I recently featured my friend and pastor Tim Conkling on my sister podcast, http://www.thetrumpetjungle.com (The Trumpet Jungle).He spoke, rather eloquently I must say, about the root cause of performance anxiety.
With all due respect to the Rev. Dr. Timothy G. Conkling, I must take issue with several of his key points and I want to set the record straight.
Performance is something I take very seriously. Flawless performance I dare say is the only acceptable performance in my view.
I've heard countless lectures on dealing with performance anxiety. A few years ago, I hosted a podcast and even produced an entire course on performance anxiety.
All the "experts" say pretty much what Tim said in the trumpet podcast. "Check your ego at the door. Forget your mistakes. Live in the present."
That all sounds good and it's not like I was going to rudely disagree with my guest on the podcast, but can we check in to reality for just 15 minutes before we return to the altruistic fantasy that what we do is some sort of service to humanity?
We've more or less settled on the magic number of 10,000 hours it takes to master a craft (thank you, Malcolm Gladwell.) An instrument, copywriting, painting, podcasting, what have you.
That's 10,000 hours of back-breaking work. Tears, sweat, probably a little bit of blood thrown in there too. And that's just to achieve mastery level. God knows how many more tens of thousands of hours will be invested in our craft when it's all said and done.
And we're supposed to believe we do it for others? I'm not buying it.
play WW quote
In the series finale of Breaking Bad, Walter White finally concedes his true motivation for getting involved in the drug trade. For well over a year, he's told his wife Skylar that he did it all for his family. He's personally done or organized mass murder, he's lied to his own wife countless times, he's literally set fire to everything he touches. And it's all justified by his desire to provide for his family in wake of the death sentence he received with his cancer diagnosis.
And now, his own death being but a few hours away, he shares this moment of clarity with his wife (who's life is forever ruined) where he acknowledges that he indeed did it all for himself.
Would that we all had this clarity in our motivations, particularly when it comes to public performance: speaking, playing, acting, singing, what have you.
So, having a better understanding of why we perform, along with a sterling example of that motivation, let's take a deeper dive into some of Pastor Tim's points from The Trumpet Jungle podcast.
What's at the root of performance anxiety?It all comes down to you giving a shit what other people think of you.
Why would you care what anyone thinks about your abilities as a performer? They didn't put in 10,000 hours into your craft, YOU DID. If they criticize you for making a mistake, screw them. What do they know? Nothing about performing at a high level, that's for sure. If they did understand, they would know better than to say anything, right?
In the event that some slob criticizes your performance, and believe me they will, especially if you make a mistake, it's important that there is no confusion on what you're dealing with so you could perform for them.
The air conditioning was too high; it was turned off. You didn't get to properly prepare because your kid had a meltdown before you left the house. Someone in the back of the room was making a distracting noise.
Like any of this is your fault. Reminding people of these circumstances which are completely out of your control will perhaps make them appreciate what you're doing for them, but I wouldn't count on it, at least in my own experience.
Tell them anyway. One can only hope they'll think twice before criticizing another performer without thinking about how difficult it is to do what you do. You just might be saving a fellow virtuoso performer the headache of dealing with their gripes in the...
