Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to The Choice to Grow. I'm Scott Schwenk. Through these dialogues, we'll explore fresh perspectives and discover practical tools for navigating a thriving life that adds value wherever we are.
Speaker: I'll introduce you to innovators and creators from across our world who embody what it means to cultivate growing as a way of life. Let's prepare together.
Speaker: Take a deep breath in.
Speaker: Hold the breath briefly as you soften your shoulders and soften the soles of your feet and palms of your hands. Then exhale like you're releasing tension and setting down a heavy burden from every cell.
Speaker: Ah. Now let's dive in.
Speaker: Welcome back everybody to The Choice to Grow. I've got another dear friend here that I've known for a very, very long time. We met something like 22 or 23 years ago. And one of the most memorable moments is when Adam turned to me in the car before they all dropped me off, stuck his hand out,
Speaker: to shake my hand said, Scott Schwenk, I want to be your friend. Will you be my friend? Two people in my life that I'm aware of have actually done that. The other one is my buddy, Zach, who will get on here at some point.
Speaker: Adam Garcia, after training with Kerry and Glenn Dumbrell's Capital Performance Studios in Sydney, Australia, David Atkins and Dane Perry, if I'm saying that right, kindly offered a slight detour from the pursuit of biological sciences. He is a total David Attenborough geek and science geek. By taking him touring around Australia with the musical Hot Shoe Shuffle,
Speaker: And that show carried him to London, where he was lucky to have ah varied and expansive career, including 12 West End musicals and plays, one he just recently directed and created himself.
Speaker: He's appeared in numerous films, such as Coyote Ugly, Riding in Cars with Boys, Flight of the Conchords, Afterlife of the Party, The Serpent Queen, and most recently, Adam has completed Jonathan Church's production of 42nd Street as Julian Marsh.
Speaker: a new film, The Performance, about vaudeville tap dancers experience in 1937 Berlin, and also achieved writing, co-choreographing,
Speaker: and co-directing the Irish and tap dance show Emerald Storm that has completed its first tour of the UK. So without further ado, let's just dive right into it.
Speaker: Adam, I'm so stoked to be with you. We hardly get to see each other in person. But wherever we are, we always pick up where we left off. Welcome to the show. Welcome to The Choice to Grow. Thank you so much, Scott. It's so lovely.
Speaker: um Yeah, like like you said, every time we get we get to connect, it's like it never went away. And and that's, you know, i'm so I'm so glad I got to say, hey, will you be my friend? Because ah it's really worked out.
Speaker: um It was one of the most touching things. Like if you imagine being on the other side, I don't know if somebody's actually done that, like who you wanted to be friends with and they were sincere and just that raw and real.
Speaker: i guess, yeah, there are there are moments where
Speaker: And I find it, it's it's quite childlike, you know, to say something like that. And I watch, I've got two young children, two young girls. And every now and again, they'll just do that. We were just on holiday and there was a girl in a pool in like this little hotel in the middle of sort of France. And they were sort of splashing about and she looked lonely and my youngest one was like, hi And the other one was like, hi. And she's like, hey, you want to play?
Speaker: the girl like, yeah. Yeah. but it's as simple as that. It's like, I would like to do this. I will ask you. And that's, that's as simple as it. and And sometimes, and, and simplicity is often the best way when we get to, to uncomplicate ourselves, you know, that's when, that's when things really happen.
Speaker: Well, and to give a little bit more of background about my experience at that moment, it was just like a totally different iteration of myself. yeah I mean, 20 some odd years ago, let's see, I'm 53 now. So I would have been in my early in to mid thirties.
Speaker: And At that time, it was really recent that you had just been in these Hollywood blockbuster films as the lead. So as somebody who was an escapee from Creative Artists Agency working there and knew who you were, saw you in the film, and quite straightforwardly had crush on that character, was like this whole...
Speaker: whole turning point that was so simple. It was so simple. And not like, wow, this is a person and I'm a person and we both have hearts and we both want to have good people in our lives and we get along really well.
Speaker: And here we are, we're going to be friends. And that's all there is to it. And it just so happens that we both have these tasks or jobs that we do in the world. But that's the pinprick on who each of us is and who each of us is with each other.
Speaker: That's absolutely right. You know, and I have, I was thinking today, i I'm friends with, um,
Speaker: Sir Trevor Nunn. And it sounds impressive. And he's a knight. And he ran the ah RSC. And ran- Well, Shakespeare and Company, for those of you who don't know what that is, which is the premier place. When I was an acting conservatory, they were my heroes. The people that came out of the RSC, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, um Patrick Stewart, so many incredible, I mean, Ian McKellen, like people who could do Shakespeare perfectly in the middle of the night, woken up from a deep sleep.
Speaker: is the rsc so your friend yeah and he's look he's a much older man he's directed me twice um you know he directed cats originally lame is uh starlight express uh sunset boulevard so yeah i mean he's done everything and you know i was in awe of him when i first met him because he was someone like you were say, you know, it's this, it's this thing that we create. like their, whatever it's status or superiority or whatever it is, it's like that person's great.
Speaker: And I feel, you know, very privileged to be, you know, even to be acknowledged by them. And then slowly, like I, every, every year i go to his house for new years, that's now a tradition.
Speaker: um And then we go and then we started to have lunch together and then, And he's in his 80s, but there's something that we really like about each other. And it was that thing that ah ah I finally acknowledged only probably last year when I actually walked worked with his daughter.
Speaker: And he came to the show and we went out for dinner and his daughter was like, oh, you guys are going out for, and i was like, yeah, that's what we do. And it struck me as like, yeah, here's this guy, but he's just this incredibly interesting 80-year-old man and we get on.
Speaker: But it was, I had to take a moment to be like, ah of course, it's so Trevor Nunn, but now it's not so Trevor Nunn. It's just, it's just Trevor. Yeah, exactly right. Just a guy.
Speaker: And that's the thing that is so available, right? Like when I look at that from a lot of perspectives and one of my favorite things about Adam or you, Adam, is you can keep up intellectually and I'm not calling us particularly smart, but there's an ability that's been there for a long time to see things from lots of perspectives and like play in conversation and discovery from lots of perspectives all at once.
Speaker: So as I look at, you know, what we're talking about, it's like, we're all just fingers on one hand. And yet at the same time, I put my hat on my head and my shoes on my feet.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's, as as we as we started with, it's like you can complicate things so much yeah and intellectualize yourself into a corner and not be able to see a way out of it. But intuitively, when you just make it simple, make us people
Speaker: and and get rid of those, you know, just those those things were put in our way. then it becomes easier. The phrasing that's coming up in my in my kind of inner ear right now is giving ourselves a seat at the table.
Speaker: And not in some sort of like narcissistic or solipsistic kind of way, but like to give ourselves a seat at the table. and You have a past, I have a past, that but the way I held it told me I needed to keep proving my value and my worth and it still would never be good enough.
Speaker: whether it was for a cool friendship or a cool job opportunity or whatever, like there was this always this albatross hanging around my neck of I'm not enough.
Speaker: Yeah. And yeah the turn of giving myself a seat at the table. Yeah. And that's about, yeah, that's, that's acknowledging your own lack of self-esteem or, or lack acknowledging your own lacking and, and sort of, you know,
Speaker: making the making a choice, making a conscious decision to be like, hang on a sec, that really doesn't serve me. no No. It doesn't get me what I would like or how I would like to what i would like to see in the world.
Speaker: And it does you a disservice. But I mean, I've fallen into that trap loads of times, constantly, in fact. And it's ah that's one of those things where you're like, hang on a sec. No, it's like there's no there's no reason why I can't have a seat at a table, why there can know where they why there can't be equality.
Speaker: And that comes also, you know, ah but there's there's humbling moments in our life where I have a sense of superiority and then suddenly I'm, and children do that really, really quickly to you because they have no concept of status yet.
Speaker: Yeah. And you can be all like, well, I'm this, and they're like, I just don't care. I want my macaroni and cheese now. Right. I asked for it. Yeah. Yeah. and and that and And I think, you know, humility and and those humbling moments are can can really inform yourself at the same time as the as the difference of thinking, oh I'm not good enough to be at this table, for instance. And you're like, why why not?
Speaker: They're just other people. And look, here's the thing. You can never stop someone from wanting to so be superior or wanting to dominate. That's that's not our position. We can't.
Speaker: we can't make those decisions. We can, we can wish, but there are all, there's always going to be other people who are resistant to that. Yeah. And then the ability for me to be like a cork in water and just go around, just go around. Okay. I don't need to bang on the wall. I'm going to go feel around for an open door.
Speaker: Yeah. And sometimes it's like, it's fine. I just don't, I don't need that person. What am I, what am i and why, why do I think I need that?
Speaker: You're like, that's like you said at the beginning, it's like sometimes you you find someone and you're like, ah that, that, that person, that's the sort of people I want to be around. This guy, Zach, I mentioned, wizard at PR and comms.
Speaker: Wizard is particularly digital comms. And I remember his first day coming into Equinox in the locker room, it and the gym that I belong to.
Speaker: he sets his bag down, sticks his hand out over the thing, says, hi, I'm Zach. I'm new here. and And I completely flashed immediately on you when he did that. i I did him and his husband's wedding, their baby blessing ceremony for their first kid.
Speaker: Like, i mean, you know, we're family at this point. yeah We're family. And the courage that gave me between you and Zach to do that myself.
Speaker: To be, yeah straight you're interested or you're not interested, but I'm going to stick my hand out because you seem cool. Hi, I'm Scott. What's your name? Yeah, it's it's remarkable when things like that happen. um You know, we have a mutual friend, Kai.
Speaker: ah And that's what Kai did. He just sort of came and saw me in a show and was like, you're a really good dancer. I want to know more about you. And I was like, right.
Speaker: Oh, okay. You know, he offered an invitation and I accepted it. and it was What I hear about you, that one of the things that endears me to you, and now that I have the phrasing for it and title the show for it, is, and I originally would just describing it to myself when I was marinating for far too many years on doing a podcast and just kind of sitting on the fence getting splinters, was about people who choose the path of mastery. And the way I mean that is people who are always choosing to grow
Speaker: and refine their craft and capacities and cross train without setting up camp and saying, I've arrived ever. Yeah. I mean, ah I'm definitely, I might phrase it differently. And and perhaps for me,
Speaker: um i you know, I don't, I don't believe in perfection. um I don't believe it necessary. I, i I also, most of the time, in a good or a bad way, on a pri probability, I'm probably wrong.
Speaker: That's kind of like if I'm coming to them, like there's a good chance I might not be right about this. And ah can be that can be quite negative, but it's also in a positive way. I'm like, well, that means it still means I need to be open, not to the possibility of being wrong, but learning and going, what what else could there be?
Speaker: what What more is there? um And that's one of the levers right there. That's one of the levers of the choice to grow. You know, we haven't really deftly articulated all these yet, even begun to scratch the surface in the episodes that are out.
Speaker: But like that right there. That ethos, I was naming this yesterday. i was giving ah a talk at ah at a big business conference, this this company Kajabi that hosts my website.
Speaker: And I reminded myself and them of this quote I've been hearing for years from Werner Erhard. He said, true clarity can only arise when one is willing to consider there's something I do not know, the knowing of which could change everything.
Speaker: like That's one of the hallmarks of all the people I find most interesting is that openness while committing fully to whatever we're doing? Absolutely. Because it would be, it would be the very example of hubris to think one knows it all.
Speaker: um And there's, there's, you know, I'm in a creative world, so collaboration is key and, And to try and control that, to try and wrestle that and anchor it to your your your own, only your own sphere of knowledge is but felt dangerously limiting.
Speaker: um And ah I've been very lucky to work on lots of things where most people, most of the time on any level are open and need that collaboration.
Speaker: They, where, where you know we're like a fungi in the soil, like all the bio all the biome needs us um and we need that biome in order to to move forward. And it's an interesting, like the idea of choice to growth, it's something that I've become more conscious about that is just the the consciousness of choice.
Speaker: I sometimes forget I've got a choice.
Speaker: And you can simply go, wait a second, I've i've got, I can choose. I can choose anything. I can choose whatever I want. So what I want to choose right now, what's, what's, I know I'm instinctively wanting to choose this, but what if I choose the other thing? You know, yeah I can choose to afraid, but why don't I just choose not to be?
Speaker: I don't know how much this influenced you or if you came in this way, simply you know growing up Australian. ah But we have a shared group of friends who I haven't seen many of in a long, long time. And I remember when one of our friends, Nicholas, was inviting me to meet everybody for the first time at Kai's house for what we called Thursday Night Football.
Speaker: and There was no football involved. Yeah. And Nicholas said to me, i was still at CAA at this point, and Nicholas said, here's the deal. If you want to come hang out with this really cool group of people, many of whom do a lot of inner work, you've got to agree to certain principles. I was like, all right, what are they? He said, you've got to be willing to ask for what you want.
Speaker: You've got to play bigger than you know yourself to be. You've got to be willing to be responsible for your own experience and your own emotions. And that's really the sum of it. yeah And I'm not going to say I've perfected that given we're talking about perfect, like not even close, but I'm always reflecting on, am I coming from there? Am I coming from that choicefulness?
Speaker: Am I remembering that nobody's creating my emotions? They may be acting like a jerk, but I don't necessarily have to be, you know, going on the ride and and go from, you know, zero to 60 in my mood.
Speaker: I have choice when I remember I have choice. Exactly. And I think, you know, on we went to many Thursday night footballs and but they ranged from just really good fun and sometimes incredibly profound.
Speaker: Yeah. and And sometimes just so much laughing that would not stop. Oh my God. So much fun. So much ridiculousness. But it like you said, it was practice.
Speaker: it was a practice that was right That was the point of it. It was to be like, so how how do we help each other do all those things that you said, all those caveats, which is like, you know how how do we and how do we play into that bigger thing that we didn't know we could be? How you know how do we take care of our own emotions?
Speaker: how do we How do we figure out what we... ask for for ourselves what do we want and that was all amazing practice and one of our friends said to another of our friends years ago said was just kind of musing but going for it out loud said you know I'd really like to be able to walk on the ceiling.
Speaker: And so our other friend who's quite strong, he goes, okay, let's give it a go And so he figured out a a way kind of like acro yoga to hold her upside down with such amount of support that she was able to have the experience of walking across the ceiling.
Speaker: Wow. Check that box. Like, but had she never asked? Well, that's right. That's it. That's exactly it. Had she never asked and she never voiced and she never put it out there.
Speaker: you know, that person, du yeah, that's, that's, yeah, that's really, that's really, that's a really lovely story. Well, it's so easy. you know, it was for me as a kid, I was, i was bullied tremendously. I didn't know how to fit in. I was, I've said this so many times on the show, it was like a puppy with big legs and a lot of energy, but didn't know how to organize it. So it kind of knocked things down and didn't realize how to collaborate really.
Speaker: And so I grew up not thinking people wanted me around. It had it taken a lot and was waiting for other people to invite me to things in hope.
Speaker: Cut to, I sit here today and go there's no waiting. yeah you gotta to All I've got to do is invite people and who wants to will come and who's not up for it or not a fit doesn't.
Speaker: I was at a black tie annual holiday party couple of years ago with a good friend of mine who's an incredible writer and executive producer for Drag Race, for RuPaul's Drag Race.
Speaker: And he's mixed it up with, you know, who's who of who's who for years. Because he when Ed Lomato was alive, the old head of ICM, he would go to Ed's house all the time. And Ed would introduce him to all these different folks. And we walk in in our black tie outfits. And there's all these really, you know, well-heeled, well-dressed, very fancy-looking gay men.
Speaker: And it could be a lot intimidating for a lot of people. And he pulls me to the side that goes in my ear. He says, remember, everybody here is worried nobody's going to talk to them.
Speaker: All you've got to do is say two nice things that you mean, and they're going to be eating out of the palm of your hand. Yeah, it's a really good point. And it works. And it's, you know, you can't, you don't want to weaponize it. You got to be really truthful about it. But like everybody's waiting for somebody to invite them or to include them.
Speaker: And when I trust that I can choose to be that person and welcome people in, suddenly there's a group of folks who all want to hang out together and collaborate. Yeah, it's true. And it's it's one of those, it's those moments where not only do you make the choice, but sometimes you're just relaxed enough.
Speaker: that you don't get in your own way. That's right. And, and then suddenly you're like, Oh, that was, I'm just, I'm just having a chat, just having a chat. That's fine.
Speaker: That's easy. We're just, we're just talking. There's no, no, it's all, ah it's all those fears, like you said, and and they come from, they come from places. They really do. They come from legitimate places and sometimes, can you know, completely irrational places, but it's about,
Speaker: figuring what those are and going i just need to probably just need to relax one of my favorite tantric scriptures uh points out how consciousness lost itself and went under the delusion of feeling separate small not enough and all this business and how it finds its way back and it uses the analogy of a show a performance And says the actors, the story, the audience, the script, the lighting are all made of one substance.
Speaker: You know, you you're an actor. You've done it professionally. i went to conservatory. I never went on afterwards with it. But I've always had it close as a contemplation. Like, wait, when I remember, I'm playing a role of Scott.
Speaker: And there are many ways to write that role. Like I'm not stuck with the ways that I was socially constructed as a child or as a young adult. But many people believe and forget this is a role.
Speaker: It's made up. I'm just pure consciousness inhabiting a body. And with the right tools and practices, i can release those identifications and explore another way to move.
Speaker: absolutely and look and i look i ah when you're saying that i recognize that
Speaker: that that happens to everyone but the examples would be you know people go on holiday and no one knows who they are and suddenly or they go you know they go to a completely different city or they they literally move because they feel limited where they are and people know them but they can reinvent themselves somewhere else and that's quite a That's quite an extreme way of doing things.
Speaker: um and it And it still means that you you think you should hide something or like you said, you know putting on roles. But also by the by the same token, I'm sure i I became an actor because it allowed me to try on different different human costumes.
Speaker: What's a costume you'd like to try on? Like if you had total freedom and maybe you really do feel the total freedom, like what's a costume or a role that you'd like to try on for a bit of life if there were no constraints?
Speaker: clean ah In real life? Yeah. Wow. That's a good question. um
Speaker: Now, look, yeah I'm going to pause. But yeah, that's ah that's a really, really good question. um like Would you want to be like a David Attenborough, for example, in a different life, a different outfit?
Speaker: ah For sure. Yeah. Look, I'd like to be a research scientist. I'd like to... There's there's many things like... even Even being a hermit, that's sometimes one of those things where it's like... And and my actually, my mom was saying something recently, which is...
Speaker: She doesn't believe she's very imaginative and she's like, and that's fine. She doesn't need to be, but she loves books because someone else is creating a world for her to inhabit.
Speaker: Other, and I'm i'm sure, know, going back to your question, yeah, there's loads of, there's loads of sorts of characters
Speaker: that I guess they' perhaps they the way they live like a hermit or a farmer or a scientist will imbue me with some other characteristics, whether it's sort of unbelievable patience or knowledge of this.
Speaker: But I guess in that in that
Speaker: in that respect, I could just choose to do that anyway. Like what is it like to have... patience or to contemplate what a hermit would contemplate.
Speaker: so When you say hermit, you don't necessarily mean just somebody avoiding society. I think you mean somebody who's he's pursuing a contemplative life. Yeah, more more monastic. But that's still, I guess that's still sort of, but that people in monasteries aren't isolated. They're with a lot of other people like mine. Even if you're in silence, you still have to deal with everybody at dinner.
Speaker: There's still, yeah, there's still a lot and a lot of people like going through and and trying to achieve stuff. So um oddly enough, I had a conversation with David Attenborough about being monastic.
Speaker: I met him a number of years ago, quite by chance at this weird sort of dinner for a charity. And we were introduced and we were talking about gorillas and he was likening certain animals to like, you know, being isolated. And he was like, you know, it'd be very, very nice to, to live a sort of monastic life. And I can understand that because I mean, where can he hide?
Speaker: Right. Where can David Attenborough hide? Yeah. um
Speaker: And I think, I think I'm sure everyone has those sorts of ways where it's like, yeah, I'd like to,
Speaker: I'd like to either be noticed or I'd like to not to be noticed. There there are two facets of the same coin. And then I've gotten the fortune of interacting with people who for whom that's fallen away.
Speaker: Yeah, right. And that' that's a whole other depth of of the kind of embodied grounded freedom that we're talking about.
Speaker: I mean, that is, you know, one of my favorite books is, ah I'm sure most people maybe, but is Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, which is, you know, the story of Buddha. and And that is, that's the whole thing is like, he wants to do this and he wants to explore that. He wants to, what is he missing from here? So maybe he needs to try that. He'll become a and but impoverished and a hermit. He'll become a rich lord and he'll become dead and he'll be a fish and all these things. And eventually he just sits by and goes, look, I don't need any of that. I just need to accept this, me, life, the river, the flow.
Speaker: you know And maybe that's it. That's where we get to, hopefully, is just the acceptance of this is me, all those different facets. Yeah, what is the and what is the me that inhabits the role?
Speaker: Like, it's very easy, I imagine, for some listeners to go, oh, well, me, what do you mean? The me at a certain age and has a certain bank balance? No, that's not, at least how I hear Adam, is who or what am I?
Speaker: Does it outlive the body? How do I get to know it? What happens if I do? And how does that fit into the relative life of being in a body is still going on. Like cars are still driving by garbage is being picked up.
Speaker: um You know, people are laughing and giggling with their children, horrible war atrocities are happening. Like all sorts of things are seemingly happening when my attention goes outward.
Speaker: Can I have both? Can I learn how to recognize whatever it is that I, we are,
Speaker: without having to pull out of participating with society.
Speaker: i mean, that's,
Speaker: i mean, the word that comes to me is, is acceptance, acceptance of what's happening, acceptance of really seeing who you are. And, and, and beyond that,
Speaker: loving that giving it love no matter if it's good maybe if the acceptance has to be of like some things about myself that I don't like and to be like well that's that's part of me it's not all light but I still have to love it and ah i've done some i've not really spoke but you know I've done some inner child work and that the the very nature of that is to be able to to almost parent yourself.
Speaker: Now that I'm a parent, I can be like, so what if that was my if I was my kid, how would I nurture my child through whatever that moment is? How would I allow that child to realize that it can accept those things, can acknowledge them, can take responsibility?
Speaker: And there's a methodology. There's a methodology for that. Some of the people are doing parts work about it. I love the work of Daniel P. Brown and David S. Elliott out of Harvard. Daniel P. Brown was simultaneously, and if you've heard this, hear hear what's new in it, listeners.
Speaker: david Daniel P. Brown was a Associate professor of Harvard for 35 years, he created what's called the Attachment Project, which he's deceased. He died a few years ago of Parkinson's, but the Attachment Project still lives very robustly.
Speaker: One can actually put in their information and type out a questionnaire and get a sense of their attachment styles, how each of us uniquely forms and deepens or doesn't relationships over time.
Speaker: And they've sorted out how to heal it. There's a thick volume with tons of footnotes and research that they've been doing um about healing attachment disturbances in adults, moving us to secure attachment style.
Speaker: And there's three things, just three things. Number one is practicing the ideal parent figure protocol, which is meditating on as though there were totally enlightened, totally attuned, enlightened parents with me in this moment.
Speaker: I don't have to explain a thing. They know exactly what I need. And to actually get into the receptive mode of experiencing that through the nervous system. Number two is developing greater and greater metacognition, the ability to think about my thinking and pivot my thoughts and to actually reflect on my emotions and pivot.
Speaker: And then the third one, and they all go together, is developing greater and greater verbal and nonverbal collaborative skills. this Now, with this comes what I call the five transmissions. These are five things that are present that they've researched when there's healthy attachments and relationships.
Speaker: Attunement. I see you seeing me. I feel you feeling me. I don't have to explain myself. Safety and protection. Soothing and comfort. Expressed delight. Great job. Wow. Amazing what you just, wow, what an improvement.
Speaker: And support and encouragement for one's best self. So coming back to what you're saying about parenting oneself, In my own way, that's how I reflect on parenting myself. Like, what would a loving, ideal, enlightened parent do? I had a really intense week a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker: ah Really, really intense Car got T-boned, brand new car after having had an accident last September. And it was a guy making an illegal U-turn, but it just was what it was. But my nervous system was just overstimulated, like just off the rails for about 36 hours.
Speaker: And I go, what would a loving, enlightened parent do right now? And I remember there was a box of chocolate chip cookie mix in the pantry. And I remembered that there was also a chocolate bar that could be chopped up to add more chocolate.
Speaker: And I'm like, that's what I would do for my kid. Not like, you know, instead of dinner, but like, let's make cookies. Let's put on some fun music and just chill out.
Speaker: Yeah. Like that was the most loving, attuned thing for that moment.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's, as you said, you know, ah the, I think that was the second point of, uh, the person from Harvard you mentioned, it's it's that attuning, that that that figuring out.
Speaker: But they're both. You did all those things. You did all the three steps, which was what would but would ah what would an enlightened parent do? what am i What am I needing? What would I ask for? um You know, which is that verbal and nonverbal skills and the and the second one of just figuring out what is what is in me right now that is bothering me so much.
Speaker: Cause often, you know, often that's one of the things that I've, I've been working on is like, I get bothered by something. My wife made a joke. I think it was the other night I was in the shower and I couldn't get a cap on something. It was, you know, and I was like, Oh, come on. That's just stupid.
Speaker: And I didn't realize I was saying it. And then I got out of the shower and she was like, you're right. And like, Yeah, what what are you what you talking about? She was like, yeah were you having a fight with an inanimate object? i was like, oh, yes.
Speaker: Yes, I was. I certainly was, and I and i won. and what a bit its it's and ah It's a it's ah it's glass jar with a lid, for goodness sake. It doesn't it doesn't doesn't do anything.
Speaker: But it was it's that moment where you you react. You react. And there's something underneath. There was clearly something underneath that reaction where I was frustrated. And all it was is that I knew there wasn't a lot of hot water like lost and i was I was already prepping myself for a cold shower and I was annoyed.
Speaker: We had plenty of hot water. I totally made that up. We had hot water, but i was but I was preparing myself to get angry and everyone was like, I knew you'd have the shower too long. And it was like,
Speaker: And it was all expectations. I could probably link it back to like, I was just really wanting a shower, but I waited for everyone else to have their shower first. And or the strategy was, that was the strategy. The shower was the strategy. The outcome was I want to feel relaxed and the shower is going to give it to me.
Speaker: Yeah. And nobody get in the way of my strategy because that's the only way I can see getting relaxed at this moment. This is it. This is the answer. It's the only answer.
Speaker: Total rubbish. And then the the cuteness of your wife's ah response. And you're more relaxed after than that. she you know She brings some humor and some love to it. But like this is just it. you know And I keep reflecting, because it's you and i on how much i i see the value of and wish for more people to have a depth of experience with acting and movement training because of what they can make available to the ready and the willing.
Speaker: What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, no, look, I was having a conversation. ah i'm i'm I'm doing an interview tomorrow and we did a ah research call, which is what you do before you go on the TV interviewers because they need to know all the stuff before you say it.
Speaker: um And she, and this lady this this this lady happened to be, you know, she was an amateur dramatic, so she was quite excited about the show that I'm im about to start rehearsing and I'm rehearsing. And in any case, she was,
Speaker: she was talking about whether I would have my children follow me into the arts. And I was like, I mean, that they're so young. I can't possibly, you know, I have no, if they do, that's great. If they don't, that's great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: but they do sing and they do dance and they do love, ma they're very they're quite creative and they, you know, they draw and they, one of my daughters loves to animate. She makes stop motion films for herself, you know.
Speaker: How old is she? She's 10. Okay, okay. And so, and but she loves making, you know, she gets all these, she makes claymation and she makes up these stories and it's really that i fascinating.
Speaker: But she, you know, they go and do little drama classes and dance things. And it's like you said, like the what the arts do for just the simple expression of it, just to get out things that you might know that's in your body, whether it's through movement or or drama or any or singing or painting or drawing or sculpting or any of the facets of the arts.
Speaker: And we had this conversation because they're starting to cut arts funding in the UK for schools and things like that. Cause it's, it's not important. Oh God. Deemed. It's not deemed that to add anything.
Speaker: Wow. do it To a person's development. meanwhile That's everything. And I mean, it it sort of goes against the grain because I mean, ironically, I mean, London and and the UK being like literally one of the pillars of,
Speaker: of theater and creativity and in a commercial sense um they certainly see the value when it's like but this makes us lots of money the but the val the value in in people having the arts and how how it helps them express themselves and helps them communicate with other people on how to be creative or to create something or just invent something just That is, you know, priceless.
Speaker: That's a whole other fascinating world. And I know you're you're involved in that invention. It's one of the pillars of rhetoric. One of the wheels of rhetoric is inventio or invention. Like, what do you see about the process of invention? Given that, I mean, i don't think there's an individual who actually invents anything.
Speaker: What more we tap into something. even I mean, I think on ah on a on a, you know, as you know, I love biology and i've I've always said that the gift of humanity besides the opposable digit is the fact that we have we have a real gift of of learning and remembering.
Speaker: So I couldn't come up with algebra. I don't think I could have. But someone did and then someone could teach me. I'd oh, that's great. Or you know how to do a computer or any of these things.
Speaker: We are brilliant at retaining knowledge and passing knowledge on. And you know we we talk about invention and there have been moments in our lives where we've come up with something as frivolous or ridiculous, but incredibly funny for us.
Speaker: Yes. And it came out of sort of nowhere. And the next thing you know, we've got the, you know, we've got a characters or a sketch or a concept of the world and it's just, it's invention. We're borrowed. You know, I know I've been healthily um educated by the great comedians from from England and all over.
Speaker: And I, you know, and and and just all reading or any of these things can add into us. And then, we let it out and we we share it with other people. One of the, i mean, I guess on a, you know, as a tap dancer,
Speaker: it's sort of an unwritten, nothing's written in tap dancing. So it's definitely an unwritten rule that you pass on your knowledge. So no matter how great you might be as a be in the ranking of tap dancers.
Speaker: Your job is to teach. Your job is to then pass on all your steps, your rhythms, your style, your influences to the next people, whether that be in a jam or just teaching class or whatever that is.
Speaker: And it's part of the culture is to pass on your knowledge. and And it's one of those wonderful things like the young tap dancers that I see coming up that I've been involved with or tapped, like they've got everyone's knowledge. And you look at them and you're like, wow, that's the next, that's where you go. And surely the generation after them be like, holy crap, that's where you can go with that.
Speaker: And that's music. And that that's the beauty of those sorts of things, passing on one's knowledge. And we're just an amalgamation of all the knowledge and experiences that's passed on to us.
Speaker: Well, I think this is where it gets fascinating for me is your your your understanding of and your fascination with biology. You know, what what I'm presented with as you were talking about that is plant growing seed.
Speaker: it Like, okay, if plants grow seed, trees grow seed to to propagate the species and they do evolve. Absolutely. Over however much time that plant or species evolves.
Speaker: um I'm thinking, for example, of like magnolia trees apparently existed before there were bees. So they believe it was pollinated by some sort of beetles. But the magnolia tree has continued to evolve. I mean, it's now lining sunset. When I moved here, they had just planted them and it's lining sunset Boulevard, these beautiful, huge magnolia trees that also grow these seed pods.
Speaker: It's like, well, we're not separate from nature. And so what can we learn from nature about how to live live a best life for the sake of everyone involved, everyone and everything involved?
Speaker: But this passing along is passing along is like, hey, like who am I to hold on to it? And how am I to claim any ownership? Whose was it before it was passed to me? Well, that's it. You know, I guess, you know, i that's absolutely it. Like, I guess it's, the we all think that we are the result of our own, ah but of only our own actions, but that's both folly and fallacy.
Speaker: It's, it's impossible. Um,
Speaker: Yeah, we we are we are we are the we are the sum of experiences, as I said, the sum of experiences and knowledge. And as you said, what I liked about what you said is like, yeah, who would we be to not pass it on?
Speaker: And why would we want to simply hold on to it? Yeah. We have to get over ourselves to do that effectively. like
Speaker: Yeah. And well, that's, again, it's like getting out of your own way, just being, you know, people will take I've had many, many experiences where both professionally and on a personal level where people have gone, oh, yeah, if I hadn't but hadn't met you, I wouldn't have thought like this. Or if I hadn't seen you in this, I didn't. I i you know i saw you in something and I ah said, i want I want to do that.
Speaker: And you never know. You can't have control over. how the world, what the world can take from you. Your only responsibility is to, to be you and to give and that's it.
Speaker: This is a good moment to ask you the question I ask every guest. And it's based on ah quote, my favorite quote from one of my favorite quotes from Suzuki, Shinryo Suzuki Roshi, who opened the Zen Center of San Francisco in the 60s.
Speaker: And I think you would really enjoy his bio, his book, Crooked Cucumber. He grew up in Japan in a very different era, training as a little boy to become a Zen priest. It was not an easy life. There was a lot of challenge and abuse and...
Speaker: melodrama and feudalism and like this. But he gets to the States and he's very cooked as a being, as a teacher, still admitting he has faults in places to grow.
Speaker: And he would say, death is certain.
Speaker: The time is not. What is the most important thing?
Speaker: So for you, and what is the most important thing?
Speaker: That's a big And I know the, putting the other recent guess is like the, that superlative of the makes it difficult.
Speaker: I think intuitively would say the most important thing
Speaker: is being thankful for what you have right now.
Speaker: I always have to come back to that about all the dreams or aspirations or the things that I might do in the future or the failures I may have had in the past. And then look at the, the gratitude is the anchor for me to go, this is, this is lovely.
Speaker: This is beautiful. I have friends and I have family. I have love. Um, I have me.
Speaker: ah i have God.
Speaker: And that I, so I think the most important thing is yeah, it's gratitude for now.
Speaker: Now, less people think that you've had just easy breezy life from start to to now.
Speaker: surely you've had some really challenging, maybe even downright debilitating circumstances.
Speaker: What would you want to touch on or bring forth from any of that ah oriented through the choice to grow and and the parenting of oneself and the gratefulness?
Speaker: I mean, there's been there's been a lot there's been a lot of, ah obviously lots of people have hard things, but on a personal level, then we from ah you know my My father was ah ah an addict and and and to add a ah pathological liar.
Speaker: um And that was something I had to really go through and learn forgiveness. and And that was really growing experience. Just the experience of knowing that a parent is just a person and addiction is terrible.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, and that all that rage I had towards him for so long, which was incredibly corrosive and damaging to me when I realized that he did literally the best he could.
Speaker: That was, that was a huge, that was a huge moment that I could be like, it wasn't, it's not pity. Um,
Speaker: But it was, I guess, that essence of being able to go, he could help what he helped and he couldn't help what he couldn't help. um And he was just but he was just a person.
Speaker: I had to cover that with my own dad. i don't know if we ever discussed that, but that that was the most difficult relationship in my life. and And currently he's excommunicated me as of five years ago, I think it's now.
Speaker: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it was always been difficult. And he was an addict and he was a rageaholic. And we lived at a time, you and I were kids at a time when corporal punishment normalized physical abuse.
Speaker: And I was, you know, handled pretty freaking intensely to the degree of bruises and things like that. And
Speaker: It's taken years to get to that point of view of, wow, this is a person who did the best he could with the energy state he had at the time, who does love me even though he was pretty much the main beneficiary of that love.
Speaker: And yet he did the best he could. and And that forgiveness, while still having room for some of the upsurges that can come in a certain moment, a memory fragment arises. and ah you know There's a part that sometimes goes, fuck that guy.
Speaker: But it's not meant to be weaponized or to direct harm. It's an acknowledgement of the of the experience, not a victim position, not a victim position at all.
Speaker: No, and those things, you know as you said, like it's so... I'm not sure if it's... It probably is fully possible to exorcise those things out completely, but you know the human body holds those
Speaker: physical and non-physical scars. um and you know And that goes back to what we were talking about, it you know attachment.
Speaker: if you have someone who as a child you you you need certain things and that's not provided um it's very very confusing and ah why that person couldn't choose to provide and the only thing most children come up with is it's me i'm the problem yeah um and and and that is the most damaging thing that is the that's that's the hard thing and And to then realize that it's like, it's it's flipping that it's flipping that narrative and saying, it wasn't me.
Speaker: it They couldn't provide me with what I needed. So I have to figure out how to provide myself or the universe or God or friends or love or other things.
Speaker: but and Because it's about worth. It's about how you view yourself as worthy of those things. And we are. You are. I am.
Speaker: When we talked about passing on the knowledge, I know that at different points, and and tell me if you are now, you've taught. You've actively taught. You've created opportunities for people to learn with you.
Speaker: I'd imagine just sitting with you just in this conversation that the real learning is not so much about technique itself. and this, but more about learning about oneself as a part of a system of other living beings.
Speaker: But tell me a little bit more, or us a little bit more about you passing along your knowledge and and are there opportunities for people to study with you that are coming up or learn with you?
Speaker: um I mean, in ah in a dance context, yes. um Yeah, that's that's what I meant. Like the dance is the front of the the you know the offering, but there's this whole other thing that's going to happen for people if they're actually available to it.
Speaker: I mean, i guess what I've learned, you know, when i do when I do teach or if I do, you know, create a show I direct so or even now I'm rehearsing a show and, you know, there's ah there's a director and there's you know a musical director and and there are other actors.
Speaker: um
Speaker: And it was something something I learned with our friends, you know, our mutual friends, when we sort of had to give ourselves names, I i like bringing joy. And i like I like the fact that what I do,
Speaker: it doesn't have to be that serious.
Speaker: um
Speaker: it's it's It's fun. we We pretend. We literally make believe for a living. So... so you know we can all I can all get swept up with when the pressure's mounting or a show's about to open and things are going wrong. it like ah It's like,
Speaker: ah, it's a shot. it'll be It'll be a moment in time and people will love it. ah But um you know I always want my casts to have a good time. I want them to feel...
Speaker: joyous that they can have a great time on stage and have a great time creating a great time collaborating because it just makes a good room makes it fun makes it fun for me yeah are there places for people to study with you like in terms of dance um I mean, not at the moment, unfortunately, but even if they're in the UK, I do teach from time to time.
Speaker: I had moments when I was like teaching almost every week, which is amazing getting to go all around the country. um But for at least the next six months, because I'm touring with the show, i simply won't, ah
Speaker: probably won't have the time or capacity to. And this show is what? So I'm doing a ah show called the bodyguard based on the, the Whitney Houston film, um, Kevin Costner. Yeah.
Speaker: Kevin Costner film, amazing film. Um, so there's a musical of it and it's, uh, yeah, we've just started rehearsal. So we, we go on tour all around the UK, uh, start of September and it's a six month tour. So I get to go all around the country and that is fun. I have to say it's, it,
Speaker: Yeah, England's a really funny place. All the different cities are so, like if you want different accents like and different cultures, like it changes within 20 miles. It's remarkable. I'm imagining, I'm remembering that movie and you know the only one I recall singing was the lead female, which was played by Whitney Houston. So this is a musical. So obviously, ah I would hope, you get some amazing opportunities to sing, yeah?
Speaker: No. no No, this is a really... I don't sing and I don't dance in this show, but everyone else does.
Speaker: How is that for you? it
Speaker: It feels like it's like a kind of a relief because when you're touring with a show andm you know or doing musical... oh Like you have to be incredibly disciplined, like your day starts and you're basically monitoring your voice and your fitness and your fatigue until you perform for those two and a half hours that are quite intense.
Speaker: And you need to be on you need to be, you know, giving the show that that people are ah paying money to see. Um, plays you know this is a play for me and obviously you still need like need to take care of myself but i it i'm not going to crack on a note because i don't have any notes um but do you itch do you feel like a trigger finger like to to to to dance or to like let out a let out a an aria a moment of sound
Speaker: It's going to be, it's that that is going to be really difficult. Like i've I've never done a music, I've done lots of musicals, but I've never done a musical where I don't have to do the singing or the dancing part. i I have a feeling I'm going to be really envious.
Speaker: and I know the chore, I've already seen the choreography, it's so good. I'm like, and he's not meant to be able to dance and he's not meant to be able to sing. Like he's completely foreign to this world. And so, yeah, it's quite an, it'll be a really interesting role because he is, he is not a singer and not a dancer.
Speaker: And yet what that provides, the contrast that that role is necessary to provide and to really inhabit. I mean, it brings me back to senior year. um I and and some of my co-students in the, in the conservatory program put together and got funding for, and got, you know, the university to give us a ah theater to do Shakespeare's 12th night.
Speaker: And we got this incredible director, Aaron, whose last name I'm unfortunately forgetting, incredible actor who was not a university professor, but he was the husband of of one of our professors.
Speaker: And I remember him pulling me aside. i was signed assigned the role, given the role of Sir Andrew Iguchik, which is the clown role. And anybody who really knows Shakespeare, which I was still in a learning curve at that moment, knows that the clown role is one of the best roles in the entire play.
Speaker: Like you just get to explore so much. But due to my then insecurity about my sense of self and my looks, i he pulls me aside he goes, I don't know what you're doing.
Speaker: He goes, you're trying to play this like it's a leading man and it's not. You're going to destroy the role and you need to play them as a, as a clown, as a buffoon, as a, as a fool.
Speaker: And if you can't, I don't care that you put the show together. I'm going to cast somebody else in this role.
Speaker: Yeah. One of the most important growing moments in my entire life that I will never forget.
Speaker: Yeah. Did you get to play the role? I did. I did. i did. And we spoke on the phone the other day when we were talking about doing this podcast. I said, you know, there was this moment it kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and got get my own desk away from the ah group desks and in grammar school because I was too chatty.
Speaker: I was chatting backstage with some of my co-actors and it was my moment to go back on the stage and I needed to bring a letter.
Speaker: The letter Shakespeare is not accidental. You cannot add lib Shakespeare, although we talked about a friend of yours who has. Audience doesn't necessarily know, but you can't. It's in pentamic, iambic pentameter. It's in verse. It's so it's so precise. It's an algorithm.
Speaker: It's advanced theoretical math. And so that I didn't bring this letter on stage and people couldn't say the thing they were supposed to say. Amazing. Amazing. We just figured it out.
Speaker: That, yeah. That's one of those moments on stage where you're like, yeah, that's invention. And they all wanted to kill me when it was over. They played it through, but they were, so and understandably so, they were so upset with me.
Speaker: And rightly so. And I just, you know, we have a saying in Tantra, take the blow, take the blow and like learn from it, you know? Oh yeah. like It took a lot of years, but I've taken that blow and continued to choose to learn from it.
Speaker: I mean, I have a feeling that if you went back to all those people now and you got to tell that story, they would laugh. Yeah. Like, oh, my God, remember that time where you didn't bring on the letter? Oh, that's so crude. And how many of them might have actually forgotten that entirely and go, I don't remember that?
Speaker: Yeah. Or like, no, no, that really happened? Oh, I mean, that's the thing. Like, in the moment, like it means so much. It gave me as a prop, um this I did remember to bring around, this long yellow, bright yellow umbrella with a wooden handle.
Speaker: that wouldn't open
Speaker: That's funny. Yeah. That's good prop. Yeah. Really good prop. That's the sort of prop a clown needs.
Speaker: And the freedom to be a clown back to freedom and choice, the freedom to be a clown and play to bring play and invention. Like that's what a I think that's what a really good clown or fool can bring is the wisdom that doesn't need to seem important, but can transform the point of view through play folly and invention yeah I mean i love I I you know I've done some clowning courses they're incredibly difficult like the concept of buffoon and it's not quite childlike but it's the idiot it's the it's a person that doesn't know it's the unknowing person so there's no
Speaker: There's no guile. There's no malice. It's... Yeah. It's really difficult. it's it's a wonderful The clowning is wonderful when it's because it's just spontaneity and ridiculousness and slightly chaos and impulse. And wisdom.
Speaker: and when Yeah, internal wisdom. Yeah, the wisdom of... of ah of not having other layers of society. all the All those masks, all those things. The clown doesn't have that, so I don't need it.
Speaker: Like in the Tarot, it's often called the fool. Yeah. And yet one of the one of the most powerful cards that can come up in in a Tarot drive for wisdom.
Speaker: One other the thing that just strikes me in our conversation is yes and. Every time we're hanging out, yes and. you know And for those of you who are listening and don't know, yes and is something that you learn when you're learning sketch comedy, a way to collaborate with other people.
Speaker: If somebody just says no, the sketch stops. The play stops. And something that Adam and I always play with and never discuss is, oh yeah, and, oh yeah, oh, oh, and. yeah Say a little bit more. Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, yeah yeah it is. it's It's an acting exercise. It's a sketch comedy thing. And it means, yeah, it's it's it's asking play or the play, but play to continue.
Speaker: it's it's And it's ah it's it's just a wonderful exercising of ah ah making sure there's momentum and and progress. So how do you see bringing that to real life so-called real life? Real life.
Speaker: um i mean again it's a practice it's something that you often don't you know i often don't do it's like i just it's a no ah just can't it's a no um but the the whole point of the game is choice ah although they're taking one choice away from you and that choice is you can't say no
Speaker: So it's just offering you, well, you can say you can say yes, and that yes can be as many different ways as you want. You just can't say no. And so I guess when you're faced with a no in real life, you're like, well, I'd have the choice to make.
Speaker: What if I say yes? and And I can take responsibility for how that yes looks. um You know, there's yes and there's also boundaries.
Speaker: Boundaries that keep oneself safe, I guess, to a degree. or Yeah, perceived sense of self safe or one's children safe or one's spouse safe or one's business safe.
Speaker: Yeah. and it's not like, oh I have to say yes to everything, including, you know, asking, you know, somebody asked, can I cut your hand off? And oh, sure. Yes. No, no. dared me Yes. but No.
Speaker: but No. That's just a no.
Speaker: Anything else you really want to leave us with, Adam? What's that? Is there anything else you want to leave us with? It's kind of, if you just get quiet for a moment, like, is there anything else about the choice to grow that really should just be with the choice to grow in your life?
Speaker: You imagine your children growing up and and really having that empowerment of the choice to grow other people's children.
Speaker: I think, you know, ah love that you've named it the choice to grow because it's it would be it's a wonderful mantra
Speaker: ah of of saying, yeah, I have i have that choice. And I can't
Speaker: ah can't imagine not choosing that, but I'm sure there's been times where I've made the no choice um
Speaker: until I'm very lucky friends who go, hello, what why are you saying no? Or myself or the universe goes, what's going on there?
Speaker: Why yeah but you saying no? Why are you not choosing to grow? Because that's the wonderful thing about choosing to grow is what What is that?
Speaker: What does that look like? What sort of but sort of person will I be if I... Because I know who am. I know what I am now if I don't choose to grow. This is it.
Speaker: that's There's the limiting factor.
Speaker: the choice The choice to grow more is... It's um it's endless possibilities.
Speaker: Thank you. and My heart is full. It always is when we connect. And I so deeply appreciate all the small moments you've lived through that have brought you to this moment
Speaker: to show up and share and play and say yes.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm delighted and grateful to be here. um I'm glad you said yes to being my friend.
Speaker: Me too. Me too. that That tickles me. That's that's really nice. So everybody, we're going to come full circle as we do and end the show being together in silence.
Speaker: There's a lot to experience through words, and yet it's a pinprick of what's available in connecting with other beings or even a tree. So we'll spend the last... Few seconds, 10 seconds or so together in silence. You can soften the soles of your feet and the palms of your hands like you're opening tight fists with your mind.
Speaker: Let your breath come in sweetly and go out longer and slower, which slows the mind stream and the heart rate down. And we'll just be here together for a few moments.
Speaker: Loving the episode? Click to follow, like, and share it as widely as possible. Want to go deeper with the choice to grow? Explore the show notes. You'll find links there for going deeper with our guests, as well as how to work with me in the work of waking up, growing up, cleaning up, and showing up.
Speaker: Thanks for listening. Can't wait to join you in the next episode.
