CB LIVE! Courage to Leap and Lead with Tricia Brouk, episode 109 part 1

Hello everybody, how nice to see you. Just my camera a little bit so you can see my awesome look. I'm sporting this sort of very preppy look today. How are you? Hey, I want to wish you a wonderful holiday. For those that might be seeing this a little later, this is right before our Thanksgiving holiday. And we have so much to be grateful for this year. First of all, the fact that COVID is quote unquote under control. And second, because you guys are here with me and I'm here with you. So I'm still happy. Hey, you know, this, this show is about courage. And during this holiday season, I know that we're supposed to thank other people. But you know CB. This is CB Live, and I'm going to say, please take the time to thank yourself. Thank yourself for all the things you've done for yourself, all the courage you've had to keep going. So congratulations and say thank you to yourself. And with that, We have a great guest. Of course, it's CB Live, right? So of course we have a great guest, and of course it's Courage to Leap and Lead. By the way, I'm doing well on the second edit of my book, so get ready for January. So with that, I'm going to introduce Tricia. Tricia, am I pronouncing your first name correctly?

It is Tricia, and it is Brooke. The last name throws people because of the U.

Ah, okay. Where is it from that it has a U in it?

Czechoslovakia, the former Czechoslovakia.

How exciting! Did you come over as a child? Were you born here? How did, how did it work?

Well, I am definitely, uh, was born here, and that is a long lineage that was prior to me actually being, uh, in the United States for sure.

Oh, how exciting. Okay, so speaking of long lineage, please tell us about yourself.

Well, thank you so much, CB. I am loving the side ponytail that you're rocking today, first of all, and being able to be with you the week of Thanksgiving is just such a gift, and I'm so grateful for this opportunity. And you're absolutely right, we have so much to be grateful for, and being in conversation with you today is one of those for me. I am from Arnold, Missouri. I grew up, um, on a farm in that very small town, which is about 20 miles south of St. Louis. And we had chickens and cows and a well and an outhouse. And I learned how to shoot guns with my grandfather. We would shoot squirrels and have them for lunch. I learned how to butcher a cow. It tastes like chicken, and I'm not making a joke. And we had— I learned how to butcher a cow with my grandfather and my father. I am a vegetarian these days, by the way. And I really knew when I was a young girl that I wanted more, and didn't know what that meant necessarily. And I saw my sister when she was 4 years old, take a stage at a dance recital. She was a pink poodle and she was tap dancing. And I thought, I wanna be a dancer. So that moment in time when I was 7 years old, I realized that I wanted to pursue becoming a ballerina.

Oh.

And I studied dance with Sharon McGuire and Lillian De Noyer. And I was obsessed with Dance Magazine and Gelsey Kirkland and Baryshnikov and Nutcracker and pink tutus. And I studied dance every single day. And I went to college in Columbia, Missouri for dance at Stephens College and moved to New York City when I was 20 years old to pursue my career in dance. Little did I know that I would actually dance with Baryshnikov. And tour the world with modern dance companies. And I had an incredible career as a dancer. And I'm still in New York City, still in the performing arts, as well as producing, directing, writing, and supporting thought leaders in sharing their influential voices.

Oh my God, I am I remember— you probably will not remember this, but there was a time when on 42nd Street, CUNY owned the building. That's City College for those that are not from New York. And they had dance in the summer in the alcove.

Yeah.

I saw the greatest for free.

Yep.

You'd walk over during lunchtime and I saw— I'm getting all choked up— the greatest modern dancers that I have ever seen.

Yeah, I literally right now, CB, I am looking out my window at the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. I watch the dancers Every single day. This is where I live. I manifested this apartment, everybody, and I get to watch the dreams of dancers every single day, and it brings me such joy and such fulfillment. Wow.

What was it like? I mean, did you have any— well, I'm sure you did, so let me try to rephrase this. What were some of your biggest moments of Courage dancing with Baryshnikov?

Well, I'll take it back for you because one of the biggest moments of courage I think was deciding to move to New York City with $600 and nothing else, right? And trying to figure out how I was gonna make this work and how I was going to literally go to every single audition that I could and hear no multiple times a day. and still have that tenacity and that discipline and that grit to hear no as a not yet, or to have doors closed in my face and decide to build my own doors. And so the courage muscle that I started flexing was really early on. And that's because I was not the prettiest dancer. I was not the most talented dancer. I was extremely skinny with really big feet, and I grew into my pointe shoes. And little did I know, having big feet as a ballerina is actually wonderful if you have beautiful feet, and I had really nice feet. So I had to work harder than all the other dancers because the dancers who were naturally beautiful and had perfect turnout and all of the things that didn't come naturally for me, I worked harder. So The courage started early on, and it started with dance competitions. And I remember specifically, you know, Arnold, Missouri, we were not rich. We were not a wealthy family. My parents were very generous. They took me to dance classes. They paid for all the dance classes until I got on scholarship, all those things. But when I was 13, I competed in the Petite Junior Miss Dance of St. Louis. And the reason that I did that is because you could win scholarships to Broadway Dance Center. in New York City. So I competed, and I was so nervous. And part of the competition was the modeling portion. And in addition to doing a dance, you had to walk in a T formation while the MC of the event talked about what your hobbies were. Now, I was 13. I didn't have hobbies. I was a dancer. It's all that I did. It's, it's what I ate, breathed, and slept. So I had to make something up because I really didn't have hobbies. So I remember saying, okay, I have— I collect stickers, right? How boring is that? So the other part of this story is my mom bought me a dress from Sears, right? Not from Dillard's, from Sears. And it was great. And it was gray. It wasn't pink. It didn't have ruffles. It was, it was gray. And all the other girls from the local areas, from the wealthy areas outside of Arnold's, they had dresses that were pink. And they had ruffles and they had lace. They were so beautiful. They look like lampshades. And my dress was gray. So after the competition, I'm thinking, oh, I'll never win. I'm out of my league.

This is—

I'm so embarrassed. And they, they called the winner's name. And I will never forget this moment. When I heard them call Tricia Brooke, huh, I looked around as if it was someone else. And that moment in time gave me so much courage, because I wasn't the best. I wasn't the wealthiest. But I won and was given the courage to keep going. And so that moment in time shifted everything for me, because if I could win that competition, that meant I could come to New York City and study at the Broadway Dance Center over the summer. And that kept planting the seeds for me of more courage. Okay, if I can do that, then I can do anything. And it just gave me that tenacity that I needed and that drive to allow me to keep flexing the courage muscle, which has enabled me to keep doing it now into my 50s.

But excuse me, allergies here. How did you, after having that courage muscle— and first of all, I think you had it way before, okay? Um, but the courage muscle in relationship to dance After you received the scholarship, then, and then you had to go on these interviews later in life. And, you know, you had all these nos, which I love the fact that you said no means just not now. I have to add that to my book. How did you— how did that courage sustain itself?

It was an innate knowing that I was meant to fulfill my dream of being a dancer in order to entertain and inspire audiences. And I don't think that was conscious. I think it was unconscious. But because I was so determined to fulfill what I knew I was meant to do in the world— I was born to be a dancer and to entertain and inspire people from a stage. Now, that has shifted. I will always be a dancer and I will always see the world through the eyes of a dancer. However, when I was auditioning and the choreographer or the producer would call names and numbers of people, or mostly just numbers, I would literally raise my hand and say, could you call those numbers again? Because I was sure they made a mistake in not calling my number. And that, that came from—

I do.

I still have guts. I know that I am going to show up and give you 1000%. I know that I am a collaborator. I know that I will do your choreography the justice it needs. And so people not choosing me, always a gift again. The companies that I did not dance for, that did not choose me, I am so grateful to them today because I'm sitting here with you right now, CB, because of that. But I just knew who I was and how I could contribute. And that is what enabled me to, to really continue to flex that courage muscle. I never let anybody's perception of me affect who I knew I was and how I could contribute.

How powerful statement that is. Oh my God, please repeat it for our audience.

I would never allow anyone's perception of me get in the way of my knowing of who I am and how I can contribute.

That's, that's taking courage to a whole different level. Because, you know, it's, it's taking courage, it's surrounding it by incredible sass and tenacity, which I love. You know, I'm just, I'm a sassy person. Just don't get in my way. And never tell me I can't do something.

We have that in common.

Yeah. I remember my father would challenge me and I would look at him and I'd say, what are you talking about? What are you— are you out of your mind? And I'm telling my father this. I can do whatever I want to do. And later on— and, and I— oh, I have to tell you this stuff. And later on, my father said to me, well, that was my way of getting you to do what you needed to do. And I ran into that later in life, and I didn't recognize it until after it happened. One of my mentors was Bob Lee, who has since passed. And he was the founder of Lee Heck Harrison. And I remember meeting him at an event, and we just became friends. And we had dinner one night, and he said— all on the up and up— and he said to me— and this was the beginning of my mentoring relationship with him— He said, so what's the greatest thing you want in the house and in, in your life? And I looked at him and I said, I want to travel the world and I want a house. So I wanted to be the first person in my family to buy a house. And that included my aunts, everybody. And he looked at me and he said, It'll never happen.

Wow.

And I was crushed.

That's a gut punch.

Yeah. Who the hell is he to tell me this? And I said, and I want to be successful in my work. Well, fast forward one day, and I was writing for a paper that the Wall Street Journal owned. He took the article. I hadn't heard from him in years. And he sent it to me. And he just wrote on it, I'm watching you. Fast forward again. He, he contacted me and he said, what are you up to? And I said, well, I'm sitting in my new house. And he said, it's about time.

Wow.

Fast forward again. When I opened the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches, He said to me, "I think you should join," and I said, "No, you don't qualify." Fast forward again. He said, "I'm joining," and I said, "Okay," and he joined, and two months later he passed away. Oh! So it was so, and he said to me before he passed away, he wrote me a note, and he said, "I'm so proud of you." That's so wonderful. I remember saying to him, but you tell me I couldn't. He said, that's because I knew you could. You just needed a push. And he, he had pinned me perfectly. So, you know, those moments of the nos, meaning not now, I so get.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. So tell me, what, what is it that you're doing now?

In addition to continuing to be in film, television, and theater with documentaries that I make and this new Broadway musical that I'm working on, I also elevate and help elevate and amplify the voices of thought leaders and influencers. About 7 years ago, one of my friends asked me to direct her TED Talk, and I approached it just like a one-woman show, just like I do with any kind of actor. And we worked on script analysis, blocking, choreography, intention. And it was super fun. Didn't think twice. And she planted the seed. CB, she said, you should do this. And I thought, do what? There's a world that speakers need coaches? I've never heard of that. And then before I knew it, I had all these speakers and no place to put them. And as a theater producer, I produce shows. Well, what's the best show for speakers? TEDx. So I became the executive producer of TEDxLincolnSquare in New York City. I produced 2 years of shows, stepped away from them to produce my own show, Speakers Who Dare, and founded the Big Talk Academy. So it's really, really important to me that I create a community where we are aligned with the values of integrity, inclusion, curiosity, dignity, respect, excellence, collaboration and love in order to teach people how to communicate effectively so that we can make the world a better place and connect humanity through speech. And that's what I'm up to currently.

So you do that. I mean, I— it's very funny. And then it's almost synchronistic that we are talking now because I belong to a group and At this point, we are interviewing new people to join. And I viewed a couple of clips from people who want to join. And one of them struck me very interesting because I thought, this is a person who has a lot to give, talks extremely well. Has done a lot of things. And I wrote back and I said to the founder of the group, and I said, this person has a lot to offer. I'm not sure he lets people in. And she said, oh my God, CB, you nailed it. My concern also. So with that, how do you take speakers who fall into this category and get them to the point where they could speak with passion and honesty. And I don't want to see— say, be their authentic self, because I'm so tired of hearing that phrase.

Right.

But speak from inside. I mean, that has to take courage to be able to say to somebody, you're not connecting. With me?

It's interesting, you're, you're, you are connecting me with me so deeply right now from across the camera, because I'm feeling emotional about this question. And I think you're the first person who've asked it of me like this. How do we do that? And it really starts with Creating a safe space for the speakers to become vulnerable. And this goes back to my work in the theater with actors. I have to walk into a room as the director, not only creating an environment where there are boundaries and where they are safe and they know what to expect, But also, I need to step back and allow them to be fully in character. They know more about the character than I do, and if I try to impose what I think should happen before they are given the opportunity to be vulnerable, they're not going to ever become vulnerable. So creating that safe space and allowing the speakers to start to pull back the layers of the onion, start to get vulnerable. So I really create this incubator, this environment to become human before we even start talking about the technique of the art of speaking. And that process requires patience. It requires a modeling from me and my team. It requires real clarity around what expectations are. And I've seen it happen every single time. And I am a believer in source and energy and the universe. I'm very tapped into the universe. I'm very available and in receivership. So I attract the right people. And I also, in those first calls, I show up energetically and intentionally, so that every single person becomes vulnerable. And they see each other do it. And that gives them permission to be the next person who does it. And I hold space for it. And that's how we start this process.

You're talking a lot of big words that our listeners— I mean, we're in similar fields, and so I get what you're saying, but for our listeners to understand, what can you tell them? I mean, because what you're saying in essence is you get people to trust you. Trust you with their inner self. That is extremely hard to do with somebody who comes to you in their 30s, 40s, who have been guarded because they've been hurt.

Mm.

Yet the people that want to tell their stories, I could see where they would come to you faster, come to that point. The people who have been so deeply hurt, who have that story to tell, and they just don't. It's too painful.

There's 2 things that I could say to that. Thank you for, for acknowledging that the trust piece is paramount. When you have a trauma or have experienced pain in your life and you think you might want to share it, in service of others, it's extremely important that you are healed from that trauma. And I talk about this all the time. When you share your story, it needs to be shared from the scar, not the wound. So first of all, acknowledging if you have healed from the trauma, and if you have not, it is not time to share it.

How do you know?

If you are sharing the story and you feel that pain in your chest and you can't get through it without crying, Or you're so guarded, using your word, you're so guarded that you're detached from it and nobody cares. Your audience doesn't care. You don't care. That's also not healed. When you are healed from it and you can share the story in service of the audience so that they have the emotional experience, not you, then you know you've healed. And it can take years. It can, it can take a long time. Sometimes you might never want to tell your story. But I think if you can remember, as a storyteller, if you decide you want to tell your story in service of others so that they can connect to you and not feel alone, then trust that the one person out there who is meant to hear from you will. And I'll share a story. This, this is a story of courage of someone else, not me. I made a documentary about a young girl and her mother. This young girl was being bullied in elementary school because of mental health challenges and attempted suicide twice. Now, I came to know this story because her mother was one of my speakers, and she shared it with me privately in one of our sessions. And I said, If you are interested in me making a documentary about you and your daughter to help others feel less alone, I would be very honored to do that. Go talk to your family. You will have final cut. I will give you final cut on the documentary. And the documentary is called You're Gorgeous, I Love Your Shirt: An Inside Look at Bullying and Mental Health. Documentary premiered in LA at a, at a film festival. It was on the big screen. Tanya and Lindsay came out to be at the screening. And afterwards, a total stranger approached me in the lobby. And he said, I want to thank you. I have been going through a divorce. I have been bullied my entire life, and I was considering suicide. Thank you for making this film. I am not alone. And now I want to live. That courage that he had to share that with me, like that is— and telling, telling the story of this young girl, that storytelling gave this person the courage to live.

Is it possible to have that kind of response from somebody who hears your story, but you're still guarded?

I think that We can't walk around as an open wound, right? We have to, we have to walk around with some sense of protection in order to get, get around in the world as a human being, right? But I think that, and this is something that I feel really strongly about inside of our community, when we are vulnerable with each other in my community, in my team, in my company, here in conversation with you, CB. We are very open with each other right now. We have never met. And I feel extremely comfortable being vulnerable and open with you. And I experienced that from you as well. If, if and when you can allow yourself more frequent glimpses into the truth of vulnerability, Greater human connection is possible. And when we have greater community, greater human connection, there is more expansion for all humanity in the world. And it's difficult to have real, real human connection. It's a practice. And being guarded prevents someone else from knowing who you truly are. And who you truly are is special.

You know what? I'm going to end on that. And we're going to have part 2 because this is an incredibly powerful conversation. And you know, everybody, CB likes powerful conversations because it gets her all— her mind is just like snapping, snapping, snapping, snapping. So with that, I want to Thank you for part 1. And I want to ask everybody to come back to part 2 and come back with your heart open. This is CB, and thank you, Patricia.

Thank you, CB.