The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 132 Dr. Renée-Paule Gauthier & Jennet Ingle: Mindful Practice & Building a Portfolio Career from The Crushing Classical Podcast

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 132. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now, your host, violinist, teacher, and high performance coach for musicians, Dr. Renée Paul Gaultier. Hi, everyone. I hope you're doing great. Today is another special episode. I'm bringing you a conversation I had a few weeks ago with the fabulous Janet Ingle on her podcast, Crushing Classical. You might remember Janet from episode 127 of the Mind Over Finger podcast,

Starting point is 00:00:52 so not so long ago. And we chatted about what it looks like to be a multi-passionate performer and entrepreneur, how to start taking agency in your career, her fantastic book, The Happiest Musician, and so much more. And in the conversation I share with you today, we had a great time talking about all things mind over finger, including, of course, you know me, how to practice mindfully, and a ton of other fun stuff. I hope you're going to enjoy and find value in the concepts I share in this conversation. And make sure to check out and subscribe to the Crushing Classical podcast. And before I turn the mic over to Janet, if you're hearing this near its release date in May of 2022, it means that enrollment for the

Starting point is 00:01:43 Music Mastery Experience is open, but you're running out of time because we're starting very soon and the program is filling up. The Music Mastery Experience is my groundbreaking, highly personalized group coaching program that promises you not only an amazing transformation over a short amount of time, but coaching and mentorship for life. That's right. The Music Mastery Experience is going to give you all of the techniques, systems, and methods you need to elevate your playing and performing to new heights, and the ongoing support to grow your career and tackle and reach big goals month after month. If you're ready to crack the code to start performing at your best and to experience fulfillment in your music career, the Music Mastery Experience

Starting point is 00:02:38 is for you. We're going to cover everything from practice methods that work to performance preparation strategies that have you perform with confidence consistently, and powerful life coaching and mind management techniques that are going to remove the obstacles and the self-limiting beliefs that hold you back in your career and your life. If you're done with not seeing results for the endless amount of work, of time, and of energy you put in the practice room, go to mindoverfinger.com right now to book your free conversation with me. And let's plan on how we're going to change all of that for you. No more indecisions, band-aids, and short-term solutions. The Music Mastery Experience is unlike any other program out there because we go beyond all the

Starting point is 00:03:34 strategies and methods. You're going to get an entire full-proof system to performing at your best. But we're not going to stop there. We're going to get to the root cause of all the issues. We're going to unlock everything that's keeping you stuck. And you're going to experience amazing results, not only on stage, but at every level of your music making experience and in your life. So if you're wanting that job, you're wanting to rock the stage, to grow your career, to make more money. Go to mindoverfinger.com right now to book your free success planning conversation with me and let's get your transformation started today. And if you're listening to this after June 1st, 2022, no worries. Go to mindoverfinger.com and join the waitlist to stay informed of when

Starting point is 00:04:27 the next Music Mastery Experience is going to open. As always, I'm going to have all the information related to this episode in the show notes and at mindoverfinger.com slash podcast. So without further ado, here's today's conversation. A big thank you to Janet for letting me share this episode from the Crushing Classical podcast with you. Let's go to the show. you're listening to crushing classical how to thrive in your musical career i'm your host jenna dingo boboist entrepreneur author and business and creative coach for musicians i'm so glad you're here today on the podcast i'm speaking with dr renee paul gautier violinist and high performance coach

Starting point is 00:05:35 and life coach for musicians we talk about mindful practicing about building a coaching business around topics you love and about balancing your portfolio career i know you're going to love this conversation Thanks for joining me today. I hope you enjoy the show. What does it mean to practice mindfully? Why is that important? Have you ever listened to somebody else's practice solutions and tips and ideas and wondered why they weren't working for you? My guest, Renée Paul Gaultier, has all of these answers and more in today's interview on Crushing Classical. I know you're going to love hearing from her. What I love about this

Starting point is 00:06:24 conversation with Renée is that there are two things going on. One is the conversation about how you could practice more mindfully, could look at your life more mindfully, could figure out what you need to thrive. And the other is the story of how Renée leaned into the thing that interested her the most and got a doctorate in it and built a blog and a podcast and a coaching business out of it, to create her own portfolio career. And this is the thing that I'm so interested in. Musicians who are tremendously talented and successful on their instruments, and who also find the time and the energy and the motivation to do more. Musicians who have figured out how to create a different balance in their lives, one which is ideal for them. I bring these

Starting point is 00:07:03 conversations to you to show you that this is possible for you too. It's the topic of my book, The Happiest Musician, and it's the topic that I want most to explore this year. Thank you so much for listening, and please enjoy the interview. If you spend more than a few minutes a month on billing and scheduling for your teaching studio, you might consider FUNZ. It's an all-in-one platform to help service-based businesses, like music teachers, in fact it was originally created by a music teacher, to manage their clients and their billing without stress and hassle. It helps you to Uplevel your presence and show up to your clients and students as the professional you are.

Starting point is 00:07:43 You can get a free two-week trial with the link in the show notes. Renee Paul Gaultier, thank you so much for being on Crushing Classical. Thank you for speaking with me. Oh, thank you so much for having me, Janet. I love you so much. I think you're so incredible. So it's a real honor for me to be here. Oh my gosh, that feeling is completely mutual.

Starting point is 00:08:05 I love everything that we have done together. Can I just launch right in, please? Your area of focus is mindful practicing. Your podcast and your blog and your Facebook group are all called Mind Over Finger. What does that mean? And why is mindful practicing important? Why can't I just pick up my oboe and play? That's such a good question.

Starting point is 00:08:27 I'm trying to think of a very short way to answer this, but if that's okay with you, I might just take a couple of detour. Take it away. Okay. So one thing that I really realize very vividly, especially when I started teaching at the college level, when there are so many deadlines and so many pressures, is that students are wasting a lot of time. Also, if I give a backstory, I started violin at a very young age, and I was very lucky that my mother is a musician. My dad was also a musician and a music teacher, but I practiced mostly with my mom. And that meant that I was having music

Starting point is 00:09:05 lessons every single day. She doesn't play the violin, but she's a pianist. So in practicing with me, not a single minute was wasted. It was mindful practice all the time. Not always pleasant, but always efficient for sure. And I had a very cool teacher starting at the age of nine. And I actually studied with him all the way to the end of my undergrad, who was really into awareness and paying attention and very much thinking about how we want things to sound and just someone who loved music so much and was always very adamant that we should love it and approach it from a place of love and being genuinely interested. So you marry this together. And I realized when I was left on my own devices that I would practice two different ways. So sometimes I would

Starting point is 00:09:59 walk in the practice room and just move around, you know, arms go up and down and move on the fingerboard. And you walk away and you're like, okay, I just practiced an hour. And, you know, who knows what I got done in that hour. And then there would be the practice sessions right before a jury or right before a lesson or right before a competition, where I would be in a completely different mindset and be very efficient. And I realized that there were these two Rene's, one that was kind of casual in her way of practicing and one that really, when she was on a mission, could get things done very quickly. So married that together with experiences as one has in life.

Starting point is 00:10:43 You know, I went to New Orleans Symphony. I got to work with Don Green. I discovered yoga. I started running, put all of this together. And that kind of led me slowly to this route, leading to the day when I started teaching at the college level, as I said, and I had to deal with the pressure that those young musicians have and trying to teach them how to practice and realize how they don't know how to pay attention.

Starting point is 00:11:09 They don't even know how to listen. Not everyone, of course, but some of the students really needed guidance in terms of how to practice but also how to listen how to solve problems like small stuff and very big stuff and I just was on a mission to figure out a way to teach that to them in four years which is not a very long time and you only spend an hour a day with these people and how are you supposed to teach them all of those very important things while teaching them how to play the violin how to shift how to operate the instrument and um started developing a lot of ideas on how to do this did my doctorate did a lot of research and to answer your question finally is mind over finger

Starting point is 00:11:59 is basically this idea that same as mind over matter that's where it's from obviously but when one is present when one's uh when one is able to listen objectively have a lot of self-trust and use the tools explore more tools and get very very very curious the work is different so this is basically what mind over finger is is to provide these tools how do you practice how do you listen? And how do you become someone whose musical practice is so interesting and so engaging that it's not only efficient, but it's also pleasurable in itself and very rewarding? Ooh, now that sounds like you're talking about the flow state a little bit, right? That idea of being so engaged that time sort of goes away, that you're so interested in the creativity of

Starting point is 00:12:58 what you're doing is that part of what you talk about part of what you think yes 100 100 is it always important like i i heard you talk about the two renees one of whom goes in and like just sort of spends some time on the instrument and the other of whom digs in and makes it maximally efficient and maximally productive and i wonder like i'm i definitely am two jennets in the practice room am i bad for being um for being both of those janets do i always have to be efficient oh well now don't forget you're also talking to a life coach so i'm going to tell you all of your feelings and all of your thoughts are 100 okay and you should welcome all of them so you're you're totally fine no i think that it really depends what i want that day and what

Starting point is 00:13:54 happens when I meet myself where I am before I enter the practice room how am I doing you know like check in with myself what do I want to accomplish today also as professionals let's face it what do I need to get done today I mean it's not always just what am I in the mood to practice today it's like I got like can I learn the notes for this next thing exactly so what do I need to get done? How am I feeling? How can I get done in the way that really works for me today? That's beautiful. I love that. And like, I also really resonated with what you said about just not being able to get everything covered over the course of, you know, 14 weeks in a college semester. There's no time. You help them with repertoire, you help them with etudes, you help

Starting point is 00:14:44 them like get ready for a jury and and that's it and then the semester's over where does the where is their time for like the greater philosophical conversations about like what is practicing and what is it that we're trying to do here and what is this artistry even for and maybe i'm making a leap here that you didn't actually say but maybe that is part of why you began to create this podcast and began to create this this model of practicing that you can sort of talk about outside of the normal lesson structure of, okay, here we are. We got this hour. Go, go, go. Absolutely. Absolutely. And a big thing for me is people taking ownership of their learning experience at all times. I feel that it's so easy to blame the school for not

Starting point is 00:15:33 providing all of the courses that someone needs. Like, I'm sorry, but everybody is saying these days schools need to teach me how to market myself and they need to teach me how to build a website and they don't talk to me about how to build a studio and they don't talk to me you know what if they had the time to talk about all of those things then the degree would last 10 years and no one would be happy about that so they have to decide what they will teach so if you're someone who's in a performance degree yes the emphasis will be on learning how to play the instrument and everything that's related to this they cannot teach you everything it's just not possible so then that's your job to go out and be like okay what do I want what do I

Starting point is 00:16:20 need to do this where are the gaps the school is doing their best I actually picked that school myself knowing what they offered I'm taking what they're offering and actually I don't know if will agree with me, but I find that very rarely students, and I'll include myself in this, any school I went to, I never utilized all of the resources that were offered to me. So that's a good place to start, using the resources that are available. But then what else do I need to know? I mean, what else is my favorite question in life? So what else do I want to know? What else am I trying to accomplish? What I need to know to accomplish these things? And how can I learn it? who can help me with this and just really build your own. And you're the expert in this, you know,

Starting point is 00:17:08 it's like, how, how do I figure out what I need to build what I want? Exactly. That's what. Yes. Yes. And everything you said is, is so smart here. Like I too had no idea when I was actually in school, how that I had any agency in that at all. I just like took the learning that I was offered and I did not seek out more learning. I just took the learning that I had to take to, um, to pass the thing. And, and I was as guilty as anybody in a performing degree of wanting only to perform. Um, so I actively opted out of classes that might have been more humanities based that might have, that might have indeed, uh, existed. I'm not sure that they did, but But if there were a marketing class that was offered at Eastman when I was there, I didn't know about it, didn't seek it out, didn't occur to me as a thing that I ever would have needed. And yet it's become so important in my actual life.

Starting point is 00:18:09 And I think a little bit you're talking also about this concept of sort of bundling and unbundling educational experiences from each other. Let a person who realizes that they need more support around efficient practicing come to you. Let a person who feels like they need more support around making reads come to me and like seek out the specific people who are teaching the thing that you need to know because no school can provide all of that. and actually what you were saying made me think that in many ways you are the oboe player that you are because you were so focused on your craft on your oboe playing and I think that's also important so yes it's good to I mean it's more than good it's desirable to be well-rounded in all aspects and of course the more versatile we are as a human the more that feeds the artist in us. Absolutely. But I think there is a time to also just focus on honing in our skills as a musician. So, I mean, what is one to do? I'm not sure. So everyone has their own path. Yes, exactly. And being able to like mindfully notice what is lacking in your education and

Starting point is 00:19:27 what you still need and what support you are looking for. And this is the magic of our modern age actually when i came out of conservatory in the mid 90s like i don't know that anything i don't know that there were online programs that existed i don't know how i would have uh gotten additional training in uh business programmings in in the you know any of the things that i have learned since being in school and i know we're already like off on a tangent from from mindful practicing but i just i feel like there's so much juice in what you're saying that's really wonderful so i i see why as you developed your own ideas around mindful practicing you wanted to share those with the students that you were teaching and also building a website

Starting point is 00:20:19 and a podcast and a facebook group and a program all around these concepts like that's going above and beyond when when did it occur to you that in addition to like improving your own quality of life and your own quality of skill this was something that you could offer to help other people I think it's really a story of following the breadcrumbs I don't think it occurred to me in a very specific way I didn't have this vision of building what mind over finger is I would say that mind over finger unfolded in a very organic way I my mother was the director of a non-profit music school so I've always seen her in that role of the person who starts things and projects and so I feel that in many ways this entrepreneurship spirit was something that was

Starting point is 00:21:19 modeled for me from a very young age and I've always started things I've always been having ideas for for projects and for articles that I wanted to write or books I wanted to write and I ran chamber music festivals and I did all sorts of stuff and I remember even learning html through google's in the early 2000s to build a really basic website and just kind of wanting to write and just feeling that there was a lot I wanted to say and then when all of these concepts started coming together I think that because I'm someone who loves to learn also as I say I'm a coach but I always have a coach myself as well I love to be guided by other people so I think that I just followed any little idea I had you know like a little rocks across the

Starting point is 00:22:23 river and then just hop from one to the next and and here I am today gorgeous gorgeous um Renee you've mentioned coaching a few times and you know you and i both are very bought in on this concept but i think it's a little strange for a lot of musicians i think the the a lot of the the mindset for musicians is we finished our degree and now we're out like working in the world and no further input is needed is what is the way a lot of people think and the way i thought for years and years right like after i was out of school and maybe i would take a lesson occasionally leading up toward a toward an audition but the idea of seeking out more guidance felt almost almost a little like shameful and you know this is not my this is not where i'm at now but that's

Starting point is 00:23:12 where i was for a long time in my 20s and 30s and so you've mentioned coaching a number of times talk about how you discovered um coaching and how you use it in your life now and how you how you how you are a coach how did i discover coaching i don't even know again i think it's a concept that maybe entered my mind slowly just by observing things and by being interested in other fields as well where uh athletes have coaches you know uh working with don green in the early 2000s also is kind of i think what really made me realize that you know what the things that he's teaching me, they help me perform better. But then I didn't have a coach for many years. But that's really interesting that as musicians who know about the benefits

Starting point is 00:24:08 of one-on-one lessons or even group lessons, it's something that we're hesitant to go to because we are performers, we are athletes, and we know how much money the sports industry throws at coaches and how beneficial it can be. I think that I remember the first coach I hired and there was something about a post that she made online. She was a friend of mine here in Chicago and i was at that time i don't know how to describe it but i felt full with ideas and did not know what to do with it and then something something about her post uh just called to me and i i felt a real instinctual need to reply and say yes let's meet and um And thanks to her actually putting some seeds of thoughts in my head, I think what it was too, is she said, oh, you should apply to go speak at this conference.

Starting point is 00:25:16 And I thought, wait, you can do that? She said, of course you can. And then I said, but I don't know if, I don't know. She's like, well, try it. So we started working on this and it all worked out. But she was showing me that I could... dream i could figure out how to execute on an idea and then see where that leads me and having that support having that trust that person that actually believes you can do something that

Starting point is 00:25:53 even you don't first know that maybe you could think about but also you don't think you're able to this person showing you that they actually believe that you could do it. It carries you. It inspires action. I think that's what it is for me is my coaches inspire action. They inspire me to take action, to reflect on things. They show me things about myself that went on examined before. And that's really what I try to do with my clients is we really just look at their brain and their thoughts and have a lot of fun with that. Because it's amazing when someone outside of your own brain points out like the that repetitive thought that's been spinning and spinning and spinning and that you have actually believed somebody outside of you can say, huh, look at that. that is a thought is that true is that real yeah and somehow just having that outside reflection can give you so much value not to mention the idea that someone out there like believes in

Starting point is 00:27:06 your possibility when you yourself from within your own human body is like in the weeds you're sort of always in your own weeds. And the coach will challenge you to show up for yourself because there's so many things in my life. I didn't pursue out of fear, fear of failure, fear of being inadequate. And if you can push that discomfort, it's amazing. It's not easy though. It's not easy. There's a lot of inner drama that goes on when you're facing these fears, but um yeah it's incredible it is incredible and um i'll point out also i'll i'll acknowledge also for our our musician audience um that many of us many musicians have this feeling well you know i've i've made it i'm in the gig i'm in the gig i got i won the audition i'm done

Starting point is 00:28:09 now. I'm as good as I can be. And there's, I don't know that there's any such thing as being as good as you can be. There is being good enough to play that gig, but there's always more that you can do. And that's the exciting part, I think for me too. Yes. And part of it is what you make that mean. It's always about what you make your own thoughts mean. So if you think that you're not where you want to be and that's wrong it's not the same as not being where you want to be and decide that that's an exciting place to be actually like what else can I find out so really having this window into your thoughts and questioning I'll use this overused term questioning your limiting beliefs and make that decision this

Starting point is 00:29:03 is actually just the thought i'm holding on to do i really want to hold on to it or am i ready to let it go so yes i could talk about this for hours i know it's so it's so interesting and i could too and i and i do want to bring us back a little bit toward um how i i know that you are a life coach in addition to a mindful practice coach a high performance coach can you like pull those things apart a little bit or are they just so integrally related that when people work with you they get all the magic all at once I certainly hope that at some point they do get all of the magic I um you know it's really interesting because I work two ways with people I have a group coaching program the music master experience which I think is amazing I think it's the best coaching program

Starting point is 00:29:56 for musicians and I also work one-on-one so it's a very similar yet different approach and let's say someone comes and wants to work with me to prepare for an audition so then there's definitely a deadline there are some milestones that need to be met there's some techniques and strategies I'm a huge nerd I want to know all of the techniques all of the strategies you were talking about flow state earlier. How do we get into flow state? I want to know all of the ways and I want to teach all of the ways. So there's definitely a big component in what I teach and what I coach, which is, uh, you know, more of a, like teaching part of coaching, which is to teach methods and strategies, uh, to people. We set deadlines together. I hold them accountable.

Starting point is 00:30:48 We work on what I call conditioning, how to practice, how to condition yourself for performance, how to visualize all of these things. And then there's also the other component, which for me is so exciting, which is once all of these fundamentals are in place is now the human who's trying to apply this technique will have some doubt, will experience some resistance, some internal drama. So there's going to be a million thoughts running in their brain as they're trying to practice, as they're trying to prepare. So then this is when we want to start to clean up all of that stuff to just point out, hmm, that thing you just said here, let's go there for a second and untangle

Starting point is 00:31:39 this and it's extremely powerful for me to see the face of someone who just had a massive realization on the topic that is much more um at the core of who they are and then see that impact subsequently how they play it's just incredible that's really beautiful and it's so powerful um when you're in your your group program your music mastery experience are you fundamentally only working with violinists like you or are you working with uh with all sorts of musicians what what goes on in that all sorts of musicians you name it we had organ players bass players flute clarinet all of it and these concepts you know it's mind over finger it's how can you get the thoughts align and that goes through the fingers of anyone

Starting point is 00:32:41 who wants to play an instrument so it's it's just you know the other thing I would say about it too is how incredible it is to see musicians come together now I'm touching on a different topic but come together and be vulnerable open up to each other trust each other and together go on this amazing journey which is why I call it the music mastery experience because it is a journey an experience and grow together because you mentioned earlier this thought that some musicians have at time that maybe you don't want to say that you're still taking lessons. Well, I'll say it. I'm still at times taking lessons because I love learning

Starting point is 00:33:36 and I love to play for someone who'll point out something that I didn't notice. And I learned so much in the process and I don't think I'll ever stop taking lessons. I think I have so much to learn from so many people and I want to do that. I'll always have coaches because I want them to point out the things that I'm saying that I'm not noticing. And I do think that we have a long way to go in terms of how supportive we are of each other in the music industry and how things could be different in terms of opening up to what the true challenges are. I mean, it's happening in the sports world. Well, we see it, you know, mental health, vulnerability, all of this needs to come out in the open and be topics that people feel comfortable opening up about. And I think

Starting point is 00:34:32 that this would positively impact the whole community. A hundred percent. I see the same thing in the group programs that I run. There's something so magical when people are allowed to let down their barriers a little bit and not be in competition with each other, not have their like public face their outside face their i am sitting here in the orchestra doing my job face and admit that some things are hard and that they're struggling with some aspect of what's going on whether that's a technique or whether that's their mindset or whether that's performance nerves or whether that is um that when they go to perform their fingers get cold and tangled yeah yeah there's a real magic and just being able to discuss that openly and admit that all

Starting point is 00:35:23 is not actually well yet and then from there it's so powerful to watch the transformations happen 100 i really agree with you wonderful um renee how do you keep all of this in balance you're like you you play you you are a performer with a performing career and you're coaching all of these people you're teaching college you're how how are you making your portfolio career work I don't know if I would call it balance because it's each week is very different what works for me and I've talked about this before is really, I know how I operate. So I would recommend that anyone who's looking for a way to get more productive is first start by understanding how you function best. And I know

Starting point is 00:36:22 that for me, I need a schedule. I need accountability. So for rehearsal, it's at this time with this repertoire. I'll learn the repertoire. I'll be on time for the projects that I dream of. If I don't have someone expecting me to turn it in, it might not happen. I might not make the time for it. So what I tend to do is then hire a coach because they're going to expect me to turn things in or make that public. Same with the podcast. For example, I announced it. I announced that it was going to come out september 7th of 2018 i'm not sure anymore wow some year and then there was no choice i had to produce it and make it happen because once i've announced it i feel that um if you know the framework of brett and ruben the four tendencies i'm your typical

Starting point is 00:37:18 obliger so once i've said it to someone else i feel an obligation to turn it in not everybody operates that way really well for some people accountability is oppressive so if that's you then that's not going to work for you but for me accountability works really well and then my very dear google calendar it's beautiful it's colorful it's um that's really how i operate and for me it's a very detailed planning allows me to accomplish so much more. Now, do I stick to it 100%? No, but I'm, what I like to say is I'm a hundred percent more productive by having at least some structure put there. So I have everything in my calendar and I plan ahead of time. I plan what I'm going to practice ahead of time, when things need editing, when things need to be turned

Starting point is 00:38:17 in. So it's this mix of understanding how I'm productive, what helps me be productive and then plan for it in the way that works for me. I love that. Like I'm such a productivity, like I'm always looking for a productivity hack, right? I love how I love getting ideas from people about how can i fit more in a day but the really powerful thing you just said is know what you need to make it work know what you need to keep everything going know what you need to thrive is the way i put it in my book it's it's all the same right like how how are you going to make this work for you what is the goal and what do you need to make it happen and then you just figure it out and you do it. That's wonderful. What clear, what clear advice. Yeah. And you know,

Starting point is 00:39:09 I'd like to add something to this, which it's a topic I've been thinking a lot about kind of related to what we're just talking about, but also not really, but I've been hearing so much now about, you know, people talking about if you don't feel like practicing or you don't feel like working, you can just, you know, we need to self-care. There's a lot of talk about self-care, which is great we do need to honor who we are and we need to respect our needs but a lot of time I think that it goes too much in the other direction so when there's something on your schedule and you don't feel like doing it it's really easy to say, I'm overwhelmed. I'm tired. I need to rest. I can't produce this when I'm in this state.

Starting point is 00:40:03 And that could be true for sure. But what happens when you walk away like this? And I'm not saying that you shouldn't walk away. So I'll get back to this in a second. When you walk away without examining why you want to walk away first, you're losing an amazing opportunity to understand yourself. And the second thing that happens is you're kind of, I'm not sure the English terminology for this, but you're missing out on your word to yourself. So you have this agreement with yourself to show up and practice or show up and write a post or something, and you're not doing it. So this slowly erodes at your sense of self-trust because you're not showing up for yourself anymore. You're not keeping your own engagement to yourself. And this affects your

Starting point is 00:40:52 self-confidence because you don't feel like you can trust yourself. That's what self-confidence is. Self-confidence is not knowing that you can do something. That's confidence. I have the confidence that I can grab my spoon and put the food in my mouth. I have this ability to do this. I have confidence that I can play a G major scale relatively in tune. You know, I have confidence that I can do that. But self-confidence, in my opinion, is trusting yourself that you can succeed. You can fail. It doesn't matter.

Starting point is 00:41:27 You will rise up. You will show up for yourself. That's, for me, self-confidence. So when you don't do what's on your schedule, you erode slowly at that self-confidence, at that self-trust. But here's what I want to say is you don't have to do it because if you do it and you're in a very negative headspace, yes, it might be detrimental. So if I take the example of practicing, what I was saying the other day is, if you practice in the very negative headspace, not only are you not going to be as productive, but you could actually condition yourself to play and perform with tension. So this could affect you even physically. You can even cause like some little micro trauma at the subconscious level where you just develop kind of a resistance to playing.

Starting point is 00:42:20 so we don't want that but just walking away you're saying like oh it i i'm not it doesn't work right now i'm overwhelmed just walking away without taking a minute to understand i'm overwhelmed why and not examining why you're overwhelmed is not helpful because actually the reason why you feel overwhelmed or feel oppressed or i mean and i'm not talking about if you're physically exhausted and you're starving and or you're in physical pain i mean you know needs are needs so of course when you're not physically able to work nobody should force themselves to to do that but if you can just pause for a second and notice the exact cause of the whatever feeling you're having and not run away from it but understand what it is

Starting point is 00:43:13 And then you could realize, I don't want to do this thing right now because I feel like there's too much. And, you know, ask yourself, is this really true? You asked this question earlier, like, is that true? There is too much to do. And then you could think, well, there is a lot to do. There's too much to do. I have to do it all now. Is that true?

Starting point is 00:43:36 No, but I could do one thing. So what if I walk in there and do one thing? Could I walk in there and do one thing? and see if you can just kind of observe the real reason of you feeling overwhelmed or feeling angry or feeling sad or feeling whatever you're feeling. What is the reason? And see if you could figure out a way to get yourself back to a more productive state and keep with your engagement. Now, I'm not saying that you have to go in there and practice or write or anything. You can still decide to walk away 100 okay but it's to just figure out what is causing this desire this

Starting point is 00:44:18 tension these negative emotions and then once you've done a little bit of reflection you can make a conscious decision of staying or going but you will have so much more insight and you're not just going to be running away from your feelings or um in the coaching school where where i um work is, uh, you're not going to be buffering your emotions. So for me, it's a very important concepts that I've been thinking a lot about lately. So now you're, you're getting the gist of it, but yeah. Okay. I love that. So Renee, one of the reasons that I love talking with you is I always feel like we're two, we're this, we're the same brain using different words. Um, I think if you have you won't but let's say if one were to scroll past the last like 12 years of my blog

Starting point is 00:45:09 um i wrestle with this concept over and over again like i've written on this so many times what is the fine line between i'm listening to my body so i'm not going to go running today versus i really am just being lazy because it's gray outside and i don't feel like it like what yeah where's the where's the line that makes it okay and where is the line that makes it not okay and i think the way this shows up for me um not that you asked this is your interview but i think the way this shows up for me is when i'm feeling a lot of resistance to digging into something or if i find myself just like stuck in that zone of idly being busy like looking at my computer without actually accomplishing a thing but feeling like i'm busy

Starting point is 00:45:54 standing up stepping away for a second and saying what do i actually need right now is really powerful because almost always what i need is to stretch for one minute to have a glass of water to take my dog for a walk around the block and then that's all and then i can do the thing yeah because i feel so much better because i needed something that i didn't have and just taking that 10 seconds to think about what that actually is instead of just head down, keep driving, keep pushing, keep being busy. It's so powerful and there's so much more efficiency and so much more pleasure and so much more flow state and so much more spaciousness on the other side of just like take care of the need. Yes. Very well put. Yeah. I agree with you. We're like the

Starting point is 00:46:44 same brain and one thing I talk about is also that concept of alignment where some people think that alignment means that you feel amazing and then you get to work but I think that it's not as easy as that because we rarely just feel amazing you know so when when there are things that you want to do if you have goals or if you want to learn to play an instrument you will have to practice at some point it's it just has to happen somehow and there are so many things we want to do in life i want to be healthy and i also love i mean if people here know poutine i know poutine i love cheesy fries so you know what can i do to be healthy and also indulge a little bit but the thing is when it comes to the work for me i think that we don't want to i don't

Starting point is 00:47:44 find that the grind is the answer to walk in there in in the negative space and just grind away i've done it it never really works so well it makes me want to just quit and yeah i walk away from from things all the time for sure so um but i think that one i think that helps us realize if it's the right thing is is this serving me right now only or is it also beneficial for future me so what serves the long-term goal so if there is a goal that you're pursuing and some work needs to get done at some point and right now would be the best moment is there a way that you can get into alignment to do that i love priming i did a podcast episode on that which is to just take a moment to you could it could be anything it

Starting point is 00:48:36 could be breathing meditating journaling um i talk about doing the what the delightful 10 so just walk in the practice room and play anything you would like for 10 minutes and then if you're still in the bad mood you can walk away that's you have permission to walk away but just walk in there and you do anything you want with the instrument for 10 minutes um and then then you you know it's like there's so many ways that we can get ourselves going and but the line that you mentioned is not clear-cut it's going to be different from day to day and we have to listen to ourselves to our needs that's really what it is is this a need versus the want and am i trying to run away from something and regardless of the decision to stay

Starting point is 00:49:27 or go, you have to love the reasons. I think that's what it is. If you love the reasons why you're staying or leaving, you'll feel more at peace with the decision. And then, yeah. That's gorgeous. You're wonderful, Renee. Where can people follow you? Where can people get in touch with you? How do people find you in the internet world? I think if one Googles mind over finger i hope it would lean only to me so mind over finger.com and also instagram mind over finger and i'm on facebook as well love my facebook i do a lot of lives i have a facebook community where i i do not weekly but i do go in and answer questions and offer unsolicited advice um yeah so mind over finger wonderful wonderful fantastic is there anything else that you would

Starting point is 00:50:25 like to say or talk about that i have not allowed you the space to do yet um well the music master experience is coming back it starts june 1st and i'm really excited about this i am so in love with this program i'm so in love with everyone who's been through the program so far and because i'm so in love with all of my participants i'm actually doing something pretty radical which is once you join the music master experience you're in for life so once you're in you'll be part of any upcoming round and it's kind of the program where we go through all of the systems and methods and strategies that you would need to practice better and perform better the participants have one audition. I get messages from, you got one yesterday from people saying how they have

Starting point is 00:51:14 reconnected with their joy of playing, how they perform feeling incredible. They get offers to join doctoral programs. It's been so fun, but we take it a step further is once we have all of these fundamentals in place, then we go further and really start coaching the person and talk about self-confidence, talk about just reaching higher level of efficiency, of happiness in all aspects of the musical career, but also I think in the participant's life in general. So that's coming back June 1st and it's going to be amazing. So I hope people check it out. Oh, that's fantastic. I'm going to throw some links in the show notes to make that easy for people to find. And Renee Paul Gaultier, thank you so much for talking with me today.

Starting point is 00:52:02 Thanks for having me, Janet. You're amazing. I think this show is so incredible for what it does for the classical music industry and a real honor to speak with you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you subscribe on your app of choice and leave a review too. It really helps us. Don't forget to check out Fonz if your own teaching or service-based business needs better systems. You can use the link in the show notes for a free two-week trial. Our theme music was composed by Dream Vance. You can hear his first album, Re-Entry, on Spotify and Apple Music, and follow him there for more innovative synthwave music. You can find me at JanetEngle.com, which is also where you can

Starting point is 00:52:49 pick up a copy of The Happiest Musician book, reach out to me with thoughts or questions about the podcast, or apply for a free clarity call to explore your own portfolio career and thriving musical life. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great day.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 132 Dr. Renée-Paule Gauthier & Jennet Ingle: Mindful Practice & Building a Portfolio Career from The Crushing Classical Podcast

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