The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 271 - Broadway Jesus

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: Recently, I have been reminded from many different angles of one of my favorite questions that I use when I'm feeling stuck, when I need guidance, when I need motivation.

Pete: My gosh...cliffhanger. Tell me more. What is the question?

Jen: The question is, Pete, "What would Broadway Jesus do?"

Pete: "What would Broadway Jesus do? W-W-B-J-D?" This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: So, Jen, what would Broadway Jesus do?

Jen: So, you can insert whatever word is your equivalent of "Broadway" in your own life.

Pete: Uh-huh.

Jen: And then, you've got to identify who Broadway Jesus is. So for me, Broadway Jesus is six-time Tony Award winner, Audra McDonald.

Pete: Right.

Jen: And so when I am feeling stuck, like I need to play small, like I'm not sure what to do and I can't get out of my own way, I ask myself, "What would Audra McDonald do?"

Pete: Nice.

Jen: And even if I don't have six Tony Awards or maybe I don't have all of the resources that she has, what I can borrow from her is some gumption, is some knowledge, is some imaginative fantasizing about strategic thinking.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And it just gives me a little kick in the pants.

Pete: Love it. Love a kick in the pants. I love the word "gumption"...and also, what a great cleaning product. It just conjures up the most incredible product ever created, Gumption.

Jen: We don't have that here.

Pete: You don't have Gumption?

Jen: What are you talking about?

Pete: Gumption is like...oh, I cannot even figure out how to describe this. It is like the cleaning product that gets rid of anything. You can apply it to anything and it gets rid of everything. It's like, "You've got a stain on your bench that you've never been able to get rid of? Get the Gumption out and rub that thing off."

Jen: Oh my gosh, would you please bring me a bottle of Gumption next time you come?

Pete: A bottle of Gumption, yes. Both metaphorically and literally, I love the idea of gumption. It gets stuff done. And I think that's probably why they called it Gumption. Anyway, I digress. So to clarify, Broadway Jesus is like someone in the field that you are interested in, insert person who is at the top of the field that you are interested in or working in or a part of. Is that right?

Jen: Yes. And sometimes, it doesn't even have to be in your field. But the reason I use, "What would Broadway Jesus do," with my clients is because most of the time, the place they need gumption is in the pursuit of their professional acting career. They have lots of gumption in other places.

Pete: Oh, they do. I've met a bunch of these people you're talking to and there's some serious gumption there. Alright, so we're leveraging the question of, "What would Broadway Jesus, i.e., what would someone who's awesome and a bit of a boss in a particular field do," in order to kick ourselves up the butt, to give ourselves like permission to do something similar or to behave in a way that is consistent with how they would behave.

Jen: Yes. Now, I said I've been aware of this from multiple angles recently. I want to share that I recently read, and I think we've mentioned it on a previous episode, Shane Parrish's excellent book, Clear Thinking.

Pete: Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

Jen: It's so so so good, highly recommend. Highly recommend it.

Pete: I'm halfway through. I'm halfway through.

Jen: But he has a whole chapter about raising the bar by choosing an exemplar and then imitating them. Like, practice being them. He says, "Create space in the moment to reflect on what they do in your position, and then act accordingly."

Pete: I love it.

Jen: I love that. There's a whole chapter on it. And then the other day, I found myself talking about Simon Sinek's book, The Infinite Game, and the concept of worthy rivals. And it feels like they all sort of go together, that we could be borrowing what we find inspiring from other people.

Pete: I love this. The other thing that came to mind for me was this notion of acting as if, which I feel like you and I have talked about in a few different episodes. But I also wonder if the exemplar, the Broadway Jesus, could be a future version of you. So, can you imagine yourself in five years if you are living the life that you really want to live? You've got the career you really want to have. You've got the jobs or are working on the projects that you've always wanted to work on. How are you behaving? What are you doing? Where are you showing up? And why are you showing up? And just kind of imagine, in your mind's eye, what that future version of you would look like. And then, can you act as if you were that person already?

Jen: I think this connects back to something we talked about on the podcast a really long time ago, but this idea of, "This is my new normal."

Pete: Right.

Jen: Like, raising the bar for yourself and then making that the new standard, as opposed to falling back to your old ways. But I love this idea from you, Pete, of borrowing yourself. "What would future Jen do?"

Pete: Yeah. I've shared before, I did a version of this where I recorded a video from "future Pete", where I like imagined myself in three years time and talked to my current self about the decisions I needed to make, the change I was trying to make, and was kind of like, "Look at me. I'm on the other side, and all of this awesome stuff happened. So like, go. Go and do the thing that you're thinking about doing." And in, I think it was three months or four months time, I had done all the things that that future version of Pete had said to current Pete that he would do if he showed up in a certain way. So, I've really used this very practically. And I just love this idea of like, whether it's leveraging a future version of yourself or whether it's leveraging an exemplar or a worthy rival, it feels like a great way to kind of get out of your own way.

Jen: Mmm-hmm. Yeah.

Pete: And I think the other thing that comes to mind for me, is it's about giving yourself permission to do that. Gosh, I've been thinking so much about permission of late, and reflecting on the fact that we go through so much of our lives seeking external permission, whether it's like, "I need to raise my hand when I'm at school to ask for permission to go to the bathroom," or, "I need to seek permission from my boss to work on a particular project, when I first start out in a corporate environment," and how this, you know, almost indoctrination of seeking permission is still playing out in our lives, where we might think we can't make a change or start a project or create a new initiative because no one's given us permission. And I feel like what this question helps you do is give yourself permission.

Jen: Yeah. That is true. It's also making me think that you don't have to only use this when you're feeling stuck. You could use it when you're feeling like you're kind of on fire and on a roll.

Pete: Oh, here we go.

Jen: Like, "Oh, I've got momentum. Now, what would Audra McDonald do with momentum?"

Pete: I like this. I like this. Okay, this is a little left field, but I feel like you'll appreciate the reference. So, I've got this book that I read every single day. It's called The Daily Dad, and it's written by Ryan Holiday. And it's basically a page a day that takes a learning from stoicism and translates it to a learning for you as a dad and how you should be thinking about raising kids. Some of them are awesome. Some of them are a little hit and miss. But the book itself is just brilliant. The other day, there was a story that was shared about Lin-Manuel Miranda. And the crux of it was, I think it was like two or three weeks before rehearsal started for Hamilton, the first time he had his first child. And one way of looking at that could be what a distraction for him to have to like now navigate being a new dad before releasing this incredible show that was about to be released. But the flip side that Lin-Manuel apparently has talked about was that it was actually the gift that kept him away from the distractions of all the parties and all the invitations and all the external events that he was then invited to because of the fact that Hamilton became such a successful show. And I feel like this idea of like, "If I'm on fire," to your point around Audra McDonald, like, "What would Lin-Manuel Miranda do when he's just released Hamilton and he's also on fire? Well, he actually prioritized his family. And he's sleeping and looking after himself in order to continue to show up in the right way for his show." So I don't know if that's off the deep end or not, but it just felt like relevant.

Jen: I love it. And I love that you know who Lin-Manuel Miranda is, so thank you on both fronts.

Pete: That's okay. It's okay.

Jen: Okay, here's another way I use, "What would Broadway Jesus do," with some of my coaching clients.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Okay. We're going Insider Baseball for a second, but hopefully there's a tie in between other people's experiences. Okay, so in the world of acting, you have to audition in order to work. Not always, but a lot of the time you have to audition. So, I teach an audition workshop. And one of the moments we talk about is what happens when you're done presenting your material. Usually, what happens is the people who are behind the table watching you will say, "Thank you."

Pete: Right.

Jen: Which, kind of in audition lingo means, "And we're done for the day."

Pete: "We're done here." Yeah.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: "Thank you. You can leave now."

Jen: But it doesn't necessarily have a negative connotation. That's just how auditions end. And nine times out of ten, an actor's response to, "Thank you," is, "Thank you."

Pete: Huh.

Jen: So, "Thank you." "Thank you."

Pete: "Thank you."

Jen: Right. So, I suggest in my audition workshop that a completely socially appropriate response to, "Thank you," is in fact, "You're welcome."

Pete: "You're welcome." That's what I thought you were going to say, that nine times out of ten, everyone says, "You're welcome."

Jen: No, Pete. When I say that, there are zero people in the room who are on board with it. Zero people in the room. Every time I bring this up, you could feel all the air get sucked out of the room and people being like, "Oh my god, I could never say, 'You're welcome.'" And this is a great way, then, to help someone see what they didn't previously see about how they're standing in their own way or how they're devaluing themselves or making themselves smaller when they really are ready to be bigger and stronger. So, that's a great moment to pull out the...not that Audra has to audition anymore, but if someone thanked Audra McDonald for singing, would she thank them? Or would she gracefully accept the thanks?

Pete: Yeah. That's juicy. I feel like the translation for me is the way that...I'll use myself as an example...the way that I sometimes struggle to receive a compliment, if someone says, "That workshop that you ran was awesome. And you did this and this. And this was great." And sometimes I'll be like, "Yeah, but you know, it was a great group. It was really easy to facilitate such an engaged group." Like, I often almost deflect with a reason for why they might be thinking it was great. And it can be really hard to just say, "You're welcome." You know? Just to take the praise, and just take it for what it was. And actually, I've heard others talk about how the fact that it's actually more generous to take it, because the person that gave you the compliment didn't give you the compliment to then get deflected back to. They wanted you to know that like this was really impactful for them, because of a certain reason.

Jen: They didn't say, "Thank you," in order to be rejected.

Pete: Right. Exactly. I just made them feel worse. Yeah. It sounds so comical when you say it, but it's so true. It's like just so obvious when you hear it back.

Jen: I might have shared this once, I was doing a workshop in San Diego and a friend of mine happened to be there. He was not there in any sort of official capacity, although we were colleagues. But he was just sort of there visiting, and he was in the room. And so, I introduced him because he was an author, everyone in the room knew of his book. They knew of the work that he did. And I gave him this totally glowing introduction, which he then deflected.

Pete: Interesting.

Jen: And after the workshop, he came up to me and said, "I owe you an apology."

Pete: Wow.

Jen: I was like, "Whoa." And he said, "I felt so uncomfortable hearing the praise that I rejected what you were giving me, which was a real gift. And I apologize for that."

Pete: Wow.

Jen: I was like, "Wow. That is big of you."

Pete: That's awesome. Okay. There's a different angle on this then that I'm thinking about, based on that story, which is sometimes I find it helpful to realize that my equivalent of Broadway Jesus is a vulnerable, messy human who makes mistakes like that.

Jen: Oh my gosh, yes.

Pete: And who sometimes deflects when they know they shouldn't deflect or sometimes is too scared to do something even though they know they can do it. Like, I find it humbling and gratifying and connecting to hear that people like that author are just messy humans trying to figure this whole thing out as well. I don't know, I just find that super grounding and encouraging.

Jen: Oh, I really, really love this. Because what we've been talking about so far is on the front end of an action. But what you're talking about is like on the back end of a failure or on the back end of an inaction that you could be beating yourself up for.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And instead, "If Audra McDonald had rejected someone's compliment and realized it, what would Audra McDonald do?"

Pete: Yes. I like that. Yeah.

Jen: Will someone please send this to Audra McDonald and tell her I love her so much?

Pete: Ah, that's funny. So one of the things you reminded me of when you phrased it as a question was this blog by Derek Sivers (which I'm going to put in the Box O' Goodies), where he talks about his mentors. And one of his mentors is actually Seth Godin. And he's shared this in podcasts and he's written about it. He describes this idea of when he gets stuck, he writes to one of his mentors explaining the problem.

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: He writes an email. And then before he hits send, he looks back at the email and kind of preempts, knowing who these people are, what they're going to say. So, "Okay, if I send this to Seth, Seth is probably going to say this, this, and this. Okay, so let me reword the email. And now that I know that Seth is going to probably say that," he goes through this process and then eventually realizes, "Oh, I don't need to send an email. I just got it. I imagined what my mentor might say to me. And I don't actually need him to say it to me or her to say it to me, because I can picture what that's going to be."

Jen: Oh, I love that. I love that.

Pete: This happens with me and you all the time. There's often a time, I'm like, "I'm going to send Jen this thing," and then I go to send it, and I go, "You know, I don't need to send it to her. I know exactly what she's going to say."

Jen: "I know what she would say." I feel the same way about you. "What would Podcast Jesus do?"

Pete: Yeah, yeah. So, this is great. I love this as like a tool of permission to reflect on when we're stuck, how might we get unstuck based on someone who might be doing something that's like we look at and go, "Oh my god, I can't believe they're doing it." But also, to our other point of, what about when we're reflecting on a mistake we made? And perhaps the question is, "How would we respond to that mistake, or how would our Broadway Jesus respond to that mistake, recognizing we're all messy humans?"

Jen: Well, Pete, in this holiday season where people are going to be caroling and singing about baby Jesus, I hope this will be a useful December prompt for all of our listeners to, when you hear the carol, to ask yourself, "What would Broadway Jesus do?"

Pete: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.