You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Keys to a Growth Mindset

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

It's the dead of summer and the A/C's broken at the Podcave, but Peter and Adam battle through the heat to give you 7 ways to grow as a player.7 Keys to a Growth Mindset:Abundance, not scarcityHonest evaluationCourageTarget your weaknesses and your strengthsDon't pay attention to praise, only criticismRepertoire, solos, experiences (sitting in)Always Be Learning (#ABL)BONUSWe have been nominated in the Music category of The People's Choice Podcast Awards! To submit, please sign up to vote for us in the Music Category here: https://www.podcastawards.com/Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. What's up? How you feeling, man? I'm hot. Why? Because it's hot in here. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll hear it podcast. As well as the supple sounds of St. Louis's own Nelly. Jazz coming at you. I don't even know what's coming at him. It's so hot in her. Our air conditioning is broken here in the podcast. This is such a cozy place in the winter. Man, it's cozy right now.

It's just, look at that. 90 degrees inside. 5 degrees here. I just took this of the... And it's, for those of you who are like from the southwest of the United States or maybe somewhere where you've got a nice dry climate. No. 90 in St. Louis is not 90 in Phoenix. And that, this was, that temperature was out there.

Sorry, I'm chewing and eating. I'm just letting it all hang out today. Go for it. In the pod cave, we've got to be a good five to seven degrees warmer, right? Yeah, this is soundproof and yet unbearable. Right. I mean, literally the air is not moving here. It's just like, it's like a Louisiana summer under the moss tree just sits.

it in here. Look at your pits. Oh, man. Sorry about the, yeah. All right, let's get, let's keep it going. Let's go. Let's keep moving.

Just keep. All right, so today, what are we talking about? We're talking about seven keys to a growth mindset. Now, this sounds, uh, like you were doing some CEO research or something and you, you had this idea. But I think this is cool. We can approach maybe some things we've kind of talked about. Yeah.

Subtle. Yeah. That's my bubbly. We're still going for a bubbly sponsorship here. Bubly get it. Um, some things that maybe we've talked about in different kinds of, But we're going to kind of do it for those of you who might be in business And maybe some business speak maybe try to think about it in a different way think about it as

Like you would a business yeah or a development plan right? But we're gonna apply it to your development of being a great a better jazz musician That's right so let's let's get going here. What's number one first I just want to say we're about to get up all in people's business Okay, sorry this level wants to say that I'm glad you got that I got that okay number one Abundance not scarcity Okay, this is so important for a growth mindset And it applies so much to the world of jazz and creative music Jazz is such a creative music that we have to Put on this mindset of there is more always more not that there is less

So that means that there's more phrases there's more ideas Yeah, and this is why we have to be generous as jazz musicians We have to share what we know what we learn because what are we doing right now buddy Exactly exactly we are experiencing but this is how you lead to more growth personal growth It's weird. You give to others, but more importantly, you give to the music by playing things or whatever, but we're never worried about, oh, I don't want to give out my chords because there's only a limited number of ones and these are mine. No, they're not yours. There's notes. The universes. Yeah. There's only 12 notes in the chromatic scale, but there's an infinite way to put them together. So this also, I think, applies to just in terms of how we practice, like, that we want to grow abundantly. We don't want to like, okay, I want to grow a finite amount and there's only a certain ways that I can grow. For sure. So we don't want to get overwhelmed. And when you put on that abundant mindset, you can definitely can get overwhelmed.

But it's going to be coupled with some things that we say later to keep us from that, I think. Yeah. And have patience with your abundance. There is a lot to do and just realize you're in this for the long haul. Right. And so have some patience. Stick with it. Take one thing at a time.

Yep. One practice session at a time. Okay. Number two, this is very, very important for growing for whatever you're doing, whether that's in business or in school or in general. piano and that's honest evaluation because we do need to not hype ourselves up too much and we do need to not tear ourselves down too much we have to take our ego out of it as much as much as we possibly can yes and try to give honest self-feedback right the people who I know who are really great like you're such a great self-feedback you have you're really good at giving

yourself feedback that's not like I'm terrible I'm I don't deserve this or whatever or also, you know, not like, oh, this is incredible. You're just very honest with yourself. And so that, I think, is something you can take away is that you just have to casually identify your weaknesses. And we'll get to what to do with them a little bit later. Absolutely. I was just writing down my bonus one because I forgot to note that. I got a good one.

That's right. I'm going to surprise you if we're still alive by the time we get to that. Nice little bonus for our growth mindset. Okay, so that was two. Let's go to three. Three, I've got courage. Courage. Yeah.

In order to grow, to get to the promised land, to even try to get there, we have to be courageous. And, you know, we're not slaying, you know, animals in the Wild West or anything, but we have to have the courage to try things and to fail, actually. And that's really what the courage. A lot of people, times people associate because of how we're brought up, courage being associated with, success. But actually having courage is associated with failure and then I think leads to ultimate success. But you have to have the courage to fail specifically. Absolutely. You have to have the courage to take risks. You have to have the courage to be vulnerable, to be yourself, to put yourself out there. All of that takes tremendous courage. And this is so important for being a great jazz

musician and trying to develop as a jazz musician because even on like the micro level of playing a solo. Once you get in this mindset, if I can grow and I'm courageous and I'm willing to fail, you're more likely to be able to take chances even when you solo. So you might take chances in your practice and who you play with. But all that takes courage. So I mean, we don't have time to go into today all the different ways that you can be courageous, but just know that that's a mindset. Number four is to target your weaknesses and your strengths. I like this one. So when we do our honest evaluation, when we're courageous enough to be honest with ourselves about what we need to work on, those are what you should target. Those are what you should target.

first, for sure, is the things that you can't do as well as other things and try to bring them up to that level. But then target your strengths. Why don't you talk a little bit about that? Well, so that is, I think, in terms of actual implementation of our playing and our artistry, we want to really put ourselves in situations where our strengths can come out. For sure. We're still being courageous and taking chances, but we want to kind of do what we were put on this planet to do, you know. Be yourself. Be yourself, exactly, like just surround yourself from musicians that are going to make you sound better and that you're going to make them sound better. So really rallying around your strengths, I think the targeting your weakness, and what I

love about the duality of this, number four, is that the target of your weakness is more, as you said, like, when we're practicing. You know, don't spend your time on your strengths when you practice because you're already strong enough. We've said this. How many times would we said this? Yeah. Andrew find out, seven, eight, we don't know. It's been a lot. Yeah. So, but then you have to think about when you're in a performance situation, I think is a good time to really think about your strengths. That's great. Number five. Number five, do not pay attention to praise, only to criticism.

Now, I'm a little bit dogmatic in this, but that means this is in terms of like your traditional critics, like the writers, the jazz paparazzi, as we like to call them around here. No, but I mean, anybody saying, man, you sound great. I say if you want to have a growth mindset, do not listen to that. Yeah. Okay? Because earlier we talked about number two was honest evaluation yourself. You're supposed to already pretty much know where you're at.

Totally. So don't worry about missing if you're playing. great or not. Like, just let that be the goal all the times. And if it happens, it happens and people acknowledge it, that's great. But you should pay attention to criticism. And this is maybe a little bit controversial. I don't mean that you should stop and just blindly pay attention to the criticism, but you should give it some respect and at least a passing fancy. Now, if you're having that honest evaluation of yourself, you'll understand whether or not that's true. But do not just dismiss something because it's negative. That's a chance for you to grow, actually. If you take

somebody else's honest criticism of you and say, you know what? Your time was kind of, you know, shaky. I want to hear that. I want to hear about my failures because I want to tighten that up and then I want to come back and be like, oh, really? How's it sound now? Especially if it's someone who you respect, who is courageous, who would tell you the truth, who isn't either trying to cut you down or build you up. Right. I'm always very, very conscious of those folks that I can rely on for that kind of criticism. Yeah, absolutely. Super valuable. Yeah, it's not from everybody. But always be humble enough to to accept criticism. and at least, you know, consider it. All right, number six. Yep. Number six, we have, oh, yeah. So this is some kind of the nitty-gritty of actually the growth mindset and how it manifests us as musicians. Grow your repertoire, grow your solos, grow your experiences, you know, by sitting in, by playing with different people. A big part of growth is not just about you, but it's about how you're actually growing.

So a lot of these other things are more mindset things. But this is also like, you know what, your repertoire is supposed to grow every day. That's right. You know, now it might take you a week to learn. tune, but it's still growing. Do things every day to grow the parts of our musicianship and our artistry that are important to it. If you're a composer, you're supposed to be composing and growing your body of work every day. Don't wait for inspiration to come down and tap you on the shoulder. And set some long term and some short term goals. I do that all the time where I'll look

three months out and I say, I want to have this many arrangements done by August or whatever. And then I figure out how I can work that in my schedule and, you know, set the schedule. Yeah, growth is always qualitative and quantitative. And it's never a lot. like we can get out of balance with those sometimes, but we're paying attention to those all the time. Plan your work, work your plan. That's right. Number seven is always be learning.

Oh, come on. That's been our on again. What's always our motto here. We haven't said it in a while, but hashtag ABL always be learning. That's truly what the growth mindset is. Like if you are coming from a place of when you wake up in the morning, like what can I learn, what can I experience, how can I help others? That actually goes along with what I can learn.

When you're in that learning mindset, you will be able to help others and to keep that circle going. But it really does take a mindset. But if you have it, you will grow. That's awesome. Awesome. All right. So, hey, did you know that we are right in the smack dab in the middle of a process of going to our brand new platform here at Open Studio? And it's been very successful so far.

Are you talking about our sponsor, Open Studio? Open Studio. We released the Jazz Piano Jump Start, which is our very beginning. Yes. Like very novice level jazz piano course. Yes. I would say it's a hit at this point. It kind of is a hit.

Yeah. We've got folks from around the world taking it. A couple people have like run through the course, I think, or they're claiming to have already. Really? Yeah. All right. It's supposed to be seven weeks. Some people have a different kind of calendar than us.

But, you know, to a person, though, everybody has loved the new platform. Talked about how fast it is and all the great new features or whatever. Where would they find it? They would find it at openstudiojazz.com. Yeah. You can find all sorts of stuff. stuff. Me and you were on there. You got some stuff with the blog,

the You'll Hear It.com. Jeffrey Keeser, all his courses up. Yeah, we're bringing everything over. By the time people hear this, almost everything will be over. Wait. We'll be close. We'll get close. Yeah. Definitely all the piano courses will be over. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, it's very fast. Great new navigation. Great new features.

If you're an Open Studio member, if you're an All Access Pass member already, keep on the lookout. Your day is coming. We just have to wait until we migrate. Everything over. Yep. We're going to get you over. will be hearing from us very shortly. And, oh, I guess we have our bonus. This would be number eight key to a growth mindset.

Now, this one, I love to just remind myself of it. I think about this probably every morning. You know, some people have those, like, gratitude they write down, not that organized. Do you have a poster of this? I like, like, yeah, like of the, you know, the dentist office. Motivational posters, yeah, yeah, motivational. No, but this is that it's the journey, not the destination. And I really like this corny, but it's so true.

if you want to have a growth mindset, if you want to have growth and abundance in your jazz playing, in your just an outlook on how we can get better, which is what we're all trying to do so we can contribute more to this art form, then focus on the journey. Like be glad that you have a chance to fail,

that you have a chance to practice, to try to be set back and then to get back of it and get knocked off your horse, get back on. I can't recommend this one enough. I can't agree with you enough. This was a game changer when I finally figured this out sometime in my 30s.

Yeah, well, no, that's early, actually. There's no, There's no where I'm going to be, all of a sudden I'm going to be a great, like there's no time where that happens. It's like you have to find the joy in the everyday process. You have to fall in love with that process and have just a bunch of fun while you're doing it. Exactly. And you'll be fine. Once you find that, first of all, this is what weeds out a lot of people as it should.

Because if you're not enjoying the process, this is not for you. No. It's not at all. So once you maybe take some of this advice in terms of growth mindset, that can kind of help you along, but then you'll be able to evaluate and really focus on that journey. Man, I feel good. I feel like there was some synergy today. I feel like we did some out-of-the-box thinking. I feel hot.

I think we might have to bring Nelly back for the outro. You think we could do that, Andrew? Is that possible? Yeah. Until tomorrow. You'll hear it.