[00:00:00] Joe Towne: Hey, I’m Joe Towne, and this is The Better Podcast.

My guest this week is Noa Kageyama, also known as the Bulletproof musician. Noa has been performing music since he was two years old. He studied with some of the greatest musicians and professors in the world, and from a young age was challenged by performance anxiety while getting his undergraduate degree from Julliard.

He discovered sports psychology, and it changed everything. He’s gone on to get his master’s in music from Julliard and both his Ms and PhD in counseling and counseling psychology from Indiana University. He’s taught workshops at Northwestern, NYU, the New England conservatory and he’s on the faculty at Julliard.

And is the performance psychology coach for the new world symphony. There is a reason why his blogs are read by hundreds of thousands of people, every month. I was so amped to learn from Noa and his thoughtfulness had me leaning in. Let’s jump right into the conversation with Noa Kageyama, which is about the discipline of playing

So, Noa, thanks again so much for being here on The Better Podcast today. I want to start out with a question about the current state of affairs. So imagine for a moment that your life had a newspaper, and I’m curious to know if people were following you around, they were writing articles about you. What would the current headline of the newspaper of your life say?

[00:01:42] Noa Kageyama: That’s an excellent question that I’m not sure I’ve ever thought in any sort of way about, I suppose. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is just how much more comfort there is. I think [00:02:00] around online stuff, I know stuff is pretty vague, but you know, online teaching, online coaching, online lessons, online classes, I mean, this was happening well before the pandemic.

I mean, I and a colleague were teaching an online zoom class before everyone knew what zoom was and I didn’t even really understand zoom or particularly like it. And it was all kind of new to me, but, you know, I got used to it after a couple of years. And so when the pandemic started and everyone was using zoom, I was like, oh, I guess this is, this is the thing now.

And you know, for me, it was honestly a pretty smooth transition and I’ve come to really, especially now that we’ve gone back to live classes, Honestly, there’s some aspects of zoom classes that I kind of miss in terms of like, so one example is classroom participation with the chat feature and the way in which everyone can provide.

Uh, response to the exact same question all at the same time, without talking over one [00:03:00] another, I feel like I’m, in some situations I’m able to get a lot more input and feedback from what’s going on in the student’s thoughts in their heads and their experience of a new concept or a new exercise. We just tried then when they’re all alive and also in terms of even playing and performing for one another, even if everyone is playing all at the same time, in different corners of the room, being able to do so muted completely freely, and being able to take risks and chances and not worry about how it might come out.

That also is something that was really cool on zoom that has become a little bit challenging now that everyone’s sort of getting back into the feeling of what it’s like to play in front of other people who might hear them and so forth. So I suspect maybe the headings or the headlines would have something to do.

Online education or online teaching. And, um, and how now there’s a blend of possibilities. I think that seems to be an option for 

[00:03:51] Joe Towne: more folks. I love that so much. I love that there’s already a missing of some of this online connection and some of the value it can [00:04:00] provide. I’m hearing a couple of threads in there.

One of them is on the ability to take risks and the other is the ability for there to be feedback and the information that can come from being able to glean some of that feedback and make sense of it. So I’m excited to dive in and hear a little bit more about that. Now I’m so curious because you and I are getting to know one another.

I’m wondering, how did a love for music first come into your life? Like who or what did you love to listen 

[00:04:30] Noa Kageyama: to? This is probably a longer story than you’re wanting and response to that, but so my parents. We’re not musicians, but I think both of them grew up with the obligatory piano lessons, um, when they were kids.

And my mom, I think actually was much more interested in it because, uh, she was the youngest kid in her family. And I think they had, you know, used the resources for the older children and, you know, she was kind of at the end of the line. And I think they were probably [00:05:00] tired at that point. And so she did get piano lessons, but they didn’t have a piano for her.

So she actually drew out by hand a keyboard on, on paper and would practice on this paper keyboard during the week and then go to the lesson and actually be able to play on a real piano at the lesson. So she didn’t ever get to a really high level, but, you know, she’s able to play simple songs and Christmas songs and so forth, uh, as my dad could.

And so when they got married and moved into their apartment, um, you know, one of the first things that they bought before a dining table and a couch and all that was a piano. Uh, so, you know, moving in or delivery van popped up and the neighbors like, oh, maybe Milton Sachiko got a couch that we can sit on when we play cards, instead of these milk crates and so forth and out positive piano is like, what, what are they doing?

Uh, so then the next month rolls around and it’s like, okay, now it’s going to be like a dining table where we can all sit. And it was a, like a record player and speakers and stereos. [00:06:00] And so eventually they did get a dining table and a couch, but they started off getting music related things. And so when I was born and I grew up, there was always music playing.

Um, even if it wasn’t them, you know, as a record and send something like that, I did grow up with music in the home. 

[00:06:20] Joe Towne: What is a record player? The phonograph later called a gramophone was invented by Thomas Edison and improved upon by Alexander Graham bell. Also known as a turntable, particularly in hip hop or EDM.

This device plays records. Records are basically a way of recording sound onto a piece of synthetic plastic called vinyl or polyvinyl chloride. The recording creates a series of groups and when the vinyl spins a needle or stylists reads the grooves, sending sound to the speakers, it was CDs before [00:07:00] CDs.

It’s what we listened to before eight tracks and cassette tapes. And now digital files. And if you get two turntables and a mic, you can get some funky beats. And 

[00:07:12] Noa Kageyama: I don’t remember any particular piece or song that I heard that that hooked me. But, um, but apparently I used to walk around saying, oh, a white Magus, which they figured out later met.

Noah likes music. And so my cousins were in Ithaca, New York at the time getting started with Suzuki violin. And so one summer my mom was like, well, maybe we should go visit your aunt and uncle and cousins, hang out and try violin at the summer camp. And it, that went to my mom calling and sending letters to Dr.

Suzuki himself and taking me out of kindergarten and midway through the year, flying over. We lived there for six months. I studied with him and, you know, just kind of continued on towards conservatory. And honestly, I never really thought about whether. This was something I wanted to do or not. [00:08:00] I just, you know, one thing leads to another kind of organically when you’re a kid and you don’t really question the path you’re on.

And, and I was good enough at it that I never really had to question, is this something I should do or not? Um, and things just kind of continued until I got to grad school, which was really the first time I started contemplating, oh, I’m going to have to do this potentially for the rest of my life. Is this something I actually want to do?

Um, so, so yeah, my story was a little bit unusual in that. I mean, I did love many aspects of it and some of my fondest memories and friendships are still in the context of music. My wife, in fact, you know, I met through music and as a pianist and, um, so forth. But, but yeah, I don’t know that I was ever as in love with it as they needed to be, which is kind of why I ended up deciding at some point that, oh, maybe this isn’t really me.

Um, cause in terms of identity, I, I don’t know if this is. Partly a response to your question, but you know, [00:09:00] sometimes when we ask ourselves a question, is this me, you know, is this way of dressing me or is this pair of shoes really me? Like, does it speak to who I think I am. And, and I just got to a point where that question.

Related to music was no like this isn’t me somehow. And I don’t know why, I don’t know when that happened or if it ever was that, but, but yeah. Gosh, 

[00:09:21] Joe Towne: there’s so many amazing threads in there already, Noah. Um, the first thing is what an ingenious tool your mom created to find a way to practice. And I love.

That the sort of seeds of it just were all around you and hearing their priorities and values in terms of when they brought it into the home. And it sounds like music in many ways was about connection and community. Uh, first two inside the apartment, and then to some of your teachers and colleagues at camp.

And, and then ultimately part of that community led you to your wife. So it seems like music has certainly brought some tremendous [00:10:00] lessons and, uh, tremendous opportunities. You mentioned Dr. Suzuki and I, I wonder for those people who may not know, or not familiar with the method itself, what are some of the qualities that stand out about that way of training?

[00:10:13] Noa Kageyama: What’s interesting about Dr. Suzuki, his philosophy is that it’s very much, I think in some ways, aligned with, uh, Andres Ericsson’s work on, you know, talent and deliberate practice and how essentially we’re all much more capable and talented maybe than we might give ourselves credit for. And Dr. Ziggy’s sort of, I think light bulb moment was realizing that, you know, every child is born.

Without an understanding of how to speak any particular language, but by listening to those around him or her, um, you kind of develop the ability to speak at an expert level essentially. And so he wondered if the same might be true for music that you don’t need to be this sort of spectacularly gifted or special person at birth, but that just by listening to a lot of music and being [00:11:00] surrounded by it in a particular way, you can kind of almost through osmosis, just, just develop the ability to, to hear and to produce and to play in a way that I think at the time, maybe people didn’t expect was possible for your ordinary kid.

And so there was a lot of listening involved. Hence my mom going up and down the stairs to keep putting the record player back to the beginning. And so. And these endless cassette tapes, if anyone happens to remember those that just would loop over and over and over. And so there’s a lot of listening, a lot of, kind of playing together.

And, um, and, and yeah, that was sort of like a, like you used the word community and that’s kind of what it felt like for me to be surrounded by a lot of other musicians, young musicians and playing together and listening and, um, kind of picking tunes out from here and not even knowing how to read music for a little while.

[00:11:51] Joe Towne: I’m wondering, so I know you talked a little bit about identity and what happened later, but I’m wondering, was there anything in [00:12:00] your young mind, as far as a dream about music? Like what was your first dream when it came to music? 

[00:12:07] Noa Kageyama: If you had one? I think like a lot of young musicians, my team was probably too.

Go to Juilliard become a solo performer. Like it’s a, Proman who I, you know, I’d seen on Sesame street and, you know, be on stage. I think I even heard him live in concert once and it just seemed like that was such a cool thing to be able to do just to play this amazing repertoire with an orchestra. And there’s all this sound happening.

And, uh, that just seemed like a really cool thing to me as a kid. And of course later I, I realized that I didn’t want to travel and I didn’t want to, there are a lot of things that practically speaking, I didn’t realize I wouldn’t want to do, but at the time as a kid, yeah. That definitely seemed like a really cool thing to be able to do.

[00:12:50] Joe Towne: Yeah. The logistics that can sometimes come crashing in that sometimes tempers back a dream. When was the first time you [00:13:00] realized that nerves were getting a hold of 

[00:13:02] Noa Kageyama: you? I don’t remember exactly what age it was, but it was before the age of five, because I was five when I went to Japan to study with Dr.

Zuki and I definitely remember nerves, then I think it was sooner. It might’ve been maybe like four. Um, when I, I remember there was a particular summer festival or summer camp outs where we all lined up on the side of the stage and one by one, we went up and we played and then sat back down and a few people before me, there’s this little girl in my memory, you know, she’s wearing like a white dress with purple flowers and pigtails.

And I just, you know, I don’t know if that’s accurate or not, but I remember, you know, she went up there and she played and she started having memory slips. Like she just stopped and like forgot what the next note was. And then, you know, the pianist would cue her and help her recover. And, and it didn’t just happen once it happened multiple times.

And, and that was the first time I’d seen anything like that. And I was like, wow, That seems kind of embarrassing. Like I would hate if that happened to [00:14:00] me, like what would I do? And, and then I started singing the song in my head trying to see if I could remember how it went. Like, do I really have this memorize?

I didn’t know. That was a possibility. And I, I got stuck. Like, I couldn’t remember. I was like, oh crap, what comes next? Like where does go? And, you know, being for whatever, like my attention span is probably really small. And so, you know, after the next person was fine and the person after that, like, I totally kind of forgot about it for the moment, but I, that was Mike my first sort of freak out moment, I think.

And I definitely remember afterwards, it’s almost like Pandora’s box maybe had been opened a little bit and I now knew that things don’t necessarily always go well on the stage. Wow. 

[00:14:39] Joe Towne: Yeah. It’s like, you’re introduced to something that you hadn’t considered. And then all of a sudden different part of your brain gets activated.

And it sounds like it’s stuck with you a bit, you know, I’m curious because practice is such an important part of what we do. I’m wondering, did you have a time that you started to rethink your [00:15:00] relationship to how you were practicing? 

[00:15:02] Noa Kageyama: It was embarrassingly late my, uh, readjustment to practicing in that sense, because, you know, I started practicing with my mom’s help when I was two and a half when I started playing and I really didn’t know how to practice honestly.

And I still remember I was studying with this really famous musician. I was 12, 13 maybe. And I think my mom was just so frustrated at seeing me just. Meander through my repertoire at home every day with kind of aimlessly with no real apparent goals. And she didn’t know how to practice either. Otherwise she maybe would’ve given me suggestions, but she knew that that is not what practicing ought to look like.

And I didn’t seem to be progressing, I think as quickly as she would have imagined and didn’t seem like I wanted to practice, which I didn’t, because I didn’t understand what the point was and what I was doing. And so she, at the end of the lesson asked me, or told me, you know, ask your teacher to tell you, or [00:16:00] to teach you how to practice.

And I was just completely mortified by the idea of asking this, you know, great musician, something that seems so basic that I ought to know. And so I, I, I think she ended up asking for me and he seemed really confused and didn’t quite know what she meant or what we were asking and gave me this worksheet or this handout.

Um, and obviously. Those better than anybody, how to practice. Like he does it for himself and very accomplished musician. But I think it’s something that, especially then, there wasn’t a ton of awareness about research on learning and effective learning and practice and so forth. Like there was even 20, 30 years of.

And so it wasn’t until probably the second year of my master’s program. Or I started figuring out for myself what it actually means to practice, to, you know, to deliberately engage in activities in a very thoughtful and methodical problem solving sort of approach. Instead of just trying to put in as many [00:17:00] repetitions of something as possible, hoping that my body or my muscles would Intuit the solution and then remember, and then be able to reproduce that solution under pressure.

So yeah, it took a long time, 20 years or so. 

[00:17:12] Joe Towne: Yeah. I, I love hearing about that. Not obviously it didn’t feel. And I’m hearing embarrassment. And, um, I’m hearing that there’s a sense of like, why don’t I know this already in a questioning of been doing this for so long and at the same time, you know, you used a couple words in there.

I heard earlier you say Andrews Erickson and deliberate practice.

K Anders Ericsson was a Swedish psychologist who for a long time was a professor of psychology at Florida state university. If you feel like he sounds familiar it’s because he was perhaps most famously associated with the 10,000 hour rule, 10,000 hours is what has been recognized as the amount of practice it takes to achieve mastery level at something.

But the truth is it’s not [00:18:00] just practicing that Erickson was saying created mastery because we could spend 10,000 hours practicing bad habits, but rather deliberate practice, which means you have a high concentration onto what you’re doing. And you’re working beyond your comfort zone. Now Andrew’s Erikson developed this theory by observing expert performers across multiple fields, such as medicine, chess, music, and sports.

And I also just heard the word effective, and I think however long it takes for us to be able to understand how to practice effectively for us in a personalized way. Maybe thank goodness it happened at 20, you know, or after 20 years as opposed to hasn’t happened yet. But what are some of the mechanics of an effective practice?

[00:18:50] Noa Kageyama: So what I used to do is really a lot more similar to. Might be called implicit learning. I mean, that’s how we learn how to ride a bike. That’s [00:19:00] how we learn how to do a lot of things. And there’s nothing inherently wrong necessarily with implicit learning. I mean, they say, you know, you never forget how to ride a bike.

And there are some benefits to not really having a deep understanding of the mechanics behind a skill, because then it’s the less prone to, you know, what’s called choking because you can’t overthink something you don’t quite understand in the first place. Um, but at some point, if you want to get better at a skill.

So what I did for the first 20 years of my life was just play something. And if I didn’t like it, or if it didn’t sound right, I would stop. I rewind. And I played again. Maybe it’d be a little bit better. I played a few more times until it sounded like I wanted to tell. And I was like, okay, There is that.

And now let me move on to the next thing and then I’d continue. And I’d repeat that process. Just stop, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, but not really stopping to analyze what’s going on or what’s causing that or what I’m actually doing differently. Just kind of intuiting my way to a solution and then moving on problem, of course, is that the next day when I went back into the [00:20:00] practice room to play that piece of the passage, again, it’s not like it starts off where I left it the day before.

It’s like most of the progress I made the day before has disappeared somewhere. And now I’m starting from square two or square one and a half instead of square five or six or seven, where I left it. And over years of doing that, you just kind of assume that that is what progress looks like. 10 steps forward today, nine or eight steps back.

And maybe over time you get closer and closer to your goal, but sometimes it doesn’t even feel like anything is sticking. Sometimes it feels like things are getting worse. And so. Finally, you know, when I got to grad school and I started actually thinking, okay, I need to do something different. Cause this is clearly frustrating and not working.

It required me stopping and reflecting a lot more. And so basically now what my process ended up looking like was instead of playing, stopping, repeat, repeat, repeat, without a lot of reflection would be to stop first off, identify exactly [00:21:00] what I heard that I didn’t like. So instead of just saying, oh, it’s out of tune, I would have to say, okay, well the F sharp was attitude and specifically it was a little flat relative to the G and then I’d have to think, okay, well, if the F sharp is flat, why is that?

Like, what did I do that caused it to be a little bit flat? And I’d be able to be able to set my thumb? Is it maybe there’s too much finger pressure with my first finger? Is it maybe my wrist isn’t rotated or pronated enough, or maybe my elbow didn’t come around quite soon enough, or maybe I didn’t lift off enough lift up enough with my left arm, or maybe it’s a combination of some of those things.

And you know, we’d have to go through. Come up with this hypothesis about what’s causing the F sharp to be consistently flat. And then I had to come up with a solution. So, okay. Maybe it’s a combination of releasing my thumb and getting my elbow around and lifting up. Let’s see if that works. And I try it sometimes that would be the solution and be like, yeah, okay.

Now I know why that’s happening other times I would over-correct so then it’d have to be another revision of, okay. So that means I’m doing too [00:22:00] much of this. Maybe not enough of that, or maybe it’s not none of those things. And there’s some other ingredient that I’m not aware of that’s happening, that’s causing it.

And so I have to go through a much slower feeling and more methodical and thoughtful, analytical process than I ever did before. Which did feel slow and effortful, but what was gratifying about it is I’d come up with concrete, tangible solutions and an understanding of why exactly this thing kept happening.

That would maybe not immediately permanently change things, but because that was the solution, I could then reinforce that solution. And so if it ever was flat again, I’d know exactly why and what adjustment needed to be made. And it was much more stable and things were much more likely to stick. And so that was when my relationship with practicing changed where I no longer like resisted or dreaded it quite so much.

Like it still wasn’t like the funnest thing ever. It’s still rather like hanging out with my girlfriend or go to the movies or do anything. But if I did have to practice, at least I [00:23:00] knew what I was doing. And it felt like when I was done, something had happened and I could count on that being something.

Reproduce, um, in the future when I needed to. 

[00:23:09] Joe Towne: So good, I’m hearing that the, the first relationship you had to practicing was almost like enough time in the room, trial and error, and sort of assuming good days and bad days, and not really understanding why. And what I’m really hearing is that you were able to get more specific by slowing things down and then get super intentional about what was next.

And that, that combination change the amount of fun you’re able to have in a process that wasn’t as much fun before. Or I think as you’ve mentioned before, fun ish, maybe not as fun as going to the movies or hanging out with your girlfriend or other things, but, uh, at least funnish happened. So I’m wondering, you know, you, you mentioned this early dream and it seemed like a pretty clear path, right?

Like I get into Julliard and then I get to perform live on stage or perhaps on Sesame street. And so you get into [00:24:00] Julliard. And it’s this long held dream accomplished. And I’m wondering, how did that impact your mindset? The idea of like, did it impact your sense of how you saw yourself? The fact that this long held dream came true.

[00:24:15] Noa Kageyama: This is going to sound maybe borderline arrogant, so apologies in advance, but I never doubted that it would happen. I think partly it’s not because I thought so highly of myself, but because, you know, it’s sort of a gradual thing. You know, I went from going to this summer festival to this summer festival, to playing with these people, to, you know, doing things.

And I think because I was even flying to New York at some point for pre college at Juilliard and started to get to know all the people who were there and the music festival that I went to in the summer. It was largely, um, you know, surrounded largely by people who went to Julliard or to similar types of schools.

And I was playing with them already and engage in orchestra and chamber music. And so I think my [00:25:00] sense of self started to change far before I actually got there where it’s a little bit like I remember reading this article, I think about LaMarcus Aldridge is, you know, an NBA player became an all-star very successful in his career, but this is early on in his career where his goal was to become an all-star, you know, every season’s like I’m going to be an all-star this year.

And, and I think what the article got at was that, you know, you don’t become an all-star when you’re voted into the all-star game. Like you’re already an all-star. And as a result of that, they include you in the all-star game. If that makes sense. So I think in a similar way, like, I didn’t have this change in image because I got into Julliard.

The change of image, I think was much more gradual. Oh, along the way where I believed that I was someone who could go to Julliard and be part of that sort of echelon of, of student, because of all the experiences I had had prior to [00:26:00] that, which then made me perhaps a good fit for that particular school at that time.

So I don’t know if that makes sense in the way I described 

[00:26:08] Joe Towne: it completely does. And I love it. I appreciate your honesty and vulnerability around sharing, maybe how, how that came across or how you thought about that. But what I’m really appreciating is in surfing a lot of times, if, if we jump on a board for the first time and think my, um, my outcome is I want to surf on a 15 foot wave and I’ve never surfed before then there’s so much maybe pressure and gap between what I’ve been able to do before and accomplishing this outcome.

And yet a lot of surfers will surf a one-foot way. And then a two foot wave and then a three foot wave. And so by the time they surf a 15 foot wave, they’ve been at the 14 foot level before. So it’s not as big of a leap. And what I’m hearing is because of some of the communities, you’re a part of, because you’d worked at it for so long, it [00:27:00] was possible that you could be in the community at Julliard.

And in fact it might even be likely. So while as, maybe on some level there was something worth celebrating. It wasn’t, it was a gradual thing. It wasn’t a lightning bolt moment. And it sounds like you had a sense of belonging there and that maybe this idea that look LaMarcus, Aldridge embodying being an all-star before it was recognized by others is an invitation for us to think about how we want to be.

So I love that you introduced the sport already, and I know that, um, sport was a big part of your time at Julliard. I’m so curious to know what artists can learn from. And I know that you had a mentor who taught you sports psychology at Juilliard. And I’m wondering what stood out to you the most. From learning about sports psychology at 

[00:27:51] Noa Kageyama: that time, I think the first thing was that I didn’t realize this field existed and this was late nineties.

[00:28:00] And so I think there were probably a number of people who did know that sports psychology existed, but I think what was especially surprising to me is, and this is maybe a tangent. We don’t need to go down, but I was actually a psychology major and undergrad. It was a loophole I exploited to get out of playing an orchestra and taking music theory and all those things that I wasn’t interested in.

So I essentially applied to the double degree program, had to find some other major to graduate with. And psychology seemed not too demanding and I’d still have time to practice and so forth and didn’t know if it was going to be useful or not, but. Maybe more useful than physics or something hard like that.

So, so yeah, I just did that and didn’t do particularly well. Wasn’t especially interested in it and fell asleep in class and didn’t study for tests and got bad grades. But so I was, I was sort of shell shocked. It’s like, what sports are called you? This seems interesting. How come I never learned about this?

Why did nobody say anything about this in undergrad? Maybe I was sleeping that day in class when they talked about it. But in any case, what [00:29:00] did, besides being surprised that this existed, I was surprised at how practical it was and how applicable and how actionable it was. And it wasn’t just theory. And, you know, just talking about pathology and issues that we were all having, which is, you know, a different continuum or different, um, aspect of psychology, for sure.

But it had to do with enabling unusually exceptional people, how to do even more. Under pressure and how to be more fully themselves and be able to generate their full capacity of performance under pressure. And that was really fascinating to me because one of the first websites that I ever really kind of got into was life hacker, which is a little bit different, but it’s, you know, how to like mix hot chocolate into your milk more effectively or more efficiently, or how to like cool down your car on a summer [00:30:00] day with the least amount of use of energy and the least amount of time, like it’s all about optimizing and making things a little bit better.

And that’s what sports psychology felt like to me. And so that I could use it applied to all of these frustrations and challenges and struggles that I had with my instrument was like the coolest thing ever at that particular point 

[00:30:21] Joe Towne: that I think we, we may have had some similar journeys and understandings of psychology for me.

I was in a high school where there happened to be, uh, a psychology class that was maybe like a freshman level college psychology class, but it was really focused around ego, super ego Freud, basic tenets of psychology. And in my, in my university, I had some great teachers who were in psychology, but it was really more about abnormal psychology and because of exploring, being an actor, that was fascinating to me, you know, what I’d seen in movies and trying to understand maybe [00:31:00] what a Hannibal Lecter or if you can even understand someone like that might mean, but I love the distinction that sports psychology really is talking about optimization of self and the spectrum.

Isn’t just studying the DSM four or five now and coming up with all the things we might have, but, but rather figuring out how we can go farther, um, with the things that are working well and pursue excellence in that way. No one I’m so curious. Do you have a philosophy. Or a quote that you live by? 

[00:31:31] Noa Kageyama: I suppose there’s two.

I think the it’s funny because it’s it’s right here. Cause my daughter knows, I liked this quote and she bought this thing for me as a Christmas gift that has it on it. It’s often miss attributed to Aristotle. And I don’t actually remember the actual person that said it, but it’s the one that I’m sure you’ve heard.

We are what we repeatedly do. So excellence then is not an act, but a habit like that really resonated with me. The other one [00:32:00] that. Has resonated with me is, and I don’t know that I can repeat it exactly the way that it’s stated, but something about how in the absence of clearly defined goals, we become surprising, surprisingly loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.

[00:32:20] Joe Towne: Aristotle once said, virtues are formed in may. By his doing the actions in his book, Nicomachean ethics. He goes on to say, the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life for, as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring. So it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.

We must consider as to the particular actions, how we are able to do them, because the quality of the habits that shall be formed depends on these. The writer will [00:33:00] Durant interpreted this to mean we are what we repeatedly do. Therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit in his 1926 book, the story of philosophy.

And it is often missed attributed to Aristotle as to why that is. I share a quote from the great Abraham Lincoln. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. Wow. Wow. I love that. Even the paraphrase of it. I’m going to have to listen back on that one and meditate on it a bit. No, I’m wondering why as a performer, when you’re performing at your best, how does it feel?

What does it feel like to be you in a moment when you’re performing at your best? 

[00:33:44] Noa Kageyama: I think the moments that I remember most and it, I’m not sure I’ll have to talk and see where it goes to see if it’s different. If I’m part of an ensemble, like a piano trio that I enjoyed playing with when I was a student or if it’s just me on [00:34:00] stage.

But I think, I think the moments that are most cool, I don’t think I, and I think this is maybe not just me, but universal. I don’t think we’re. Conscious of who we are doing this thing, but I think we’re just doing the thing. And that’s part of what makes performing so much fun when it’s a good day and everything’s working because we’re not trying so hard to do something, but we’re just allowing ourselves to trust ourselves, to create the moment that we find beautiful or meaningful.

And just trusting that we have the preparation, we have the skills to make that happen. And I think whether it’s an orchestral performance or I think it’s easier for me to think of in terms of, you know, small chamber music ensembles, where like you’re just listening to each other, you’re, you’re anticipating what’s going to happen as a group you’re blending.

And you’re not worried about whether you’re going to be able to hit the next note or [00:35:00] what is going to happen a line from now, like the act of, and I guess that’s why it’s called music making, but you know, the act of. Creating this blend of sounds that communicates a particular emotion that you’ve kind of figured out, really represents what you’re trying to say, even without words.

And this moment, I think part of, part of what’s fun about that is you’re not like you, you’re not thinking about the electricity bills that you have to pay the next day or the dishes that haven’t been done and how you need to fix, you know, one of the steps on your staircase, like all those other things that are outside of that moment, kind of cease to exist.

And, and you’re just enjoying this moment of creating with each other. 

[00:35:44] Joe Towne: What I’m hearing in there is there’s a loss of a sense of identity. Maybe a, the self-awareness knob gets turned away down and that there’s a self-trust and a purposeful creation. And maybe the difference [00:36:00] between solo work and working in an ensemble is the attunement to others being present in that deliberate, active creation.

That’s really exciting. No, I’m wondering, uh, daily routines, what is the first hour of 

[00:36:13] Noa Kageyama: your day? It’s been interesting because that looked different during the pandemic. And I mean, part of what’s been stressful or difficult the last month is figuring out what is our new routine look like now that the kids are going back to school and, you know, there’s some work happening live and so forth.

I mean, I wish I could say that it was a very clear regimented routine. But I think we’re still figuring it out. And this month as school was starting to happen, it used to be a little bit clearer. I think to me, you know, wake up, go to the gym, come back breakfast with family, make lunches, and then kind of sit down and figure out what the day is going to look like.

What I have planned [00:37:00] each of my days also looks a little bit different. Like Monday’s more of a day to prepare for a long day of Tuesday in-person teaching. And then Wednesday is when I start finding material for the blog and Thursday and Friday are more big writing days. And so each state does have a little bit of a different flow and look to it.

So yeah, I think there is somewhat of a routine. I think as the weeks pass I’ll hopefully start to get back into a little bit more of a regular routine. 

[00:37:32] Joe Towne: Is there anything you do every day? No matter what. No matter how late it is, or sometime in the middle of the 

[00:37:38] Noa Kageyama: day. I think the one constant is that I’m reading.

And I know that sounds sort of generic, but it’s all sort of based around, you know, when I first started blogging, I thought I was going to run out of things to say, you know, after a month or two, I just didn’t know what I could possibly go on [00:38:00] about and put out into the internet for more than a couple of months.

And so sort of worried about that because again, you know, worry about that bridge when I get to it. And so I just kept writing and then it didn’t really stop. And I started off being a little bit irregular, but since, I don’t know when, you know, the last seven, eight years, maybe it’s been weekly for the most part.

And so that simple sort of singular activity in my life. Has sort of shaped what has to happen during the rest of the week. Like there has to be a process for continuing to get new ideas into the pipeline and then refining the ideas and looking for stories around those ideas, or thinking about ways of turning those ideas into actions and looking at peripheral research around the idea to make sure that there’s some sort of consensus around it.

And I’m not picking up one study that is not representative of [00:39:00] the larger research base and so forth. So, yeah, there’s a daily reading involved, all oriented towards what am I going to be able to write about on Sunday? Well, what am I going to be a, to write about so that I can post it on Sunday? And so even from, you know, the stress I might start to feel as the week goes on and I don’t quite know what I’m going to write about yet to figuring out, you know, what stories can I add to this?

And is this something I’ve written about already? Because it seems familiar to me that has kind of shaped each week and now I’ve gotten used to it, but it does mean having to read an awful lot every day. Maybe not a ton, but you know, consistently, like you said, it is something that I’ll have to do a little bit every day.

I 

[00:39:45] Joe Towne: love, I love that because there’s the struggles in the creative process, which is probably familiar for a lot of us. But I’m also hearing that sometimes when we set a goal or have an intention, we have to reorganize and rethink how we [00:40:00] structure our days and our. And so reverse engineering, how you want to show up when you sit down to write and create, I’m hearing that you might need to fill the well, and there might be, might need to be some reflective time thinking about personal stories.

And clearly that process is allowing you to sustain, but it’s also really reaching people. Cause I know your blog reaches hundreds of thousands of people, and it’s no doubt because of the effort that you put into being aware of science, coming up with a personal story sharing from that vulnerable place, making sure the words are in a place that you feel ready to put them out in the world.

And so that continuity and the effort that you put in is being received. I know I’m certainly grateful for getting to get a glimpse into what comes to mind. So thanks for sharing a bit about that process. If we get into craft for a little bit here, I’m wondering what, how do you make sense of the difference for you between learning mode and performing.[00:41:00] 

I think what’s the difference there. 

[00:41:02] Noa Kageyama: So personally, my problem looking back was that I spent most of my time. When I should have been in learning mode and performance mode. And most of my time when I should have been in performance mode and learning mode, meaning when I was in the practice room, I would just mindlessly play things over and over with no role, like I said, reflection or analysis or critique or judgment or problem solving approach to it.

And then when I got on stage suddenly, because now there were stakes involved, I tried to control everything and tried to, to think through everything and make sure this finger went there. And I didn’t screw this up and analyzing and critiquing and judging the crap out of everything that was coming out instead of focusing on just being present, except for those few moments that we talked about a little bit ago, where I was completely in the zone and just present and focused on the act of creating what it is that I had trained my [00:42:00] body to be able to support.

So for me now, looking back, it’s a lot clear what learning mode ought to look like and what performance mode ought to look like. And I think there’s plenty of evidence, even in the research literature to kind of articulate and make it clear what those could and should look like, where the way that I describe it to students now is when you’re in practice mode or learning mode, there’s a lot that has to happen.

You’d not only have to play, but you have to do a lot of self-monitoring at least for musicians. And to some degree, depending on the sports, you know, athletes will be doing this as well, where you have to not just pay attention to what your body’s doing and what your body’s saying to you in terms of tension and what needs to move and what needs to be more flexible or less flexible and so forth, but also your sound, you know, what’s coming out of your instrument.

And is it what it is that you want coming out of your instrument? How. Well, what’s the gap between those two. And, [00:43:00] but then there’s also evaluating and analysis and critique and judgment and problem solving and so forth that has to happen as part of practice mode. The problem of course is when musicians are in the zone or when people are in the zone and you’re trusting yourself to do the things that you’ve trained yourself to do, almost none of those things are happening.

Like when you talk to musicians, who’ve been in the zone, they aren’t saying, oh, I’m analyzing or taking and judging and problem solving and thinking about the future and worrying about the past. And they’re just playing. Like, they usually say, I’m thinking about the music or I’m thinking about nothing.

And neither of those are really true. Like, it’s not true that they’re not thinking about it, about anything, but thinking about the music is kind of vague. It was like, what does that mean? Exactly. And generally it’s because they are very much focused on the present on things that are related to the music, but are.

Mechanical or technical in nature, and they’re not necessarily even verbal in nature. They’re just like really focused on a sense of pulse or they’re focused on the [00:44:00] sound that they’re, that they’re aspiring towards, they’re aiming for, or the way that that sounds is going to fill the space or the way that it’s going to blend or combined with somebody else in the ensemble, um, or focused on just being more improvisational in the moment and creating these subtle nuances that, you know, they’ve maybe test it out or try it out in the practice room.

And so essentially they’re just very present, focused on sensory details of what it is that they’re, they’re trying to shape and create in the moment, which is a very different head space. Of course, then the analytical judgmental self-monitoring one that we should be using in the practice room. So, so yeah, they, they, to me, they’re almost like 180 degrees in opposite directions, but unfortunately we.

Often practice the performance Headspace. And so we’re not very good at getting into there on command. Cause we’re a not really sure what it looks like and what it means and how we get there. And B once we realize we’re there on those great days suddenly, then we’re not, and then we can’t get back there.[00:45:00] 

So it’s not something we generally practice. We spend a lot of time. And even though I think we really can and probably should 

[00:45:07] Joe Towne: I love practice the PR the performance head space that’s that needs to be on a t-shirt I think so how do you bridge between the two? I mean, how, how do you know when to put one down and what’s the bridge between those two states of being?

[00:45:21] Noa Kageyama: So I always resisted recording myself as a kid because I didn’t want to hear what I actually sounded like, and I’d put it off as long as possible because invariably, I wouldn’t hear myself sounding as good as I wanted to, but the reason why I’m now such a big. Fan of recording and suggested to all my students is because instead of thinking of recording, as a way to force yourself, to hear yourself play worse than you think you do or less well than you would like to my hope is that there’s a way to make [00:46:00] recording yourself more of a liberating activity, where basically when you’re recording yourself, you can give yourself permission to delegate all of the evaluation and the monitoring and the critique and the judgment and problem solving to future you.

Because when you listen back to the recording yeah. Do all that stuff. But when you’re playing, that’s an opportunity to just play, you know, just engage in whatever kind of mental processing you would want to in a performance, whether it’s imagery based or focusing on a particular kind of sound, or again, this sort of underlying sense of rhythm or pulse or shaping of the phrase, voicing, think about all those things that help bring you into the zone into the moment into the present and trust.

You’re recording device. We’ll capture whatever’s happening. So that later on you can find out, oh, was I rushing? Yeah, maybe I was rushing. I need to find a way to make that section a little more stable rhythmically, or maybe I was playing attitude here. I didn’t realize I was playing on a tune. I need to work on that so that when I’m focused on shaping this phrase, I don’t have to worry about intonation.[00:47:00] 

Um, and so my hope is that with practice recording can become something that, like I said, feels more liberating than punitive. Um, but yeah, when you are recording yourself, that is the time to practice switching your brain to performance mode. Um, and any time you do recording, which should probably for all of us be more often than we do it, uh, it means that you have regular practice.

It’s switching your mind from practice Bo to performance, both. Generally before a performance and we’ll do some of it, but I’ve increasingly been encouraging students to do much more of it, much sooner in the process, so they can start spending more time on the things that are likely to happen in a performance set of finding out like a week before.

Oh, crap. I’m screwed. I should’ve done this sooner. Yeah. 

[00:47:46] Joe Towne: Yeah. That’s so good. Um, I know that you mentioned a tape recorder earlier, and I remember the first time I heard my voice back when I left like a recording on my answering machine and I couldn’t believe the sound of my voice. It didn’t match [00:48:00] up with what I had in my head and didn’t really like it so much.

So the idea of watching or listening to myself back, um, the resistance that can come up around that, I think what I’m hearing is similar to what athletes may share is that when they go to breakdown game, film, tape, don’t lie. So the idea of getting familiar with being able to be in a more neutral observational state about the way our performance is going.

It sounds like being able to be specific about that in the reflective process is really valuable and that can lead us to have those insights before the big day, the big audition, the big performance, instead of finding out a weeks later. I’m so curious to know, when, when do you feel like our job ends?

Let’s say we have an audition or a performance of some kind. When does our job end? How do we know it’s complete? 

[00:48:51] Noa Kageyama: That was one of the things that I wished was clear to me, cause it always felt like there was no end, right? There’s [00:49:00] not, not just in the sense that there’s always another audition or performance or something coming up, but.

It’s not possible to perfect a piece or have it be perfect because as soon as you have what feels like a perfect recording of that piece, then you let some time pass by and you listen back to it. You notice maybe even a day later, if not like a week or month or a year later, there’s so many things you wish you could have done differently or changed to make it even more perfect if you will.

Even though, of course, that that’s not even possible. And my wife’s a piano teacher know is in his nineties now. And we visited him when he was, I think, in his early nineties one summer. And where was he? I mean, he was in his studio practicing, still trying to get better and improve some things. And so, so in, in, in one way, I suppose this could feel discouraging and demoralizing that there is no end.

Like there is no, it’s like a rainbow, right. You’re never going to [00:50:00] get to the end of it. But on the other, especially for people who have. Sort of lost motivation because they weren’t sure what else to do or that they felt they couldn’t take the next step. The cool thing about it is that there is no end and there’s always more that you’re going to learn.

There’s always more that you can do. And you’re going to have new ideas and be able to solve different problems in new ways and get excited about the same thing that you’re doing for the a hundred through the thousands of time over and over, because it’s not static. And your understanding of it’s not going to remain static, unless that’s what you want at which point, I suppose you could just say, you know, this is good enough.

Cause sometimes we do. We need to say, you know what? This is good enough. Don’t need to obsess about it any further. I need to sleep or eat or go back to aspects of my life that I’ve been neglecting and then I’ll come back to it and it’ll still be there for me, 

[00:50:52] Joe Towne: but there’s a moment. That sometimes the work can be done for now.

And that’s different [00:51:00] than the ongoing work, which may be never ends. I love the idea of the rain looking at it as a rainbow, because when I think about a rainbow, I think about an arch. And recently I saw a picture of what a rainbow looks like from the top of a dam, looking down at a waterfall. And I was surprised to learn that it’s a big circle.

And so the idea that it’s continuum and applying that to craft and how we think about our job is really fascinating. I’m curious about confidence and can we build or train confidence and where does it come from? 

[00:51:39] Noa Kageyama: Confidence. It’s a really big aspect of the literature. And there’s actually a model that I really like that comes from despite the title.

I think a really great place for people to start. If they’re interested in sports psychology and that sports psychology for dummies, it’s written by two sports [00:52:00] psychologists from central Ohio, Columbus, Ohio, and, you know, they work with a lot of athletes and other top performers. And so this model, I think of it may be in my head a little bit differently because when I memorize things, I try to think of it in ways that benefit me as opposed to maybe how it originally is.

But essentially one part of it is cultivating positivity. The other part is taking action or taking some, you know, smart risks or calculated risks

[00:52:33] Joe Towne: without risk. We cannot grow. We can’t explore new and strive and make mistakes and learn. So risk is necessary for growth. Some thoughts on risks by author, Kate Sukel who wrote the art of risk. She starts by challenging us, asking sure safety is well safe, but will it help me achieve the things I really [00:53:00] want for my life?

She goes on to say, successful risk takers are prepared for any contingency, and that’s because they’re aware of the best way to respond to different risky situations. They understand how even the smallest change in the environment can change the entire risk-taking equation. They spend an inordinate amount of time training and practicing.

So what they do feels like second nature, all that learning and deliberate practice syncs up there fast and slow thinking systems, which leads to smarter decision-making and finally she shares. When it comes to future risk taking is a gift successful risk takers are often motivated by failure. It’s what tells them that they aren’t done preparing yet.

It’s inspiration to work harder, to train better and to learn more. 

[00:53:55] Noa Kageyama: And then the other part of it is internalizing successes. So like [00:54:00] cultivating success involves being aware of our self-talk the stuff that we’re saying to ourselves all day long to make sure that we’re not sabotaging our own sense of.

Competence and efficacy and so forth, um, imagery as well, you know, to make sure we’re imagining, um, the ability for things to go well in the future and our capacity to rise to the occasion and so forth. And so we’re cultivating a degree of hope and positivity and optimism and, um, reinforcing the things that we believe or think that we can do because, you know, we repeat something often enough to ourselves and that starts to seem increasingly probabilistic or true, which can then lead to different actions and behaviors that we undertake on our part, which can lead to them, these sort of self fulfilling prophecies.

And so that’s one part of it. Certainly the building confidence, the other part of it that I’ve found interesting is, you know, taking action so we can. I have the most positive self-talk and positive imagery in the world. But if we are sitting on [00:55:00] the couch, eating ice cream and bingeing, Netflix, and not training or not practicing or not honing and refining our craft and doing score study and going to performances and doing whatever it is that we would.

To really, truly be on the master’s path, if you will, of, of continual improvement, it’s going to be hard to feel confident when it comes time to perform, um, or to embrace opportunities to perform. And then the last one that I think tends to get overlooked a lot, because I think most of us kind of suck at it is internalizing successes.

Right. So when something does go, well, not disqualifying it or dismissing it or taking other people’s compliments as, you know, just being polite, but, but actually internalizing the things that did go well and giving ourselves credit for the role that we played. So a lot of things, obviously that go, well, there’s an element of luck involved, but a lot of it’s also us, you know, it’s the preparation we did the fourth that we had the effect of [00:56:00] practice.

We engaged in the making ourselves record ourselves and study ourselves a little bit more sooner in the process than we otherwise might have wanted to. And so, yeah, like giving ourselves credit for the successes that we have is also an integral component. 

[00:56:14] Joe Towne: Gosh, all three of those are so clear. I’m really excited that you shared that resource with people.

And I, I guess there must be something in the water in Ohio around sports psychology, because not only are the two authors from there, but is it true that you were born there as well? Yeah. Yeah. So everyone check out the water. See if you can do some research on what we can learn about the water supply in Ohio, how do you understand motivation?

What is it connected to? And because of the moment that we’re maybe collectively finding ourself in, how can we find our way back to being motivated after times we may have been say languishing. I think 

[00:56:53] Noa Kageyama: it’s different things for different people. And I mean, for me, when I think [00:57:00] about my own experience of motivation and the violin.

I was motivated in a lot of ways, by a lot of things that were maybe not great things to be motivated with or for in the long-term. Some of it had to do with, you know, fear based motivation of not wanting to sound bad in a lesson or get yelled at, or to disappoint somebody or to, you know, be embarrassed in a competition or, you know, like my own sense of self might’ve been sort of inflated where it’s like, oh, if I lose in this competition, if I don’t win in this competition, that’s going to be embarrassing.

So I think there were a lot of motivations like that growing up that weren’t so useful. Then there were also a number of motivations that were more aspirational for me, like wanting to be able to get this sort of fellowship at this type of music festival or to be able to play in this orchestra at the music festival instead of that one, or to be able to feel like I was pulling my weight in this ensemble, as opposed to another, and, or even just being able to play certain [00:58:00] repertoire with certain people and feel really secure and confident in my ability to do so.

And for me though, the thing that was really, I think most motivating was when I started feeling like I was more self efficacious. So as in the moment where I started feeling like, oh, I sound like this right now on this recording. I just made, I know how to sound better if I spend this amount of time approaching these problems and this sort of way I will come up with solutions and I will be able to sound the way that I want to.

And I mean, it maybe sounds like a really simple, basic sort of thing, but, but that moment of realizing if I want to sound better, I can, and I know how to do that. It’s just a matter of time and like mental energy devoted to this. Like that was incredibly motivating to me. And I don’t even know if I can explain why.

I mean, I think for most people it’s probably obvious [00:59:00] they wouldn’t need to hear an explanation, but something about knowing that I can get better and I know how to do that. And I have the capacity for that. I think even now, still I find very motivating, like knowing that if. Approach EDD in this particular way, my body will reflect that in terms of how I feel or how I look, or if I go to the gym and I do these things, instead of those things, I will also feel different or see a difference, like to me, that like that sort of empowered feeling of knowing that my actions will have tangible results and it not just being, crossing my fingers and hoping that with enough time in randomness, I will get closer to a particular goal.

I think that at least personally for me has been one of the more motivating things that I’ve found that kind of keeps me going. 

[00:59:51] Joe Towne: Yeah, I’m hearing in there that it seems to me there was some extrinsic motivators, right? The idea of how do I look to others and [01:00:00] what outcomes am I interested in accomplishing?

And those can be early drivers of motivation perhaps. And that some were along the line. There was this one. To a more intrinsic motivation. The idea of I have agency now about how I can sound better. And you talked earlier about mastery being about continual improvement. It’s reminding me of this idea in the, in the subject of grit, in the work of Angela Duckworth that in order to have that passion and perseverance over time, we need to have a hope that our behavior matters and that we are making that kind of improvement.

Angela Duckworth is a professor at U Penn. She’s a faculty co-director at the Wharton school of business. She has her undergraduate degree in advanced studies in neurobiology from Harvard. She also has her MSC in neuroscience, from Oxford university with distinction. [01:01:00] She’s a MacArthur fellowship recipient, which allowed her to continue her work.

And her Ted talk is among the most viewed of all. Uh, she wrote a New York times bestselling book that shares the secrets to outstanding achievement. She says it’s not talent, but a special blend of passion and perseverance her term for this is grit. It’s that thing that allows us to come back again and again, the sticktuitiveness and she calls it the hallmark of high achievers in every domain.

She knows this by studying everyone from young cadets at west point to young finalists in the national spelling bee. She also shares what she’s learned from interviewing dozens of high achievers from the CEO of JP Morgan, chase to Seattle Seahawks, head coach, Pete Carroll. Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down.

It’s about understanding that at the core of grit [01:02:00] are things like hope and optimism. And I know for me, If I’m not going to get the results immediately, that I maybe am hoping for like booking the job or getting the feedback that feels good. The times that I tend to languish are when I don’t feel like I’m making improvements.

And the times that I don’t feel like I know exactly how to do that. So I’m really hearing that reflected a bit in your own journey around motivation. What does the term micro break mean to you and what should we be doing during them? Is there a difference perhaps between a break you mentioned before about eating ice cream and watching Netflix.

Is there a difference between a break and like a reset? 

[01:02:43] Noa Kageyama: I think micro breaks could be. As short as just like a fraction of a second or a few seconds in between repetitions of something. And there is some interesting research would suggest that. Yeah, like if we take a little break in between repetitions that does seem [01:03:00] to enhance learning where it’s almost like your brain does another kind of run-through of the action that you’re trying to internalize as you were kind of engaged in that little break.

I think also in terms of deliberate practice, if we don’t have little micro breaks in between our repetitions, there isn’t enough time to do a real reflection on what just happened. What adjustments do I need to make? What am I going to do differently in this next repetition? I think on a larger level too, though, sometimes micro breaks in terms of, I think the practice structure that I grew up with just sort of drilled into my head was you practice for 50 minutes and then you take a 10 minute break.

Then you practice for another 15 minutes in a 10 minute break. And whether it’s that specific outline. Or if it’s some other outline, you know, like twenty-five minutes and then a five minute break, like the poor Pomodoro timers, like to have you do. I think having these breaks makes it easier to have this more intense devotion of energy and focus into a [01:04:00] particular problem or project for a shorter span of time.

Whereas I think earlier, before I knew that I was okay to give myself breaks, like the idea of sustaining practice for two hours in a row, or even like an hour in a row sometimes like the idea of it is pretty exhausting. And so you don’t even want to get started sometimes because you feel like, yeah, I can’t do that.

Like I’m way too tired now, or I want to do other things. And so I think if we know in advance that we can have a lot of intense focus on something and then give ourselves permission to take a break. And in terms of what to do on a break, I think increasingly there’s been some interest in. The greenspace or walking, or, you know, just getting outside and doing something that takes you away from screens and reminders of social media and all the things happening, where we just kind of reconnect with breathing, being around things that are a little bit more peaceful and we charge our batteries a little bit more effectively, uh, whether it’s, yeah, like even a five or 10 minute [01:05:00] break to walk the dog, or just go outside and take in a couple of few deep breaths and the park across the street or in your backyard, walking on grass with bare feet can be surprisingly meditative and nice, like any of these things that we do that help us reset a little bit, uh, I think are much more useful than sometimes we give them credit for being in terms of being able to maintain a high level of productivity throughout a day.

Gosh, 

[01:05:24] Joe Towne: I’m really hearing in there that you can take a pause or a break big and small, and if you value doing that on a regular basis, and it’s part of your practice habits. Not only does it help around one section you might be working on to pause before you continue, but the consistency of then pausing at the end of perhaps a half an hour or an hour or 25 or 50 minutes, but then also sort of in the bigger scope after working intensively in that focus for a few hours, perhaps taking a pause and taking a [01:06:00] break, a technology break, changing environments surrounding ourselves with beauty and breath and seeing how that refresh can help us come back in perhaps a new way.

And I’m hearing that all of that not only helps us with our job, but also maybe helps us be more sustainable throughout the day and perhaps more sustainable throughout our 

[01:06:20] Noa Kageyama: careers. It reminds me a little something. One of my teachers gave me permission to do that. I sort of extended it too far, but this is the same teacher that my mom made me ask.

How is it that I’m supposed to. But he said that, and he says to a lot of the students to take a 24 hour break during the week at some point where you’re not allowed to practice, you’re not allowed to touch your instrument. And so, you know, from like say Friday night until Saturday night or something, you’re not allowed for 24 hours to touch your instrument.

And I think the idea behind that, there’s something about that that’s, you know, becomes a sort of sacred, I can’t practice period, [01:07:00] where it motivates you to get the things done that you need to get done so that you can afford to take that break and really enjoy it. Guilt-free and then resume practicing, you know, on Sunday to prepare for Monday’s rehearsal or whatever.

Uh, but yeah, I think having these breaks and knowing that they’re there and making them not mandatory, but important to you to take, um, where you can’t violate them, I think probably does also change how much energy we can bring to the periods where we are working, because we want to enjoy those breaks.

Gosh, 

[01:07:30] Joe Towne: that’s so good. The idea of taking a full 24 hours off, I know I’m immediately noticing what is coming up for me and the trust. It would take, you know, hearing stories about Olympians training for, you know, whether it’s one event or multiple events, the idea of taking time away and the different value systems.

Some people maybe believe that we need to constantly be working and other people may say that there’s more value. We’ll be more [01:08:00] rested if we take those kinds of breaks for ourselves. And so I’m hearing that whether it’s, uh, in shorter form taking a break, if I only have five minutes left before I have to be switched on, what’s going to be the most effective use of those five minutes.

Is it running through my plan one more time? Is it practicing for five more minutes or is it switching gears and allowing us to trust that what we have is inside of us and that the break is actually going to serve us. And I love what you brought in about how it makes the time we do have more purposeful and we have to reorganize our thinking around the time that we do get to perform and practice.

Yeah. I’m wondering about this concept of bouncing back. So I know that yo-yo ma there’s a story I heard about how he’ll sometimes start out on the wrong note and practice getting back on track. And this feels like resiliency training, and I’m wondering, how can we bounce back from a mistake mid performance?

What tools do we have [01:09:00] available to us? Where do they come from? 

[01:09:02] Noa Kageyama: I think people usually have. A response, like an oh crap response to mistakes under pressure. A lot of times, at least for me thinking back, I would get tight physically somewhere. I mean, when I was younger, I would just make a face. Right. So it’d be very obvious that I just made a mistake.

Usually I think at some point we have that habit kind of ironed out of us. And so we don’t make a mistake, but we still get tight somewhere. Like our shoulders might clench. All of a sudden our left hand might get tired or, you know, like our core might get tied or, um, some tension in our face or forehead might happen.

And so I think that’s usually the thing that’s going to potentially lead to a snowball of more mistakes. And so if we can immediately make sure to release tension in wherever it is that we get tight, uh, I think that’s one thing that can help us avoid that snowball effect of mistake after mistake spiraling into more, um, mistakes.[01:10:00] 

Even after that, there’s also generally a mental response, whether it’s immediately forming about the audience or the audition committee or, um, the jury or the judges, because they’re there to judge. Right? So suddenly we start judging ourselves. We start worrying about. Whether that’s going to lead them to make us stop or what they’re going to say afterwards, or what the reviews are going to be and what the critics are going to say and what are like our front of me and the audience who was there that we wanted to impress is going to be thinking and saying to his or her friends afterwards and so forth.

So I think there’s a tendency for our mind to get completely off track of whatever our optimal mental script ought to be in that moment, which can then lead to more mistakes and choking and messing up and things going from not bad to like catastrophic, really awful. And sometimes there can be an emotional response as well.

Like, you know, our heart starts pounding and then we feel our, [01:11:00] you know, our, our optimism about how this is going to go suddenly just drained from us. And we might even feel like giving up or suddenly don’t care anymore and just feel detected and so forth, which isn’t great for being able to produce the sort of performance and energy that we want or need at that moment.

I think first off recognizing what our response is. And a lot of athletes have, you know, what some people call a recovery ritual where they find a way to do, like you said, a quick reset at that moment. And then, you know, everything that just happened, they don’t even think about it anymore. It’s like out of their memory, this is focused on what’s happening right now.

And what my goal is for this present moment, it’s much easier said than done, of course, but I think with practice we can get a lot better. And this is where the daily recordings I think comes into place as well. Because if you start recording yourself, performing. Far before you need to actually perform it.

You’re going to be putting yourself under a tiny degree of performance, like pressure knowing you can’t stop and you just have to keep going. And it [01:12:00] cultivates that ability to figure out, okay, not only what is happening when I make a mistake, but what is the response that I want to have in this moment?

And how can I get better at making that the instinctive response? Every time I have something that doesn’t go quite right in my run through. And if you’re doing that, you know, weeks, months in advance from the time that your repertoire is not fully performance ready, you’re going to get a lot of practice at recovery and honing a recovery ritual and response, um, that you wouldn’t otherwise because otherwise you would just stop when you make a mistake, right?

And you don’t cultivate that recovery.

[01:12:36] Joe Towne: There’s a book called peak performance by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magnus, which allows us to learn from the science and stories of great performers. In this book, I learned about Bernard Lagat, who is running five Olympics and won two world championships. He’s considered one of the best American runners ever.

He’s in his forties. Now he still remains a top, the international running scene, but at the [01:13:00] end of each year, he hangs up his cleats for five weeks. He does little to no exercise. He’s been doing this for over 20 years. He believes that rest is a good thing. The concept of a weekend was devised in the early 19 hundreds to accommodate both the Christian and Jewish Sabbath, the religious versions of rest days.

Originally it was Saturday. But it became two days in the 1940s today in America. Very few people observe the Sabbath religiously or symbolically some do most of us in much of the Muslim world. The modern weekend is adapted to allow Friday as a day off from work to accommodate the congregational prayer in Cairo.

For example, the Friday sermon chutzpah along with recitations from the Quran are blared from electronic speakers across the soundscape of the city. Starting mid-morning many stores and bazaars are closed during the day opening [01:14:00] only in the evening. The concept of purposeful time off is also discussed in the principles of Buddhism that gushy Michael Roach writes about in his book.

The diamond cutter, many of us continue working through the weekend, partially out of fear of creating additional stress. When we returned to work on Monday, few of us rest on the weekends. If we never take easy periods, we’re never able to go full throttle. We get stuck in a gray zone, never really stressing ourselves, but never really resting either.

There are all kinds of factors that may impact our ability to take time off family obligations, financial pressures, workplace policies, systemic issues, and expectations that are embedded into the fabric of our country’s culture, including the way we do capitalism. But this is also precisely what I ANSI is fighting for right now.

On behalf of all the labor unions associated with the film and [01:15:00] TV industry, the fight is centered around wellbeing, humanity, and the ability to be at our best when it matters the most yes on set, but also when we’re driving home at night with our families and for the rest of our lives, 

[01:15:16] Noa Kageyama: So I know some people will encourage like your mom to maybe experiment with starting off on a wrong note or making a mistake deliberately in a performance.

But I think if you’re doing the recording thing, you’re going to get enough practice at that happening organically that you don’t even need to manufacture this. 

[01:15:31] Joe Towne: Oh gosh, there’s so much gold in there. I’m really hearing that. Listening back is not just about the external result, but it’s also about getting more clear about those little reactions that we have, whether it be a moment of clenching up and tightening and inviting ourselves to release, whether it’s self-talk that floods in, or we take over the job of trying to critique ourselves the way we’re being judged.

By others and doing their job for them. [01:16:00] Uh, I’m hearing that we can almost rewire some of those responses and that that practice is equally as important as the craft itself. It’s, it’s also part of our job becoming aware of some of those things and training around some of those things and all of this, you know, this talk, you, you mentioned funnish towards the top and I’m wondering what, what role does having fun play into what we do as performing?

[01:16:27] Noa Kageyama: I think it’s easy to forget that that was probably part of why we got into what it is that we do in the first place. I don’t think anyone gets into it thinking, you know what, let me do this thing and get really good at it. Even if fun is not part of the equation at all, but I think you can get to that point where we just get so focused on, I need to be perfect.

I need to be excellent. Or I need to do this better that we forget that the whole point of it at some point was to have. And that’s what drew us to it, whether it was just [01:17:00] hearing a particular sound and how amazing that was and how we would love to be able to create that sort of sound as well, or to be able to give the audience a particular kind of experience that we ourselves had when we observed this performance of this piece or this play or this song or whatever the case might be.

I was talking to the former concert master of the, uh, um, Milwaukee symphony some years ago. And, and he said that sometimes he’ll just play something before he practices for fun. Like, you know, like he’ll whip out a Bach piece or some concerto that he hasn’t touched in a while, and he’s not trying to get better at it.

He’s not practicing it doesn’t need to play it anytime soon. So there’s no reason to like, make it better per se. He’s just like, this is a fun thing to be able to play. Like I love this piece and playing it, even if it’s not at my best. You know, I just like to take it for a world sometimes and just hear myself playing it.

And that really just sort of struck me as like, wow, that’s crazy. Like, like we don’t have time. Do you know, like I [01:18:00] had to take a little while to wrap my mind around that one could do that. And now it sort of seems so obvious to me that of course, like, you know, play things that are fun for you. You don’t have to play everything just to make it better all the time.

Um, and of course, when we play with others, I think in musician circles is certainly happens a lot where people will get together and read quartets or chamber music. And, you know, they’re sometimes largely sight reading or just playing things that they haven’t touched in years. But the act of even when there’s mistakes and screw ups and people don’t come in or they miscount or, you know, accidents happen, I think they’re also not just playing it to get better at it and make it perfect.

But they’re also. Being improvisational and spontaneous and see what happens if they add a little bit of extra vibrato here. Different with the color of the sound in this way, or listen to this person and come in in this sort of way together, instead of some other way that they might’ve prepared in a performance [01:19:00] five years ago and just discovering new little nuances and details.

It’s kind of like my kids are doing now and like their English classes and middle school or high school, like all the symbolism that you discover when you read a book again, the next time that you didn’t recognize or pick up on the first time it was there. I think that sort of thing can be a ton of fun and musicians do some of it.

But I think more of it probably could afford to be allowed for an even individual practice as well. 

[01:19:28] Joe Towne: Yeah, I’m, I’m really hearing that fun is not extraneous, that that fun may have had something to do with why we started. So remembering that remembering why we started and allowing ourselves to fill up with play before we begin on purpose.

Because maybe that’ll carry over into how we explore next, but, but also the idea of doing that allows us to potentially have more of those moments where we can play in the moment, perhaps that’s what allows those improvisational moments [01:20:00] to occur. And, um, I’m really hearing that the value of that feels important before, during, and after

what stands out in this section on playing music, just for fun is the science of play. Doris Bergen, an educational psychologist at Miami university in Ohio. Who’s written many books about play says the feeling of enjoyment is what’s really crucial to play. Bergen also believes that natural selection has favored playful people because they’re more likely to develop strategies to help them adapt to new environment.

Dr. Stuart brown who wrote in the science of play this in general, the evidence suggests that free play reduces anxiety and lessens stress in children. So think about that the next time your kid asks, Hey, do you want to play with me now? According to the United nations website on the [01:21:00] science of play, it says play is how we build friendships.

It is vital to the development of social skills and self-control play helps children focus, playing fosters creativity, reduces stress and improve sleep. It helps make us more resilient, healthier, more connected. Aren’t those reasons enough. I wonder if we can have fun for a minute here and, uh, we’ll call this maybe fun and games more of like a lightning round and, and maybe like a first association.

I’d love to hear your quick hit thoughts on some of these things. So some people may not be familiar with New York terms, so we could start out with an easy one, like a cup of coffee. The first thing that comes to mind, 

[01:21:46] Noa Kageyama: uh, my wife is the first thing that comes to mind because she is a coffee drinker and I’ve never been.

So just think of my wife and my daughter, trying to get her on decaf and how that’s not worked and 

[01:21:58] Joe Towne: amazing. [01:22:00] Amazing. Okay. How about. 

[01:22:02] Noa Kageyama: I enjoy Vegas. First thing that comes to mind is this place like up on 1 0 4, 1 0 7, something like that. Um, absolute bagels and they have awesome bagels, cash only toasted buttered.

They’re amazing. Makes me wonder why it’s so hard to find a good bagel because it doesn’t seem like it should be that hard, but there are very few places that sell really good bagels. 

[01:22:25] Joe Towne: It’s true. There’s nothing quite like an elite bagel. Uh, how about slice? Where would you? 

[01:22:32] Noa Kageyama: I think probably if I had to get a sys it would just be the corner pizza place because it’s on the corner and it’s right there.

[01:22:40] Joe Towne: Yeah. That’s the luxury of being in New York, right. It’s probably pretty amazing. Um, Lincoln center. 

[01:22:46] Noa Kageyama: I don’t have a specific thought per se, but you know, what’s interesting is my history with Lincoln center. Obviously it goes back a long ways because I was flying in from Ohio to go to pre college on Saturdays and.[01:23:00] 

You know, so it feels like a part of New York. That’s been part of my life for a long time, even if I didn’t spend a ton of time there. And then of course, you know, going to school there for a couple of years. And then we lived when we moved here in New York for, I don’t know, like eight years in a building that was just like a couple avenues and a couple blocks away from Lincoln center.

So I’d like, my kids would grow up, like, you know, riding their scooters around Lincoln center Plaza and, you know, it’s kind of being around. And so, you know, my wife and I would talk to, she also went to pre college and lived in New York by herself for a year when she was in high school and around that area.

So we both have this sort of connection to Lincoln center and our kids don’t really, it’s just where they grew up. Like, they don’t think anything of it, but, but yeah, like I don’t have a specific thought, but just, it feels very, kind of like a, another type of home. 

[01:23:53] Joe Towne: Um, yeah, it holds a lot of memories that maybe are overlapping sometimes.

Uh, what about thoughts 

[01:23:59] Noa Kageyama: from DJ? [01:24:00] I don’t know what to say about that. It’s I mean, it all came about because of, you know, deep thoughts by Jack handy. It was one of my favorite things going up and I didn’t who is DJ, oh, DJ is our six year old, 10 pound harmonies, uh, that we got. And, um, and really, we had no interest in getting a dog, so we really deliberated about it.

But my son, when he was, um, like four or five said he wanted a dog and said, yeah, you know, maybe when you’re 10 and one day he turned 10, of course. And he still wanted a dog and we’re still like, yeah, but you know, it’s the city and it’s such a pain. And so for a month he would wake up in the morning, that’s DJ right now you might be able to hear, um, my daughter’s home.

And so he’s greeting her. Yes. So he, you know, woke up every day for a month would go downstairs, take a selfie of themselves on the streets, like at six 30 in the morning or seven in the morning to prove that like he had walked DJ as it were. And so after a month of that, like, all right, you know what might have to get them a dog.

And so now we have a dog. [01:25:00] 

[01:25:00] Joe Towne: And sometimes you have him as a guest on your blog and he shares his thoughts, right? Yeah. How about Crosstrek? 

[01:25:08] Noa Kageyama: I, for whatever reason, have always been really interested in trying to take knowledge or information or findings from other places, whether it was research based or not.

Um, you know, you know, I took a little bit of martial arts when I was in high school and college and I was like, oh, I wonder what elements of this could be brought to music or, you know, I played soccer growing up like, oh, I wonder what elements could be applied to music or vice versa. And even now wanting to look not just at the literature and sports psychology and motor learning or psychology in general, but you know, sociology or, um, other aspects that are peripheral that may still be related and useful.

[01:25:55] Joe Towne: Okay. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term overload. 

[01:25:59] Noa Kageyama: I think of [01:26:00] an article I wrote awhile back, which looked at overlearning in the military in terms of, you know, taking apart and putting together your rifle or whatever it was that they were using. Um, I wish it was a slightly more interesting thoughts than that, but that’s the first thing that came to mind because I think it’s a Friday.

Right. So my minds around, what can I write about? So, yeah, 

[01:26:22] Joe Towne: yeah, yeah. Okay. There’s a quote that I heard through you is reminded to me, I’m curious your, your first had thoughts about, you’ve gotta be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there. 

[01:26:35] Noa Kageyama: Right. The classic, a Yogi Berra quote.

Well, the first thing that comes to mind actually is I had recently visited Montclair, um, the university there to give a talk and I learned that.is where Yogi Berra lived for a good number of years. Um, and so I think one of the fields is named after him. And, um, the little piece of trivia that I didn’t realize it was kind of.

To get to be around where he spent a lot of time. [01:27:00] Totally cool. 

[01:27:01] Joe Towne: Okay. How about, uh, first thing that comes to mind when you hear these two phrases back to back be here now, get back here. 

[01:27:08] Noa Kageyama: So the first thing that comes to mind is covenant Hobbs, which has no connection to those, uh, those phrases. But those were kind of like the names I came up with for two different attention control exercises, you know, the be here now being like an awareness exercise of how long can you stay in the present and then get back here, meaning more recovery, right?

Once your mind has got, gotten off of your mental skip, how do you get it back as quickly as possible? And the two little pictures that I happen to use for this were of covenant hubs. So, so 

[01:27:39] Joe Towne: great. Oh, I love that. Okay. How about being a dad? 

[01:27:44] Noa Kageyama: You know, I had no concept of whether I would enjoy it or whether I would.

To be a dad or like, I don’t know, like it’s not something I really thought about much, I think before. And [01:28:00] I think it’s the thing that, I mean, just having a family of my own and being a dad, a husband partner, and having these two little people kind of just like around and growing up and to interact with and seeing them become people and so forth.

Something about that as you know, I mean, it’s so cliche because I think everyone says that, but it has been kind of remarkably interesting, um, a journey to be on 

[01:28:30] Joe Towne: a remarkable journey to be on. I love that so much. I have a son as well. And so I’m so curious to learn dad to dad. Okay. Just a couple more things here and then I’d love, uh, I want to let you go and respect your time.

Know what is something you can’t stop watching something in your life. You can’t stop watching. 

[01:28:48] Noa Kageyama: I don’t know if this is very specific, but. I don’t watch a lot of TV and we actually stopped getting cable and, and all that stuff back [01:29:00] in like 2007. So it’s been a long time that we just been streaming. I thought everyone liked watching movies and I don’t even have particularly good tastes in movies, but I, I do seem to like watching movies.

And I think there’s something about the narrative and the structure and the fact that it’s all over in 90 minutes or two and a half hours or something like there’s a very constraint. And so sometimes it can’t be nice to watch a series that kind of transport the transpires over a much longer time, as much more development at different things and so forth.

But I do like how a movie is nice and tidy and all kind of finished in awhile. And I get really annoyed at movies that have endings that don’t feel. Like they’re satisfying to me. I mean, I kind of rant and rave about this for the rest of my days, but Arlington road, you familiar with the movie, uh, that has always stuck with, because that, that ending [01:30:00] bothered me so much.

It almost made me not like some of the actors anymore, just because of how it ended and, and you’ll have to maybe post a synopsis for your listeners or something, so they know, but I don’t want to spoil the ending. So maybe you shouldn’t, but yeah. Okay. 

[01:30:15] Joe Towne: Yeah. Maybe it’ll just have an assignment to go out and check out the Arlington road to see if they have a similar experience.

No, I want to challenge you for a moment with this question, which is, I’m curious to know something that you do better than most people. What do you think is something you might do better than most people? 

[01:30:34] Noa Kageyama: I, I think maybe, and it’s not because I’m inherently better at it, but it might just be a little bit like where people say, you know, you are what you eat in the same sort of way.

I think. We do best to things that maybe we love most or are most curious about or come easily to us because it doesn’t feel like work. And I think the cross [01:31:00] training thing, like the taking something that might be abstract or theoretical and finding a way to turn it into something actionable, like that’s something that I have to do for myself all the time.

Like I love theory. I love abstract things, but I also want it to be concrete. Like, so what does this mean? Like, what do I do now? Like, I want to know what do I do now in order to get closer to this goal. And it might be that that’s something that, because it’s so personally important to me and I kind of obsessed about it.

It might be that that’s something that I maybe do a little bit more consistently than other people. Perhaps. 

[01:31:36] Joe Towne: I love that I’m hearing that there’s a curiosity and a purposeful question that you ask to keep things top of mind. Um, What’s one thing that you’re working on getting better at? 

[01:31:51] Noa Kageyama: Well, the current thing that I’m trying to get better at is to figure out, and this is a very sort of very [01:32:00] specific maybe nerdy kind of thing, but trying to get better at figuring out how to use social media effectively.

It’s not something that I use for myself very much because I, I don’t know. Maybe I’m not curious enough about certain aspects of the world. So that’s why I’m not using social media as much myself. I tend to do more. Producing of things to put on social media, because that’s where my interests have been.

But if I’m going to do it, I might as well do it well or effectively, whatever that means in terms of being able to reach people who might benefit from whatever I’ve found, um, that I certainly would have found useful when I was 12 or 16 or 20 or 27 or whatever age. And so, so yeah, that is sort of the project that I’m trying to figure out, whether it’s Facebook or Instagram or, um, something else that I should be using, but are not at the moment.

I do want to figure out how to [01:33:00] get better at it. And. Studying what people do and listening to videos of people who’ve been successful in have kind of a methodology and the rationale and a more kind of rigorous scientific approach to how to use it. And, and yeah, that, it’s sort of like the next like deliberate practice for anything else.

It’s my way of staying motivated and engaged and curious by saying, you know what, I can do better at this. How would that look? Or what would that look like? 

[01:33:28] Joe Towne: I love that curiosity and that edge that you’re aware of with yourself. And, um, you know, I, I was so inspired hearing about the vulnerable share you had around, you know, even starting your blog and putting things out there.

The idea of not really knowing. How to do it all, and yet your purposeful practice around it has clearly paid off. And, you know, I’m thinking about this, this quote recently from rom Doss, which is, you know, we’re all just walking each other home. So maybe there’s something we can huddle [01:34:00] up on in the future.

And, uh, if there’s anything that, you know, we can chat about to help one another regarding, you know, the things that we’re working on, getting better at, uh, I’d love to have that conversation. And mainly, you know, I hope people out of this conversation here, your deep cultivated wisdom, I know that, uh, we’ll send people over to your website and, and I hope that people will take some time to really explore your, your generous offerings.

All of those blog posts your podcast. Um, we’ll make sure we keep some links in about that, but also your classes. I mean, people can come to know that you can train these skills and it’s the same thing you’ll teach live. Perhaps at Julliard or some of the other places, the other universities you go, and then there are more DIY, you know, versions of it where you can do them on your own and perhaps come in and ask questions.

So we’ll make sure we include all of that. Mostly. I just want to say thank you. No, thank you for your time. I know how valuable it is. Thank you for [01:35:00] taking complicated science things and making them accessible to us through personal stories and vulnerability, and thank you for being so willing and interested in sharing your insights and gifts with me and the world.

And I really appreciate getting to know you and, uh, I look forward to continuing this conversation. 

[01:35:16] Noa Kageyama: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me. Thanks. No, I have a beautiful day.

[01:35:27] Joe Towne: What stands out to me is that performance, anxiety feels universal. It’s not just something that happens to us when we have no skill, it can happen when we have a ton of training and the idea of figuring out for ourselves, how to practice, that feels like something that’s a prerequisite. If we’re committed to staying interested in our craft and getting better over time, I’m also hearing that figuring out a way to scan back and review whether listening or watching tape or retracing, your steps holds necessary information.[01:36:00] 

I also feel like he makes it all sound so approachable and doable. Like if Noah was guiding me, his calm and confidence would instill those qualities in me as well, such a cool person to have in your corner. Lastly, the idea of little improvisations in the moment, if we can get to that place in our. Then I feel like we’re in the pocket.

All right. You’re not going to want to miss our guests next week. Anthony Sparks, Anthony started out in the theater as an actor at the Williamstown theater festival, the public theater and at the old globe, but most notably spent five years as a cast member of stump. He appeared as the comedic lead in both New York and the Broadway tour of the international hit as well as appearing in the HBO special stomp out loud.

He’s written on the NBC JJ Abrams show undercovers, the ABC family series, Lincoln Heights, and the CVS show the district. He was also a writer and producer on NBC’s [01:37:00] the blacklist he’s currently the longtime showrunner and executive producer of the critically acclaimed queen sugar. The television drama created by Ava DuVernay and executive produced by DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey.

He’s a book author. He’s been nominated for several NAACP image awards, and he’s also received two writing awards from the Norman Lear center. He received the 2020 television academy honors as a show runner. And he’s now creating shows under his deal at Blumhouse. Anthony Sparks is now Dr. Anthony Sparks.

He holds three degrees from USC, his BFA, his masters, and his PhD in American studies and ethnicity. He’s brilliant and funny, and I am so excited to share his journey and his insights with all of you next week on the better podcast. Shout out to all of you for growing this community for sharing these conversations on your social platforms [01:38:00] or forwarding an email to your family or texting your friends and coworkers.

That’s incredible. Every time you listen to an episode or review this podcast, it literally breathes oxygen into what’s. It means so much to me. So thank you. Thank you for being a part of this community. I hope that you’re starting to feel inspired to explore better until next week. Be well.