- Okay, if you are one of these performers
who's spent so much time training
that you haven't developed your ability
at the trusting mindset,
all that means is, hey, guess what?
You're like most performers.
Almost every performer out there
needs to build the trusting mindset
and it actually ends up being one of the key transitions
in going from being a great musician
to being one of the best
because all that practice and rehearsal can get you
at least what I say in lectures,
at least two thirds of the way the best of your ability
which is a long way
and oftentimes, it gets you past most other folks
but then you get into a position
where you know you could perform better under pressure.
You know you've got the talent
it's just not coming out yet
and to develop that trusting mindset,
something that almost everybody in the profession has to do.
So guess what?
Welcome to the club.
All right, so it's normal.
What do we do about it?
The trusting mindset can be developed
first by practice scheduling, thinking about scheduling
just as much time for the trusting mindset
as you have the training mindset.
So really sit down with a piece of paper
and break out the times that you're gonna rehearse,
break out the times
that you're gonna work on your performance
and say I'm gonna reserve time just to trust myself.
So what that means
is understanding what the trusting mindset is.
It's very loose, very rhythmic, very free, very quiet mind,
very engaging and passionate
and has very little basis in science
or technical aspects of performance.
It's not critical.
There's no judgment.
There's no evaluation.
It's just performing and letting yourself go.
Oftentimes, some of the best comedians
are very extemporaneous.
They can get on stage
and they can just go and make any audience laugh.
What are they doing?
They're allowing whatever comes to their mind,
they're just gonna throw out there
without any second guessing of well, is this gonna be funny
or is this not gonna be funny?
Same thing's in music.
Just play without any sheets of music,
play without anybody looking over your shoulder
and just enjoy the rhythm and the feeling and the flow of it
and reserve a lot of time to do that
to allow yourself to get in that mindset.
Very, very valuable.
What I find with most folks who haven't spent a lot of time
working on the trusting mindset yet
is at first, if I asked them to perform in that situation,
they'll say, okay, okay, but what do you want me to work on?
Right, that's the habit is I gotta be working on something
and that's the trusting mindset.
The trusting mindset's not working on anything.
It's in just enjoying the moment.
It's not thinking about the future.
It's not thinking about the past.
It's just going right now wherever your spirit will take you
and sometimes it's very hard
for you to allow yourself to do that
because you feel like you're goofing off
and interestingly enough,
one of the synonyms we have for the trusting mindset
is play and in the psychological literature,
we've looked at kids at play.
They're very free and very loose
and the trusting mindset and this notion of play is similar.
We're not talking about the play
where you're you're goofing off
and you don't have a direction.
We're talking about the play
where you're into a particular task but you're into it
not for the sake of doing it correctly
but for the sake of enjoying it
and so very serious play at your profession
is an extremely valuable way
to work on the trusting mindset.