doing up until that point didn't really make sense to me anymore. You know, it didn't make sense to me to do hypnosis with people. It didn't make sense to me anymore to give people interventions and to give people strategies that they needed to practice and work on. What made more sense to me was to just sit down and kind of have a conversation with people about what's going on behind the curtain. Let's see what we can do to understand more deeply and more clearly,

Starting point is 00:17:35 you know what's the nature of anxiety what is the nature of performance anxiety and kind of having a deeper understanding of how our minds work how our experience of life is created because you know by having a deeper understanding of how life works it just works better we we kind of flow more with life rather than kind of working against it so so yeah so it kind of led me to realize that I think there's a whole, it's a lot simpler than we make it out to be. And there's a lot less to do than we think. And so now for the last four years, you know, when I talk with people, you know, it's much more of a philosophical conversation, you know, about let's see what we can see about

Starting point is 00:18:20 the nature of these things, understanding how it works, you know, because when we understand how it works, it just works a lot better. I love this paradigm shift that you mentioned and how that came from you questioning what was and truly looking for answers. And I love that you're sharing what you've learned along the way and at times the hard way, right? And you now help people. Oh, yeah. This is so great. And it's kind of exactly what you said. It's another dimension. It's really from the inside out. And I've done so many of these modalities that you talk about and, you know, the centering and the visualization and meditation, you know, you name it. And it's so true. You say you get to the audition, you're still feeling a little bit nervous and you're like, oh no, I should have done more of that stuff. But I want to hear even more about this approach. I was reading on one of your blog entries, and as I said, I hope the listeners go on your website and check it out. I'll put the links in the show notes. You say that performance anxiety is the feeling we get when we've forgotten we're going to be okay, no matter what. Can you unpack that for us a little bit? Yeah, that's kind of my current definition of performance anxiety. It used to look really complicated to me. Going back to these premises, one of the things that I really started to get curious about was if performing causes anxiety, if there's an inherent stress and anxiety to performing and auditioning, well then why is it that sometimes we're nervous and sometimes we're not

Starting point is 00:20:10 you know why is it that we feel anxious for some performance experiences and not for others we kind of talk about it as as this given that well yeah well just performing is stressful auditioning is is nerve-wracking and and i thought well well if that's actually fundamentally true then shouldn't performing always be stressful but you know anybody that I've ever talked to has said to me well yeah well sometimes I feel really nervous but sometimes I feel fine and I knew that was kind of the case with me too that sometimes I would freak out and I would be just like you know I would be a train wreck going in into some certain performances or auditions But then other ones, I just felt completely fine. And I wasn't bothered in the least. And so I got really curious about that. It's like, if performing causes anxiety, then why doesn't everyone feel anxious all the time?

Starting point is 00:21:10 And so I wanted to kind of, you know, I was, I got, I was like, well, what is that? What is it that makes performing stressful when it is? And what is it that doesn't make it stressful when it isn't? And, and what I, what I kind of saw for myself was that in the times when we feel anxious, it's always because we think there's stakes. Yes. it's always because we think that something is at risk you know it's not that oh I might mess up or you know I might not advance in that audition or I might not get that job I mean I mean certainly you know that stuff happens sometimes but I think we get on a certain level that that's just kind of the nature of being alive you know that some things in life that we we go for are going to work out and some aren't. You know, I think we get that we are human beings, you know, sometimes we get a little messy and we make mistakes. You know, I think we get that some

Starting point is 00:22:13 people will like us and some won't. But I think what we're really afraid of is that, you know, these things might happen and then it's going to mean something about me. You know, that me not advancing in an audition means something about me as a person, as an artist, you know, as a musician. And so we put a lot on the outcome. We think that getting the opportunity makes me more okay, makes me happy, makes me whatever. And not getting it makes me less than or makes me whatever stories we like to tell ourselves. but you know that but you know that was it for me it's like seeing that when i know that like win or lose i'm gonna be fine you know when i know that win or lose the world's still gonna go on i might feel a little bad about it for a bit but but you know i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna have another go at it i'm gonna have another opportunity i'm gonna live to play live to

Starting point is 00:23:21 sing another day. When I kind of know that I, I, I've never felt what we would call performance anxiety. But when I think that something is riding on the outcome, when I think that who I am, you know, my identity as a person or as an artist is at stake, is at risk, is contingent on the outcome. Well, yeah, then I'm going to be freaking out. And it kind of makes sense, right? Because like, if I think it really, it really kind of comes down to this fundamental question of where does our wellbeing actually come from? Where does, where does self-worth actually come from? Where does happiness, where does, you know, where does all of that stuff actually come from? Well, you know, the world we live in is a very outside in world where we're taught,

Starting point is 00:24:12 you know, kind of everywhere around us, there's this message that who you are is what you do and how well you do it. It's getting that outside validation. Yes. Yes. That, you know, that, that, that, that outside validation, you know, makes me valid. You know, if people like me, if, if I win this job, then that means that I, that means that I'm good, you know, and, and until I win the job, I'm, I'm not good. You know, it's like, it's like we, you know, we taught, and so we're taught that that's where it is, that that validation, that that wellbeing, that that happiness is all outside. And so, you know, we're going to look outside for it. And so, and if I think that, like, if I think an opportunity will make me more okay,

Starting point is 00:24:58 then I kind of get that, you know, I would feel like I need to manipulate every circumstance that I possibly can, that I control everything that I can possibly control. And I think the right thoughts and I feel the right feelings and, you know, and I, I, and I, and I make sure that I don't make any mistakes because I can't blow it. Because if I mess up, then there goes my validation. So I get why people feel that. Because if you think that happiness is an outside job, if you think that well-being is an outside thing, then I can see why you would try as hard as you can to not mess up, to do everything right, to, to make everything perfect. But, but what people kind of forget is that well, well-being doesn't come from what we do. It doesn't come from any

Starting point is 00:25:54 achievement. Well-being isn't a destination. It's the source of who we really are. That's really good. Yeah. We were born okay. We were born enough. Well-being is kind of, you know, we're bursting with it right now. We're all walking around this planet, bursting with aliveness, overflowing with okayness. And that's not something that came because we did anything. It's something that is inherent. It's something that's innate by the nature of who we are. I don't need to do anything or achieve anything in order to be okay because I already am okay. you know that's a done that's a done deal and that well-being doesn't you know to use some musical terms it's it's not augmented or diminished by anything that we do or don't do in the world so you know i'm gonna walk out of every of any audition or performance that i do i'm gonna walk out of there just as okay as i was when i walked in no matter how it goes one thing that i always

Starting point is 00:27:04 thought was that singing at the Met never made me, you know, singing at the Met doesn't make me and someone never singing at the Met doesn't break them. But when we think it does, we're going to feel anxious. We're going to feel nervous because we don't want that taken away from us. And what we've, what's just happening in that moment is just, we've forgotten that we already have it and we figure out and it can't be taken away from us. So, so yeah. So it really seems to me that, that that is performance anxiety. It's really that simple. Performance anxiety is the feeling we get when we forget we're going to be okay no matter what. If I know I'm okay, I'm not going to feel anxious. But if I think that something's

Starting point is 00:27:55 riding on the outcome, then yeah, I'm probably going to be nervous as all hell. You know, I don't want to I don't want to lose that. Yes. So but, yeah, you know, I love what you're saying so much makes me want to work with you because, you know, it really goes to the root cause of this anxiety instead of, as you said, instead of trying to fix it. And I think that most of us are becoming musician or for people out there who are not professional musicians, play music because they enjoy it. And there's this whole aspect of performance anxiety that comes from, as you just said, we attach this need for validation to it that causes all of this anxiety. And that's the negative aspect of playing music. And I don't know, when I dreamed of becoming a violinist as a teenager, this is not what I was thinking about. I was in it because of how playing made me feel, of sharing the love of music with friends and orchestra concerts. And this is what I was seeking. But then you attach this need for winning an audition or wanting that gig to it, and it takes a completely different form. and last week I had Barry Green on the podcast the author of the inner game of music and that's what the inner game is about it's about focusing on the music it's not about performing and achieving and I know that for me I've told this story on the podcast before but a few years ago I I was getting really frustrated with performing and you know it comes a point where you're

Starting point is 00:29:38 thinking if this is what it feels like all the time I don't know you know you know might as well find something that pays the bill even more but I just started repeating the mantra to myself playing from a place of love and joy before performances and that really helped me reconnect with why I was doing it in the first place I hope what I'm saying makes sense right now I'm kind of rambling but I I find everything that you're saying so inspiring we think well thank you I appreciate that and you know and and I love that story it's the first time I've heard that story so Thank you for sharing it. And what that kind of says to me, what I hear in that story is what I often call the difference between playing to win or playing not to lose and playing to play. I know as a singer, this was true for me that I think all of us have stories like you had of what got you in it, what got you into this, into this profession in the first place, what, what got you excited about this art form was that joy, that love, that passion, that, that kind of deeper sense of aliveness that, that, that comes through us when we, when we make music.

Starting point is 00:30:49 and you know and pretty much anybody i've ever met describes it that way that that for you know for a lot of their early life they played just to play they played because it was really cool because it was really fun because you know because they loved it because they came alive doing it and then we go to conservatory we go to music school and then we start getting taught all the rules and we start getting taught you know there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it and you know all of that stuff and then we kind of you know because we get so caught up in the rules and we start to kind of attach our identity to our instrument you know we attach our well-being to you know who we are you know then we kind of stray away from that whole playing

Starting point is 00:31:39 to play thing and we start playing to win or playing not to lose and and yeah and I think you know what you were talking about with you know the inner game you know and kind of just being about the music that beautiful mantra that you told yourself of playing for the joy and the love yeah I think I think why that is so beautiful is because it points us back to this idea of just playing to play. When we play to play, I think, and not just playing our instrument, but anything in life, when we play to play, we're going to do a lot better. But when we start playing to win, because we think, well, I need this. I need this to go well in order to, so that, or we play not to lose. I can't mess up because if I mess up, I'm screwed.

Starting point is 00:32:36 That just puts us up in our head. It puts us up in our head and it takes us out of the moment. In fact, it reminds me, if I can read this to you, it reminds me of a really cool poem by Shuang Tzu that I came across a year ago. And I think it really speaks to what we're talking about here and it says when an archer is shooting for fun he has all his skill if he shoots for a brass buckle he is already nervous if he shoots for a prize of gold he goes blind or sees two targets he is out of his mind his skill his skill has not changed but the prize divides him he cares he thinks more of winning than of shooting and the need to win drains him of power wow that's really great and i think it really speaks to that the conversation i'm interested in having with

Starting point is 00:33:33 people is you know before kind of i had my epiphanies admittedly i think you know i said i was teaching in kind of the current paradigm that we kind of typically think of my work for many years was admittedly about teaching people how to play to win or teaching them you know how to cultivate the strategies so that they wouldn't lose and nowadays I'm much more interested in helping people get back to that place where they just play to play there's a freedom in that that that's really really cool Nicholas this is so fantastic and as I mentioned you have a great blog on this topic and it's filled with tips and tricks and i'd love for you to share some of those with us today what are some simple strategies that listeners oh myself actually could start

Starting point is 00:34:25 to implement today well you know it's funny because you know these days in my work i'm not i'm not one who gives people prescriptions i don't have strategies and interventions and you know in the terms of, okay, you know, so I'm going to practice this a couple of times a day and work on this. But I would say the most helpful thing I think anybody could do is, is get curious. And, you know, and, and live from a space of curiosity, live from a space of wonder. And I think in terms of the things we've been talking about, to get really curious about some of these kind of fundamental premises that we just, we just accept without ever questioning that we've just kind of, you know, we've kind of said, Oh, well, that's just how it

Starting point is 00:35:18 is. That's, that's the way life is. That's, that's just how it works. But, but, you know, in a way, in the same way that I did a few years to go to get really curious about this, one of them being, you know does does performing and auditioning actually cause anxiety if that's true then why are we anxious sometimes and not others and kind of getting curious about that and well what could that mean if it's not performing that's causing anxiety what else could it be to get curious about this idea that there's an inherent pressure to performing you know because again, why is it that sometimes we feel all the pressure in the world and sometimes we feel no pressure at all? You know, for me, I think it's tied into what we've been talking about that,

Starting point is 00:36:07 you know, when I feel pressure, it's because it, it really looks to me like there's an actual thing called stakes. But, but when I don't see that, I don't feel any pressure. You know, another thing I think to get curious about is to get curious about this idea that we need to feel a certain way in order to perform our best, you know, to, to, you know, which we haven't really talked about much, but like to get curious, cause that's another fundamental premise of, of a lot of the way that we typically think of this work that, you know, because there's a pressure, because there's an anxiety inherent to performing, you know, we've got to get in the right headspace. We've got to think the right thoughts and feel the right feelings, which, which I've actually seen now to

Starting point is 00:36:56 not be true, to not be the case that it looks to me now that, that we're, you know, we're equally capable of performing well, whether we feel wickedly confident or wildly insecure, that, that our state of mind affects our ability to perform only if we think it does. But that in actual truth, you know, our state of mind fluctuates and kind of goes all over the place. But we're capable of performing and doing our work regardless of what our state of mind is. And also kind of curiosity about, and this is something I wish we could dive into more,

Starting point is 00:37:36 this idea that feeling anxious to me no longer looks like a problem, you know, not only in performing, but in everyday life, it seems to me that feeling anxious is just one of those things human beings do, you know, and, and it's kind of one of those flavors of being alive. And, and that really one of the biggest things that people are up against in this whole performance anxiety conversation is, is that, you know, is that, you know, they, this anxiety is a problem. And what I, what I think is really what's going on is that it's a problem because we think it's a problem. You know, that feeling anxious is a problem only because we think it's a problem. But when you take a closer look at what anxiety is, to me now, it doesn't look like a problem.

Starting point is 00:38:33 that needs to be dealt with, that needs to be fixed. It's just something that's going to move through us. It's something that isn't saying anything about us or isn't saying anything about our abilities or how something is going to turn out. It's just kind of the feeling we get when we have a lot on our mind, when things are really kind of heating up, but that feelings come and go, you know, no feeling is permanent, but, but that, but the main point being that I don't think that anxiety is telling us what we think it's telling us and, and getting really curious about that because, you know, I, you know, when I, when I think about all the people who I've worked with who have overcome performance anxiety, you know, and I'm using kind of air quotes here,

Starting point is 00:39:25 you know, overcome for women's anxiety, like, you know, including myself, I would say that, you know, I've overcome it. You know, the thing that they all have in common, it's not that they never feel nervous. It's not that they never have anxious thoughts. It's not that they don't have an inner critic. You know, they feel anxious. They, they have crazy thoughts. They, they just don't see that as a problem. They don't, they don't see that as an obstacle. something that they have to listen to, they have to deal with, or that has to get in the way of them doing their thing. It's more of like, oh, I'm feeling anxious. Okay, let's go play. And being able to see that, that we're going to be okay no matter what, and be able to nurture that

Starting point is 00:40:13 becomes a little bit of a superpower if you're able to do it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's, I think, really is the biggest thing to get curious about. you know, where does our worth, where does our wellbeing, where does our happiness actually come from? Is it something that we achieve? Is it something that we cultivate? Is it something that we develop? Is it something that's found or lost out there or is it a done deal? You know, is it, is it something that, that I've never had to work on because it's always, always been there just waiting for me to notice it. Nicholas, everything you say is so inspiring.

Starting point is 00:40:59 And I really hope you and I have the chance to chat more in person at some point in the near future. Absolutely, no, I'd love it. I'm always happy to chat. And I think, you know, I think this is the really, it's really the coolest conversation to be in. To be able to really explore how life works and to really explore who we really are.

Starting point is 00:41:20 Like for me, there's nothing like it. And so I'm always happy to chat about this stuff. Nicholas, you were talking about this curiosity about the fact that we don't need a certain mindset to perform well. Can we explore that a little bit more? Yeah. You know, so for, like I was saying before, up until about four years ago, that's exactly what I taught. You know, my work was all about let's help you find the right mindset. Let's help you get the right thoughts, get the right feelings, you know, so that you can be your best. And it was another one of those situations where, like I was talking about earlier, about how I started to think about how I was giving people more things to think about when the goal was to think less, I started to kind of get curious.

Starting point is 00:42:09 And I thought, well, looking to my own experience, I remember that I had this, this experience at the Met, where I got to work on a lot of shows there. And one of my favorite things to do was hang out in the dressing room area, where the principal artists would get ready. And there's all these couches, you know, you can just kind of lounge around. And I remember being so fascinated that some of these kind of A-list performers, you know, the top opera singers in the world who have had years of experience, who have performed all over the place, they would be having these meltdowns of various sorts, you know, before they went on stage. You know, either because something was off with their costume or, you know, they got some notes that they didn't agree with or maybe they were just having a bad day and they were really stressed about stuff. But we'd be sitting there in the dressing room area going, wow, they're kind of freaking out and kind of wondering, well, how are they going to be able to perform? How are they going to be able to go out and do their job when they're in such a headspace? And it was so fascinating because they would be like freaking out even as they were walking to the stage. And then they would get on stage and they would just kill it. They would sing and it was glorious and the audience would go crazy. You know, they'd be like applauding for minutes. And, you know, the New York Times would write and say, this was the definitive performance of this role. And it was just such a glorious experience. And I always wanted to say, well, yeah, you should have seen him backstage beforehand, you know? Yeah. Because it was like, yeah, if you had seen them backstage beforehand, you'd kind of wonder how on earth that happened. But it was something that got me really curious. Because see, that

Starting point is 00:44:05 went against everything that I had been teaching up to that point. What I had been teaching up to that point was, in order to do your best work, you have to be in a positive headspace. You need to have your mind focused and clear, and you need to feel this way. And then, and then I, again, I started looking to my own experience as a performer. And I was like, you know, there are a lot of times that I've given some pretty darn good performances, even when I was nervous, even when I was anxious, you know, and I was like, well, that's kind of interesting. because what I had been teaching up until that point was that that's, that, that shouldn't be possible. That's not possible. You know, if you're not in a good headspace, you're not going to be

Starting point is 00:44:52 able to perform well. And, and so, and so then that kind of like shook things up in my mind again, in terms of what I had been believing up until that point. But then, you know, then I had another experience where I started kind of looking around and thinking about all of the things that we do every day where our mood is irrelevant, you know, our mood has no impact on our ability to do the thing. You know, like I, I, I got dressed this morning and I can get dressed when I'm pissed off or happy or ambivalent or, you know, whatever. Right. I can make breakfast. I can tie my shoes. I can drive. I can, you know, get to where I need to get. I can order food at the restaurant. I can go to the gym. You know, we do every day, we do hundreds of

Starting point is 00:45:46 things, hundreds of things where it doesn't matter what mood we're in. So true. Yeah. Like I've never said to myself, I can't tie my shoes because I'm pissed off. And you know, it reminds me of the story. I was, I was working with a musical theater singer who came to me, you know, recently and she said, you know, Nicholas, I'm, you know, I have this audition coming up and I'm just in a really bad headspace. I'm feeling, I'm just not feeling positive about it at all. And I said, and I, and she said, can you help me feel more positive for this audition? And I asked her a question that kind of threw her off. I said, well, why do you think you need to feel positive about the audition? And, and it, like I said, it threw her off. She was kind of like, well, what are you

Starting point is 00:46:31 talking about? Like, duh, like I need to feel positive about this audition or I'm not going to be able to do well. And, and I said to her, well, do you need to feel positive in order to take a crap? And she just started laughing. She just started roaring. And, and what was really cool is she saw what I was pointing to. Like, like every day we do all of these things where our capacity to do them our ability to do them is not dependent in any way on our mood in any way on how we're feeling in the moment i can go to the gym what even if i don't feel motivated in fact that's pretty much me every day right i you know i i i rarely feel motivated or inspired to go to the gym but but i you know i want to go

Starting point is 00:47:23 to the gym so i go and i'm always happy i went you know i'm always glad once i'm there but like but like, isn't it interesting? Like, does it make sense that we can do hundreds of things regardless of our mood, except for one, you know, that like, I can feel whatever I'm feeling and go do the thing, but, but, but, you know, performing, performing, auditioning. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I've got to be in the right mindset. Well, again, when I started looking at that you know oftentimes when you know i think you know your listeners if they reflect on this for a bit like thinking about the times when when we've had good performances in spite of feeling nervous thinking you know thinking about those times when we've done really good work or maybe

Starting point is 00:48:11 even surprised ourself at how well something went because we went going into it we thought it was going to be a train wreck because we you know we were all up in our head or whatever you know and then it like went really well it's like we often look at those things like times we got lucky you know times that you know it's like the exception rather than the rule and what I started to see was oh well maybe if what if that's actually the rule like what if what if my mood is variable my mood goes up and down you know and that's just a human thing you know some days I'm going to wake up and feel on top of the world. And some days I'm going to wake up and feel like the world's on top of me, you know, but, but, but, and sometimes everything in between, but that is

Starting point is 00:49:01 independent of my ability. What's constant is my capacity to excel. Like I think we are designed for success. We are designed to be able to create we're, we're built for that. And that's there regardless of our mood. It's just that we've, we've spent so much time getting taught that our mood matters when it comes to performing and auditioning. And I'll, and I'll just say, you know, something that I think you're seeing now in the research that's kind of illustrating this point is, I don't know if you're familiar with the Ted talk by Kelly McGonigal called how to make stress your friend. Are you familiar with that Ted talk? No, but I will make myself familiar with it now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a great Ted talk and, and it's really interesting. She's

Starting point is 00:49:55 a psychologist and she's been doing a lot of research, uh, over the years. And, and basically the gist of her Ted talk is that stress has a negative impact on our quality of life. Only if we think that stress has a negative impact on our quality of life. So if I think stress is a bad thing, if I think stress is a problem, then it is. But not because stress is inherently bad, but because I think stress is bad. But if stress doesn't look like a problem to me, then I can just feel stress and go live my life. And I think that's it, kind of what we're talking about here. That if I think that I need to be in a certain mindset, I need to think the right thoughts, I need to feel this way, then in order to perform, well, then yeah, it's going to have an impact. But I invite people in my conversations to kind of get curious about, well, is that actually true? What you're saying reminds me of something I tell students all the time, and I try to tell myself that easier said than done. But a few weeks ago, during the month of October, I was doing a weekly live video on my Facebook tribe, my Facebook group, and talking about preparing for college pre-screening audition videos. videos and in the last video which was covering recording day I was talking about the concept of when you go and sit in the room and play for your recording you have to play like it's business as

Starting point is 00:51:41 usual so you play what you've practiced I think that we're talking about headspace now maybe we imagine that when we're going to step on stage or step in front of the camera we're going to magically transform and transcend our playing by getting into this magical headspace that will all of a sudden pull everything together. But I think that's a little bit dangerous because it's placing so much expectation on the headspace instead of trusting the work that we did. So that's why I was saying that you just need to go in there and it's business as usual. You play what you've always played the way that you've always played it of course there's always room for being in the moment and letting what happens happens but it's to not expect that all of a

Starting point is 00:52:31 sudden the playing is going to be transcendent is that a word yeah i think so if not i like it you know it's like expecting that the playing is going to be all of a sudden completely transformed which doesn't happen actually i feel like it does the opposite it makes us tense up physically which i'm guessing is the same for singer this physical tension translates into a poor execution but what do you think happens when we are performing at our best even if we're in the bad headspace well i think that when you know there's so many cool things in what you said that that i you know that i just die to speak to but i think you know to answer your question i think what's happening is, here's how I often put it. In any given moment, we are in one of two places.

Starting point is 00:53:24 We are either in our head or we're in life. And we can't be in both at the same time. I've not found that to be true. I don't think we can be in both at the same time. When I'm in my head, it is really, really hard to be present, to be in life. when I'm in life, it's really, really hard to be in my head. And, you know, and here's actually how I found myself describing it to people in new world, uh, this week when I was there for the residency that kind of speaks to your question, like, what is it that's happening in that moment? I think what's happening is we're in life, you know, we're, we're present, we're in what we're doing. And, you know, people were asking me about, you know, the zone. And, and what I was saying to

Starting point is 00:54:12 them is that, you know, we talk about the zone oftentimes as if it's a destination, as if it's somewhere we have to get. And if we work hard enough, we can achieve it. I actually think that the opposite, it's actually the opposite. I think we are the zone, like the zone, you know, we are that space of the zone. We are flow. We are mindfulness. We are meditation. That space that everyone's trying to get to when they do mindfulness and meditation and whatnot, I think that's our natural default state and we think ourselves out of it. I love that. And so I think what's happening when we are in the zone, I think our mind is naturally designed to get us back to that, to get us back in the flow.

Starting point is 00:55:08 And I think when you look at our day, I think we spend a lot more of our day in a flow of life than we often recognize. but but I think what's happening in that moment is when we're performing at our best when we're in the zone when we're in that flow that the world we're in is more interesting to us than the world in our head when I'm much more interested in the world that I'm in and being in the world that I'm in and less caught up in the idea that I have to manage and control and change and fix things that are going on in the world in my head, the less time I'm managing what's going on in my head, the more time and bandwidth I have available to be in life. Absolutely. And so when I'm not stuck on this idea that I have to wait, oh, wait, I'm not thinking the

Starting point is 00:56:04 right thoughts. Ooh, no, no, no. I'm not having the right feelings when, when I'm not caught up in the idea that I have to make that happen. That's like a huge thing that you take off your plate. And then suddenly you just relax into the moment you relax into being present. And so what I've found is that, you know, certainly as we were talking about earlier, right, we do better when there's less on our mind, we do better when we're not, you know, making things happen. So, what I've found is that, yeah, I get that we do better in a quieter mind, but we think it's our job to get there. We think it's our job to make it happen. But what I've noticed is that when we take that off our plate, when we kind of fire ourselves, so to speak, from the job of managing my thoughts and feelings, what I've noticed is that whatever feeling we need in that moment finds us. Whatever thoughts are going to be most useful for that moment find us.

Starting point is 00:57:07 And so it's like the zone then becomes the thing that I naturally find the second I stop looking for it. I love that. You know, I've, I've had a few performances in the last few years where I was really able, there's no other word for me to describe it other than where I'm able to slip into the zone as I enter the performance. And each time that happens, it's for the same reason. I do this thing where I will allow myself to just play average for the first page, let's say. Let's say I'm playing a quartet or a sonata, and I have absolutely no expectation of playing great. I give myself permission to just play okay for the first page, and I think that what happens is it relaxes me. So I am playing business as usual for the first place. And what ends up happening in my mind, if I'm trying to analyze the process in retrospect, is that I put no pressure on myself and I'm focusing on the actions that I've rehearsed over and over.

Starting point is 00:58:21 and I'm focusing on the sound how my movements feel and first thing I know is within the page I feel very comfortable on stage and very happy and really in the moment and whenever I'm able to do that I have a moment where I usually feel it I feel that I'm slipping into the comfortable place and that makes me feel so happy and that really tends to stay with me for the whole piece So I, it's been a very interesting experience for me and something that I try to keep in mind when I'm performing to really just give myself permission to tame the stage for at least a page. There's no expectation. I'm just going to play. Okay. I'll do what I always do. And that usually translates into me being able to get in the zone in the performance. absolutely i mean yeah i mean what you just described to me sounds like there's no stakes you know i i'm just free and i have permission just to to be who i am and where i am in that moment and that's okay and the dichotomy is that by allowing myself to just play okay i end up

Starting point is 00:59:30 playing my best absolutely absolutely i mean that's that's the cool thing about it it's it it kind of seems you know paradoxical almost you know kind of in the same way that i was saying like, you know, the, the thoughts that we need in the moment, the feelings we need to tell our story, kind of, they come to us the second we stop looking for them, you know? Yeah. That like, and that, and I think that's kind of what you were saying. It's like the second you, you, you know, you kind of take all that pressure off yourself to, I need to make it happen and I need to be amazing. You know, because now there's just not all that noise in your head. You know, you're free to let all that aliveness and all of that expression come through you. So it makes sense to

Starting point is 01:00:17 me. And instead of trying to control the outcome, which I have no control over, I am focusing on controlling the things I'm familiar with, the things I've done over and over in the practice room that are comfortable and yeah ultimately the result is always better yeah isn't it isn't that kind of funny you know because we it's like i like what you're saying is so cool because it's it's the big irony of it you know that that we we are so used to thinking you know that it's a matter of control and to me that's what the whole mental toughness game is about the whole mental toughness kind of ideas is a game of control. I've got to learn to control my thoughts and control my feelings and control the circumstances. And I think, but ultimately what you just described

Starting point is 01:01:07 to me sounds a whole lot more like mental freedom. I like that. I can just be where I am. I can be who I am and know that what I need will come to me. How about a short round of rapid fire questions before i let you go go for it this one i'm really curious about do you have a favorite book that you would like to recommend to the listeners yeah so i i would recommend a book by my teacher and i mean my coach teacher my my mentor his name is michael neal and it's and it's n-e-i-l-l two l's at the end he wrote a book called the inside out revolution and and that that was the book that actually i read that kind of sparked all of this for me um that was it was in reading that book and kind of seeing you know seeing the things that he points to in that book

Starting point is 01:02:02 that was the book that made me suddenly realize that like everything i'd been doing up until that point just made no more sense anymore and that it was actually a lot simpler than what i had been doing and so that book is kind of the catalyst for my complete paradigm shift and complete different direction. So yeah, The Inside Out Revolution by Michael Neal. Great title. And you've mentioned many already, including curiosity, but what other skills do you think young musicians studying today should acquire in addition to learning to play their instruments or mastering their voice? Yeah, you know, and again, this is going to be kind of a, maybe a different answer from what you'd expect. But what came to my mind immediately when you asked that question

Starting point is 01:02:48 is a trust in their own intuition, a trust and a reliance on the fact that when it comes to you, no one in the world is wiser than you and you're going to know best what's best for you. And I think that gets taught out of us a lot in, in our conservatory training and whatnot, but, but really kind of trusting in this idea that, that there is a, there's an, an in the moment, a responsive intelligence, you know, that we call our intuition, our gut, our instinct that will show up for us in the moment we need it, that we'll know what to do in the moment we need to know what to do. We'll have what we need in the moment we need it. And really just relying

Starting point is 01:03:35 on that. And in terms of, you know, what to do in the moment when I'm performing that, that maybe it doesn't have to all be up to us to make sure we think about it and and focus on it but but more reliance on the fact that there's an instinct in us that that knows what we need but also but also in terms of what's right for us it's funny how we get sometimes we get so caught up in this idea that everyone else knows better than us what's best for us because something you know this strategy, this approach worked for this person and they had success with it, then maybe I need to copy what they did. When it comes to practicing, no one's going to know better than you how to approach your practicing, what method, what process, what structure or not structure

Starting point is 01:04:29 works for you. When it comes to how many mock auditions should I take? Maybe for one audition, the answer might be none. And for another audition, the answer might be five, you know, and for another one, it might be, you know, two, but, you know, but kind of getting away from this idea that there's a formula that there's a, you know, I need to copy someone else's strategy that worked for them in that one moment. And just relying on the fact that we're going to know what's best for us, you know, in everything, how to approach our playing, how to approach life, everything. And so I would say that's, and again, it's not a skill we develop because I don't think we develop our intuition. I do think we get a better feel for it. We start to notice it a little

Starting point is 01:05:19 bit more. And so I would say that because, yeah, I see so many artists who doubt their own instincts, who doubt their own intuition, who kind of have a deeper sense in them of what they know to do, but they get so caught up in the shoulds and supposed tos that they don't kind of trust what they know. And I think that's a huge thing for people to be able to see is no one in this world is wiser than you. And when you live from that space, you'll never go wrong. I think this might be my favorite answer to this question ever on the podcast. I think what I love the most about it is that it's not about acquiring something. It's something, you know, having a little bit of a Wizard of Oz moment here, but it's something that we already have and we're not looking to the outside. We're looking to the inside. And yeah, my favorite answer to this question. Oh, thank you. Nicholas, you have a very busy schedule.

Starting point is 01:06:25 Where would the listeners have the opportunity to catch you in person in the coming months? Well, so I just got back last night from Miami. I spent a few days there on my faculty residency for the New World Symphony, which is like, by the way, the coolest job in the world. I just love being down there and getting to work with the orchestra fellows there. Beginning of November, I'm going to be speaking at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. And then, you know, thankfully, my schedule is going to slow down a little bit in terms of my public workshops and residencies, because this fall alone, I've gone to 13 different universities and training programs.

Starting point is 01:07:06 And I am looking forward to having a little bit of a break for Thanksgiving and Christmas. But in the spring, I'm doing a couple of residencies at some universities. But I think, you know, I would say the easiest place to connect with me is just to go to my website, you know, nicholaspallison.com and check out the resources there. And if something piques your curiosity or, or if you want to kind of explore any of this a little bit more or explore the possibility of working together, you know, contact me through the website. You know, I'm, I'm always happy to, even if somebody just has a little question, I'm, I'm always happy to answer questions. So, but yeah, the website's a great place to go. And I hope that a lot of the listeners

Starting point is 01:07:47 go indeed and check it out as I said many times now a great blog as well and I love your online presence I'll put all of these links in the show notes and you know I think that personally I feel very inspired by our conversation and I think that the work that you're doing is really really important especially now you know we're under so much scrutiny I think that performance anxiety was always there but now with the addition of youtube channel and all the social media outlet there there's an increase in scrutiny and it's there was never a better moment to really go back to the source go back to the reason why we make music and really go back to more simple approach which is to focus on the music itself and what we're trying to share and why.

Starting point is 01:08:45 I love it. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this chat with Nicholas Pallison. I left this conversation with so much to ponder on and I'm pretty certain that Nicholas will be back on the show in the future. So please share with us, take a screenshot, share on Instagram and tag us. Tell us about your favorite takeaways, your aha moments, and send us your questions. I'm Mind Over Finger and he's Nicholas Pallison. As always, you can find the show notes for this

Starting point is 01:09:30 episode, more information about Nicholas, and more resources on mindful and deliberate practice at mindoverfinger.com. You can also join my Facebook tribe at facebook.com slash groups slash mindoverfingertribe, where I pop in once a week for live videos answering your questions. And don't forget to sign up for the newsletter to get your free guide to a super productive practice using the metronome. This guide is the perfect entry point to help you bring more mindfulness and efficiency into your practice. And it's filled with tips and tricks on how to use that wonderful tool to take your practice and your playing to new heights. Oh, lastly, you've asked and I've been listening. The Mind Over Finger podcast is now on YouTube. Of course, the show

Starting point is 01:10:23 is available on all podcasting apps, as well as on Spotify. And if you're listening to this right now, you have somehow figured out where to find it, but many were asking to have it available on YouTube. So here you go. I'll put the URL in the show notes because it's a bit long, but please visit and subscribe because as soon as the channel hits a hundred followers, I can pick a new and easier URL. So if you find value in the content that I bring to you and you're looking for a way to say thank you, that would be greatly appreciated. Don't forget to spread the word about the show, post a good review, and get in touch with me to send me your questions and suggestions for future episodes. I deeply appreciate all of you. Again, thank you and à bientôt!

Starting point is 01:11:17 Thank you for watching!

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 051 Nicholas Pallesen: Transformative Approach to Performance Anxiety

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