Latest / That's Not Spit, It's Condensation! / #205: This Podcast Is Changing. Here's Why.

Transcript

#205: This Podcast Is Changing. Here's Why. · That's Not Spit, It's Condensation!

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And welcome to the I started this podcast in January of 2019.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: And originally it started as kind of a combination of wanting to share ideas I had on the podcast, things that I thought were interesting, things I was working on in my own practice.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then actually I was kind of focusing on interviewing orchestra members with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Shortly after that, it kind of expanded into just doing interviews with anybody and everybody that I could talk to that I could learn from.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a long period of me just asking tons of questions of these high-level performers to see if I could continue to improve the way I did things, the way that I thought.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of, I really felt like was for, in a sense, for me, but I also really enjoyed having other people be able to sort of be a fly on a wall for that conversation to see if it could benefit them as well.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I've gotten a lot of feedback over the years that um it is been helpful.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's a resource some people have used for inspiration or motivation, and other people have described that the things that we have talked about have actually led them to better performance outcomes and things like that.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very uh meaningful to me to have been able to provide that.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: But if you have sort of been paying attention or you may have noticed that over the past year, could be more than that, the podcast has been pretty inconsistent.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's because I just kind of don't know.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: I I sometimes don't know what to post.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: I it takes a it takes a fair amount of effort at times, and my efforts have been directed all over the place.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so the podcast has been kind of aimless, and I think it's time that we do something about that.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to That's Not Spit.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's condensation.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Ryan Beach, and today what we're gonna talk about is the direction of the podcast moving forward.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about why we are gonna make this shift, what the changes will be, what you can expect, just so we're all on the same page moving forward, that this is the direction things are headed in.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: So um you can just be aware.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm just it's kind of an update, kind of a uh just for me to just be as transparent as possible about where I am in my sort of journey of what the podcast is.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the big changes that's gonna happen is you will not just be hearing from me.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you may have noticed my wife Kathleen sitting next to me here.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: She's gonna join us as a co-host for every single episode moving forward.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: So whether it's us talking or we're interviewing somebody, um, she will be a co-host.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want you to be able to hear from Kathleen now because she's been on the podcast before.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think we were talking about um before the cameras rolled.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a freeway philharmonic episode where you were a guest.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: That would have been like 2020, maybe.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think we did a couple of episodes kind of in a co-host capacity after that, but I don't remember, it's a long time ago.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, what I want to do is turn it over to Kathleen.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: She can tell you a little bit about where she's been, the types of experiences she's had, so that we can really understand uh why she is a voice that uh we need to be hearing from on this podcast.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Ryan.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I guess career-wise, I've been principal clarinet in Alabama for about 20 years now.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: And before that, I lived in the Pittsburgh area.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: I did some playing with the Pittsburgh Ballet and Opera Orchestras.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: I played with the Youngstown Symphony, did a fair amount of freelancing in the area, and uh finished up my education as well in that time period.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I started a chamber group uh called I On Sound Project.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: That chamber group has taken many different sort of formats in terms of instrumentation and goals over the years.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: We are currently still uh running strong, and we are uh clarinet, cello, and piano.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I've learned an insane amount from that experience.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: We are a nonprofit organization, we've produced a CD together, we, you know, have done dozens of collaborations with other artistic disciplines.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: We've, you know, we've commissioned many, many new works.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it's been an amazing learning experience and just added a huge dimension of interest and passion into my career.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: So that's sort of the um performing end of my career.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: I've also done a lot of teaching over those years at different universities, including a uh one year of full-time teaching at University of Alabama at Birmingham.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that wasn't last season, but the year before, and I took a year off from the orchestra to do that.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that time obviously, you know, deepened my, you know, passion for teaching, gave me that time to really like dig in, you know, individually with, you know, each student in the studio, but also, you know, um, studio class and just giving some presentations to the entire music school.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I've done a lot of research on flow state, which will come up in many future episodes.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, colloquially, that is known more as like being in the zone.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, how do we practice more in that state, perform more in that state?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: More recently, we've also been working on a lot of these coaching ideas together, and that has led us down the road of um really digging into um personal values and what kinds of values you uh people desire to bring to their work, to their practice, to their performance.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: And um, obviously that feeds into identity and belief as well.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: So the past couple years um just had the privilege to dig into this more with Ryan.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we've sort of, I guess we've sort of followed the thread as it's been presented to us.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: But um, okay, why don't you pick up from there?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: So you may be aware that I left, officially left my job, officially resigned from Principal Trumpet uh and the Alabama Symphony in February of 20.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you may not have it was February of 2026.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's when I officially left.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was on a one-year leave of absence the year before.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And basically the one year leave of absence was hey, let's check this out.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like I want to, I want to pursue coaching full time to see what is that life like?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Is this something that I would want?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it very quickly became clear to me as I say to people when I'm talking to them that this is what I believe I should be doing with my life right now.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: This just became very clear.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Kathleen, we've had so many conversations about why that's the case.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've just since June of 2025, I guess, I've just been pursuing uh building a coaching program and bringing on people to help them with all sorts of goals.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but you know, most notably, probably the majority of them are people trying to improve auditions and being able to play, they want to play on stage and being able to advance more and win auditions.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been sharing those ideas on this podcast and through other types of content.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that is important to say is that although I have been the one sharing these ideas, uh, it's very much a collaborative effort.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: These are our ideas.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: We've had so many conversations uh about all this, you know, from what we're reading or what we're researching to conversations with clients, to our own experiments and our own practice sessions, or for me, the auditions I've taken.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just unfair to sort of try to present this in any way that this is mine.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: I may be the one who has been more public-facing, uh, but this is our information.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's very important to me that instead of just trying to present this in one way, that you hear both of our voices because we we do have different voices, and I've we've learned that we each bring kind of a cool, unique thing.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to make sure that that's super clear at this point that the one of the main reasons is that this is our coaching program.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's not my coaching program, and it's only fair that you get to hear from Kathleen as well.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um what I want to do with this episode for the rest of this episode is I want to share with you four beliefs that we have that are going to they they underpin everything we do with our clients, and they're going to more or less be kind of a frame for the podcast episodes moving forward.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this is gonna give you kind of a big picture idea of the types of topics we're gonna be talking about, or just our worldview about what we think is important, what we think best explains the kinds of roadblocks and kinds of obstacles people experience.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so the first, I'm gonna kick it over to Kathleen to explain, but the first belief that we have is that the problem isn't you, the problem is your system.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: What do we mean by that?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, it's that's a pretty straightforward way to phrase it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think what we have been seeing um lately or maybe for a long time is that a lot of people come in with um limiting beliefs, right?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: And in many ways, those limiting beliefs uh can potentially increase over time in one's career as opposed to decrease, which seems counterintuitive.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: But if we think about times maybe where we thought we were like really prepared and like ready to go in and play great performance, and then something kind of broke down in performance while those experiences start to build up, and then we start to believe potentially that that is some sort of indictment over what we are able to do or what we're capable of.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, this argument with this first statement is that the problem is not you.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's not us potentially, but it's the system in which you used to prepare for that event.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: And by sharpening that system and shoring up any areas of potential weakness or areas that might have been neglected, not because of lack of work ethic or anything like that.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like talent.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Talent, you know, the things that we usually point to, um, you know, ability.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's usually the way that the preparation process was carried out.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have anything to add to that?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the first belief.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: The second belief we have that will be guiding everything is under pressure, your skill doesn't degrade, your attention does.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: What do we mean by that?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: I like this one because I think once you hear someone say it, like something will kind of like start like going off in your mind that's like, yeah, that that's that seems really true.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why would we lose our skill under pressure?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Our skill is something that we've, you know, at this level, you know, if you're performing, you know, auditions or or high level anything, or even, you know, at the college or advanced high school level, you know, you've worked very hard to build that skill.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: That skill just doesn't disappear.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: But what happens is that your access to your skill can be interrupted, or I guess a better word might be interfered with.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that is we what we're linking to attention.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: That if you're able to keep your attention where you want it in the pressure moment or pressure moments, then you ideally should have access to all your skill.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: There shouldn't be something that is interfering with your ability to present that.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well said.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Can you want to share the third one and I'll go with it?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: The third one is uh winning an audition isn't a question of wait, sorry, I read this wrong.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Winning an audition is a question of committee trust, and they can't trust you if you don't trust yourself.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, what we mean by this is to win an audition, you got to get the committee's trust.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: They have to be able to trust that if they hired you, you would be a good fit, you would be an artistic sort of advantage, or you would raise the artistic bar or whatever you want to say.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: They have to believe that you would be a good addition to their ensemble.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And to get their trust, you have to be able to trust yourself.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you don't trust yourself, you're gonna step up on stage and you're going to play like you have questions.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to play like you doubt your ability to succeed.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to play like you're trying to get their approval and hope that it's good enough.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so a major part of what we talk about is how to build that self-trust.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: What does that actually mean to build that self-trust so that when you walk out on stage, you're not thinking, I hope this is good enough.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: You're thinking to yourself, I believe what I present will get trust with the committee and it'll give me the best possible chance to advance and to win.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: We can't guarantee that that will happen.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many things outside of our control, but this is the part that we can control for.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you're interested, we actually put together a workbook that covers how to understand committee trust, self-trust, all the different things that are involved with that.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: So you can better understand what it takes to prepare in a way that will lead to more advancing, lead to more winning eventually.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a free workbook.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you can check that out in the description and grab that and just work through that.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to explain so much to give you a lot of clarity on how you can change your preparation and orient your preparation to get more of those outcomes that you're looking for, if that's what you want.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, the last one, and this is, I don't want to say I have a favorite, but this one is, I think, very uh very transformative.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the goal isn't to win the audition, the goal is to become the person who can win the audition.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: What is that one about?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think at its core, you know, you're we we can walk into these things with this deep desire to win.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's a very tempting and it's very human, very normal.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: We all have those, you know, these dreams that we've been building for um years, some of us.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's very like natural, normal to focus on the desire to win.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um at its core, that's not something that we have control over.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have control over that outcome specifically for any individual audition.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: What we do have control over is how we develop ourselves and the way we see ourselves and the way that we work, which would be becoming the type of person who is then ready to win when that opportunity presents itself.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And Kathleen's talking very much about auditions, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: But this will clearly apply to any high-level performance, any stress situation you would be in.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're just feeling like auditions are for many the highest sort of stress, highest pressure situation they would be in.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's not a for at the highest level, especially, it's not about how well you play.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody plays well.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's about who you are in that moment.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we talk a lot with our clients.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: It we're trying to move the conversation from how well can you play to who do you want to be in that moment?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you're thinking ahead.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: When I feel the pressure, let's assume you will.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: When my body is not responding the way I want it to, let's assume that will happen.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: When I start to feel, you know, I start to think about how much I would like to win the audition or how much it would mean to me, or how much it would change my life to win the audition.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: When you feel those things, let's assume you will, who do you want to be in that moment?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to be the person who has these kinds of pressures cause you to, I mean, I guess not play as well as you can because you're distracted?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And or do you want to be the person who steps into it and says, you know what, I can't control those things, but I'm gonna come out here and I'm gonna do my best.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I just think wrestling with that is a super important part of becoming the person who can have the best chance to put themselves in the position to win.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Again, we can't control winning, we can control showing up as the person who will play like a winner.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably the easiest way to put it.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any final thoughts before we get out of here?
• 17:02
  unknown: I don't think so.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: So this is the direction of the podcast.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be sharing ideas for people to be able to have better outcomes and auditions or just their performances in general, understanding really what's stopping us, what are obstacles that people encounter that stop them from playing the way they want to in pressure situations and understanding really how to get those outcomes that they're looking for.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Next week, what we're gonna talk about is this superpower that everybody has access to, that maybe some people aren't using, that can completely transform the way that you practice and the way that you perform.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for being here, and we will see you next week.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: See you next week.