#94: Embracing Fear And Falling In Love With It with Sandra Joseph

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I'm going to take a moment here to breathe. Literally. Ah, hmm. I am breathing deeply this morning and feeling really blessed to be alive, blessed To be in my body in this moment, present in this moment. I'm also very excited. I have all this excited energy on the inside. I'm even standing up right now. I'm doing a standing— one of them— standing show, which I don't do all the time, so it's fun. And I am excited in part because I get to speak to somebody that I absolutely adore, this beautiful, beautiful woman who I got to collaborate with on something earlier this year that was exciting. nerve-wracking and put me on my growth edge like nothing has since the time I studied for the bar exam, like when I was gonna become a lawyer. I had to get ready for that thing, and it was an insane amount of pressure, and I spent so much time and focus doing it. I remember at the time my new bride, my wife now of almost 30 years, Randy, she gave me 3 weeks to myself, took the kids. We had 2 young little ones at the time, and she just took the kids for 3 weeks and went to her mother's house so I could study for this bar exam and not be in— be crazy with other things. Anyway, I am just reliving that moment right now, and all that beautiful mix of energies is going on inside of me, knowing that I get to debrief today with this amazing person who was part of that experience with me. And I It was spectacular. And the experience I'm talking about is the TEDx event in South Lake Tahoe that happened in September. And my guest today is a dear friend. Her name is Sandra Joseph. And Sandra was on the stage, and I want to first of all not share my experience of what Sandra's experience was. I'll maybe share a little of that later, but I want to get it fresh from her. Sandra is somebody who is world Renowned. So many people know from having been on Broadway, I don't know how many years it was, maybe 10 years or so. Is that about the right number, Sandra? Yeah. The longest-running lead of Christine in The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, which is a remarkable accomplishment. In the last podcast, we talked about that. We spoke about what it was like for you in leading up to that moment where you actually got that part, where you were the lead, and then What it was like to have the kind of resilience and endurance to continue to deliver that high-quality performance day after day and month and year after year. And we talked about that last time. This was a totally different experience for me. I didn't play on Broadway, but this was very different than anything I'd ever done. I've been a speaker for like 10 years, but TED is a very different thing. So, Sandhya, first of all, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's lovely to see you as always.

Thank you, Adam. I'm really excited to have this conversation. I've not spoken with anybody about this and especially to speak to you because you were there having your own experience and I'm just really looking forward to debriefing it.

Way cool. Well, why don't we start with— I think probably for me, the place I would begin for myself is when I decided to do it. So when did you decide that you wanted to do a TED Talk, and what was that decision like for you?

Well, I had the great good fortune to be invited to give a TEDx Talk. I did not throw my hat in the ring for it. And—

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Of course, when you're given an opportunity like that, and for everybody watching or listening, you know, sometimes we're given opportunities That feel too big for us, that feel like, ooh, I don't know. But you know that it's a wonderful opportunity. And, and I felt very honored and grateful to have been asked. So I immediately said yes. I immediately said yes, even though inside I was trembling. And I remember hanging up the phone after I agreed to do it. And I literally said, okay, God, if you want me to do this, you're going to have to tell me what to say. I did not know which way I would go. And I've been a speaker now for many years, and I have a keynote, and I have my topics, and I have my takeaways. But TED, like you said, is its own weird thing. And it was months before the event, so I knew I had A significant amount of time. But of course, like everyone, I procrastinated. And but yeah, so I said yes even though I was really nervous about it.

So it was yes but trembling?

Yeah. And I feel like that's been the key to my success my entire life. I've been very intimate with fear, and I tend to say— now, I made a promise to myself. That's the truth of it. I promised myself after I was a 5th grader who chickened out of the first solo I was ever given I promised myself that if there was something I wanted to do that my heart was saying yes to, even if fear was saying no, run, bolt, too much, too scary, that I would say yes anyway. And that really putting me on my edge, as you so eloquently said, saying yes to being on that edge again and again and again has built a lot of— Courage. Inner courage, I think, that has strengthened me. Doesn't mean the fear goes away, that I've learned to bring it along for the ride. And that really ended up being the subject of my talk. It's my life's work on myself, is to say yes to fear.

Yes. And the relationship you've built— I mean, it's just kind of an odd thing, I suppose, to have a relationship or to feel like you're in relationship with fear on some level. Most people don't want to be in relationship with fear at all. Not in an intimate way, right? They want to be able to deal with it, somehow get rid of it or something like that. But when you use the word relationship, that conjures up particular feelings for me. I start to— family, like friend, like something you love, like someone you love. So that's—

That's it. And that ended up being the topic of my talk. My talk is about falling in love with fear. As far as like deciding on what is my idea worth spreading, I decided very consciously that I wasn't going to come at it from an external sort of stance in terms of what would position me a certain way or what is aligned with my brand or any of that stuff. I just threw absolutely everything away. And I'm not suggesting that other people do this. I'm just saying this was my— process. I just really went inward and asked for guidance and really did my deepest soul-searching about what is mine to share. What have I learned? What have I experienced? What might I offer that could be useful to someone? And of course, we speak about what we most need to learn. We teach what we need to learn. And this subject of befriending fear, and more than that, falling in love with it.

Yes.

It's really what started to crystallize for me because it has been the truest thing that I know, that I keep learning. It comes up again and again and again. And it has also been the source of my greatest joy, my greatest accomplishments personally and professionally, the willingness To stand on that edge and be that vulnerable. And it was vulnerable for me. And I'm so grateful to hear you say that that was your experience too, even though you've been speaking for years. I've been on stage a lot. I know how to be on stage. I know how to memorize a script, but this was something entirely different and it really pushed all my buttons too. Yeah.

That's such a great way to put it. Yeah. Pretty much every button got pushed on some level for me. I don't want to fast-forward to the night in question just yet, but let's go back to that incubation of the idea. I recommend a few things. We work with speakers as well, our company does, that are preparing for some big talk. Sometimes it's a presentation. Sometimes it's some other form of a legacy talk or a talk that might even be getting ready to do a TED Talk, or sometimes it's the TED Talk itself. It's a big deal when you put yourself in the position of, this is what might become my legacy, where you're in a sort of— there's a context for this talk being something that lives beyond us. On the internet, obviously, there's the possibility, the distinct possibility that these kinds of things will live on for maybe thousands and thousands of years, which is incredible. I believe in eternity personally, so I think we're eternal beings. I'm not thinking that we get kind of extinguished at any point anyway, but to have something that's out there impacting people in some way, influencing them hopefully in a positive way for a long time to come, feels heavy. Yeah. You know, there's a heavy responsibility to it, so to speak. And I remember when I was incubating the ideas for what this talk might be, I took some really long walks on the beach, and we do a process with people sometimes called the last walk. We won't get into the details of that, but you could pretty much imagine what that might look like. And I thought to myself, well, how about the last talk? What if this was my last talk? Similar to the way I think Randy Pausch gave his last lecture, maybe it's almost 15 years or something ago. And I remember being so moved by that. And the world was, right? Because it had millions and millions of views of people that watched this man so vulnerably share his life lessons. With his students, with his children, and with the world. And I thought, oh my God, the last talk. What would my last talk be? And that was part of the process for me to put some ideas down on paper and start to get ready to do this thing. And then what happened, and I don't know what, well, we're gonna find out in a second what it was like for you, but I had this mountain of stuff. Like I had a lot that I wanted to say. Anybody that knows me, like my family or people that that I've worked with and stuff, they go, oh, that's not a surprise. He had a lot to say. Like, I got it to 4,500 words or something like that because part of what we have to do is you have to get it on paper somehow, whether that's to turn on Zoom or some other recording device and just speak, right? Just speak, get it transcribed, put it into some bit of a form, paragraph form, simple stuff, and then count the words. You know, just use— go to the word count on your word processor and go, Okay, good. This is fairly coherent. I said a bunch of stuff. It's 4,500 words. And 4,500 words to speak without rapid-fire like you're some kind of an auctioneer would take about 30 minutes. It was way, way too long. And so, that process of taking that big mountain of ideas and then distilling it down, and actually, in my experience, I ended up having 2 talks. There were 2 talks that were sort of in that mountain. Not one. So I want to ask you, what was that like for you? So here it is, you get invited, which is a little bit of a different sort of paradigm to start because a lot of people who are maybe watching this are thinking, do I have a message that I want to share? Did you get to see the movie, the remake of A Star Is Born?

Yes.

Okay. Did you love it?

I know the scene you're thinking of.

You do?

I think

so. important is it? They're sitting in the bar and he's talking to her, and obviously he's trying to see whether or not she has that burning desire, that fire in her belly to share something with the world. Because, you know, he says everybody has something to share. Not everybody has the courage to share it.

Absolutely.

Or even the courage to get it more clear. What is it that I have to get out of me that has to be exercised from me in my lifetime? That is a benefit in some way to the world? And do I have the guts to do that? So he's egging her on, right, to do that. And that's what it was like for me, was sort of going into my belly space and saying, what is that thing that I have the guts to stand up and say? And so you were in that position where somebody said they invited you to share that, and now you went into your process to figure it out. What was that like for you? You've shared the topic with us. What was it like to sort of incubate the talk itself and to overlay that in this context of something important to share? Right? Because that whole TED thing that Chris Anderson speaks about is an idea worth spreading. And the first thing you probably look in the mirror and goes, I don't know if this idea is worth spreading, right?

Yeah.

What was it like for you?

It was everything that you just described. And I so agree with you about It feels permanent. It is permanent on the internet. It feels— so therefore it's layered with this added level of importance. And I come from a world of live performance where it's one and done. It's meant to be experienced in that room, in that moment. And I did the same show for 10 years. So I had 6 nights a week to try to do it better. And this is like, One and done, and it's permanent. So that piece of it felt very pressured. But when I went into my internal space of that, what's the fire in my belly, I really just looked at, like, taking everything external out of the equation. What do I know to be true that I think might be a benefit? That's really the question that I sat with. And I did a lot of journaling. I just wrote and wrote and wrote. I did a lot of meditation. And pretty early on, the question came to me about what if we could wake up every day and fall in love with what we fear the most? I mean, if we could really embrace the things that frighten us, even the big things like losing people we love. Like our own impermanence, not to mention all the ways that we hold ourselves back from opportunities or relationships or career advancement, whatever it might be, because of our fear, because of the vulnerability that's required. Like, this is something that I know very well, that I've been working with my entire life. So, that crystallized pretty early on. And then, I wrote my way into many brick walls. I ended up cutting half of what I had. The TED Animal is its own unique genre. And my style is not educational, generally. My style is personal story. I come from theater, where you let the story do the work, and people connect the dots themselves.

Yes.

But TED has to have a little bit of a flavor of giving you the idea, right? Delivering the message. So that was a struggle for me to how to make it a TED Talk and make it fit that style while still being authentic and in my own voice. I worked with a coach, I consulted with several people, and the way that I approached it with The coach was a lot of conversation, just a lot of backing and forthing. Then I got it into written form, but it started with just a deep dive conversation about the idea and what was important to me about it, really getting clear on that. And then the painful process of cutting, cutting, cutting, murder your darlings.

Kill your darlings, exactly. How brutal was that for you? For me, just moving it from this place of sort of 4,000-ish words down to about 3,000 felt like I was cutting off limbs. I was just— it was painful because I was in love with certain phrases. I was in love with these stories or ideas, and I thought, geez, ah, this is just— just convinced myself, I guess, that it wouldn't be the same if I cut certain things out, and that was excruciating. To edit in that way. I mean, all writing is rewriting on some level, but the removing of things. So I was prepared for the, oh, let's get this wording right. And I also had to decide whether I was going to commit this talk completely to memory or I was going to stand up there, be present, know the idea that I wanted to share, this thing that I wanted to— this concept of you have an idea in your head, you want to rebuild it in the mind's eye of of other people. And I've done that for a lot of years. Like you say, be present and be sort of on script, but also have the flexibility to be a little off script as well. And I opted— I'll just say I opted to not do that. I opted— so we have this choice to memorize or not to memorize. That is the question.

Yeah.

On some level, I wanted to have it not so much memorized, but so embodied in my being and in my physicality that if I wanted to take a little liberty in the moment, I knew that I would find my way right back onto the track. I didn't want to find myself off on some other tangent and then not be able to get back to the through line in time, right? Because 18 minutes, that's the other thing that's involved. If you do a training now as a speaker, I do a training and we know we've got an hour or 90 minutes or something. You've got enough time to always bring it back. But with 18 minutes, if you lose your center, it can be challenging to get back and you do not want to violate the time constraints. It's disrespectful and frankly, it's against the rules. What was it like for you to hone the talk down to such a short amount of time? I guess I've asked the question already, did you choose to memorize? I think you said you did. Yeah.

I did. And like you, like in my keynotes, and I'm somewhat scripted, but I know, I know it so well. I know the stories so well that I can have that flexibility. And that's a great place to be where you're so comfortable, you're so inside of it that you're in your body, you're in the moment, you can deliver it fresh every time. That's a great place to be. But for TED Talk, I just think that's too big a risk to take, and it's so condensed that every word matters, and you want to deliver it in a way that is tried and true and well-rehearsed. So I opted to memorize it as well, which I thought would be easy because I obviously have a lot of experience. I know how to memorize a script, but I found that really challenging.

Why was that so tough? Can you explain?

Oh my God, and I know all kinds of tricks for memorizing, and still, because I wanted— well, part of my problem was I kept rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. It's really my Achilles heel, is tweaking, tweaking, tweaking.

Guilty of the same.

The next day you think of a better way of saying something than the way you did it previously, and how can you not change it? But I had to ultimately say, Different does not equal better. Just because I think— now, at some point you're just rearranging the furniture and it's all— the message is there. Every word doesn't have to be perfect. And this was key. And for everybody listening or watching, now with whatever we do, of course we want to be in a space of healthy striving and doing our best and giving it our all and aiming for excellence. And what I think is so crucial is that we also recognize it doesn't have to be perfect. Yes. And this doesn't have to be my one and only— I'm going to approach it like it's my last lecture. I'm going to go for it as though this is the most important talk I'll ever give, while at the same time recognizing I'm throwing in my idea into the hat with many, many other ideas in the world. And hopefully this will have a little nugget of something that will be useful to someone. But I can't make it so precious and so important because then I'm just going to trip over my own feet. I'm not going to give my best. And it does a disservice, I think, to the whole genre because no matter how brilliant anybody's idea is, it's going to resonate with some people. It's not going to resonate with some people. And all we can do is show up and give our best and try to take some of the pressure off. Who is it that said we should act as though what we do is— I'm going to bastardize this quote, and I hope it's not from the Buddha because— but some very wise person said, act as though everything you do is that the universe depends upon it. Hmm. While at the same time laughing at yourself for thinking that what you do Makes any difference. Something along those lines. And it may well be a Buddha quote. But I think that's an important piece to bring in, don't you?

I do. I mean, it's an element of humility that has to also accompany the arrogance. I mean, there's— right? Don't you think? There's an element of audacity involved in standing up on a stage, getting mic'd up, and speaking to people. I don't care what you speak or what you sing, as in the case that so often your talent has come out through song and that talent. But even when you have talent, there's some element, I think, that's healthy inside that says, who am I? Who am I? I don't care how I sing or how I speak. Who am I to be that person? And to balance that or to harmonize it, perhaps to yin and yang it, to create this harmony between those competing things that are going on inside of all of us. The audacity of our behavior combined with the humility, just being a human being and frail and afraid at times as well.

That is so profound and important. And I think it goes to the very root of how we identify ourselves. And I come back to this a lot where when I think I'm in charge and I'm running the show and it's all up to me, And my ego starts going, whether it goes in the direction of self-doubt, which that's my go-to, of not good enough, or if it goes to the other place of like, where the self-doubt comes out in a different way of, I'm going to prove to myself, I'm going to prove to everyone, I'm going to do this perfectly. They're both flip sides of the same thing. But when I can remember that I'm just a spiritual being having a human experience, I'm not really in charge.

Hmm.

My job is to just create the conditions in which God can speak through me, or use whatever word you will. The universe can use me to be a voice. But when I can get out of the mindset that it's all about me and this defines me, there's— I pour my heart and soul into this talk and into my book and into my keynotes. We do that. But also, in a way, those things don't have anything to do with me. They don't define me. I'm not in them. They are completely the best I can do. And I recognize what happens from here on out, it's not really up to me. That's when I'm in, like, in alignment, in the healthy place where I'm defining myself as the soul and not the small egoic self.

Yes.

It's hard to get there sometimes, but I try to keep returning to that truth because I do believe that's the truth. We do the best we can, and ultimately we're being a vessel, and that's the whole gig.

Like a simultaneous letting go that happens. So there's—

Exactly.

There's all this high intention, this great intentionality, and whatever you want to call that, but just the importance of it and the self-importance.

As actors, you know, in Broadway, in our training as actors and singers, we learn that you have to do all the preparation, all of the hard work, dissecting the character, knowing it in yourselves. But if you get out there and try to play the part and do it perfectly—

Right.

It's not gonna go well. Like, all the preparation is so that you can roll it up in a ball, throw it away, and be present. And let go of it. And that's when a performance comes alive. That's when you give your best. So it is that—

You just made the hair stand up on my arms here, love.

I love that.

I do too.

That's when we do our best, when we give our best. Do the work and then surrender and let go.

And the universe is so funny. I mean, my word would be God too, but when it comes to the certain things like how circumstances just come out of They just become so unpredictable, which is such a great aspect of speaking. Like when we're working, our company works with speakers, we say the one thing a speaker has to be is unpredictable. The moment you're predictable, people have tuned out. Now, so on some level you lose the opportunity to meet them where they are, to open their hearts, which is our fullest intention, is to always be able to open people's hearts with whatever we're sharing. But whatever it is, whatever the intention is, you miss it if they've They've fallen asleep if you've become so boring or predictable, or they're on Facebook and they're on Facebook in a second, or they're on their messages or in their email in a second, the second that you've become predictable. They know what's going to happen next. So I love that element of things not being predictable, except when it comes to sort of like, will the lights work? Will the camera work? Will the music work, etc.? So it's so interesting that you, the most experienced Of any of the performers that were on stage then. I was a lawyer for 18 years, so this is like, this is a second career for me. This has been the thing you've been doing for so long, and you get up on that stage, which is, I mean, the perfect irony of this. Will you tell the story of what happened? So here we are, let me go to show— we're gonna go to like, it's showtime, all right? The curtain's up, the TEDx has started, we've got 450 people in the room in beautiful South Lake Tahoe, and you get introduced. And—

I'm introduced, I've done all the preparation, the whole long day of waiting around and stress and all of that. And I'm checking my hair and my lipstick for the 900th time. And finally I'm announced and I go out and I start my talk and my microphone is not on. And I wasn't sure, even though I did a sound check earlier that day, I knew it sounded like, Something's different. And I was pretty sure my microphone wasn't working, but I kept going just in case I was just hearing it differently until someone in the audience shouted out, we can't hear you!

Plus, how are you classically trained? I mean, you and every other performer, right? There's this old expression, which is what?

The show must go on.

That's it. So you're out there, your mind tells you, okay, the microphone's not working, I'll just project a little louder, right? You know, This isn't gonna stop me, what are you kidding? 10,000 shows on Broadway, a little microphone, no way.

You know what though? Here's the thing that I feel so grateful for. I really have trained my brain over the decades that unexpected challenges like that actually make me better. So when that happened, I, Laughed, and I said, oh, I'll be right back. Cool. You know, and I, so I ran, and it turned out the guy who puts the microphones on us had forgotten to turn on the battery pack on my wireless mic. So it was his mistake. And I will tell you what I'm most proud of is that I was able, because when I'm in my fear place, I become very narcissistic and the world revolves around me. And me and my needs. And I'm so grateful that—

By the way, that dirty little secret, that's probably everybody's dirty little secret.

That's all of us, right?

Certainly mine. So yes, thank you for saying that.

Yeah, that place.

Yep.

But I feel like the TED Talk, whatever happens with it, it hasn't come out. They haven't come out yet, you know, but once they're public and all of that, whatever happens, I'm going to hold on to my most successful moment, which was I was present enough to say, it's totally cool, Eric, no big deal. Like, it's, it's great. No, it's awesome. Because he was, he was mortified that he had forgotten to turn on my mic. I was like, no, this is going to make me better.

Yes.

And I really felt that way. Part of it is we both know the company Learning Strategies, Paul Scheele, and they have a paraliminal, which is an audio training Kind of a meditative, like subliminal messages, but it's paraliminal where someone's speaking into both ears at the same time. And there's a paraliminal that I've been working with for years, long before I knew them. Pete Bissonnette and Paul Shealy from Learning Strategies Corporation. It's called Peak Performance. And one of the messages that it embeds into your psyche is that unexpected challenges improve your performance. And I really do think I've internalized that.

Yes.

And so I was more relaxed the second when they reintroduced me. I came back out and I felt so much more free. I was more present because something had gone wrong. So I'm actually glad it happened.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, or you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have And all you have to do to get your own free Resilient Leader Assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. This is one of the most profound gifts that I believe that you can give, that you've just given to the folks that are listening and watching this right now. Because there's lots of ways to sort of look at that when we're sharing, or I, from my own experience, have been in that situation. I've thought, well, how do I utilize this? So the concept that we'll then share with other people is utilizing what is, or as-is-ing things. But in the arena of public speaking or in any— I mean, you could be giving a presentation to 3 people at your office or something bigger, whatever it is, stuff's gonna go on. Stuff's gonna go down. And it's not always according to plan. In fact, the best things often are the things that are outside of that, as you say, the standard plan for how it's gonna go if you're able to be present with it in the moment. If you resist it, similar to what you were saying about fear earlier, or anything else that's sort of there for your benefit. So if you believe— and I've been listening to paraliminals and other types of meditations for a really long time, we love Pete and Paul and their work as well— this idea that everything is conspiring for our benefit. If you believe that everything is always conspiring for— we do not live in a universe, regardless of if you're spiritually inclined or not, This, I think, is just a part of a belief system. So you either have it or you don't. And I didn't have it earlier on in my life. I wasn't coming from a place where everything that was happening was always conspiring for my benefit. I thought, yeah, this stuff that's not clearly is trying to take me out. But I believe in a loving, kind, abundant universe. So everything is always happening for my benefit. It doesn't feel that way in the moment sometimes. So the question is, what's the creative opportunity? Your microphone was off. Right there and then somebody calls it out. The universe is literally calling out to you, we can hear you. I've heard people ignore messages from the audience. I mean, sometimes that's their mindset is like somebody calls out something that, you know, it's like they're a heckler or they're this or that and they just keep going, right? But you didn't do that. You were present enough to be like, oh, how funny. Oh, I'll be right back. Go off stage, not bash the guy for a simple— like a human mistake. Something happened. He had a million things to do, yada yada. So boom, turn the microphone back on, come back out, and you are enlivened. And people were inspired. They were even that much more inspired. That won't make it on to the actual video. Like, so people in the world that watch it won't get that piece of it, that there's this whole sort of preamble to it. Where you modeled for everybody else what elegance, what it looks like to be graceful under pressure. That was just magnificent. And people that were there that day, that evening, they got a treat to see a true, not just a true professional, but to see somebody who was truly present in the moment be able to Aikido that situation so elegantly.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. That was a very teachable moment for me. I was grateful it happened to me and not somebody who hadn't been on stage a lot or the young— there was a girl there who was, what was she, 16?

Yeah. I mean, that could take you out if you, you know, don't have a little bit of training as to what's happening in this moment, right? Like, I'm not gonna die. Nobody's dying here. The microphone's not on. So that's okay. We restart, right? Just

go,

go take care of it. It's simple. Right. On some level, and it could take you completely off on another, right?

Yes, yes. And I learned that from being in Phantom. There were nights when things would go wrong. I often talk about the night the boat stopped working. You know, we take this boat ride that's this magical, mystical, very kind of spooky boat ride in the middle of the show. The Phantom takes Christine to his lair, and one night the boat just stopped working. We were Far, far away from where we were supposed to go. And so the Phantom, we're in the middle of a song, we've got a whole song to go. Phantom steps out of the boat, reaches for my hand, and we proceeded to walk on water.

Yes.

For the rest of the scene. And for that audience, they probably thought that was the coolest show they'd ever seen. Meanwhile, we're kind of going, okay, we're just gonna keep going, all right.

'Cause your senses are heightened in that moment, right? Like you're in uncharted water. Literally.

When you just go with it, it can actually serve you well. And it humanized me for that audience. It humanizes you when you make a mistake or when something outside of your control goes wrong. And all we can do is focus on what we can control and try to stay present and go with it.

Okay. Was there a favorite time of Either during the performance or after, what was the highlight of the night for you?

Oh, I love that question. It's— I have such a clear memory of what that was.

Yeah.

So after I was done, my husband came backstage and we had a moment and he was crying. And so he had been so supportive and so helpful the entire time. So sharing that moment with him. Once it was over, the relief once it's over is like, oh, hallelujah. And I went and sat down in the audience next to Sam Horn, who has been a mentor and is someone that I admire and love so dearly. And one of the biggest things that I've learned from Sam that has really been transformational for me is the concept of receiving and reveling. Sam Horn has a mantra: receive, receive, receive, revel, revel, revel. And I don't know about you, but that's something that was not okay for me to do as a young person. That was sort of shut down. I was raised in the Midwest, and any sense of— there was a phrase like, don't break your arm patting yourself on the back, things of that nature. So I was never really allowed to revel in an accomplishment or to receive the positive feelings of pride and excitement. And the best part for me was sitting down— Sam had also done a TED Talk that day, and we sat next to each other in the audience. My husband brought me a glass of wine, and I shared that glass of wine with Sam as we watched everyone else get up there, and we're just rooting for them and also being settled in ourselves that we did it. And just to celebrate, to have that moment of cheers, sharing a glass of wine with this woman that I so love, and to sit there with her and receive and revel in the gift of being a part of it.

Oh, that is beautiful. I adore Sam. Sam was a mentor to me and still is. She's just incredible. She has incredible wisdom and She's just so grounded. I feel like that's one of the great gifts that she brings to the world is the degree to which she is like Mother Earth. I know she's a mom, but she has that Mother Earth-ness, if that's a word. Mm-hmm. But yes, to celebrate, to be able to receive in a way that doesn't— again, where you're not so much about you, but it's about the experience, like you've done something. Because to me, part of the motivation for doing something like this isn't necessarily, as you said earlier, How do I build my brand? Yeah. Could it be good for your brand? Sure, it can. Is it possible that it leads to business? There are talks that have got millions and millions of views that have helped people in their businesses. Look, Simon Sinek has a very successful business, and I think in large part because he has a 35-million-view talk, which had all the kinds of difficulties you could imagine, right? I mean, I think his microphone went out in the middle of his talk. It was a handheld mic. They had to bring him another one. The lighting was terrible. He had this tiny little flip chart with wrinkled paper and one black marker. You go, my God! Yet, that talk has changed a lot of things in the corporate space and outside of it for a lot of people. You said earlier that part of what was in your process was not hanging on too tightly to the idea that it had to be just so. I think there are sort of 3 things I reminded myself of as I was going through this process. One was, it's never too late. So I think a lot of people will think, or I'll just keep to myself that I've thought at times, oh, it's too late for that. It's just like not the right— past the point of doing something like that or what have you. Even when I was 18 years into a profession and pivoted out of that into something else, it's like, is it too late? So that question or that statement, it's never too late. And then my desire for things to be perfect. And perfectionism can turn into procrastination very easily. I think they're flip sides of the same coin in many ways because if you can't do it perfectly, we just say, well, I'll just wait till I can do it perfectly or it's the timing is right and the ducks line up and the stars align and all the other kind of stuff we tell ourselves. So challenging perfection is a big deal. And the last one, and this is tough because it's right on the— I think it hits the bullseye of my ego pretty easily. Which is daring to suck. Like the idea that the worst-case scenario is that it just sucks, whatever sucks looks like to you. We're the worst critic anyway. Our inner critic is so much worse than any other critic could ever be anyhow. But the idea that you challenge yourself to do something even though the risk is what you call sucking or humiliation. It's not fear of public speaking generally to me that stops people. It's a fear of public humiliation. It's a fear of public judgment. Yep. That, that being embarrassed, that shame of doing something and not doing it well in the presence of so many other people is what stops folks from even ever trying. So this experience was wonderful, and Sam was a great benefit to me in being able to move past a lot of that stuff. She was an incredible mentor and also helped me to unpack those ideas, to really distill it down, because as I said, in my process, it was sort of 2 talks, and I had to decide. I was thinking, oh, make them both. It can be both. It can be both. And no, it couldn't. It just had to be this one simple idea that was so important to me that if I left the earth tomorrow, I just wanted someone outside of the people that had already been able to share this with to hear it and determine for themselves if it's something that's worthwhile for them or not. Oh, I love the experience. I love the fact that we got to do it together. Like, we got to be on stage in the same venue having a very sort of an earth-shattering experience at this— we're both doing some things for some years, and not to say that you get jaded, but at some point those moments where you're tingling and those moments where you're so— there's just so much energy flowing inside of you and you are in this uncharted territory, those moments are a little bit more rare or rarefied. It's at least my experience. Has that been the case for you too?

Oh, absolutely. I think when we're growing the most, it's really tough. I mean, it's those growing pains of walking into another level of vulnerability. It was really excruciating at times. It was really, really challenging. And I suspect it will be again once the videos Are there? I will confess that my video came for preview for me to take a look at, and it sat in my inbox for days before I had the courage to watch it. I did not want to watch it, and I was able to watch it once. I don't like seeing myself on video. It's very vulnerable, this whole Weird TED thing, and it causes us, I think, for me, It creates more compassion for other people because I have to be compassionate toward myself or I just couldn't do it. I mean, again, it's that falling in love with the fear. It's that befriending the vulnerability. And Brené Brown, TEDx extraordinaire, you know, her story of the viral video, The Power of Vulnerability. I mean, that I do recognize that vulnerability is the birthplace of the things that Make life worth living. That does not mean it's easy or comfortable.

You've just given me a point of additional clarity. You said earlier about compassion, because the compassion that something like this brings out in yourself, for yourself, is so powerful for other people. Being so vulnerable as you have to be, I think, if you're going to get at the raw and the rich stuff inside of you that's seeking expression and the stuff that might actually help other people in some way, touch other people on some level. has to come from that rich soil and to be that vulnerable and to be able to harness, hold that energy, hold the container for that for yourself, to give yourself enough compassion to be able to do it. Because it could have taken all that sort of self-critical thinking and the sort of other stuff that goes on emotionally inside, could have just taken you out long before it happened. My dirty little secret is about 5 days beforehand, I was in that process. I had been whittling it down and editing it until about 2 weeks before, just like you. I wanted every single word to be just so. At a certain point, it's like the painter. I've not been a painter, but I imagine at some point you have to take your brush off the canvas. You have to just stop. There's no more paint. There's no more mixing of any colors to make it just that much better. It's like, take your freaking brush off the canvas and put it down. So, I had to do that. Then, it's like, well, now deliver it. And 5 days or 6 days beforehand, I looked at Randy and go, I don't know if my brain— like, I literally, you know, that whole it's too late thing. I'm thinking, I don't think my brain will do this anymore. Like, I just don't know that I'm asking my body and my mind to do something it's not capable of. So, I had all this sort of self-doubt about that, but also just feeling frail, feeling old, feeling incompetent. I mean, all that I thought I dealt with on personal growth programs 10 years ago came back up for me. And I'm like, holy smokes. So to move through that and to show myself the level of self-care that I did, the level of compassion and understanding is so important, Sandra, because I believe in A Course in Miracles. I believe in certain things that I read in that amazing treatise so many years ago, and I still refer to it. And this one chapter, chapter 30, is called A New Beginning. And in there it says that the love that we give ourselves— I'm paraphrasing— but the love that we give ourselves is the love that we give the world. It's the love we offer. The things we give ourselves or receive, are willing to receive, as you said earlier, become our offering to the world. And the converse is true. So when we withhold love, when we withhold approval, when we judge ourselves, that's exactly what we offer. That becomes our offering to the world. So to really contribute at a deep level to the world, a part of it, a big part of it, is what it is we're willing to give ourselves and receive ourselves. It's such an interesting twist on it because we're always— all of us have been brought up to think that it's the giving, it's the giving, it's the giving. So we put ourselves second. Women do this more than men, I think. I think it's part of our culture. It's that whole thing, don't break your arm patting yourself on the back. And you go, oh wow. So the compassion that you gave yourself has become an offering to other people. And what a beautiful collateral benefit to putting yourself on that, on that path.

Wow. You just gave me goosebumps. And I appreciate everything you just shared and the way that you brought all of that together. And I really did get chills when you talked about like creating a painting and taking your brush off the canvas at some point. And that made me think of— there's a great masterpiece from Stephen Sondheim that all musical theater people worship, is a show called Sunday in the Park with George about the painter George Seurat. Yes. And there's this simple but profound line in one of the songs that ends the song. You know, he's— it's a song called Finishing the Hat. And throughout, he's doing this pointillism, dot by dot by dot. painting this hat and he's working on it and the whole world disappears as he's finishing the hat. And at the end, he sits back and he says, look, I made a hat where there never was a hat. And that to me is a reason to receive and revel. And we all have this creative spark. We're all creative beings and we all have had experiences that we can share that can be beneficial to other people. And when we have the courage to make our hat, to say what's ours to say, to build whatever it is we're wanting to build, then we can sit back and say, look, I created something that had I not shown up and done the work would not exist. Now, it's not mine to now sit back and judge if it's the perfect hat. It's to celebrate that I had the courage to show up and make my offering. And cheers. I'll sit back and have a glass of wine with anybody who has the courage to do that, because it will call up all those old voices that you thought you dealt with. But there's nothing quite like the feeling of creativity that I really do believe we join with the forces of creation of the universe when we have the courage to put something out there. To make our hat. So that to me is worth going through the pain of the creative process, and it deserves to be reveled in and celebrated.

Yes. What's yours to say? What a beautiful question for all of us. What is yours to say? And you answered that question when you got on stage. Would you summarize just in for us now What was yours to say with your TED Talk?

I think what I was hoping to communicate was that the things we fear the most don't have to hold us back. They don't have to cripple us with worry. They can actually fuel us and serve us in living our lives more fully if you're willing to. And it's what we've been talking about. This— it's a perfect example of This idea that going right into the center, the hot fiery center of that fear, as opposed to pushing it away or numbing ourselves out or avoiding, but walking through the fire is the most alive we will ever be. And it actually is the place where you, you'll meet all the darkness, in yourself, but you will also emerge as a renewed being. It's like that baptism by fire. And I use different metaphors in the talk, and I do relate it to Phantom, of course. My character's journey was she's running from this Phantom the entire show. She's running from this monster. But by the end of the show, she looks directly into his unmasked face at the source of Her fear. She looks directly through eyes of love and compassion, and it's a transformational moment for both characters. And I really do find that when we look directly into the face of our fears with love, with deep tenderness and compassion, then we can transform them and we can set ourselves free and express ourselves. in the ways that we want to, that we're here for. So I hope that makes sense. That was—

That is indeed yours to say. That is so yours to say, it's not even funny. And for those of you that don't know this very important tidbit, you married the fandom.

Oh yeah, I mean, come on. Come

on, we got to complete the story with that, right? Christine marries the fandom.

I literally fell in love with The person I saw behind that mask.

Yeah.

So yeah.

Just life— what is that? Life imitating art imitating life or something? I don't know.

Exactly, that's it.

It's way cool, whatever you want to call it. I have so enjoyed this time together. I always just enjoy you so much, Sandra. So—

Likewise.

The experience of doing a TEDx talk was just breathtaking. I highly, in case you guys didn't already figure this out, highly, highly, highly Recommend it. I think it starts with this question that Sandra just shared with us, which is, well, what's yours to say? That concept that comes out of A Star Is Born as well. You got to know that there is something you want to say. And, you know, I believe everybody has something that's theirs to say. I don't think there's anybody that's alive that does not have that. And the question is whether you seek it out. Maybe one day you're walking and it just kind of like an apple falls off a tree and hits you in the head. You go, hey, This is mine to do. This is my work to do. This is my voice and my message to share. And maybe you just haven't had that moment. And I think a lot of people have it sort of inside of themselves as a question. Is there something that's mine to say? Well, what a great place to begin is simply to ask that question. So even now, as you're listening to this, ask yourself that question. Maybe ponder it. Maybe meditate on it or put it in something that you think about before you go to bed tonight. Is there something that is in fact mine to say? your mind to say, and then allow for the forces of spirit, the universe, or anything else that you might want to call it, to give you some guidance. The experience itself was magical. There were young people, very, very young. I mean, I think we— somebody was like 13 or 14 years old on the stage, and then folks that were into their 70s, I think, as well. So it was a beautiful, diverse group of folks with different life experiences. So the wonderful thing about TED is they're not looking for professional speakers. They're looking for people who have ideas and that are worth spreading. It's a real simple concept and it's magical. And I will say lastly, as we close out, that to me, the message that I got to share on that stage was one that's been incubating for many, many years. So I didn't know it was something— there's a moment in my talk where I sort of say, I never thought after having gone through law school and spent 18 years practicing law and Learning all these different, you know, just being in business and whatnot. I never thought that someday I'd be known as the— and I have it on my shirt today, right? I love my life guy, right? I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going Going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. I didn't think that's what I'd be known as. And my own little voice was saying to me quite a few times, is that important enough? Is that as important as the law or is it as important as some other things in life? Or is it too simplistic? And that was sort of my dark night of the soul where I was questioning my path after all this time. And I came out the other side and have come out the other side knowing that it is simple and it's also profound for me. And so it's been worth my time and effort to put the question out to people and ask, what if you decided to love your life no matter what? No matter what. So I love how our messages So simpatico. And again, Sandra, I just adore you. Thank you so much. Randy, if she were here, she'd be just like wanting to hug you through the screen too. So everybody have a wonderful rest of your day, your evening, wherever it is that we're meeting you in this moment. Of course, tomorrow morning, my prayer is that we all get to wake up again. I know one thing's for certain as you're listening to this, watching this, that you got to wake up today, and that was not a guarantee. That's right. That was a blessing. That's a gift. It was certainly something we couldn't have counted on because we can't. It just doesn't work like that. And tomorrow morning when we get to wake up again, and I hope that's your intention as well, that we can be a little bit more awake, a little bit more conscious tomorrow than we are even in this moment. I feel like I'm vibrating at a higher level just by spending time in this conversation with this amazing being here. We get to wake up and be a little bit more awake. And in that moment where we realize we're taking our first conscious breath of the morning, there's a recognition— at least for me, there'll be a recognition that there are people that are taking their last breath also in that moment. Babies being born, taking their first breath of life. So there's something sacred and holy and special in that moment. And something to be grateful for. So if you're willing to do it tomorrow when you wake up, to acknowledge the specialness in that moment and be grateful for it, and as you put your feet on the floor, take 10 seconds, just take 10 seconds before you have to go rush off to get the coffee and the kids and the chores and whatever else it is that's going to drive you quickly in the morning tomorrow, that you take 10 seconds to put your feet on the floor and feel gratitude. And appreciation for yourself as you say out loud, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. What a blessing. Ciao for now, everybody.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode And leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcasts. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.