Category: Making Your Work Satisfying (Page 2 of 4)

I could write you seven emails about the last weekend.

Scott Nicholas and I did our songs at Green Room 42 last Saturday, and it couldn’t have been more satisfying.

Every day leading up to the show, my brain said,

“YOU did this. YOU emailed the venue and set up a date. YOU picked these songs and invited all these folks.”

My brain chattered helpful survival tips every day:

“You can just cut that song.”

“Maybe you’ll get that crud Noah brought home from school and have to cancel.”

“If you don’t invite that person, you won’t have to feel disappointed if they tell you no.”

But the few moments I let myself get quiet and listen, I’d hear a voice (of the still, small variety) whisper in the middle of my torso,

“It’s going to be beautiful.”

I knew it was true.

My brain was a lot louder, and therefore much more noticeable.

Much like our brightly resonant 4-year-old when Melissa tries to relay one fact about something that happened to her on any given day after I get home.

I hear the scientists have figured out that our brain trains ?? automatically switch to the track to Negative Bias Town as their default route. Something about avoiding predators.

It’s a good thing to know because you can meet your brain with understanding when it’s so eagerly contributing to the committee meeting.

I’ve found, though, that if you can get a little bit still and check in with where you know things (for me it’s around my guts), that info is what you need to stick with.

It’ll lead you into zones where you’ll have to use your courage, and that means you’re going to feel scared.

But, that’s when I say to myself, “Self, what will Future Dan be glad you did?”

And present Dan is so grateful I went ahead and shared that show.

The collaboration was heavenly. (I’m truly lucky to work with Scott Nicholas — singing with him is like riding on a magic music cloud. He’s boss.)

And the sweetest experience was sharing it with folks in the room and loved ones online.

Folks from many years and places in my life all gathered — I’m convinced the gold of a life in theatre is the friends you get to make.

Melissa and I were reflecting on all the good people we’re blessed to know; it’s nuts, and I’m so grateful.

All this to say there is only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing. And your only-you-ness feels so everyday that you don’t realize how special and different it’s going to be for somebody else.

I guarantee if you let yourself do the thing that’s scary that the quiet voice peacefully and firmly tells you is the satisfying path, you’ll be surprised by who gets moved, healed, and encouraged.

Now go sing, and make a show and invite your people.

And look at these sweet pics of our boys living their best Central Park life.

Love Much,

Dan

Neil Degrasse Tyson said,

“The human genome is admirably complex, and it’s fair to ask whether there’s a finite number of humans it could make.

“The answer is yes, but it’s 10^30 – an incomprehensibly big number. The fact that you and I are alive is against stupendous odds.”

Every week, I say to you, “There’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.”

I believe this. For you.

I often exempt myself from this axiom.

In fact, if you have the privilege to teach, the things you say most are the things you most need to learn.

Last week, I posted a short video of a terrific William Finn song, “Anytime,” that I plan to sing in the show on Saturday. I’ve always loved this song.

When I chose it, I thought of all the fancy folks who’ve sung it.

I thought of all the recordings I stopped after the first few lines because I have strong aesthetic opinions.

I thought about the time I read a role in an NYU reading, and William Finn was there and maintained an unimpressed poker face throughout. I was certain he thought I was terrible. 

Welcome to my particular neuroti-scape.

Pieces of this memory menagerie all surfaced just in the selection of a song.

Even in choosing to share the song on the socials, I felt wiggle waggle.

Last Tuesday, all manner of apocalyptic visions assaulted my noggin while I tried to teach.

“Three people will be at your show.”

“The risky song you chose isn’t going to pay off.”

“The people you thought were going to be there aren’t showing up for you.”

I was having a hard time.

I shared with a couple students why their usually competent silly-noise-making teacher was forgetting to play F-sharps that day.

Anytime I make something up for myself to do: a concert, a recital, a musical, I hit a moment of —

YOU made this up. YOU did this.

And it feels like I’m in nursery school and the teacher’s holding up the picture of an ostrich I colored purple saying, “Who ever heard of a purple ostrich?”

(One day I’ll write a children’s book about a purple ostrich. Or you can!)

Thing is, I do know there’s only one me. I have evidence that when I share songs, it means things to people. I even believe I’m loved and worthy of love.

AND my brain’s negative bias (just like yours) works to keep me hidden and unexposed (read: protected).

As I wrote this to you, my brain was like, “You sure want to share THAT much?”

I mean, speaking as an over-sharer from way back, it’s an important sieve, but in this case, yes, I do want to share that much.

So that?

So that you know that all of us are managing our own cerebral chatter collectives; and a lot of times we don’t give ourselves the grace to breathe through our nose 7 times and witness our thoughts as a compassionate friend.

So, yes, Dr. deGrasse Tyson is correct; you are a mathematical miracle.

And you’re still going to have to act while you feel afraid.

Me too.

When the boys say, “Daddy, I’m scared,” I say, “I know buddy. I’m here.”

Then I say, “Remember we have to feel scared first before we can use our courage?”

Yep, fear is the prerequisite for bravery.

And to trust that the inimitable diamond of your soul that you showed up on this planet with — to trust that opening the door to that is inestimably transcendent — that feels fragile.

We have to DO something, right? PROVE something. SHOW something.

And yes, there are levels of skill we want to integrate; it’s satisfying to do excellent work.

And while we do that, I want you to think about beautiful voices you’ve heard, but you just couldn’t make yourself care.

And I want you to remember voices that were not what a snobby voice teacher might call pleasing, and you cared a lot.

It’s about the open heart and the courage to share it.

Because, yes, there is only one you, and folks need to hear the story only 10-to-the-30th-power you can sing. (And you’ll often be surprised by who they are, if you ever find out.)

Love much,

Dan

PS Listen to Scott Nicholas tear up “The Dream” by Rufus Wainwright in rehearsal this week — haven’t posted or edited this yet.

PPS Speaking of building skills, did you know they’ve been building a medieval castle in France for the last 20+ years using all the materials and trades as practiced in the middle ages???? I didn’t. 

My newsfeed sent me an NPR story about it. Fascinating, and I want to visit one day.

The other day I was getting off the train in Back Bay, and I felt a little guilty.

I looked around at my fellow commuters with furrowed brows, sighing deep breaths to build their courage to face the day. Spreadsheets were involved, I’m sure.

(I stare at people in the city all the time. That’s the terrific skill you can build growing up in the country where folks eyeball each other all the time.

City folk don’t have the resources — as Barbara Kingsolver described in her novel Demon Copperhead, “you have to save your juice.” —

So that leaves me, Mr. Eye Contact on Main Street free to people study. I’m also super nosy, so I can’t help it.)

But I felt that little guilt twinge disembarking the double deckah; as I walked down the platform and up the station stairs, I was like, “How’d I get so lucky that my job is listening to folks sing in a building full of recently tuned Steinways?”

If you’d told 12-year-old Dan in Mrs. Smith’s music trailer classroom that was going to be his job one day, he’d have squealed and cut a cartwheel right there.

Last Friday, I was chatting with a collaborative pianist during a classroom change.

“Good semester start?”

“Yeah, great,” she said in her terrific Polish dialect.

“I know, I said — I was thinking today how I get to work in a building full of pianos!”

She agreed. “If you’d told me as a little girl in Poland I’d be here one day, I never would have believed you.”

And I grand jetéed out of the recital hall in celebration of a week getting to do this crazy job where I sigh, yell, screlt, shout, and mimic dramatic mezzo sopranos like it’s normal all while assuming various ego identities.

It’s silly.

I also listened to an interview with Arthur Brooks and Oprah at Harvard Business School on the YouTubes. (I do recommend Brooks’s article series in The Atlantic.)

Oprah talked about how helpful it is to review all the “you never knew you were gonna’s.”

I agree.

12-year-old me never thought I’d teach at a conservatory surrounded by folks who blow my mind. 

16-year-old me didn’t know sitting in the balcony of the Majestic Theatre in 1994 that in 8 years I’d be playing a role in that same show out on the road. 

And confused, anxious, wounded me through a big chunk of my life didn’t know that guardian angels, true friends, and loving mentors would help me heal and integrate enough to share (very imperfectly) some of the ways that helped me — mostly through singing.

(Confusion, anxiety, and wounds are still a part of me; they’re just not all of me. They also tell me to slow down, breathe, pray for help, and allow some compassion to me and from me.)

I’d love you to review a few times in your life when that version of you had no idea that later you would get to do something terrific.

And the same is true for right-now you.

We have no idea what splendid things we’re going to grow into.

There’ll be all the usual obstacles and snares, scrapes and snot, but I believe you’ve got the tools.

Know how I know? You’re reading this now. You made it.

What’s that terrific quote? You have a 100% success rate of making it through hard days.

Well done.

And here’s to what’s ahead — something beautiful you don’t even know about yet and wouldn’t believe if future you materialized and told you about it.

May you, one day soon, have to manage guilty feelings on a commuter train as you suppress the urge to skip.

And remember — there’s only one you. Folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

PS This sweet child on the Instagrams trying to pet a bear cub exhibits my early dialect perfectly. I talked exactly this way (and it might be what my internal voice still sounds like :)) 

PPS Here’s the interview with Arthur Brooks and Oprah at Harvard Business School.

You’ve heard me talk about how New York City diner menus. They overwhelm me. I mean, who can choose between blintzes and a BLT? 

(I’m remembering a woman I waited on at Artie’s Delicatessen who ordered French toast and followed it up with a slice of carrot cake. She didn’t have any problems choosing.)

I finally developed a technique of deciding the category of food I’d order BEFORE walking into the diner, and that helped.

But I’ve found that my menu overwhelm syndrome creeps up in other areas of my life.

And I’ll tell you why.

We get NYC menu-level info hurled at us every day. That is, you do if you get as attached to that little computer rectangle in your pocket with the candy-colored squares on its adorable little screen as I do.

Lately it’s been the YouTubes.

I told you last week about how I’m all about that INPUT. (Did you do your Clifton Strengths? They’re helpful, right?)

Input’s a wonderful trait for an educator. And it’s a PARALYZING flaw when you’re just trying to put one foot in front of the other toward that thing you decided was a priority.

But you get surfing on one algorithm wave, and all of a sudden you’re like,

oooooh, wait, maybe I need to break this all down in an Asana work flow. Hmmmmm. Will the free version be okay? How much money have I spent on software this year? No. Just use your paper checklist that’s been working. Did I pull those tasks from my Google Calendar? What about the bullet journal? How do these people post on Instagram so much? SHOULD we buy land and building and off-grid community with rentable yurts and compost toilets?

?

Then Melissa’s like, “Sweetie, you need some time? What’s up?”

And I’m all like, “Where do I even BEGIN? It’s MADNESS in here, I tell you! It all started with blintzes.

Melissa threw me a life preserver, though. ? (She may have gently aimed it at my head.)

She brought my brain back to our lived-in kitchen and toy-strewn living room and reminded me, “The summer’s gonna be over soon. Let’s enjoy this time we have together.”

Thank you, sweetie. It was so clear and simple.

I’m having a hard time appreciating the present lately. My brain flies off in the future, and the future looks like a diner menu with much higher prices.

So, these are some things I’m doing to help my brain.

Feeling wonky? How can you get back to HERE?

You’re gonna roll your eyes, but the answer almost all the time is paying attention to your breath. And it’s paying attention to your breath longer than you want to. I want to take exactly one and a half deepish inhales and feel balanced again.

Nope. It takes a little longer to travel from Agitation Station to Clarity Town.

The other thing is to notice things around you on purpose. And name them to yourself. The wall color, the birds you may hear, the loud train or smell of subway track grease. This helps. (Also key in an audition room.)

This, too, takes longer than I want it.

Siri, “Make me present, calm, and serene!”

One other thing: Phone a friend. Literally pick up that rectangle computer and call somebody. This, for some reason, is hard to do these days. Especially because we all assume something’s wrong when we get an actual phone call. So, maybe send a prelim text.

This is also especially hard for folks like me who want to solve everything inside the ole brain. One day I’ll accept this doesn’t work.

One other simplifying question that’s helped me is from James Clear’s book Atomic Habits.

It’s a question of identity.

If you want your identity to be someone who’s healthy and vibrant, you can ask yourself, “What would a healthy and vibrant person do?”

I’d drink a glass of water. I’d get out for a walk. I’d take some time to stretch.

If you ask yourself what you’d like your identity to be, you can then ask, “What would this kind of person do?” We almost always know. It’s just that the steps are often so simple, our brain’s like, “It can’t be that straightforward. Yawn. What’s on YouTube?”

That brings me to the next helpful thing: Getting where you want to go means doing simple/boring things over and over.

It’s not shiny and entertaining. It’s satisfying.

Once you stop expecting constant amusement to be a thing, you can start humming and stretching and learning that song you picked out for the cabaret you decided to put together (even though you feel scared. I always do.)

Then when you show up for the thing, those days and days of practice are in your body. That’s where confidence comes from, the skill you built.

The other one that’s helpful and very hard for me is seasons.

Right now is the time for — fill in your blank.

Right now is not the time in my life when I can do a lot of 730pm dinner meetups. I’ve got to put my boys to sleep mid-chapter of the next Chronicles of Narnia book.

Let’s review:

? Breathe for as long as it takes.

?? Notice things around you for as long as it takes.

? Connect in a real time present way with somebody you trust.

? Ask yourself, “What would a kind-of-person-I-want-to-be do?”

?? Then do it. Over and over, and look for the satisfaction not the entertainment.

? And notice what season you’re in.

Hope this was helpful for you. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, you know what I’m fixing to say: There’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan