Speaker 1: Just imagine your day in the office involved doing something
Speaker 1: for a large group of people. But these people know
Speaker 1: the words that you're about to say and the songs
Speaker 1: that you're about to sing, and they have huge expectations.
Speaker 1: The pressure of being a performer and playing a role
Speaker 1: like the Phantom of the Opera is pretty much as
Speaker 1: intense as it comes. But for musical theater star Josh Pitterman,
Speaker 1: this is just another day in the office, night after night.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, Josh had his debut as Phantom on
Speaker 1: the West End in London, and before that he's appeared
Speaker 1: in many musicals across Australia and the UK, as well
Speaker 1: as performing as one of the ten in the international
Speaker 1: pop opera group The Ten Tenors. So what does Josh
Speaker 1: do on a daily basis to make sure he's always
Speaker 1: at his a game? And how does Josh keep things fresh?
Speaker 1: And it's his two hundredth night in a row performing
Speaker 1: as a phantom, And what did Josh learn from Ash
Speaker 1: Barty's mindset coach that was an absolute game changer. My
Speaker 1: name is doctor Amett the Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist
Speaker 1: and the founder of behavioral science consultancy invent him, and
Speaker 1: this is how I work a show about how to
Speaker 1: help you do your best work. Whenever I go to
Speaker 1: the theater, I'm always curious as to how the performers
Speaker 1: are feeling and what they're doing in the few seconds
Speaker 1: before they step onto the stage.
Speaker 2: So I asked, Josh, what would I see him doing?
Speaker 3: Oh, someone who's probably turning back at you and saying,
Speaker 3: Chucker's mate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3: I'd like to think that before I go on stage,
Speaker 3: I'm sharing that moment with anyone who who's with me, Like.
Speaker 2: Are you feeling nervous or excited?
Speaker 3: I think it's like not one of those feelings that's
Speaker 3: always the same. It shifts and changes depending on what
Speaker 3: I'm experiencing within my own life, what I'm experiencing outside
Speaker 3: of the walls of the theater, and what I'm experiencing
Speaker 3: just on any given day, you know, I might be
Speaker 3: feeling just so fresh and in you know, great great
Speaker 3: voice and great spirits, and I'm just like, you know,
Speaker 3: really just excited to get out there. But then there's
Speaker 3: days where it's like, oh, this is show sixty four
Speaker 3: in a row, the last you know, done eight a
Speaker 3: week for the last eight weeks. And I'm just spent,
Speaker 3: and I'm just thinking just zone in and sort of
Speaker 3: get through this and have a day off on the
Speaker 3: other side or whatever. You know.
Speaker 4: So it.
Speaker 3: Differs from from moment to moment, but generally ends up
Speaker 3: having regardless of what I'm feeling before on I'm on
Speaker 3: is Doctor footlights just takes over and I'm just sort
Speaker 3: of swept up by the magic of the moment of
Speaker 3: being on stage, no matter when I'm on stage.
Speaker 2: Oh that sounds quite magical.
Speaker 1: On those days where you know it's show sixty four
Speaker 1: and you're just not feeling it, what does your pre
Speaker 1: show almost warm up or prep look like to get
Speaker 1: you into the zone that you need to be in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, such a good question. Ultimately that doesn't really change
Speaker 3: for me. So you know, let's say I was doing Phantom,
Speaker 3: for example, I always arrive in the makeup chair, having
Speaker 3: already come into the theater about an hour before that,
Speaker 3: and meditated for twenty minutes and done some sort of
Speaker 3: light movement and stretching, sort of yoga flowish sort of stuff,
Speaker 3: and had a decent seeing like a good warm up
Speaker 3: and pretty juicy sing and probably something light to eat,
Speaker 3: and then an hour before the show starts, I'd step
Speaker 3: into the makeup chair and just have good chats with
Speaker 3: you know, makeup artists. And my dress room doors always open,
Speaker 3: so whoever comes past would be stopping by and having
Speaker 3: a chat, hopefully if they can bear me, and just.
Speaker 4: Just you know, enjoying the community.
Speaker 3: Of the theater and the relationships and the backstage vibe
Speaker 3: and whatnot. And so the makeup experience would take the
Speaker 3: best part of an hour, and then the curtain goes
Speaker 3: up and Phantom doesn't arrive for another twenty minutes on stage,
Speaker 3: and so I'd go back out, having been all made up,
Speaker 3: get my costume on, and do a little secondary like
Speaker 3: little focus meditation three minutes, five minutes, but of body
Speaker 3: awareness stuff, just bringing myself back into the present moment,
Speaker 3: sort of just get not warm up the voice, but
Speaker 3: just get the voice cooking again after you know, not
Speaker 3: having sung for the best part of an hour or so.
Speaker 3: And then the final thing I do is look into
Speaker 3: the mirror. I have a bunch of notes on that
Speaker 3: mirror that have words that might inspire me for that
Speaker 3: particular show. So a word like animal or danger or
Speaker 3: romance or something just a little nuanced taking oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm feeling a bit dangerous tonight, or I'm feeling a
Speaker 3: bit romantic tonight, whatever it is. And then the final
Speaker 3: thing I do is look into the mirror and pop
Speaker 3: the mask on in a very ritualistic sort of manner.
Speaker 3: That's the final thing I do before I step out
Speaker 3: on stage. So I'm big with routine and I'm big
Speaker 3: with rituals.
Speaker 1: How do you keep things fresh? I just find it
Speaker 1: mind boggling that idea of keeping things fresh after you've done,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe two hundred performances of the exact same thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a question I get asked a lot, Amantha.
Speaker 4: And my theory is that.
Speaker 3: I don't even think about it being the same show
Speaker 3: because it's not, because it's a new moment in time.
Speaker 3: Every time I go out there, it's not redoing what
Speaker 3: I did the night before. It's present moment stuff. So
Speaker 3: it's new. It's a new audience. We might have new
Speaker 3: cast members on stage or people in different plots, because
Speaker 3: it's very rare that in any show that you get
Speaker 3: the forecast on every night, there's always a swing or
Speaker 3: an understudy coming on, so there's always different, different energy.
Speaker 3: I go back to that stuff that I have on
Speaker 3: the mirror. There's normally like eight to ten words up
Speaker 3: there for any show I do, and they also helped
Speaker 3: me keep it fresh that you know. As I said,
Speaker 3: I took animal and danger and romance, but for Phantom
Speaker 3: there are words like wordsmith, magician, magnificus, an obsession, and
Speaker 3: I take on these words and they just be like
Speaker 3: little embers to inspire a sort of flame within me
Speaker 3: for something just subtly different, subtly nuance, store or new.
Speaker 1: I'm curious as to how you go about memorizing everything
Speaker 1: that needs to be memorized when you start a new show.
Speaker 3: Something that I sort of have always taken with me
Speaker 3: I learned very early in my career when it comes
Speaker 3: to learning lines is I always do it before I
Speaker 3: go to bed at night, and the first thing I
Speaker 3: do when I wake up, so I sort of dream
Speaker 3: on it and then reiterate that as soon as I
Speaker 3: get up, so it just just gets it into that
Speaker 3: part of my brain quicker. And music, I just don't
Speaker 3: know why, but I just pick that up very quickly.
Speaker 3: So it's probably in order of ease for me is music,
Speaker 3: then lines, and far down the bottom sitting on the
Speaker 3: bottom the latter's choreography, but.
Speaker 4: Patients practice time, you know.
Speaker 3: It's also yeah, it's all a muscle that you just
Speaker 3: get better at using. And we all have our muscles
Speaker 3: in whatever career we have that we just get good
Speaker 3: at doing certain things that we have to do on repeat.
Speaker 1: I like that trick about sort of taking advantage of
Speaker 1: that time before you go to sleep, and you know,
Speaker 1: that's such a good time for things to seep into your.
Speaker 3: Memory totally in all sorts of ways too, And if
Speaker 3: there's things that you're wanting to like bring, I feel
Speaker 3: like more into your life. And you know, when I'm
Speaker 3: not doing script work and not being a full and
Speaker 3: scrolling or I go to bed, I tend to journal
Speaker 3: before I go to bed, and their journal when I
Speaker 3: get up as well, and they it tends to sort
Speaker 3: of implement certain behavioral patterns into my psyche and system.
Speaker 3: So I feel like there's a lot in that on
Speaker 3: multiple fronts.
Speaker 1: AH, tell me about the journaling, What like, are you
Speaker 1: journaling with a purpose or with specific questions in mind?
Speaker 1: What does that look like before bed?
Speaker 3: And then in the morning, Well in the morning for
Speaker 3: the best place to start, because that's how it feels
Speaker 3: like it starts to me. So I always write down
Speaker 3: three things that I'm grateful for, because gratitude thinks likely
Speaker 3: just such an important thing to foster and to nurture
Speaker 3: within our own selves. I think we do get caught
Speaker 3: up in the I guess, the ascensionistic nature of life
Speaker 3: and the consumeristic nature of life, of wanting to achieve
Speaker 3: more and wanting to bring more into our lives. And
Speaker 3: not that there's anything wrong with dreaming or manifesting or whatever,
Speaker 3: but when we do that from a scarcity of mentality,
Speaker 3: it's normally because we're not grateful for what we do
Speaker 3: have now. So it's just a constant reminder of all
Speaker 3: the wonderful things I do have in my life and
Speaker 3: being constantly appreciative of that, And there's something humbling and
Speaker 3: grounding about that that I always find. So whether that's
Speaker 3: just like in lockdown now in Sydney, just being in
Speaker 3: BONDI just being grateful for access to like the beauty
Speaker 3: of nature, being grateful for time with my with my
Speaker 3: partner that I don't get in this way very very often,
Speaker 3: Grateful for the friendships that I have and the brothers
Speaker 3: and sisters in my life who always check in on
Speaker 3: me and who I have beautiful relationships with, so there'd
Speaker 3: be some examples. And then I write down some affirmations
Speaker 3: or what I call unconditional i ams, So like I
Speaker 3: am curious, I am kind, I am loving, I am humble,
Speaker 3: I am passionate. You know, things that, no matter what
Speaker 3: the situation, cod this that the other you can't take
Speaker 3: away from, nothing could take away from me. Whereas if
Speaker 3: I wrote down I am the fan of the opera, well,
Speaker 3: you know I get to do that when I'm performing
Speaker 3: in that role. But when I'm not right now, I'm not.
Speaker 3: So things that are unconditional. And then three intentions. So
Speaker 3: what I call I wills in terms of acts of
Speaker 3: service to either myself that couldn't benefit my greater community
Speaker 3: and my relationships, or directly to my relationships. So I
Speaker 3: will meditate today twice because I know that brings a
Speaker 3: more calm, measured, discerning version of myself to the outside world.
Speaker 3: Or I will smile at a stranger, or I will
Speaker 3: help the help someone with their shopping, or you know,
Speaker 3: just ways of just minor acts of or major acts
Speaker 3: of service. And then after that, if I feel that
Speaker 3: the need I just freehand write whatever sort of on
Speaker 3: my mind, and then at night it's more around like
Speaker 3: how did I go with those things? Did I uphold
Speaker 3: those things that I set out for the day? And
Speaker 3: then any to do this stuff that I've really got
Speaker 3: to do that tomorrow I've got a So it's like
Speaker 3: a wrapping up of the day and setting up for
Speaker 3: the following day.
Speaker 2: Now you've mentioned meditation a few times.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about what kind of meditation you do?
Speaker 2: What does that look like?
Speaker 4: Yeah, do you meditate?
Speaker 1: I have tried, unsuccessfully, and I know that that is
Speaker 1: not a thing being an unsuccessful meditator. I've found hypnotherapy
Speaker 1: a lot more effective, which kind of gets me into
Speaker 1: a similar state. But I just find it easy. I
Speaker 1: find the whole process easier and possitively because I grew
Speaker 1: up with a mother who's a clinical psychologist but specializes
Speaker 1: and also teaches hypnotherapy so amazing.
Speaker 2: So that's quite familiar to me.
Speaker 1: Whereas when I've tried meditation, I struggled, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I know that it's a practice. It's a practice
Speaker 1: for a reason. You know you don't get perfect at it.
Speaker 1: But I found it difficult to get into a meditation habit.
Speaker 3: And what do you find challenging about it? Because I'm
Speaker 3: really I'm really interested in this because I feel like
Speaker 3: certain things come up for people when they meditate that
Speaker 3: that you know, leads them of course, or.
Speaker 4: Puts them off doing it all together.
Speaker 1: I think for me it was it was that sense
Speaker 1: of like, I'm not making progress, I'm not feeling the impact.
Speaker 1: And I think I struggled with the idea that from
Speaker 1: you know, I think various practitioners they said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: you need to do it every day for a few
Speaker 1: weeks to feel an impact, whereas I feel like when
Speaker 1: I use hypnotherapy, I feel the difference, you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of whatever the sort of the purpose of the
Speaker 1: of the hypnosis is for. So I think it's that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that lack of that immediate kind of visitive reinforcement
Speaker 1: if you.
Speaker 2: Like to keep going.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I totally hear that. I think you're so not
Speaker 3: alone there. And whether it's hypnotherapy or for some people
Speaker 3: that might be psychedelics or you know, things like psilocybin
Speaker 3: or whatever, they just want to have that extreme conscious
Speaker 3: awakening or transcendent experience or that that.
Speaker 4: Is totally yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's totally transcending, and that meditation although can achieve
Speaker 3: a level of that, they want it instantaneously. And I
Speaker 3: think it's a thing not to like knock that it's
Speaker 3: a thing that I feel like is really pertinent or
Speaker 3: pervades our society a lot. Is that the idea of immediacy,
Speaker 3: of needing things quickly, there's a there's sort of beauty
Speaker 3: in just practicing a practice and just develop being things
Speaker 3: slowly and taking time and not winning or achieving or
Speaker 3: or feeling like you're you're making progress, Like it's just
Speaker 3: the practice is the practice.
Speaker 4: You're going to have good days, bad days. Sometimes I
Speaker 4: meditate and.
Speaker 3: It's it's like, you know, not particularly gratifying, and some
Speaker 3: days I meditate and it's extremely gratifying.
Speaker 4: That's what meditation does for me.
Speaker 3: So I teach a couple of different forms of meditation
Speaker 3: when I'm not performing. And that sort of came to
Speaker 3: me going around a long way of talking about this,
Speaker 3: but it sort of came to me from a lot
Speaker 3: of performance anxiety, stress, panic attacks, all that sort of
Speaker 3: yucky mental health stuff that I was dealing with sort
Speaker 3: of two thousand and fifteenish, well, from thirteen to fifteen
Speaker 3: and it's got to a point where I was like,
Speaker 3: this is not sustainable like that. I can't exist like this.
Speaker 3: Something has to shift, and apart from having some therapy
Speaker 3: around that, I started meditating using a technique called one
Speaker 3: Giant Mind, which is a form of a being technique
Speaker 3: or a form of transcendental style meditation using a manthra.
Speaker 4: And that really really helped.
Speaker 3: And so subsequently in Lockdown last year, I decided to
Speaker 3: do the four or five month teacher training on that
Speaker 3: so I could teach that to a lot of other people,
Speaker 3: because I felt like people are really suffering with their
Speaker 3: mental health and that was a way I could be
Speaker 3: of service if we get back to the eye wheels.
Speaker 3: But since twenty fifteen, I've explored all sorts of other meditations,
Speaker 3: from heart math to mindfulness, to sort of chakra stuff
Speaker 3: to visualization, tantric Kundalini yoga has a fit of that,
Speaker 3: lot of breath work, all sorts of different things that
Speaker 3: I've played in, and so I tend to teach other
Speaker 3: than One Giant Mind. I tend to teach a heart
Speaker 3: opening style mindfulness meditation, and that's yes something that I've
Speaker 3: decided that I need to offer more people. So, like
Speaker 3: every Sunday night at five o'clock during the Sydney Lockdown,
Speaker 3: I just have been running these free zoom sessions for
Speaker 3: anyone and everyone who from anywhere in the world who
Speaker 3: seems to confine them through my Instagram bio that you
Speaker 3: just pop on and it's a twenty minute guarded meditation
Speaker 3: and everyone says thanks and sends love to each other
Speaker 3: and see you later. So it's been a big journey meditation,
Speaker 3: as you can see by sort of the whole exploration
Speaker 3: of the last five or so minutes talking about it.
Speaker 3: But it plays a big part in my life, and
Speaker 3: I meditate twice a day and it's just something I
Speaker 3: hold very dear, especially in the chaos of the outside
Speaker 3: world at the moment. To have a really have strong
Speaker 3: practices that enable calm and unstressing within your inside world,
Speaker 3: I think is really important.
Speaker 1: We will be back soon with Josh and talking about
Speaker 1: what he learned from Ash Barty's Mindset Coach that was
Speaker 1: an absolute game changer for him. And if you're looking
Speaker 1: for more tips to improve the way that you work,
Speaker 1: you might be interested in a short newsletter that I
Speaker 1: write once a fortnight, which contains three cool things that
Speaker 1: I have discovered that helped me work better, So ranging
Speaker 1: from interesting research findings through to the gadgets and software
Speaker 1: that I'm loving. You can sign up for that at
Speaker 1: Howiwork dot com. That's how I Work dot c O.
Speaker 1: I want to know about health in general, because like,
Speaker 1: I use my voice a fair bit for what I
Speaker 1: do through keynote, speaking in the podcast, and so on,
Speaker 1: but no where, but it's nowhere near as much as
Speaker 1: you would be using yours, particularly when you in the
Speaker 1: middle of the season and you're doing eight shows a week,
Speaker 1: and I want to know how do you keep your
Speaker 1: vocal health and also your physical health like to where
Speaker 1: it needs to be.
Speaker 2: What are some of the things that you're doing every day.
Speaker 3: I'm big on, as you can tell, quite a spiritual thinker,
Speaker 3: and I see things and maybe some unusual ways, but
Speaker 3: I do look at vocal health under the sort of
Speaker 3: pillars of physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, soulf or health, because
Speaker 3: when one is out of whack, it does affect your voice.
Speaker 3: You know, if your emotional health is not right, it's
Speaker 3: going to affect your voice. If your physical health is
Speaker 3: not in a good place, it does affect your voice.
Speaker 3: If your nutrition is not great, you know, it can
Speaker 3: affect your voice. You know, acid reflux and all of
Speaker 3: that affect your voice. So it's multiple things, but on
Speaker 3: a basic sort of level. Rest So when I finish,
Speaker 3: let's say, if phantom is always a good example, after
Speaker 3: you know, saying good eight to people at stage door,
Speaker 3: I don't say a word after that until midday the
Speaker 3: next day, or if it's a matinee day, maybe eleven
Speaker 3: am the next day. So just about thirteen hours of
Speaker 3: just silence. And that is really challenging on relationships and
Speaker 3: requires the people who or the person who loves me
Speaker 3: most bloody too, to just be so compassionate and understanding
Speaker 3: and develop a great ability to lip read and to
Speaker 3: have immense patience.
Speaker 4: So I am ever grateful for how she cares and
Speaker 4: loves me in that way.
Speaker 3: And hydration, I think I'd end up drinking on a show,
Speaker 3: like four to five liters of water a day, Like
Speaker 3: it's just wow, so much hydra agent and steam is
Speaker 3: one thing that I'll do after a show when I
Speaker 3: get back home is just I have a little little steamer,
Speaker 3: little steamy pot and steam my voice because steam actually
Speaker 3: can It's like an anti in flam for the cords,
Speaker 3: and water can't get into the cords cords, although it
Speaker 3: will naturally hydrate over a period of time, but steam
Speaker 3: sort of directly gets the courts. So yeah, rest water steam.
Speaker 3: But then yeah, like not eating late at night. It
Speaker 3: really is one of the hardest ones that are all
Speaker 3: people in the h show a week world struggle with
Speaker 3: because you get home and your bloody starving. But if
Speaker 3: you if you eat too much, you eat the wrong things,
Speaker 3: you know, you end up like having acid reflux during
Speaker 3: the night, and then that is actually burning your cords.
Speaker 1: Wow, what do your vocal warm ups look like? Because
Speaker 1: you made you'll do a vocal warm up before you're
Speaker 1: in the makeup chair, and then you'll do sort of
Speaker 1: a brief kind.
Speaker 3: Of yeah, that's before I go out, like the final
Speaker 3: just have a bit of a thing.
Speaker 4: To warm up.
Speaker 3: I always start with some breath stuff, so set some
Speaker 3: breath exercises to sort of get this, you know, the
Speaker 3: breath is the support mechanism. And then I'll do some
Speaker 3: lit trills so things like they sound funnier, just like
Speaker 3: buzzing my lips together or that with my tongue out.
Speaker 3: And then I'll do some sirens. I'm like a M,
Speaker 3: like a ng sort of sounds, and then I'll do
Speaker 3: all my vowels and my scales, so my r and
Speaker 3: my scales, and then and then I'll start and so
Speaker 3: I'll go all the way up and down my range
Speaker 3: and see where my voice, what my voice is feeling
Speaker 3: like that day, iron out any little cobwebs. It's sort
Speaker 3: of like a cricketer in the nets, you know, just
Speaker 3: like you know, facing enough balls to sort of iron
Speaker 3: out his stuff. And I know Steve Smith, like who's
Speaker 3: certainly not a singer but a very great cricketer, sometimes says, oh,
Speaker 3: it takes a thousand balls for me to feel like
Speaker 3: I'm in the zone, and sometimes it takes two balls.
Speaker 3: And sometimes I feel like that with my singing that
Speaker 3: you go, you know, I warm up for thirty second
Speaker 3: of my it's all cooking, and sometimes it's like more
Speaker 3: like fifteen twenty minutes to go, ah, yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 3: just need to iron out that cob web there, and
Speaker 3: you know, sort that little bit out, just iron over
Speaker 3: that little.
Speaker 4: Passage in the voice. And yeah.
Speaker 3: So it's it takes a long time to develop that
Speaker 3: level of understanding about the voice.
Speaker 4: But that's really what I do.
Speaker 3: And then I start singing some material that I'm going
Speaker 3: to sing that night, you know, so maybe sing a
Speaker 3: bit of music of the night or a part of
Speaker 3: the show that I'm just you know, the night before
Speaker 3: or that week. It felt a bit technically funny, you know,
Speaker 3: so just just to iron those couplebs up there.
Speaker 1: Now, something I didn't you until myself and my producer
Speaker 1: did research for this show is that you've been doing
Speaker 1: work with a mindset coach, and not just any mindset coach,
Speaker 1: but the same one that Ash Barty uses, Ben Crow,
Speaker 1: And I want to know what have been some of
Speaker 1: the key things that You've learned from that relationship.
Speaker 3: First and foremost, I learned that Ben Crow is a
Speaker 3: freaking amazing human and if people aren't following Mojo Crow
Speaker 3: on Instagram or have him downloaded the Mojo Crow app,
Speaker 3: then get on it. He's so intelligent and sightful and practical.
Speaker 3: What I learned first and foremost is something I've been
Speaker 3: working on for a while and I've been getting feeling
Speaker 3: much better about, which is owning my story. And when
Speaker 3: I say owning my story, Watson, all shame and all
Speaker 3: everything that I've experienced in my life that I'm proud
Speaker 3: of or not proud of, holding space to have to
Speaker 3: share that and acknowledging that I'm not perfect, but I'm
Speaker 3: enough and unconditionally loving myself regardless of anything. And I
Speaker 3: think that's so important for anyone who's in a performance
Speaker 3: based world where you feel like your self worth can
Speaker 3: be governed by the last performance you did, or you know,
Speaker 3: whether you're doing that really important gig or not, and
Speaker 3: your self worth is so far beyond that. It's helped
Speaker 3: me to fine tune I guess my deeper purpose, which
Speaker 3: is also something I'd be working on a lot. I
Speaker 3: think purpose is something that we don't talk about a
Speaker 3: lot in life. In terms of deeper purpose, I think
Speaker 3: we have condition purposes once again, where you know, I'm
Speaker 3: a doctor or I'm a lawyer, it's my purpose to
Speaker 3: do that, but or I'm a singer or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: But there's times when we don't do that. So once again,
Speaker 3: are we worthy when we don't do that?
Speaker 4: Well, No, we need to have deeper purposes than that.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 3: He helped Ben helped me get that into a paragraph
Speaker 3: or a few sentences that make me, you know, feel
Speaker 3: like I can, regardless of all the things that are
Speaker 3: out of my control and this big, bad world at
Speaker 3: the moment, I can still fulfill my purpose.
Speaker 2: How did he do that? I mean that sounds fascinating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know, for Ash, I think it is
Speaker 3: to inspire Ash party and inspire young Indigenous boys and
Speaker 3: girls to achieve their dreams, because everyone deserves to have
Speaker 3: that opportunity. And I'm paraphrasing them, but I think that's
Speaker 3: something along those lines. So whether Ash winds Wimbledon or doesn't,
Speaker 3: she's achieved that purpose.
Speaker 4: And for me it's you know, I get spiritual, poetic
Speaker 4: because that's me, but.
Speaker 3: It's opening gates to a non ordinary world, a place
Speaker 3: of colors and feelings and depth and emotion and and
Speaker 3: getting out of the black and whites of life so
Speaker 3: that we all know what it means to feel and
Speaker 3: embody the wholeness of being human.
Speaker 2: How did you get to that point?
Speaker 1: Because I mean that that sounds amazing, Like like both
Speaker 1: those purposes like yours and Ashes sort of sense she
Speaker 1: was down my spine. How like what sort of questions
Speaker 1: did I don't know, did Ben ask of your exercises
Speaker 1: to go through to get to that.
Speaker 3: It's it's funny that there's there's a lot of this
Speaker 3: this on on the app. But for me with with purpose,
Speaker 3: you know that chat with Ben. I knew that going
Speaker 3: in because I'd been doing a lot of work around there.
Speaker 3: I'd spent a lot of twenty twenty going hang on,
Speaker 3: if I'm not playing phantom at the moment, why am
Speaker 3: I feeling this way? Ah, It's because my identity is
Speaker 3: caught up with this show or that role or that,
Speaker 3: and therefore my identity is caught up with it. My
Speaker 3: self worth is conditional on that, and then if something
Speaker 3: comes in like a COVID or something that's out of
Speaker 3: my control, then my self worth is diminished because of
Speaker 3: something that was out of my control. Now that's not
Speaker 3: a sustainable way to live. So I had to find
Speaker 3: what that deeper purpose was, and it was an exploration
Speaker 3: of my passions. And my passions are conversation, meditation, and performance.
Speaker 3: And I've worked out that through conversation I get to
Speaker 3: access that purpose that I was talking about, that opening
Speaker 3: the gates to a nordinary world, which we've done today
Speaker 3: in you know, talking about things in different ways, definitely
Speaker 3: in meditation, because that's the inward journey, and certainly in performance,
Speaker 3: because the arts is all about the in betweens, the colors,
Speaker 3: the subjectivity. Art is not black and white. It's all
Speaker 3: the colors. And I think profoundly maybe that's what we're
Speaker 3: missing in society at the moment. We have a lot
Speaker 3: of binary issues and dichotomies in the political and COVID landscape.
Speaker 4: Are you acts? No?
Speaker 3: Oh, well then you're anti vacs? Are you Biden? No oh,
Speaker 3: then your pro truck like people like don't find the
Speaker 3: in betweens in life at the moment, because that's what
Speaker 3: social media and media is throwing at us. So I'm
Speaker 3: all about finding those in betweens and using those things
Speaker 3: that I do as a vehicle for the deeper purpose.
Speaker 1: How does that help in terms of dealing with all
Speaker 1: the criticism and rejection that comes from a career in
Speaker 1: the arts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's another thing that Ben certainly help me with.
Speaker 3: He's got this great philosophy around results and outcomes, and
Speaker 3: it's so simple, and I love him for explain it
Speaker 3: to me in the most simplest terms. So he says,
Speaker 3: every result is an equation, and the equation is a
Speaker 3: which is your a game, which is your skill set
Speaker 3: and your mindset that you bring to the experience or situation.
Speaker 3: Times B and B is everything you can't control, what
Speaker 3: someone thinks of you, or what someone says, that reviewer,
Speaker 3: what the other actor is doing in my case, or
Speaker 3: the lighting guy or the sound guy, the technical guys,
Speaker 3: or all the things that are out of my control.
Speaker 3: Performance anxiety certainly comes from focusing on B everything you
Speaker 3: can't control and trying to control it. And we do
Speaker 3: a lot of that in all our lives. It's not
Speaker 3: just in those performances. It's in relationships, it's at workplaces,
Speaker 3: it's with COVID. You know, we we we find you
Speaker 3: know that that we do spend a lot of time
Speaker 3: on B. But if I do, if I, in my
Speaker 3: honest world, say that I brought my a game, my
Speaker 3: best version of my skill set and my mindset to
Speaker 3: this situation.
Speaker 4: Well then I've done.
Speaker 3: I've done all I can And then you know, whether
Speaker 3: they liked me in the audition room is out of
Speaker 3: my control, or whether they the reviewers like me, or
Speaker 3: Andrew Lloyd Webber liked me or whatever. You know, we
Speaker 3: can't be liked by everyone.
Speaker 4: That's just life.
Speaker 3: But if we spend our time trying to and keep
Speaker 3: shifting and camealing in ourselves to do that and adapting
Speaker 3: and changing in ways that aren't authentic to us. Then
Speaker 3: it doesn't help us because we're just we're not We're
Speaker 3: playing the guessing game with ourselves and with everyone else.
Speaker 1: Love that it's such a great way of looking at
Speaker 1: things and also just such a great way of managing
Speaker 1: nerves as well. I feel like that's such an eloquent
Speaker 1: way of and simple way of thinking about things.
Speaker 3: And it means that, you know, if let's say, you know,
Speaker 3: I get to music of the night and I crack
Speaker 3: on the beg high note one night, which has happened?
Speaker 3: Do I come out of that and go? I can
Speaker 3: come out of that and go was that skill set
Speaker 3: or was that mindset? Or was that me focusing on
Speaker 3: b you know, And so you can objectively zoom out
Speaker 3: and look at that situation, go.
Speaker 4: You know what, I'm just bloody tired. You know.
Speaker 3: It is show sixty four in a row, and I'm
Speaker 3: human and I'm not perfect, but I'm enough, and you know,
Speaker 3: and all I need is a couple of days of
Speaker 3: rest and I'll be back and I'll be seeing it
Speaker 3: or I was obsessing over someone in the audience, so
Speaker 3: I really wanted to impress and was getting nervous around
Speaker 3: that so that you know you can and then you know,
Speaker 3: self sabotaged, you know that that sort of thing or
Speaker 3: was it? Yeah, it was a purely technical that I
Speaker 3: just didn't take a good enough supporting breath before I
Speaker 3: got to that note. Ah, Okay, I can fix that
Speaker 3: up tomorrow, you know. So yeah, the ability to be
Speaker 3: objective in those situations helps with that, with that theory,
Speaker 3: But ultimately, what Ben helped me most was, and I
Speaker 3: guess what I was after was I had times in
Speaker 3: my career where I felt like that limitless, invincible flow state,
Speaker 3: like what people say being in the zone is. And
Speaker 3: I know, like, you know, I keep coming back to
Speaker 3: tennis because the sport I love. But I think we've
Speaker 3: all seen like you know, Rafa or Federer or Jopovich,
Speaker 3: you know those guys, especially because they've been the top
Speaker 3: for so long. What is it Levell won twenty grand
Speaker 3: stands each or something now, which is ludicrous that you've
Speaker 3: seen those moments where they're just like they're impenetrable and
Speaker 3: everything is so free, and like especially look at federer,
Speaker 3: because there's so much grace in his gameplay, like where
Speaker 3: that backhand could like it's just like he's got it
Speaker 3: on a string. And conversely, I'm sure we've seen times
Speaker 3: when you go, oh, it's probably a bit in his
Speaker 3: head at the moment. So how do you bottle that
Speaker 3: zone feeling? And so Ben gave me some real tips
Speaker 3: and visualization meditations around how I can can work on that,
Speaker 3: because ultimately I feel like what's inside of me creatively
Speaker 3: is can be really powerful. But how do I how
Speaker 3: do I access that and ultimately get out of my
Speaker 3: own way?
Speaker 2: Not Josh.
Speaker 1: For people that have been listen and want to connect
Speaker 1: with you in some way or join in with all
Speaker 1: the amazing work you're doing around meditation as well, what
Speaker 1: are the best ways for listeners to connect with you.
Speaker 3: I think Instagram is my way of connecting with people
Speaker 3: of most. I'm not on the other social media platforms
Speaker 3: as much. So it's just Josh Pitterman, p I one
Speaker 3: t M a N one in one T one in
Speaker 3: Josh Pittman, and then you'll find me.
Speaker 4: There'll be a picture of a guy in a.
Speaker 3: Mask, and then the link to all those things in
Speaker 3: my bio, so there's like you can watch performances and
Speaker 3: stream my album, but also access all the meditation stuff too.
Speaker 2: Amazing.
Speaker 1: Josh, I've so loved this chat. I've taken so many
Speaker 1: notes for myself. I'm so keen to try so many
Speaker 1: of the things that you talked about. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much for chatting with me.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me Amantha.
Speaker 1: Hello there. I hope you enjoyed my chat with Josh. Now,
Speaker 1: if you have not subscribed or followed How I Work,
Speaker 1: you might want to hit the subscribe or follow button
Speaker 1: because next week I am very excited to have Christian
Speaker 1: O'Connell on the show, who you might have heard doing
Speaker 1: breakfast on Gold FM, and we talk about a whole
Speaker 1: range of things, from the panic attacks that Christian was
Speaker 1: having to experimenting with some breathing techniques during the interview,
Speaker 1: which was very fun and quite relaxing as well. How
Speaker 1: I Work is produced by Inventing and with production support
Speaker 1: from Dead Set Studios. The producer for this episode was
Speaker 1: Jenna Coder, and thank you to Mattin Nimber who does
Speaker 1: the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound
Speaker 1: much better that it would have otherwise. See you next time.