The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 241 Beyond the Practice Room: What Four Top Experts Want You to Know About Performance

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

In this special episode, recorded live at New World Symphony's Wellness Week, four leading voices in musician wellness come together to share powerful strategies for navigating the mental, physical, and emotional demands of a music career. You'll learn: ·         How to recover from a tough performance without spiraling into shame or self-doubt ·         The mindset shift that separates your identity from your results ·         Why your body holds the key to emotional regulation and performance ease ·         How to build self-trust by understanding your nervous system ·         Tools to manage your inner critic and perfectionist tendencies ·         Practical ways to bring more awareness and intention into your practice ·         Why real growth requires both mental flexibility and physical freedom ·         How collaborative wellness approaches are changing the future of classical music Featuring insights from: ·         Dr. Noa Kageyama – Performance psychologist, Juilliard faculty, and creator of The Bulletproof Musician - https://bulletproofmusician.com/ ·         Lori Schiff – Master Alexander Technique teacher and long-time Juilliard faculty member - https://www.lorischiff.com/ ·         Dr. Coree Levy – Performance medicine and recovery expert working with elite musicians and athletes - https://www.drcoreelevy.com/ ·         Renée-Paule Gauthier – Violinist, performance coach, and host of the Mind Over Finger Podcast - https://www.mindoverfinger.com/ This conversation is packed with tools and insights you can start using right away to show up with more freedom, confidence, and clarity in your musical life.   If you're ready to step on stage with confidence, perform at your best, and finally feel secure in your playing, let's talk! Book a free discovery call and let's create a plan to get you there. Are you ready to take your playing and career to the next level and create a life that feels purposeful and joyful? Let's connect and explore how personalized coaching can support your journey. Click here to schedule your free consultation, and let's start turning your goals into reality.   Book your FREE Music Mastery Experience Discovery call with Renée HERE Book your free consultation with Renée HERE Download the transcript from this episode HERE   Mind Over Finger Click www.mindoverfinger.com/coaching to book your free consultation with me. Visit MindOverFinger.com for my online courses as well as free resources on peak performance. Grab my free workshops and PDF downloads by going to www.mindoverfinger.com/resources. Connect: https://www.youtube.com/@MindOverFinger https://www.facebook.com/mindoverfinger/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindoverfinger https://www.instagram.com/mindoverfinger/     THANK YOU: Most sincere thank you to composer Jim Stephenson who graciously provided the show's musical theme:  Concerto #1 for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra – Movement 2: Allegro con Brio, performed by Jeffrey Work, trumpet, and the Lake Forest Symphony, conducted by Jim Stephenson.

You're listening to the Mind Over Finger podcast, and this is episode 241. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger podcast, where we dive into the world of mindful music making, peak performance, and crafting a purpose-driven life and career. I'm your host, violinist, certified performance and life coach for musicians, and your guide to unlocking your full potential, Dr. René-Paul Gaultier. Welcome to a very, very special episode of the Mind Over Finger podcast. If you've ever felt overwhelmed or stuck or just wondered how to really take care of yourself as a musician, this one is for you. Today I'm bringing you a powerful live panel recorded in South Beach at the awesome New World Symphony facility during their brand new wellness week, a transformative

initiative where musicians didn't just work on their playing, but on the whole artist. I had the honor of joining three brilliant minds in the field of musician wellness for three days of physical and mental transformation, where we worked with the fellows in both group presentations, and one-on-one session. With me were Noah Kageyama, a performance psychologist and creator of The Bulletproof Musician. Noah is known for helping artists thrive under pressure. He's a former Juilliard-trained violinist turned psychologist, and he now teaches at Juilliard, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Louisville Symphony, where he empowers musicians with science-backed mental training tools to perform their best when it counts.

Also with me, Lori Schiff, Master Teacher of the Alexander Technique and longtime Juilliard faculty member. Lori brings decades of expertise in helping musicians move, breathe, and perform with greater freedom and ease. From operas to orchestra stages and military bands, Lori's work transforms how performers inhabit their bodies and connect with their artistry. Also with me, Dr. Corey Levy, who's a certified chiropractic sports practitioner and internationally recognized expert in soft tissue injuries and performance medicine. With decades of experience treating elite athletes and performers, from Olympic medalists to top classical musicians,

she brings a powerful understanding of how the body moves, recovers, and thrives under pressure. And if you're new to the podcast, let me tell you a little bit about me. I'm Dr. Renée Paul Gaultier. I'm a violinist and performance coach dedicated to helping musicians create success through smart systems, powerful mindset tools, clear strategies, and personalized support. I'm a member of the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra. I host the Mind Over Finger podcast, as you can hear, and I'm the creator of the Music Mastery Experience, which is an online group coaching program where I help musicians upgrade their practice, their performance, and their lives from the inside out. So the four of us, as I said earlier, spent three days with the fellows at New Orleans Symphony, leading

presentations, hosting honest conversations, and supporting them one-on-one through the real challenges that come with a career in music. And I have to say, working alongside Noah, Lori, and Corey was so inspiring for me. We saw fellows go from stuck in self-doubt to open and energized. We watched tension ease, not just in their bodies, but also in how they talked about themselves and in their playing. And the shifts were real and they were powerful. And in this episode, you're going to feel like you were right there in the room with us. We start with a quick interview slash group discussion where I asked Noah, Lori, and Corey to share some of their most powerful tools and insights. And then we opened it up for a dynamic, honest Q&A with the fellows.

You're going to hear us talk about how to recover from a rough performance without spiraling. Why what you think after a performance matters more than you think. You're going to hear us talk about the tools to shift out of perfectionism and into growth. Very important. the power of separating identity from outcome, what to do when your inner critic is yelling during practice, how to cultivate more self-trust, especially under pressure, why the body-brain connection is crucial to high-level playing, and so much more. You're going to walk away from this episode not just inspired, but also equipped with tangible, actionable advice you can start using right away to shift your mindset,

improve your practice, and perform with more freedom and confidence. And last thing before we dive in, I want to give a huge thank you to Jarrett McCourt for his vision and his leadership in making this entire initiative possible. From concept to execution, Jarrett created something truly meaningful, not just a wellness event, but a deeply impactful experience for the musicians. His commitment to redefining what a successful music career can look like is really inspiring. If you haven't heard his story yet, check out episode 219 of the podcast. It's very worth it. Also, congratulations to the New World Symphony for investing in this kind of transformative work. It's one thing to talk about musician wellness.

It's another to prioritize it, to create space for it, and bring in voices that move the needle. It was an honor to be part of this forward-thinking program. Okay, now we're ready. And just so you know, there's no need to take notes. Click the link in the show notes to grab the summary and transcript of this episode. Let's go to the show. Thanks, Jarrett. Thanks, everyone, for being here.

We've never done this on the podcast before, live recording. So it's going to be really fun. We have amazing guests with us today. Dr. Noah Kageyama, Lori Schiff, and Dr. Corey Levy. And I'm going to leave up to you guys to introduce yourselves. So can you please give us some background information and a little bit of context for the modality that you're sharing here with the fellows? Sure. My name is Noah Kageyama. I started playing the violin at age two as a little Suzuki kid, continued onwards for a couple of decades, eventually did my master's at Juilliard,

and then took a sports psychology class. And that opened my eyes to a whole new way of practicing, approaching performance. I was able to perform better than I had before. I was able to actually enjoy practicing a little bit more than I had for most of my life. And after all of that, I became increasingly interested in performance psychology. So I put my violin down and went off to Indiana to do a master's and PhD in psychology. And now I'm back at Juilliard on the faculty teaching performance psychology classes. And I run a blog and podcast called The Bulletproof Musician, where I write about the research in this area and try to get it out there as much as I can. And your work is so important. I think

that you were one of the first ones. I mean, you know, we had someone like Don Green sort of paving the way a little bit but you were I think from from what I remember the first one who was was so present out there on online and sharing so widely so I think you you've contributed so much to this topic being more on the forefront of everyone's mind so personally I want to thank you for this yes Laurie how about you yeah I'm Laurie Schiff and I teach Alexander Technique I'm on faculty full-time at Juilliard. I started out, I'm going to follow Noah's lead. I played trumpet as a kid, starting around age eight or nine,

whenever I got my front teeth. And then played on for years. I went to School of Music at Northwestern. I'm a proud alum from Northwestern, with some of you here. And there I encountered the Alexander Technique, and it helped my playing so much, kind of. I was able to perform better and actually live a lot more comfortably, it turned out. Who knew?

I went on to a master's at Manhattan School of Music and in the meanwhile started to train to teach Alexander Technique. So that's actually a three-year schooling, full-time, which I was doing while finishing at Manhattan School. It wasn't too tough to pull that off. And then I kept playing for a while, but my spirit was really in the Alexander work. it helped me so much right from the beginning and particularly as a young musician and I just thought I want to do this with other people because it just felt so much better and it did

turn out to help my whole life so now along with being full-time at Juilliard just started my 36th year there this year and I did Aspen for 20 plus years teaching Alexander so done the scene was at Met Opera for a long time in their young artist program did all that and in private teaching along with the Alexander's for everyone it's for any human who's interested and curious about maybe feeling a little better or living a little better so now in my private practice in addition I work with people who have Parkinson's disease MS certainly focal dystonias and things like that kind of movement disorders and a whole lot of humans who just have back pain or neck pain and they you know they just want to feel a little better and be a little better and then

there's some actors and stuff like that too so it's been very interesting and the really fun stuff i get to come down here with you all and it's been pretty great so far over many years i think this is the 15th year i've been here i think um but it's been pretty great and thanks to jared to putting us all together we're all here just to support you all and help you be you so there you Yeah. It's so important to have this awareness of movement and how you can maximize that. Shameless plug, Lori was a guest on the podcast, episode 80. And I think she was also on the Bulletproof Musician, correct? So anyone interested in hearing more from Lori can plug in those episodes. Corey, tell us. Hi. I'm Dr. Corey Levy. I'm a chiropractic sports

physician. I am not classically trained in music like these, my guests, your guests, your guests up here. I grew up more on the stage and in musical theater and bar mitzvahs, weddings, you know, kind of a thing, like bigger, more poppy stuff and getting everyone ready for, you know, that's kind of more what my background is. But I actually was a neuroscientist. I don't know if a lot of you guys know that, but I was a neuroscientist for 10 years. And I actually worked in research studying the brain, mostly with different drugs of abuse. And I just didn't really feel fulfilled in what I was doing. I felt like there could be more out there. And I always, always loved medicine and music. So I really tried to dive in to see what I could do that

would really make a difference. So I worked in emergency medicine. I used to work with you know, diving accidents because I was always a big diver with hyperbaric chamber, things like that. I also used to work in the ICU. So I've seen it all, I've done it all. And I realized that I really wanted to work more with people that wanted to help themselves. And I got into my line of work, which is really working with people that have chronic pain from repetitive injury, which is musicians. But I saw a little bit of everything and I was really focusing more on sports. I was with USC for 10 years, and I was with the men's rugby team for five seasons. I was with an Olympic team. And at USC, I just kept seeing more and more musicians. By the end of

my tenure, I was 100% with Thornton School of Music. And I really always believe that the musicians were just a very underserved population of athletes. And I love working with musicians, and I have so much respect for musicians. And being at USC for 10 years, people would say to me like, what was your favorite department? Who did you love at USC? All the different schools.

And I always said, I love the musicians the most. And I realized why. Musicians don't go to school and say, you know what? I think I'm going to be a lawyer. I think I'm going to be a doctor. You guys have been working on what you're doing since you were four or five, six years old.

The discipline is just something that you don't see in any other profession out there. And I have so much respect for that. And I just love working with musicians. Always on time. Always listen to what I have to say. And I just really love working with this demographic. So now my office is in downtown LA

and I pretty much like, kind of like Lori, I still see, I see a lot of back pain people. I see a lot of people that just have chronic pain, but about 75 to 80% of my practice is working with professional musicians and collegiate musicians. Yeah. Thank you, Corey. You're welcome. And finally, I'm Dr. René-Paul Gaultier, and I'm a violinist and performance coach. And currently I'm with the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra. And my journey with mindfulness actually started here at New World Symphony, where I was exposed to the teachings of Don Greens and worked with him, which was life-changing. I just walked in the H&M and saw the lobby where I did my very first yoga class

and was also exposed to meditation for the first time and so there was a lot that happened here at New Orleans Symphony that really changed the course of my, what I would say, like mindful trajectory and years ago as I was pursuing my doctorate and was teaching as an adjunct at a university I was realizing how my students were struggling with the basic principles of practicing they didn't know how to practice so I really was on the mission to figure out a way to help them practice so that's what my dissertation was on and then as I was working on them on how to practice I found out more and more that it's great to have the tools to practice but the brain gets in the way

too and the emotional state that we're in is so important so that's when I started diving into coaching and started getting coaching myself, which also changed my life. So the work that I do now is a combination of all of these things, my career as a performer and all of the modalities that have really helped shape the way that I approach music making and staying healthy and staying injury-free. So right now I have a performing career and I host the Mind Over Finger podcast, which some of you might be listening to right now. And I'm a performance coach for musicians. So what I would like to do today is for us to have a conversation on, I brought a few questions, but we'll also see where this goes. We don't know. We'll see. And

then in the end, we're going to turn the mic to you. I hope some of you brought questions because we're going to keep some time at the end for this open table of questions. So the first question that I had was, first of all, I want to say once again, I think New World Symphony is such an incredible organization. Having been a fellow here, I got to experience this firsthand, but I find that they're on the forefront of so many things that are beneficial to musicians, music entrepreneurship, things like this. But also this focus on wellness is something that we don't see in many places. So what are some of the biggest myths that you guys encounter about wellness for musicians and how do you challenge them? Anyone can be free to jump in.

Okay. I got one. Okay. Let's hear it. I think one of the biggest myths is that rest is going to make your injury go away. I think if something is there, especially if you get to a point where you have an injury, we're talking, it could be a mild strain in a muscle or a mild sprain in a ligament. It's probably not healing the way it really should. And resting it is not going to make it completely go away. One thing that I always tell people is to really keep something from coming back again after you do get some type of a treatment is that if you don't change the behavior that caused it in the first place, it's not going to go away. And then I will see you again next week and the week after. So really changing whatever that behavior is, which is

something like with, you know, I always say everyone needs to see Lori. You don't always, you don't want to come see me. You don't want to get to the point where you have to come see me. We should get to a point where you never have to get there. But just resting something and think to me, that's like putting your head in the sand. You got to figure out why that happened. You've got to get the treatment you need for it. And then you got to change the behavior so it doesn't keep coming back again. Yeah. Hearing you talk, two things come for me. I love the book Essentialism by Greg McKeon, and he talks about nurturing the asset. So I see a lot of people seeing wellness, taking care of yourself, resting, things like this as an afterthought. That's just

what you do when you're done with the work in framing this concept of nurturing the asset is so important and would prevent so much suffering physical suffering emotional suffering um and then the other thing i forgot so someone else take it over cory had such a great response to that and it's it is interesting because yeah just rest okay you feel a little bit better but it doesn't mean you're gonna carry on and and not have problems again unless you as she said change behavior which is exactly what fm alexander figured out it's where the whole the whole study comes from was a guy who had a voice problem and he was put on vocal rest in the 1890s and um he got better and then he went back on stage and it was a mess again and he talked to the doctors and said so

you know i must be doing something wrong what am i doing and they had no answers and he had done you know voice teachers and all that so he just studied himself and as you said also about musicians you guys are so good at working on yourselves but sometimes a little bit of help how is really good so alexander you brought in mirrors and was like paying attention to what he was doing and just experimenting constantly so again if you all just take yourself as a lab and get curious about what you're doing what's interfering with ease of performance or healthy performance or just getting what you want instead of hitting your head against well just stop and go well hang on what am I doing and what what perhaps brought me to someone like Corey's

situation but you know I think that that is so true that just rest doesn't get you there and also it's not just overuse because we always talk about overuse in the injury injuries but that's become more and more people understand it's misuse as opposed to overuse and they're quite different also don't forget to take breaks yeah yeah yeah and it's funny because jared and i were talking about this yesterday like sitting on the couch watching netflix is not going to make your hand pain go away so taking like a break and then being like oh i'm just gonna like if you're taking that break from playing your instrument you have to seek treatment you have to figure out what is going on in order for it to get fixed. That's the second thing that I was thinking.

Thank you for reminding me of it, is the fact that I think a lot of us have this mentality of, I need to figure it out, or that seeking help is something that is maybe not a worthy expense or, you know, a sign of weakness. And I'm just here to show, or not show, but say that support is always, not always, but often a shortcut to feeling better, to being better, and that people should really understand the importance of investing in yourself. Again, you're the asset, so you want to invest in your asset. Do you need a coach or do you need a therapist? Do you need physical therapy? Whatever it is that you think would help you really thrive is worth the investment, in my opinion. Noah, what are you thinking? I think for me, this is the thing that

was most intriguing to me when I started learning about sports psychology from Don Green. I think we grow up thinking that this thing that we experience on stage, the performance anxiety, that that's a bad thing. I think a lot of the literature to this point, at least outside of sports psychology, has sort of pathologized that and kind of framed it in that sort of way. But it turns out it's a little more complex than that, of course. I mean, how many of you have had really good performances is where you started off feeling nervous, but by the end of it, you were like totally excited and kind of thrilled and like having a good time, yeah.

And so that same internal activation state can be useful for performance. And actually, in some ways, it's almost essential for our peak levels of performance. It's all the kind of internal chatter and the doubts and the fears and all those sort of cognitive elements of the performance anxiety response

that tends to be not so helpful for performance. And the thing is, the more we feel like we need to be calm, like we are feeling right now in order to perform our best, it gets harder to then get into a more optimal peak performance state because then we're having to fight against this thing that's inevitable and natural that's happening to us. Like how many of you have been backstage feeling pretty good, maybe, you know, a tiny bit of butterflies, but feeling okay and feeling prepared. And then you start feeling a little bit more nervous. And so then you start worrying about the fact that you're starting to feel more nervous, which makes you more nervous, which

makes you worry about it more. And then suddenly you're kind of spiraling to the bad place and I'll have that happen. Yeah. And so the more we can kind of disconnect from needing to feel a certain way and just kind of knowing that we can perform our best, even if we're kind of highly activated, can actually be a liberating way to not be so attached to the state that we feel like we need to be in, in order to perform our best. I love that. This is a great segue in the question that I had for you, which is some of the thought, and you mentioned this concept around the idea that, you know, being nervous might actually be good for you. What are some other thought patterns that you think are holding musicians back in how they can start to shift them?

Well, one of them I think that we're all guilty of is, and this is maybe related a little bit to perfectionism, which we might come back to, but this idea that I'm not going to play for other people, I'm not going to record myself until I'm ready. And how many of you have then gotten closer and closer to the performance of the audition and been like, oh crap, I should have started doing this much sooner because now you realize all the things that really need to be kind of solidified and so forth. But I think part of that's because we don't want to sound less than our very best in front of anybody, even on our own recording device that we would listen back to. And so part of it might just be acknowledging that there is this sort of

illusion of mastery that we kind of get sucked into where we think that how we sound at the end of a practice session is where our skills are really at. And as we all know, that's not necessarily where our skills are at. And so finding opportunities to kind of expose the mastery illusion, it's a little bit like, I don't know anything about computer hacking, but my understanding is that benevolent computer hackers will actually kind of expose flaws in the system so that those can be strengthened and patched up. And similarly, the idea for us is to kind of expose what are the weakest points that we might not be aware of that would get us in precious situations so we can then kind of shore those up in advance, which of course means being

imperfect in our own practicing and in playing for others. But, and this is maybe a shortcut that doesn't have enough explanation in between, but I'm always kind of thinking about this saying that the chef David Chang said once on this Netflix special, I think it was, he said that as chefs, sometimes we forget that the point is not to be exact, but to be delicious. And I think sometimes as musicians, we get so sucked into wanting things to be exact and perfect in very measurable technical ways that we forget the whole point is to be delicious or excellent or whatever the musical equivalent of delicious might be. Are there any cellists in the room? So some of you may be familiar with Joshua Roman, who famously recorded all these

popper etudes that are also tricky and stuff. And he just did them in a series on YouTube, and it relates to your story. He didn't do it for YouTube popularity. He was doing it to make himself play and essentially perform on recording and just let it go. So he wasn't practicing. He was just recording one after the next and among some cello people that got to be quite known but it it came out of his own endeavor to do just what you were saying he wasn't trying to be perfect or practice stuff to be perfect it was just get out there make myself go from beginning to end and and like that and interesting strategy and it turned out quite well actually I have another question for you Noah how does managing the mindset influence the performance

but also the long-term enjoyment of music. Because as I was mentioning yesterday, once you get a job, you don't want to just dry out in your chair. There's something about being fulfilled and experiencing enjoyment for what you're doing. What's your take on that? Well, one thing that comes to mind is

I did a podcast episode with Frank Allman, who's a longtime concert master of the Milwaukee Symphony. And I was curious what his practice looked like. So I'd asked him some questions about it. And one of the things that he said he would do occasionally is just, you know, for 10, 15 minutes, play some Bach, some Paganini, just for fun, like not to actually make it better, but just to play it because he could and he enjoyed playing some of that stuff. And for whatever reason, that sort of blew my mind, like the idea of actually like playing things for fun in your own practice. I don't know why that seems so bizarre and incongruous to me, but I mean, why wouldn't we? you have the ability to play things at a really high level that a lot of folks would envy. And

yeah, it's not perfect because you know you can always do it better. But I mean, how many, I'm just curious, how many of you will occasionally, maybe you don't want to admit it, but how many of you will occasionally like just play a couple of things because it's kind of fun to play it? Oh, wow. That's excellent. That surprised me. Yeah. Well, good for you. And if you're not, then maybe consider it and see if as a warmup exercise for a couple of minutes to try that. I love that. That's great. I have a question for Lori, but what you said about Joshua Roman also made me think about one of the, you know, thought patterns that hold musicians back is the fact that experiencing negative emotions is a sign that something's wrong and you're not

doing something right. And another, you know, stigma I see is people afraid of speaking about injuries or struggles and one of the things that I really admired was when Joshua experienced an injury and was working with you I believe he was very vocal about it and shared on social media which allows for people to see that you know musicians struggle and when they struggle they reach out for help and then when more of us talk about those things then it's no longer silent and it's a shared experience where we can all support each other. So my question for you, Lori, was one thing, and I'm sure you've been asked this before, but what's one thing that you wish musicians or any human being would know about their body? Well, that you are your body. It's

not separate. So often in our English language, it gets all separated. What do we want you to know about your body, you're it. And it's all the time. It's not just like I have this body to play the violin and then this one to do this other stuff. So you have tremendous abilities and skills in what Alexander would call conscious control, like we talked about a little bit yesterday. So you have so much ability. It's just, it's kind of like having some software. You haven't learned all this stuff yet, you know, an app or something. And when you start observing yourself with a kind of not judgmentally just like you know what are you doing how's it going like that not good or bad you can discover all kinds of things and the things you might discover

are your reactions to something you're playing or a hard part of something or a conversation you have with someone and it all happens in this there's no separation whatsoever mind body spirit emotions all happening right here. And when you start to just observe reactions, you have opportunities to change them. And it's not a big endeavor. I mean, it is and it isn't. Sometimes people say it's so hard to change. And when it's one of your thoughts is like under stress, it's really hard to change. Maybe not. It might be hard to sustain change, but you might be surprised at your capacity so i would say get get curious about yourself and you're always you how you're walking back and forth from alton road to here you can be

observing the tension in your neck and shoulders why not and you might be finding out oh you're carrying a violin or something on your back and you're like this that's not a requirement and you might start to just even use that time quite fruitfully because then you sit down and you're like oh yeah i did that thing again it's just tuning in i love that tuning in um cory i have a question for you also can i i'd like to add something yes absolutely um one thing that none of us have really touched on since we've been here and i have is that we're also only as strong is what we're putting inside of our bodies. So we're talking about, you know,

Lori and I are both talking about, we're talking about injury, we're talking about prevention, we're talking about all these things and how we care ourselves and how we sit, but we're not talking about the monster energy drinks that are in the vending machine or the Pop-Tarts or the Cheez-Its.

And we have to take, you guys are Formula One cars and you're putting, a lot of you, I shouldn't say, I don't know, but putting crappy gas in there, you know, why am I tired? Why can't I practice? Why am I having muscle spasms? So many of these things could really be

a nutritional component, not drinking enough water. You know, I always say like, you should not be in a practice room for three hours and you haven't left multiple times to go use the restroom. You should be drinking water, going, you know, it's constantly, you have to take care of yourself on the inside in order to feel good

and take care of yourself on the outside. And as we were talking about before, drinking water from glass. Yes, the microplastic story. That's a whole other podcast. No more plastic. Yeah, no more plastic. Choreos.

One thing at a time, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, take your bottles. So many musicians, me included, actually, we push past pain. And what I was wondering is, how can we tell the difference between discomfort and danger? And what are some preventive measures that we can take to take extra care of that Formula One car?

That's a really great question. You know, something that is so important is that we all listen to our own bodies. I really believe that we know when we are doing something that is not okay. When you sprain your ankle, you know that you sprained your ankle. You know that that was bad.

So when you are practicing and if you're feeling anything sharp shooting, that is not fatigue. That is something else that is really going on. And then we have to go back to, again, stop what you're doing, go back to your technique, figure out what the problem is and fix it. You know, when you're, if you go to the gym and I was having this conversation yesterday with someone, the second, with your lifting weights, and then you start feeling you're doing bicep curls, you start feeling your shoulders come forward like this to get those last reps in. you're done. You're now using muscles that should not be used anymore. And that is going to get you

to injury. You have to stop. You either have to go down and wait, or you have to and finish your reps, or you are done in that moment. But once you start compensating, that is going to lead to injury. The other thing I like to tell people is don't do anything. Think, but always do everything with intention, you're probably not going to injure yourself if you are really using intention and listening to what's happening inside of your body. And that is, it's just very important. Yeah. Did you want to, um, no, you said, you said a lot of that pretty well. I had some thoughts, but I forgot. So, yeah. Um, what else can we do as this is like kind of a collective question, again not only as musicians but artists to cultivate more of this awareness so you talked

a lot about awareness and I think that some people over complicate what awareness is like what does that look like in your life awareness for me the thing that comes to mind is is mindfulness just being present I mean there's a classic study number of years ago this is back when beepers were a thing how many of you know what beepers are okay so number of yeah so once upon a time before we had cell phones that even made only phone calls there were these little devices that would beep us and then we'd know what number called us and we could then call them from a pay phone which you can't find anymore but in any case what they did in the study is they just beeped people at random points in the day and asked them what are you doing and what were you

thinking about and about half the time they were thinking about something completely different than what they were doing and so a lot of times i think we're just whether it's you know chopping vegetables, whether it's walking back and forth from where you live, even practicing, we're not really thinking or aware of what we're doing in the moment. And so I think just cultivating the habit of checking in every so often, even if it might require at first a little bit of a technology nudge from your phone to just think, okay, what am I doing right now? And what was I actually thinking about can help us become, we don't have to be mindfully aware all the time, 24 seven, maybe, but a lot of times it can help for us to know what am I actually doing and what am I trying

to do and where could i be making adjustments presence just what noah said and it it can even start like yesterday for those that were here yesterday you might even take it as a cue in the moment when i just said how are you sitting where's your foot and there was nothing there's nothing emotional or any big thing tied to that it's just like where's your foot because it makes you immediately present in yourself like oh what am i doing what am i doing with my hands where you've got your instrument you know where is my elbow when I do x y or z you can start there as a point of entry and just ask yourself you might find out all kinds of funny things actually or while you're sending emails or whatever you know but being present is the point of departure

yeah and and can be intentional as you were saying being it's like okay I'm gonna do the first five minutes of warming up and the most important thing is knowing what i'm doing not not the actual pitches or scales or whatever which you know automatically anyway just figure it out because you you'll find all kinds of interesting things it's true and this lack of awareness is what in many cases lead to chronic injury right what would you recommend to people who are experiencing chronic injuries what is a path that make an appointment it. I mean, but just, yeah, chronic injury is the same thing. It's like, what are you doing that caused you to get here? Seek treatment and then change the behavior that caused it in the

first place. When you're dealing with musicians, unfortunately, it's like you can't change your desk setup a lot of times. So some things are just going to be that repetitive motion, but that's why it's so important to take care of yourself. You know, when you look at professional, and you guys are all athletes, but big muscle athletes, they don't just get off the basketball court and then like go sit at home and watch TV. LeBron James, I believe has like, sounds like a million dollars a year on his body. It's like, you're just seeing the performance. You don't see everything else that is happening off the court. And I think that that is a, is a big issue that musicians have is that musicians are not surrounded by an entire team, medical team, telling them what to do,

telling them, you know, and it should, it should be that way, unfortunately, you know, we musicians should have that, that team and it's getting better. I mean, I think a lot of schools now, I mean, obviously you guys have been there for ever, you know, um, they don't let you out. You know, which is wonderful, but a lot of, you know, I, when I, like when I'm over at, um, you know, a summer festival at Music Academy of the West, it's like, I always say to them like, oh, who do you have back at school? And they're like, we don't have anybody. And I'm like, who do you go to? And they're like, I'm on YouTube. I'm like, well, you know, it's just, we need to change that. It needs to be changed. But sometimes you do have to dig into yourself

because sometimes there's just not help close by or affordable. You know, there's a piece of that too. And you still, again, if you stay present in yourself, it's not a bad thing. It's interesting. I mean, who's more interesting than yourself, you know, and kind of get interested in stuff and you'll figure out all kinds of things you already have. You wouldn't have gotten here if you didn't, you know, so you can use that, those brain cells in a whole lot of ways. Yeah, yeah. And one of the things I was talking about yesterday in the presentation was this, going back to awareness, the importance of noticing what you're thinking. And, you know, you're thinking something if you're feeling something. So understanding what you're thinking so your thinking doesn't manage you, right?

So you manage what you're thinking so your thinking doesn't manage you. But another thing that's really important is to remember that all the feelings are valid and the negative feelings are crucial clues as to your state and that we want to pay attention to that. We want to honor these feelings and get curious. Curiosity is one of my favorite words. So that awareness of your body, that awareness of your inner state, and that the curiosity you bring to do an inquiry as to why am I feeling this way? Well, first of all, what am I feeling?

Why am I feeling this way? What's the thinking behind this? And then you can start to second guess the things that you think are true and see if another alternative could be serving you better. So I think this all-around holistic awareness of your body, your inner state, is something that can help everyone thrive long-term. I'd love to maybe have a lot of time for questions, and then maybe we can get back to one final question here at the end. or is that like while you get the mic to people is there anything i didn't ask that you guys wanted to to share before we turn the mic over i was just uh thinking though this last thing that you were talking about with tracking your thoughts and stuff you know if if you flip things around a

little bit just shifting perspective is sometimes a good mind opener so pain is actually protective it's an alert it's not a bad thing it's protective especially if you pay attention soon enough so pain and discomfort are in the moment they don't feel great but they're actually good whoever made these humans they did a really good thing they gave us a lot of room to be not perfect so we have abilities to recognize that if you're having so the so-called negative self-talk going on maybe there's something positive about that and you could ask yourself now why am I saying that to myself and you might be able to flip it around and get some some better ways to deal with yourself so rather than just saying oh all these things are

bad or negative they're useful and they actually are in many ways built into us as protections and what we part of what they gave us whoever they are that built this human thing and they did a really good job it just took millions of years um but part of what they gave us was conscious choice it's what alexander called our supreme inheritance so you have the ability to make choices about how you're behaving and what you're doing and they could be little things or big things and they gave us the signals to say hey maybe you ought to think about this differently you're in pain you're in discomfort your mind is saying something negative it doesn't you're not discounting the emotions you're just looking a little further but it's an interesting

thing flip things around yeah really well put yeah I see someone holding a mic please tell us your name and what your question is yeah hi my name is Morgan Bennett um thank you so much for all of your words. It's been really informative. Something that I've been thinking about is a lot of musicians at the New World Symphony are in a unique time of their lives where they're really exiting childhood and early adolescence into adulthood. And with that transition comes a lot of new challenges, both physically where our bodies don't, you know, bounce back from injury and strain in the same way as when we were 18, our personal lives become a lot more complex and thus our psychological states. Are there pieces of advice that you

could give us relevant to this, you know, specific time in our life that can carry us through, you know, early adulthood and the process of aging? who goes first very great question i'm going to jump in yeah i i think that um there's so many answers could be given to this and i know that you're going to have extremely wise advice i think the one thing that i would i would go with would be that when you get to these transitional phases it's easy to lack trust in your own instinct. And I think that you can grant yourself permission to trust yourself in the decisions that you're making and in the instinct that you have.

One thing that I see a lot with people around this age, people I work with, is that this fear of taking agency over your decisions, over your choices, and to trust that you know what's best for you because you know one of the most amazing thing about being here at New World is that you you'll play for many people and get a lot of feedback and at times it's hard to to see that you could be also giving yourself really great advice that might be different than what someone else said the day before so it's important to listen and take in information that is given to you, but to also tune in to the information coming from inside and turn on that trust, self-trust dial and really take agency over your choices, your decisions. And life is long.

There's so room. I'm going to, you know, you were talking about, doesn't have to be perfect. There's so room for, so much room for experimentation and trying things, seeing what works seeing what doesn't work with a lot of patience and curiosity and and forgiveness if things don't work right it's just it's like a game we're playing a game so you can try things following your instinct trusting yourself and and then um from that you're really building something that is uniquely your own so morgan um it sort of fits in a little bit what you were saying be kind to yourself a lot of generosity for yourself and everyone in the room because everyone has their days and um trial and error is a really great way to learn and we did

learn how to walk some of us from falling a bunch but there's a famous playwright Samuel Beckett who said if you fail again fail again better and it's okay it's all learning experience and sometimes it's very upsetting but again a little give yourself a little grace and a little space and you all have tremendous resilience you wouldn't have gotten here if you didn't you I'm sure everybody screwed up something here didn't win every single thing they ever did and you get up and you do it again and have faith on those experiences as well because it's not it's it's a challenging time but very exciting and the cool thing here at New World you have time you know it's whatever two three years if you stay the whole time but you have time

and you have so much support and um things like people like us coming through the teachers coming through it's okay to get you know get that support and sometimes maybe you don't want it go to the beach you know but it's uh it's a long process and you have resilience for the bumps on the road. A bit of grace. And I just want to thank you, Morgan, for the, that's a very vulnerable question. And it was very brave of you to like, and I guarantee you, you're not the only person feeling that way in this group. So really taking that time to also like talk to other people here. And cause I'm sure a lot, a lot of you guys are going through those same emotions. And I love going to the beach, you know, really getting your feet in the sand and getting grounded.

And also I think journaling is really important. And I'm sure Noah's going to have something to say about that, but writing down like at the end of the day, all those things that are going through your head, everything that, you know, when you lay in bed at night and you guys can't fall asleep and your mind is racing, write stuff down. Don't watch, don't watch Instagram. Don't get on TikTok, just start journaling. And then when you are in it, even a week later, a few days later, you read back, you're like, wow, look how much different I am today than I was in this moment. But to get it out of your body can be so incredibly powerful and to really write down what you're experiencing. This might just be another way of saying what everyone else has

already said, but I remember when I started grad school, thinking that I was behind and I needed to catch up in some way, I needed to do more like now. And my advisor, who must have been in his 50s at the time yeah you know don't be so much in a rush to try to get to where you think you need to go like he said he didn't figure out stuff until he was in his like early 40s and that wasn't that didn't make me feel any better to be honest I don't know wait until then and he said you know even then like he still hadn't figured everything out so the takeaway for me and I think I've gotten old enough and I've talked to enough folks who are older is don't assume that everyone around you who seem like they have things figured out, even those who might be

decades older than you, who clearly on paper seem to have figured things out, don't assume that they actually have. Who's got the next question? We've got a question right here. hi my name is Vishnu thank you all so much for the insightful conversation it's great to be a witness to it all I would love to ask all four of you something that came up to me when I was listening is I often feel that the world is very, I want to say pragmatic, right? That sometimes we're very much we're a society that's so centered on results. So I'd be curious to know what you all have to say, because sometimes I find that I'm sometimes I'm very scared because it's like I want to be able to trust in the process but then I have the other side of that which is like but

what are going to be the results of it like what's going to come of all this so if my favorite example of this is I don't know if there are any basketball fans in the room or Celtics fans okay a few yeah so so Brad Stevens is very curious intellectually and very psychologically savvy and very progressive in that way. And when he got to the Celtics organization years ago as a coach, he had everyone read Carol Dweck's book, Mindset, about the growth versus fixed mindset. The idea that we are always capable of more growth and learning and evolution than we might give ourselves credit for. It's not like we have this fixed amount of talent in these areas. And if you start struggling, it means you've reached the end and there's no getting further. And he

said his goal was to change the organization's kind of mindset to one that was focused on growth instead of trophies even though the Celtics to that point were tied with the Lakers for having the most championships in history and so you know it took a while but each season he was there for the first I don't know five seasons they won more games than they did the year before and he said that one of the things that they did is they he experimented with things during the season which might not have worked and might have led to some losses early on in the season but prepared them better to be able to continue to grow from year to year and to do better in the playoffs. And they continue to win more games. And last year, not this past season, but the season before,

they eventually won a championship and now have more championships than any other team in the NBA. And so I love that ending to the story because, you know, it paid off. And there's a great video if you want to look for it on YouTube with Brad Stevens on, I believe, a show called What Drives Winning. And I don't want to give away the ending because you have to see it, but you see him in his coaching days like actually like walking the walk he doesn't just talk a good game he lives that and he could see it in what he did and and how things turned out in that particular game so yeah i encourage you to check it out see if you can find it i would say that i'm seeing the industry changing very slowly and that it starts in rooms like this

with conversations like this and really you guys are in charge and capable of making more of that change happen um so that there's more awareness there's more conversations like this that creates change so things feel less pragmatic and where everybody is feeling involved at a personal level and feel seen and cared for in where the whole industry is itself a more humane place to evolve. Do any of you guys play video games? You don't have to admit it. I do not, but my husband plays Destiny, if you guys know Destiny, and he loves playing. That's how he zones out. But one thing that he actually did an entire talk called what I've learned from video games. But the key point, I remember the whole thing because I

kind of zoned out. But one of the main things that he talks about that just really resonated with me is that when you're playing video games, if you are not, if you don't have people shooting at you were coming after you, you're going the wrong way. Okay. You got to turn around and you got to go towards the difficult stuff. When you get to that big boss, most of the times you're going to die. And then you have to go back and do it again and do it again and do it again because you're ready to level up. So when you get past that big boss, you get to that next level. So if you're going through tough times, you're leveling up. If everything is going so easy and swimmingly, you're not taking enough auditions. You're not playing stuff that's challenging you.

You've got to run towards the bad guys, or not call them bad guys, but run towards the challenges in order to get to the big boss, to level up and get to that next level. That's perfect. Sounds like a TED talk right there. Right. You probably could do a TED talk Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you for asking. Oh, I see a hand over there. These are great questions. Keep them coming.

Hi, I'm Jordan. Thank you all for being here. This is a very interesting talk. Kind of going off of the last question, I've been struggling lately with... With wanting to continue to better myself and then not knowing when to kind of stop and just be okay with the product that I have, I was interested in how you feel about trusting in what path you're going on and how long to wait to see if the results are kind of... I mean, we only get auditions to give us results. So it's like, if you get a bunch of no's, does that mean that you're not on the right path?

It's, I don't know. I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. Well, so one thing that comes to mind when I hear that, and I don't know if this addresses your question directly, but so Jason Haim, you know, principal timidist at the Met. he has an engineering background. I mean, that's what his life was up until that point. He thinks kind of like an engineer and he is very adamant about recording all of your auditions, even if explicitly forbidden or discouraged. And it means in some cases you need a backup device because if they ask for your phone, no one's going to assume that you're so audacious as to have a backup device already running. They're not going to pat you down, at least not yet.

And his metaphor for that was like, you know, taking audition without recording yourself is like going bowling through a curtain. Like you throw the ball, like you have some sense of how it felt to throw it, but you don't know exactly what happened. And for me, from the mental perspective, you know, you record yourself during preparation all the time as a way of basically just practicing performing and not being quite so analytical and self-monitoring in that critical, judgmental, analytical kind of way. And if you then take away that ability to listen back later and say, you know, was I rushing or did this phrase come out the way that I want, which you can do when you record yourself in the mocks and the lead up to the auditions. If you then take that away in the audition, suddenly like your brain's going to be very curious how things are going. Like you're going to be wanting to monitor in that sort of analytical critical way, which is not where you want to be in that moment. And so from that purely kind of selfish performance perspective, it can be helpful to still have that there. And then the way in which that maybe relates to your question is, it's then a little bit easier to get a sense of, am I progressing?

Am I accomplishing the things? Am I developing the skills that I want? Or am I improving in the way that I'm able to approach this excerpt or that excerpt or play in this sort of way in this moment based on the actual data that you have from your recordings? If we depend too much just on results, I mean, those can vary so much, as you all know. and the comments and the feedback that you get can be helpful but also infuriatingly difficult to decipher or interpret sometimes because they can be so different from one to the next or even within people on the same committee so the only thing that you can really compare from your practice and into auditions and beyond is the recording of yourself in these different settings

and you make it a lot easier to do what something you know this is something jason also talks about And I think one of his colleagues at the Met, Rob Knopper, talks about the goal in some ways, and this is aligned with the growth mindset too, isn't so much to win the audition so much as it is to figure out what preparation process enables you to win auditions consistently. And that can take some of this sort of personal investment in the auditions away and kind of redirect it to this external thing that you have more control over, which is, you know, when do I start doing mocks? How many do I do? What kind of metronome practice do I need for these kinds of excerpts? Or what sort of etudes are going to help me with this particular kind of bro stroke that doesn't work for me under pressure, et cetera. And you can hone and refine your process, which then that's the thing that's really of value because you can take that from

one audition to the next I love that yeah I yeah I really agree with all of this and one thing that came up for me too from this question is this concept of the arrival fallacy was that when if I get the audition then I'll be happy I'll feel fulfilled I'll feel worthy all of these things and one of the things that I have a coaching program called the music master experience and one of the things that we're doing this fall is we talk about the importance of appreciating ourselves for who we are in the moment and I know it sounds really woo-woo but it's very important because right if you're on a journey and you see the destination you know the mountain and it's still very far away and that's the only focus that you have the distance from where you are

in the distance from where you are between where you are in English is hard between where you are and the destination that can cause so many thoughts and so many emotions. And it's this importance of also looking back at the journey that you've covered so far. And also, you know, you sit down and you enjoy the scenery around you and have a deep appreciation for this place where you are,

like this awareness that we were talking about, like being in the moment. And all of those things are really important. I mean, even at the physiological level, because it's very calming for the nervous system when you're able to show some appreciation for the self and create the sense of fulfillment from where you are in the moment and feel like you are enough as you are right now. You can still strive to reach the mountain, but as you are right now, you are enough. You've done great things and all

of this can help you move forward. So it's very important to take time and look at who you are right now. Everyone is worthy as they are right now intrinsically so that you can reach that destination if that's what's in store for you. But if not, the journey will take you elsewhere. So I don't know if I'm answering your question precisely, but that's what was coming up for me is that the destination is a great thing to strive for, but it's all about the process and the things that you're doing along the way. If I take it to the audition process,

as Noah was saying, I mean, it's such a tricky thing because you don't know what they're expecting and people on the same panel will have different expectations. And it just is, it cannot be a representation of who you are. and I don't think it should be taken as such. So anyway, I'm going on the tangent now, I'll stop. But my point is that to take the time to, while keeping the destination in mind, look the ground

that you've covered, look at the ground that you've covered and nurture a real sense of appreciation for who you are. And for me, that's different than gratitude. I've talked about on the podcast before, like I have a gratitude practice and I think gratitude is such a powerful emotion to have. And we can have gratitude for things around us, people around us, but we often forget to have a sense of self-gratitude for the things that we've done. So I think if we can nurture that, appreciate all of the things, I mean, just getting up in the morning, like you've already done something you're not even out of bed like you're right um operating throughout the day showing up in the practice room when your head is filled with fear and apprehension

showing up to an audition you guys had auditions this morning like all of these are acts of courage and you guys do these acts of courage every single day and I don't know if you appreciate it enough So I think that for me, that's how you get to stay in the present moment and gather strength from where you are so that you can end up. Or even, I mean, as I said, you know, a goal is a great thing to strive for. But even if you don't reach that specific goal, the journey will take you somewhere. So if you make it about that journey, and I know everyone said that before me. I'm not the first person to say this. um but yes so nurturing that that deep sense of self-appreciation because you guys are doing

hundreds of acts of courage every day it's not easy but if i can attach a quick story to to that this is a new world story um some of you might know doug rosenthal a trombonist at kennedy center and he said that you know for him one of the breaks i want to say it was his third year he was here you know as some of you know that's when it starts to feel more real maybe um but he said that you know he got to a point where he resolved that he was not going to attach his happiness to the results of auditions so it wasn't like he was going to defer permission to be happy and to you know be present and all those things until after he won the job and so you know he got to that point internally and came to some peace with that and lo and behold you know within

a span of two weeks one two auditions that he got to choose from between so so this is not like a formula you can just kind of copy and paste like do this and then win all these auditions but but I think there's something to be said for for yeah I mean I think all of us tend to defer happiness until we get to a point where we feel like we're deserving of it or we can afford to be that way um but but there's lots of stuff around you that you can enjoy in the present even if you haven't yet arrived as it were that's all you know ditto to everything and Jordan I you know you've gotten a lot of answers to your question um within that if you're in that any of you are in that process of like oh god I'm doing this again

and it's not still not quite where I want or I was hoping or whatever a really good thing to do when you just step back a little bit it's just saying what was it I want what do I want not what I want to do but what do I want and if it's like yeah I really want an orchestra job or I want a life that is well supported by the lifestyle of playing in an orchestra which you're getting to live now anyway or you might find out you actually want something else altogether but every now and again just that question it sort of fits in with when Vishnu was asking you can just give a little executive session with yourself and say what do I want and and not what I want to do what do I want you might find that interesting yeah a question i ask clients is if you could not fail and

everything was possible what would you go for and it's those answers can be interesting how about you cory no i always have something to say um one thing i want to say is first of all like with auditions you go on and or performances you have don't dwell on what didn't go the way you wanted to go don't you go to an audition if you don't get you just you forget about it I have, seriously, but like take what you learn from it and then you move on. I have this one patient who said this one thing to me. So he's an actor.

He's on a pretty big TV show that's now a movie. But anyway, I remember I said to him, I said, hey, how did that audition go last week? And he goes, which one? I go, you were going to so much. And he goes, oh, I don't know. Because he doesn't, he goes, he auditions, he doesn't get it, he moves on to the next thing.

He moves on bettering the next thing until he gets the thing that's the thing. and all of the no's you get, it doesn't matter because all that matters is that one yes that's the thing that's meant for you. It's like when I can't find something in the house and I'm looking everywhere and I'm like, I looked everywhere, it was the last place I looked.

Well, of course it was the last place I looked. I'm gonna stop looking after I find it. But you have to look everywhere and cover all that ground to know where it's not. And I am super woo-woo also. Those aren't your jobs, Jordan. Those weren't your jobs. Your job's not here yet.

Because either they're not ready for you or you're not ready for them yet. You haven't found it yet. But when you stop getting the no's, all it takes is that one yes. And then that could be a tenure position. It's like you never have to look for another job again. And there you go. Yeah. Another question.

Hi, I'm Archie. Thank you all so much for your differing perspectives that all kind of weave together to create something really great. Another question about auditions, unfortunately. Rob Knopper and some other figures in the audition preparation area tend to promote the theory that you should only take the audition if you're in it to win it. this kind of, I'm in it to win it this time.

Over my time at New World, I've been debating between the theory of only taking the audition if I know that I'm ready to win it or taking the audition because I want to learn from the experience. And I want to know what your thoughts are about can these two things coexist? Does it differ between people? Does the mindset of

I'm taking this audition to win this audition, does that create problems with the body, with the self? Does it make performance better or worse? Preparation better or worse? What are your thoughts about this idea? And do you think it's valuable to take an audition just for the experience? I have very strong feelings about this.

and I think that the blanket statement I will say is take the auditions you want to take and for the reasons that you want and that's enough and if an audition for you is a process to learn that's great if you're in it to win it that's great so I would say that we you can grant yourself permission to take any audition you want for any reason that you want and I think that if being in it to win it what I would say is any audition that I took I was willing to do my best to play the best that I could that day and every single time it looked different different energy levels different phase of life and I would say do your best with what you have and it's going to look different every time and it's not going to look like anyone else's

process so there's nothing that you technically you should do to be worthy of taking an audition and I think that um I hope that's clear when I'm the message I'm trying to convey here is that you like the those books where you're the the hero of your own adventure like you get to choose your journey for each audition. So yeah, I think to sum it up, it's whatever your purpose is with taking an audition, it's valid and it's your decision. And I like the idea of seeing things or seeing even the life as a game. It's kind of a game we're playing. We're trying things, we're rolling the dice or we're strategizing. And if we see it on a little bit as more of an experiment and things are not as serious as we think, then I think it just brings

a little bit of lightness and it makes it easier for us to move forward with more trust in our decisions. Does that make any sense? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I would have said that it's unfortunately not a black and white answer as we would all like it to be it's a little more fuzzy and nuanced um in the sense that like sure you don't want to go to an audition show up not prepared knowing you're not prepared just for the heck of doing it um because that's probably not going to feel great and you're not going to get the results you want but if you wait until you feel ready to win it and and feel like you are absolutely going to you might not take a lot of auditions yeah it's very easy you know there i'm sure you've heard

friends or other folks tell stories of times where they went to the audition and they thought about not going because you know how it feels in the last few days it's like oh I'm not ready at all this is going to be embarrassing etc and then they win because it's not that they weren't prepared it's not that they weren't capable of doing the job or winning the audition it can just feel like we're terrible as we get closer and closer to it so this even this idea of feeling like oh I'm going to practice in such a way that I in the preparation to it like I get more and more and more confident it. And then the day of, I know I'm going to win it. There's no doubt in my mind. Sometimes that happens just sort of accidentally, but that's not a prerequisite for winning the audition.

Because as you also probably know, a lot of your friends and colleagues have won auditions where they didn't play their absolute best. In fact, that's probably more the norm. And a lot of times even they won't win the audition, but because of other circumstances, they will get the job, right? Because the person who won ends up having something else happen and so forth. so so yeah I would a little bit cautious in terms of waiting until you absolutely feel ready because then you may not get as much experience in those situations as you might need another question what did you have something to share that it's I think it's been pretty well answered uh you got a lot to think about there you know yeah when cory mentioned an actor

who did so many auditions and you know you're up in that career they do a lot more auditions than you all do so very easily and opera singers too they're like auditioning all the time they're you know but with instrumentalists sometimes you play trumpet or trombone or percussion sometimes those auditions don't even come up all that often so in order to gain some experience in the act of doing auditions a little bit what noah was saying it's not a black and white wait till you're ready it's like well you got to get out there and learn how you do that because it's a it's a thing too something i was telling a client last week she was wondering the same thing and i said don't make the decision for the the jury for the panel let them decide

and this happened to me too before where i went in and played and walked out thinking this this was not it and you know one so exactly what Noah was saying so it's like don't make the decision for for the panel do what you can with the preparation and understand that you're never going to feel ready it's there's never enough time right but you can still make a lot of progress and then you show up and treat this as an experience and there's something to be gained And I feel like every audition is a win in a sense because there's the gained experience. There's all of these acts of courage

that I was talking about. It takes a lot of guts to show up for an audition. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of expenses. And then you walk away having, you know, it's cheesy, but you win or you have gained knowledge and both are extremely valuable. But as Noah was saying, and Lori, you can't wait to feel ready

because I don't know if feeling ready is something anyone has ever experienced in the history of the world. I think we have time for one more question. Who's the lucky one? It's a question, I have a question and I'm not a fellow, but I need to ask something. So one observation, one question.

So an observation that I have is that, you know, there's different disciplines here, physical, emotional, mental, but almost all the questions I've been asked are about identity and essence, which I think is fascinating. And I don't have an answer for that right now, but I'm going to think about it. The main question I have is during my fellowship and during others' fellowships, I think that there is a moment or a handful of moments that you can look back on and say,

that was where things turned for me, or that was when I realized what I had to do or who I was. And I'm curious if you would all be willing to share if you had a moment like that, and what it was and when it was? Maybe I'll go first. So for me, it was realizing the second year of Juilliard, I was in this international competition and I'd always had trouble getting prepared and practicing and it was the same for this.

And I just couldn't prepare, I couldn't practice. Like day of the competition arrived, like the third movement of concerto wasn't learned, memorized. You know, the Bach in the second round was not memorized. and I was like well you know what's going on with me and then again eventually over the course of the year began to realize that I didn't really identify with with a violin identity or being a musician I'd just done it my whole life but I never called myself a violinist or a musician I would just say that I played the violin there's always that little bit of distance and so having

a conversation with some friends in a quartet you know what what would we do if we won the lottery And, you know, after buying a Strad and a Ferrari and a Loft in Soho, you know, like you still have money left over. You still have to live a life. So, you know, all of their ideas were still in the music world. And I knew that it wouldn't be for me. I didn't know what I would do, but I knew it wouldn't be in the music world. And so that was the first time I realized, oh, I thought everyone, if you won the lottery, you would leave music and do something else. But it turns out that wasn't the case.

And so I figured maybe I should think about this a little bit. And so that's when, you know, taking the class with Don, I started finding these other interests that I had that were related still to the music world, which I obviously had a strong attachment to. And so that's when I realized, oh, you know, maybe playing the violin just isn't me. And that's a question that I've sort of continued to sometimes ask myself, you know, is this me? Whether, you know, are these shoes me? Like, is this shirt me? Is this belt me? Like, silly, trivial things sometimes.

But it turns out a lot of times that can be a really helpful guiding question. Like, is this me? like does this resonate with me um and so yeah I'm going to use that I like it yeah to look back on a lot of years um because there's a few there are a few sort of pivotal pivotal instances but I think once that you know I when I was maybe 20 or something if you'd said you're not going to be playing the trumpet in 15 years i would have thought what are you nuts because i mean i that's all i ever thought about except i'd had this great along the path the alexander thing helped me so much as i

mentioned earlier and i knew i from the very first lesson i wanted to help other people with that but i still thought you know i'm going to do this other thing and by the way i wasn't like the mega talent in the bunch i had to really work hard to do anything and um and then when i was in new York at grad school I was doing some freelancing because you do and it was on one of these gigs with the Gilbert and Sullivan opera which the trumpet parts like not too exciting and um but I was like the young one of the younger people in the pit because there's a bunch of New York freelancers just sitting there doing the thing and and a bunch of people are sort of complaining like oh this is no good and then you know just they had a lot of gripes about life and the music

and the conductor and all kinds of stuff and I'm just thinking wow I don't want to be that in 20 years I really that's not that's not me and fortunately I'd already been involved with Alexandra it started to train to teach and I knew that I would stay playing for a while because that's the realm I would teach in so that was a kind of a real clear moment like well I know what I don't want and it's that life and I also know I'm a little bit risk averse being a freelancer that's a little risky in life uh but i had some good opportunities but then came a moment i was telling one of you about maybe no um when i just started teaching alexander one of my teachers had been teaching at at juilliard

alexander technique and he only had two hours of classes and and he was you know he was good and stuff but he was decided he was going to move out of new york and i all of a sudden heard myself saying, so what are you going to do with that Alexander job? And he said, well, I was thinking about you or this other person. I said, I'll do it. That poor other person had no opportunity whatsoever. None. She also lived in Hartford. But anyway, I just, it was a moment, I'd never done anything like that before. And I've maybe only done something like that one or two times since, because that's not, I would be too nervous or shy, but it felt so right. So I just knew that that's where I want to be. That's me. And I got that job. It was really easy. I walked into the

dean's office with this other teacher and he said, this is who I suggest that you, you know, is that you hire in my place. The then dean didn't even look up. He goes, okay, just go to HR down the hall. Okay. No audition, no application, nothing. And that's how it happened. And then from there I found my sort of professional home and community and built it out and by the way here we are but there's just sometimes a moment and it just you don't necessarily even question it you just go I'll do it and and don't don't doubt yourself on those moments just let it happen because probably there's some inspiration so I don't know yeah that's that I have a very specific moment where you've heard me talk about thoughts and feelings and feelings create your actions and

I really do believe that one thought can change your life and I've had that proven in my life many many times and I remember one in particular I remember the moment I remember where I was and it's only with hints like that you know looking back that I realized after a while that this thought changed my life I had always wanted to do a doctorate but I thought that to do a doctorate in music you need to be this theory whiz which I was not I mean I could do you know one four five one but you know in my mind you needed to be just you know shinkaren analysis and all that stuff and so I never did it but I really wanted to I had ideas in my head about dissertations I would write and it just it was this dream that never came true and I always felt

less than because I wanted to do this doctorate and felt like I'm just not good enough at theory and I was in my parents' basement, I was practicing. And at some point this thought came and it was, but what if I could figure it out? And I don't know where it came from. I don't know why it came, but in that instance, it became a possibility that I could at least apply and then let them decide if I wasn't good enough to do a doctorate. And I'm now a doctor. And it really came from that moment and a little bit like like laurie says like sometimes there's a thought that shifts something in you and i call that follow the breadcrumbs like just the next thought and the next thought and it will take you somewhere like going back to what i was taking

talking about earlier about agency and trusting yourself like when you have these these desires and these um forget the word in english but the not urges but a hunch that the word to try something or say something, what would happen if you followed that? So for me, that was this moment, which completely changed my life. So I can say it, one thought can change your life. Such a personal question, man. So I think, yeah, everyone's had like this moment

that you're like, something happens and it's changed. For me, I was at a point in my life where I was running a lab in neuroscience I was teaching scuba diving in the morning on the weekends. I was singing at the Hard Rock Cafe at night, and I was working 24 hours a week in the ICU trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I remember I was in the ICU

because I thought I was going to go to traditional medical school and I was going to be one of those people that wrote prescriptions all day. And I had this one patient that the doctor messed up, the nurse messed up. I don't know who messed up, but he was given too much IV fluids and it ended up putting him into congestive heart failure. So that's when there's too much really like blood in your body or liquid in your body

and it can't flow through and it backs up for the heart the other way. And he was like a tough guy. He was like a sergeant or lieutenant or something in the sheriff's department. And he was about to crash. He was about to have a heart attack and die. And everyone comes coming in, and he's totally conscious.

And he's going, what's going on? What's going on? And I sat there, and they're just going, we need you this. We need that. And I held his hand, and I looked at him, and I said, don't worry about them. You need to look at me. I got you. We're going to breathe together.

We're going to do this together. And no one's talking to him. No one's telling him what's going on. They're just trying to figure everything out. And he looks at me, and he said, I'm scared. And I said, it's OK. I got you. We're here.

Let's just breathe together. So he made it through that night. Everything got quiet. I sat there and I held his hand and they looked at me and said, Corey, you need to clock out. Your shift's over. And I handed him my badge and I said, I'm not leaving. And I said, go ahead and clock me out. And I sat there with him until he fell asleep. I came into the next morning and his wife, who I hadn't met, ran over to me and hugged me. And she said, my husband told me you saved his life last night. He said, he's calling you his angel. And that's when I realized at that moment, I was not going to work in a situation where I'm just writing prescriptions for drugs for people. I'm going to make sure people learn

how to take care of themselves so they never get to a point where they're in that situation. So there you go, Jared. But whatever that moment is for you, you guys will know what that moment when you're in the right place and you're doing what your life's purpose is to do. And sometimes it will look like following the breadcrumbs to it. Well, I hate to bring us to time constraints after such a beautiful story,

but if we were to do just a quick rapid fire question as we're finishing things up, tell me if the fellows could walk away with just one small habit that would have the biggest impact on their performance or wellbeing, what would you recommend? You get 20 seconds each. In 20 seconds, I don't know. The word is variable practice. You can look it up if you want. But the idea is we tend to get very fixed on one exact way of doing it over and over and over until we can do it perfectly that way.

Turns out that's not great from a physical health standpoint. It's also not great from a motor learning perspective. It's not great from a flexibility perspective in terms of being able to adapt on stage. I guess the easiest way to summarize it is Toby Apple, violist, faculty at Juilliard. He says he doesn't practice what he's going to do on stage so much as he practices all the things that he might do on stage. That's kind of an elegant way of putting what this looks like in practice. Awesome. I think something similar but a little bit broader is have an open mind and be curious. It's habit of mind that the rest will, the rest, then you can pay attention to yourself. That's it. I love that. I guess I would say sleep, drink water, just take care of yourself

and be kind to yourself. Please don't ever speak to yourself the way you wouldn't speak to your best friend or somebody that you loved. Because sometimes with that negative self-talk we were talking about. It's like, you would never talk to your friends that way. So why do you talk to yourself that way? And all these little things that you're doing now, they build up. It's like when I see someone and they say, I never had this kind of pain before. I'm like, yeah, but you've been playing for 15 years. You've been playing for, it builds and builds and builds and builds. So all the little things you're doing now, whether it's like eating something that's not good for you, drinking something that's not good for you, not sleeping enough, it's all going to build and

build and build and build. So just be kind to yourself and treat your body like a temple. It's true. I love that. And patience, patience with yourself. I wrote the question, but I didn't prepare anything. But I think what's coming up for me is to like take agency in your life, trust yourself. And whenever a client asks me, what should I do? What should I do? My answer is always, if you knew the answer to this question, what would it be? And they come up with the perfect answer. You have the answers. Just listen to yourself. Listen to your own answers and trust that you, like, you already know so much. You already are so knowledgeable, so wise. And if you start to listen to yourself, you're going to find some beautiful, wise, incredible answers that

really fit what you're looking for. So, well, in closing, I want to say thank you guys for being here. And I also want to say a big thank you to Jarrett and everyone at New World for having us this week. It was also a gift for us to be here. And I want to thank you guys for being here today. and there you have it thank you so much for spending this time with me today if you enjoyed this episode i'd love it if you'd share with your friends and colleagues take a screenshot post it on social media and tag me i'm mind over finger everywhere i always love hearing your favorite takeaways. And if you're ready to take your playing career to the next level, I'd love to invite you to join the Music Mastery Experience. This is my signature

group coaching program where we're going to dive deep into building your confidence and mastery and set you up for success and fulfillment in your life and career. You can find all the details at mindoverfinger.com. While you're there, check out the free downloads and online courses available to support your journey even further. And don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter so you never miss an update or a tool to help you thrive. Again, thank you for being here. Until next time, much love and à bientôt! Thank you.