Assume the Best in People: The Night the Livestream Failed

Ha ha ha ha! Have fun. Cha-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum! This is the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast, where we discuss the connection between life and acting. Alright, welcome back everybody to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. If you are not watching this on YouTube, I feel sorry for you because you missed out on Shea's unbelievable dancing on her ball chair. I actually don't think the camera was on her. No! What? Well.

You can imagine it. It was incredible. It was like a bunch of T-poses and then inward and she's on a ball chair. It's great. Why is the name Brian Sweeney written on my notebook here? I didn't do that. It's not my handwriting. That was for our interviews. Oh, so you wrote down Brian Sweeney? Oh, that's right. That's so cute. There wasn't any interesting facts I could… Oh, thanks pal.

Thank you. I really appreciate that. No, I'm just kidding. Got it. Okay, so a second ago, we were just as a team working through this idea of how to interview somebody and I was telling them I was training this girl from the Talking Stick Resort. She's their… What was her? She's the… Social media… Guru. Marketing… Director. …expert of people who do cool things. She's bad A. Yeah, sure.

So I had her in and I was working on some things and one of the things she wanted to work on, she said, I sometimes interview the celebrities that come through the resort and so I kind of just made up an exercise because I was like, all right, well, why don't you interview me and we'll see where the pain points are at? And I noticed that she was getting stuck trying to think of what the next thing to say was.

So then I flipped it and said, okay, let me interview you and then just figured out it's all about listening. It's all about being present and so we did that little exercise and Brian was… I mean, Joey was interviewing Brian in the exercise. Yeah, it was interesting. I learned a lot from it actually even though it was like something that we were just doing to get better at this specifically.

I took a lot of like acting lessons too out of it and just actually just for conversation base, like trying to focus on how do I pull the most important thing out of them instead of sort of trying to compare your situation with theirs because nobody wants to hear the same thing twice from your perspective. Right. Yeah. Stephen Covey says to listen, to understand, not to be understood.

Oh, that's great. Wow, let me just give that a round of thought. Yeah. Somebody take a mental click. Click. So like how many quotes do you have stored up in there in that brain? Oh, man. I have no idea. It's usually whatever I've been reading or looking at last and I try to do that every day. I mean, that's a part of my daily ritual as you know and so I read things, I absorb them and then I reuse them and the truth is none of these ideas are my own.

That's just, that's, that's, and I'm very open about that. It's like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm where I am right now and you're going to deal with it. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I'm happy to look back on a month ago and a year ago and two years ago and say, wow, I was wrong. Like I was, I was doing the best I could then, but let me talk about how I've grown and the fact that I now disagree with me.

Well, and that should be part of it, right? I mean, if, if we're not feeling that, like take it from an acting perspective, if you're looking at your tape from a year ago and you don't see the, the difference and like, oh my gosh, look at all those things that I used to do, I don't do anymore. And I was wrong in this way and that way.

Like you probably weren't progressing. You probably weren't growing. Yeah. The best growth I've done actually is off of game tape in both improvisation and in teaching. We, we've been trying to launch this online program now for, it's been a year and a half worth of material. And we have, we have some very loyal online students that we're absolutely grateful for. We've gotten some good reviews, but we really have been trying to make it better before we did the big launch to the world.

And as you all know, cause you've been a part of the process, we've been grinding on this thing and just recently feels like we're, we're getting very close to it. Um, but in that process, my, my point was there was a time when I would review the hours and hours and hours and hours put into masterclass that was captured on tape. And I would watch the entire thing, a full hour worth of somebody's critique.

And then another full hour, there'd be eight hours worth of these every month. And then another eight hours every month. And I would watch myself teach back. And what's interesting is I, in the moment thought, Oh wow, I was so good. Yeah. And I watch it back and go, Oh wow, you can grow so much. Yeah. And well, I like the way you just phrased that, that, Oh wow, I can grow, you can grow so much versus just looking at it and going like, Oh wow, you were so whatever this, like you look at it in the, Oh, I see these things.

And right now I'm going to start taking action on them is what I got out of the way you said that. And I think being present, that's yeah. Focusing on the present except for what's happened in the past or what's happened in the future. But I like that you just said that instead of focusing on the good that you were doing, it's kind of obsolete. Yeah. It's gone.

And that's great. And then when you look at something and the first thing that you think of is, okay, here's the steps I can do to be better right now and for the future. Well, and the other thing is I can also look at that and say, Oh, you're not as good as you thought you were. Actually, Matt, you were bad. Yeah. You're not a good teacher.

No, I don't say any of those things. I don't believe those to be true, but why would I say that to myself? Instead I say, wow, look at all the opportunities to grow. You thought you were good before people have told you you're good, man. Imagine if you, if you started improving in these different areas, how much better you could be, right? That's exciting. Yeah. I would just love to speak into that part of it specifically because one of the things that I've dealt with is overconfidence.

You've, you've brought that up to me multiple times, but it's, it's a real thing in that like you, you get into this, um, routine of doing the same thing every day and you start to become confident if you're not careful. Well, and, and overconfidence is not only something you deal with Joey, but this is an epidemic. It is a disease that the world has. And once you figure out that the things I've been teaching you to be wrong and be okay with being curious and how you can be better versus trying to prove how good you are, the world opens up for you.

Yeah. A hundred percent. I can even feel the difference to date because of, uh, starting to make those changes and see those things in myself. It's, it's been huge. It really has. And even jumping on that, like the idea, it is an epidemic. You know, I see it all the time. The, one of the biggest crazy, like shock reactions I get is when I tell my teenagers that they're allowed to fail.

When, when I tell the class, like, Hey, we want you to fail. We expect you to fail. We expect you to fail. That's right. And they're just, they're blown away by that concept. They're like, wait, wait, wait, like, uh, but this and that, I don't, I don't have to be perfect and I don't have to like try and get to this place. And it's like, no, like if you actually aren't failing, you're doing it wrong.

Yeah. I love what you do with the teen shows specifically. I've, uh, I've been lucky enough to witness that and sort of, uh, take a backseat and take notes on how you lead. And, uh, you preface the parents every time before the show starts in front of their kids that this is a fail ground. This is a safe space. This is a no judgment zone and everybody buys into that.

And it's almost that you get more out of it when you do fail, because then you sit there and you feel this euphoric feeling of everybody in the room has my back at my worst. So what happens when I'm at my best, like you feel on top of the world, because if they have you, when you're at your worst, then you all get to be at your best together.

And it's crazy because you get to have this feeling of overcoming something with a group of people supporting you at your worst. And that's something to be said about, um, the way that you're leading. And I just really look up to that. Well, thanks, man. I mean, it's a team thing. You know, we all sort of figure this out through Matt, just helping us with it. And, and you've learned it through reading a bunch of things.

It's like this absorbed knowledge that everybody just learns to share and, and then take on and do. And the cool thing dealing back with that parent thing, I love the transparency of it. It kind of happened by accident. But then what happens is parents and people in the audience, everybody wants to do that. Like everybody wants to allow themselves to fail and grow and they get to watch the growth.

Right. And they're like, Oh, that's so cool. Like that is, that's so much better than, than some laugh that you end up getting, like getting to watch someone truthfully go through something. And in that case, it's go through figuring out what you are doing and right and wrong and learning from it. And then going to the next show and seeing them apply that, you know? Yeah. I spoke into that with a student last night and she asked me, she, um, she's young and she wants it really bad.

And I told her, cause she was kind of sharing with me that she felt like the, the moments of wins for her weren't happening as quick as she wanted them to. And I kind of smiled at her and, and I told her, I said, I was, um, I, I went through the similar, a similar situation a couple of years ago when I was first starting out here and I was frustrated because I didn't understand that failure was good.

And I looked at it in such a terrible negative way and I couldn't see the wins right in front of my eyes. And I said, you won't get that here unless you change your perspective. And, um, she goes, thank you so much for saying that because I'm used to being, you know, Oh, that was great. Go sit down. It's the next person's turn. And just cycling through that.

And she goes, it's just a shock to me that that's not what you experience here. And you figure out the failures and then you get back up and you do it again to find the win. And it was really cool cause I could see it. I could see it in her eyes turning. And it was, um, it was kind of a special moment for her to realize this is what we do here.

I'm so glad that you did that because that's the hardest part of our job here at the studio is reframing everybody's minds to get excited about that process. And, you know, it's funny cause, cause I, I, I oftentimes will ask actors like, you know, uh, you even said a second ago, she really wants it. Well, what's it, right? What is the it that you really want? And the problem is you could take the exact same scenario and if you allow yourself to be defined, allow your mood to be defined by any external force that doesn't come from the inside and that you don't have control over.

And the only thing you really have control over is you and your own progress. And did you do your best? You're the only one that knows, right? So I could take this situation and I could say, all right, let's say an actor is, uh, auditioning to get an agent, right? And they have decided that if they get the agent, that means they're successful. If they don't, that means they are unsuccessful.

If they get it, they are worthy. If they don't get it, they're not worthy. Looking at it extremely black and white. Right. Okay. So then what happens is, uh, let's just say in this hypothetical scenario that the actor was supposed to hear from the agent and doesn't, and therefore they didn't get the agent. And so they cry and they feel sad and they feel worthless. And then the next day the agent calls and says, Oh, you, we want to sign you.

Sorry. I know I was supposed to call yesterday, but I was sick. And then the actor wipes the tears and they're happy again. And they're so excited about life. And then they get a call from the next day from the agent that says, Oh, I'm sorry. I had the wrong Sally. It was a different Sally. You're actually not signed by us. And then the actor starts crying again and, and then feel worthless again.

And, and the truth is you don't have to put yourself through all that stuff because those are things that are completely out of your control and it's somebody else's opinion and it doesn't make it true. It's the idea of like control the things you can control. But like, if it's outside your control, there's no point. Like you're just hurting yourself. You're literally calling, causing pain that you don't have to cause because you couldn't do anything about it anyway.

So you release it. Like one of my favorite examples that I heard you give, um, a while back is just this idea of when, when you say, and now it's gone, it's just gone. It was a great example. Really great example. Uh, I have one too, actually. Uh, you, you gave a example in your Dearing story with BB, which was, um, she was talking about her college letters and, and that process and what she went through.

And you told her, you were like, you asked her straight up, you were like, were there any schools that you were bummed? You didn't get into. And she paused for a second. And then she said Chapman and, and she went into that a little bit. And then you told her, um, based on her USC story, how she had expected it in the mail, just like you just said, didn't get it until the next day when she saw it on her phone.

And then she was so happy you told her, you were like, well, when you do that, you're allowing the letter, you're allowing the thing to affect how you feel that day versus allowing your talent and the way you go about your acting and, and the things you do to affect how you feel. You're, you're, you're putting all of your feelings onto the thing. And so you're never going to feel good because like you've said, it's a rollercoaster.

It'll take you up and down and you don't get to feel the truth of what's happening. You're feeling based on the highs and the lows. And, and that's the dangerous place to live. Well, and I would counter that with, you do get to feel if you choose to, and that's the hardest thing that we can possibly do is choose not to give into that thing. That's making us feel negative that, that tiny thing.

But if we wake up every single day and choose, this is how I'm going to feel today. Um, this is what I, this is the energy I'm going to bring into my office, into my school, into my space, into my, my loved one's spaces and let those things not dictate completely how you feel about one moment. I think that's crazy. And go ahead, Brian, I was going to say outside of those circumstances that end up happening.

And that reminded me of the thing, which was when you talk about the idea as an actor is you go out and you audition, right? And then you forget the audition completely, forget it exists, you move forward. And if you're doing that, then, I mean, it's, it's seasoned, let's say, and then you get a call from your agent. They're like, what, uh, you booked the gig and you're like, which one?

Like, cause you've already released it. You went in, you did your job and you moved on. And that's, I think where real success can start to lie is when you just go in, you do your job and then you release that and you go to the next job. Yeah. And when I've trained myself to do that and it is true, I say it every time and I don't have to have multiple auditions that week to know, to, to, to ask which one, because I've, I have completely moved forward with my life as soon as it's done.

And oftentimes I'm going to be very honest and blunt here. Oftentimes I move forward, not feeling great because let's say it's a voiceover audition and I put it off and I avoided doing it till the last minute. It doesn't matter if I get it or don't get it. I've, I've already reprimanded myself. I've already said, Hey, you didn't do your best. No matter what the outcome is here, you didn't do your best.

You need to get better, work harder. And I journal about it. And then I move, then I move forward. You know, that's, that's super respectable that you're able to look at yourself in a mirror like that. And, and you do that in a lot of ways, but I'm just curious here, um, cause, cause you're speaking about it as if it's happened before. Like, have you ever booked something like that?

And then felt like even though you booked it, you didn't do your best. And, and so then you had to wrestle with that or, or there's nothing to wrestle with, but yes, it happens all the time. And the truth is the reason there's nothing to wrestle with is, okay, they picked me. Cool. I didn't, it already didn't matter to me. It still doesn't matter to me. Am I grateful?

Yes. Am I happy to do it? Yeah. But ideally I grew from, from what I made myself grow from earlier so that I don't make the mistake on set, which again, I've done many times. I've landed the job and then not put in all the work I could to be the best I could be. I don't need to be perfect. I just need to do what I know I'm capable of doing.

If I don't bring my best to the set, to the audition, to my home as a father, to you guys as a leader, if I, if I'm not bringing my best, I got to hold myself accountable to that and try my best to get better at doing that thing. So you talked about, um, accountability there and earlier you talked about the journaling. Like that's, that's something that sounds like, can you go through what that, what that looks like?

Cause I think that would be really beneficial for the listeners to hear like something they could be doing to actually be holding themselves accountable. Sure. But I guess I'll have to start by holding myself accountable and saying, I have not been journaling recently. So I'll just begin there. And, and truthfully you get busy and when you get busy, you sometimes neglect the things that got you there.

And I'm in one of those patterns right now where I'm, I'm seeing a lot of success and success being quantified here by the amount of jobs that we are booking as a studio that is pulling me away and my resources away from this place to go train. And I know for a fact that those things are happening because of the habits that we have all put into place.

And so the trap becomes when those things start happening for you to tell yourself the wrong stuff in your mind and start associating stress with the positive outcome you were hoping for in the first place. And so instead of understanding that, Hey, you feel stressed because you stopped journaling because you stopped tracking your time and really, you know, taking that very seriously. So to answer your question, to go back now that I've held myself accountable here, the way I do it is ideally I've got a day's worth of what I'm, what an ideal day looks like.

And I can map that out a week in advance. And then daily I check in on it. I check in on tomorrow and map it out. Now I do that in such a way that is open. So here's what the day can and should look like knowing that there's no way to predict and God's in control and it's all going to be improvised anyway. But by having that there, then I've got it all kind of listed out.

And as I get through different time chunks, I try to journal almost every hour or every three hours, just depending on what's happening. And I look back and just say, Hey, here's the thing you said you were going to do. Here's how you felt when you did or didn't do it. Here's where you can grow or here's the thing you should be proud of. Here's the thing you should be excited about.

Here's the thing you need to fix. And I just write it out. And I call that bring in the darkness to the light. It's like, Hey, and it's in everything that we do. And if the second you can start to learn to do it moment to moment, then it doesn't become so hard anymore. And things just start to like move off your shoulders quickly because you can say, yeah, here's the truth.

Right. I mean, I mean, think about it just now. I just did it. I didn't mean to, but I just did it. You had started the conversation by saying, I can't give advice on this in this exact second, because truthfully, I haven't been doing it for the last month and a half. And I attribute my success not to what I'm doing now, but what I was doing.

Yeah. And the second I get off this microphone, because I brought the darkness to the light, I cannot wait to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because you talked to me about that, where we had a conversation, geez, it had to be like a month and a half ago when I was really sort of living into these new habits that we're establishing as a team. And you were telling me, because I was like, oh yeah, I'm doing all these things and I've gotten so much better at editing and video stuff and I wasn't doing the scheduling and I attributed it to that I was getting better at those things.

And you were like, no. You were like, you're getting better at those things because of the three months before. Right. He was like, and you're like, and you're going to feel a regression if you don't fix it now in three months from now, because it builds on the work you're doing on the daily and it doesn't happen right away, but then you feel the effect of it a couple months down the line, a couple weeks down the line, depending on what you're working on.

Let me ask you guys a question really quick. Who of you right now has been journaling every single day for the last month and a half? Have not. Nope. Okay. So now you take this same concept, right? And you, and then you break it down and I can tell you that that in a good way puts even more weight on me because I, there was a time when you were and the time when you were was also the time when I was.

And so we have this power to do for each other and with each other. And then we have the power to do some of these things for our students and with our students. And once it becomes not about you, it's so much easier to do when it, when it feels like I'm doing this for me, it, you start to slack a little bit. But once you go, Oh, there are other people that, that count on me to do this.

And when I don't do it, it's harder for them to do it. Then all of a sudden it's like, okay, I've got, I've got extra motivation to get this thing done. You have steak in the game at that point. That's super cool. I love that. And, and as you, you guys know, I mean, the, the thing that's the most contentious for me is when somebody doesn't hold themselves accountable.

And when someone tries to sugarcoat a situation instead of just like owning, Hey, here's where I am. I accidentally said this or, um, whatever. As soon as, as soon as you take accountability, I'm like, cool, let's move forward. No big deal. It's when you fight for something that is like, why are you fighting for defend, defending yourself when you can just be honest and say, yeah, this is the thing I was wrong.

Let's move forward. Done. Yeah. I would say that that's had a huge transformation in our team itself, the core of it, uh, by all of us sort of living and learning to grow into that place. Cause I know that was something that I struggled with for a long time. And, and just recently now we've been able to start getting into doing that without having you moderating everything, you know, like, uh, it was interesting having you gotten this last week because, uh, obviously there's conflicts that arise every single day in different ways.

And, uh, we were able to get through that. Um, and, and so that was interesting cause I don't, I don't know that we would have gotten through that before if you had left, you know, I know we wouldn't have, I know a hundred percent we wouldn't have cause it would have all just been sitting there. Right. And that's the thing. That's the, that's what we don't realize we're doing is when you don't talk about it right away, it doesn't go away.

It's still there. And then, then every decision from then on, when you talk to that person that's there and you treat them differently. Yeah. On accident, you are treating them differently. Yeah. Cause you're holding onto something and you're holding them accountable for something that you didn't let them know that you're holding them accountable for. And it's completely unfair. And that goes right into like, you use the phrasing about making sure that that person like knowing the best in them or how do you phrase it exactly?

I really like. You, you expect the best in the other person always. You, you look at the situation and you say, okay, if, if I were to, if I were to think the best in them, why did they do what they did? And if you start from there, then usually you're right. And if, and if you can understand that, Hey, people are thinking the best in me, I can just be honest in the fact that I screwed up.

I don't have to pretend like I didn't screw up because you did screw up. Yeah. But it doesn't mean that you were malicious. It doesn't mean you were a bad person. It just means you screwed up. Hey, that's no big deal. Yeah. But trying to hold onto something and saying, Oh, I didn't do it when you really did. That's no big deal. I mean, I mean, that's, that can be harmful.

Yeah. Hey, so we, we ran into this. Why don't we talk about this real quick before we wrap where we, we mentioned that we're doing this online program. We've been working through it. We mentioned that we, we insist that our students fail and fail again. And so on Monday there was a fail. Yeah. You guys sent me the link and I watched the, the link and, and then, um, then something happened at the end of class that Brian called me about later, but why don't you go through it?

Cause I wasn't here. So you can, I don't want to give a secondhand version of it. No. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, so we're going in, we're teaching the class. So, um, we had Joey doing the camera stuff on monopod and Shea was on the, um, the live edits and I'm teaching. And the plan was to film the whole thing and then go into a break. And then after the break, come back and watch the live link that we had seen.

Well, we hadn't fully tested everything. We hadn't tested the screen and all these other things. And then, um, that's sort of where, where it started. And that's where it lied, uh, ended up lying with the sound wasn't good. And so I don't know too much about that part of it. So why don't you guys share that? Cause you guys were on the tech side. Well, I'm, I'm actually interested, Brian, in your, in your reaction to it because you, you called me and I reframed your mind.

Yeah. And this talks into exactly what, what we're mentioning here because to Brian's credit, he was fired up and then he called me and, and wanted to go through it before he said anything to anybody because sometimes, cause if you're coming from emotion and you're not coming from that place of, of clear headed, let me, let me assume the best in you before I begin. Let me look at myself at the same time I'm looking at you.

Um, then you, you accidentally say the wrong thing and it's not positive. So you called me the next morning, the sound wasn't good and you were making assumptions. Yes. Mm hmm. So I, I was getting upset and making assumptions, honestly, based on our ending meeting and going through certain things, uh, because of the, like you were listening in on it and we talked about this the next day and it was really cool.

Um, because that night I was mad. I was actually like mad, mad because it made the program look bad, but on my pride, it made me look bad because I stood up in front of a group of students and said, this is going to work. Let me show you this thing. And then looked like a dummy. And then from that, when we went in to talk about it after through Matt helping me, I realized that I led that closing staff meeting with that anger and sort of asking questions about why things went wrong or didn't go wrong and brought all of that tension instead of releasing and relaxing.

Um, and then, and then I wasn't there, but would you two say that you felt that anger that you felt that tension? It was so interesting because Brian asked me that and I genuinely didn't, I genuinely didn't know that he was irritated. I could tell that he probably felt bad because I knew it kind of was a bummer. Um, but I, I didn't feel anger and, but I probably wasn't listening.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Why was that? Do you think I think so at this point I had no idea that I knew that there was an issue with the projector, but I didn't know the sound was off. I didn't, I didn't know. And we had this from my end, from my seat back there, I was like, man, it was great. You know, I learned some cool new things and blah, blah, blah.

I hope it was great. And then they both came out and were angry and it kind of, with all three of us, it became a blame game all because the sound was off. And then it was like, well, if this, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I, so then immediately my mood is done and I'm, for the night. Yeah. I'm ready to go home. I needed to get out.

So you, okay. So, so let's back up. Cause I was asking if it, if you felt it and you experienced it and you said no. From Brian. No. So actually going back and remembering, I was actually like sort of fielding between the two of them. Oh, so the tension was between the two of you. Right. It was when I think on it and, and also my anger for the class.

Right. But if it wasn't seen, cause it looked like it wasn't seen from you, you know, I was trying to hold that and trying to help with the situation. But then also on like trying to figure it out and trying to lead. And it was, it was hard. It was hard because I was also frustrated that I couldn't just calm and relax and notice things. And so I would try and set up questions about like, um, did we say this or did we say that?

But then I felt you wanting to leave and get out of the room and, and go. And that's, those are the things that needed to be brought up in that moment. And just, Hey, I honestly, I feel like you just, you want to go right now, you know, or I feel, I feel this tension from you right now. And what she just said she did. Yeah. Right.

Like you were like, okay, my mood's done now. Because it was, it, we were exhausted and we were bickering about things that didn't matter. And I felt like I was getting blamed and that was tough for me to hear because the way that it was being spoken to wasn't the right words. The words that I were responding with weren't the right words. So at that point it was, it was squashed and we need squashed as in that conversation.

There was, there was no good going to come from that at 1045 that night. You know what I mean? Do you have thoughts, Joey? Yeah, it was, uh, it was a rough situation. I mean, um, sort of like Shea said in the, it, at that moment in the night, I didn't necessarily feel like, uh, like tension from one specific person or like, or like anger from one specific person.

It was just like, we had all pushed so hard, I think that day because legitimately almost anything that could have gone wrong went freaking wrong. Like, um, so at that point we had, we had scrambled to get ourselves to where we had a live link of every class. We got it recorded. And so for me, I can just speak into where I was at when I found out it was less about the projector not working.

And it was less about that. When I found out that our sound wasn't good, I was destroyed because I was like, oh my freaking goodness. Like I, I, I was like, I should have checked. And then I was like, well, like, um, I asked her if she had heard it. She said it was good. So then I was assuming like, oh, okay, it was good. And so then we watched it on the computer and it was botched.

It was bad. And I was like, oh, that actually reminds me speaking on that. When you, when you said the, like, is it good? And she said like, yeah, then we had a serious talk about the assume the best kind of deal and go back to bringing it to yourself too. Cause, cause for Shea in that moment, she's listening and to her knowledge, it sounded good. And you even said to me over the phone, you were like, when I listened to it on my headphones, it's, it wasn't like great, but I didn't notice it, but you've got noise canceling headphones.

I got these new, like just amazing Sony headphones. And the thing that we didn't put into account is so did she. Right. That's what I'm saying. So like you both had these headphones that, that made it sound differently than if you're just listening on a computer or listening somewhere else, which actually brought up a whole new thing that helped us solve a bunch of things the next day, which was awesome.

And how, so how we handled it the next day is Brian sat us down and, and we were like, and he just brought it immediately up. He goes, I didn't love how we ended last night. And, um, took full accountability. Yeah. And I said, okay, great. And we, we talked about it and how we could have gotten better. And we realized that it was a long day and neither of us were in the right space to, I think not, I think, I don't think any of us were in the, the head space or were strong enough to take, um, accountability or criticism.

So how can we get better then? So, so we did that the next day. So that's great. Yeah. But yeah, maybe, maybe, because I think this is good for the audience because we've all been in one of these seats at some point in time in a conversation with our family or our friends or our coworkers or whoever, and you're, you're in different seats here. So for each of you, how do you think you could have done better the night of?

We'll start with you, Brian. So I have a few things. Um, number one would be to pay attention to everyone's energy, to try and gain a little more knowledge. If I had gone in, I would have gone in asking more questions. So, okay, this was the thing that's wrong. Let's sit both of you down instead of separate and hear like, okay, tell me everything that sort of went into this today.

Like, what are some of these things? Here's something that went wrong. This is the thing that went wrong. Let's talk about together how we can figure out fixing it for tomorrow. Is everybody in the, in the state that they can do that? Or is that something we need to do in the morning or whatever? Like, feeling that energy and asking more questions, I think, versus coming in with trying to have the answer.

Yeah, that's big. Shea? I think I, to, that would make me better is that, um, I over assumed that I knew what I was doing and that, um, and not, I really don't think it was from like, let me show you what I can do, but I, I had practiced it that day and I was, I was confident in what I thought I was going to be able to do.

And when it didn't go my way and I thought it was my fault, I reacted with anger and frustration at myself because I didn't, I didn't want that to be my fault because I know that it takes a lot of work, you know? So, um, and that goes back to Matt and I talk about this all the time about kind of creating stories about how other people feel about you in your head and just taking it for what it was and, um, not self-criticizing in the way that it actually looks like I'm projecting anger onto others.

Yeah. Yeah. The biggest thing for me was, uh, was also kind of the same deal. So when I came out to, uh, to talk to you about it, I, I realized that I was like, oh man, I did, I didn't really check in. Like I had, I had the confidence in you, uh, that I shouldn't have had actually, because, and, and then from that, I asked you a question.

You told me, yes, it was. And then, um, we checked and it wasn't, and I was like, oh man, I got, I got upset at you because I think I felt a little bit of the frustration or whatever. And so we were, we both ended up mad at each other, but really I was just mad because I didn't check in on that. And I should have focused on the positive because the truth of the matter is what I had trained you on was better than it had ever been, which was the edit itself.

You know, uh, I remember like I, cause I had to learn the same sort of lessons and, um, I've, I've botched sound a billion times. Like I didn't even know what DB and gain and all those things were. And I was running our freaking sound. Yeah. You know, it's a, it's a big deal, you know? Um, but, but I was putting the pressure on you to know what I knew and that's, that's not fair at all.

Like, and, and so the truth of the matter is you were rising into a seat that you weren't necessarily ready for, but we were all under the same understanding that you were going to grow through it and get better and you were going to be that person. Yeah. And I didn't take that perspective into the conversation, which was my mistake. So at the end of the day, we were all frustrated with ourselves and we took it out on each other cause that's what you do when you love people and it shouldn't be, but yeah, that's what we did.

I think. Yeah. That's great. Cause then we were totally mood shifted the next morning. I was about to say, and I was surprised at the, uh, at the, um, lack of tension that all of us had the next morning, even before. Except I did spill an unbelievable amount of iced coffee in my car and the boys both were like, Hey, they were at the door when I walked in.

Hey Shea, how you doing today? Cause I told him I spilled my coffee and I relaxed into it and I was like, let me just go, um, clean up the iced coffee in my car and I will be fine. So coming in with that energy from the boys was, was really nice. So, so, so this will, we'll go back and I'll just kind of wrap this up.

So Brian, Brian called me the next morning before the meeting and he was, he was mad. He was mad the next morning. We spent about 45 minutes on the phone and reframed his thought process so that he could come in and lead at a high level. I was less mad in the moment because I was leading and calm and doing this. And then I got back and I was like, what the freak, man?

Like in all these ways. Sorry. That's funny. Yeah. And that's not good either. No, it's not. You know, as, as a leader, you shouldn't be calm and cover up your feelings. No, no. Right. It's okay to feel right. So the, so the thing, the thing that I, I, I'll just kind of talk on each of those really quick. So Brian, you were saying that you should have asked more questions and you should have, you know, asked something like, do we have the energy for tonight or whatever?

And the answer to that is yes, you need to ask more questions and specifically the right questions. The questions you want to be asking are, okay, so the sound, the sound is not working properly. Could this be fixed? Is this a hundred percent gone? Is it a hundred percent wasted? Start asking, are there ways of getting out of this problem? Sure. Instead of, instead of going into the negativity of some of those things, start there with what's possible.

And then I'd say then the very next highest level for you would be to already know without asking that we're burned out. Yeah. And, and that would be the best way to lead would be to say, Hey, um, some mistakes were made. We don't know a hundred percent if it's lost, completely ruined, whatever. But since it's an end of the night, I can feel that it's going to be best that we deal with this and talk about it in the morning.

Everybody agree with that. And then we move forward. That would have been probably what's best in that case. And then, uh, Shea, on your end, you, you pretty much hit it other than the idea of when the thing you said early was you were feeling like you were being blamed and that it's going to be hard to do when you're in a tired emotional state. But the goal is going to be to remember that it's never personal.

Right. And if you feel like you're being blamed, it's usually a self thing. Right. And you got to let go of that completely and instead strive for how can I come to a place where I can figure out how I was culpable? Is there a way that I could improve? Is there a way? Is there something I could have done better? Let me ask the right questions.

Can I ask you, because I, I feel like in that situation also, I could say, Hey, this is how I'm feeling right now. Yeah. If that's not true, let me know. As long as, as long as you don't say it from here, Hey, this is how I'm feeling right now. Yeah. Cause that won't work. Right. But if you can, if you can breathe and say, okay, just so you know, and this is, you know, Bernay Brown says the story I'm, this story I'm telling myself, but the idea is going, okay, I don't want to become reactive here.

So what I'm feeling from you is this way. And it feels like, it feels like you're blaming the whole thing on me. Like it's completely my fault that I, that I did this. Is that how you feel? Got it. You know, what's funny is I actually would have felt so bad and apologized right there if, if that had happened because, uh, cause, cause I didn't mean for it to come off of that way.

And it definitely did, you know, looking back on how the night went, you know? Yeah. So that's, that's something cool that you realize that too, because, uh, cause that's the truth is I didn't mean for it to feel that way at all. I was actually beating myself up about it as a leader. And then, and then you're not wanting, you're, you're beating yourself up, but then you're still looking for this little scapegoat of some kind.

And so, because you're, you're being so harsh on yourself for you to say one thing to somebody else is a major attack because they feel all the negativity you're doing to you. And it's like one big punch. Yeah. That's the only thing they hear. That's it. Cause they don't hear you beating yourself up inside. Fat punch in your face. Just negative punch. Yeah. You know, this happened, this happened actually then the next day too.

I'll tell you guys, um, you were, Shea, you were listening in, I was watching and I got really excited about the, what I was seeing. And so I called Shea and I think it was this time and maybe it was the night, maybe that was the same night. That was the same night. That was the same night. Okay. So I called Shea and, and the truth is I was listening with my bomb headphones and I was enjoying the course and I was so into it that I was like, dude, I could coach.

Like, this is so good. I could be coaching from here if I wanted to be, I could text in, like I could make notes and send them over. I was so pumped that I called her just to tell her that. And I wanted to give her feedback on like, Hey, it's looking good basically. So she answers the phone and you came out and noticed her on the phone and we're upset.

We're like, you know, what are you doing on the phone? Cause we had talked about not being on the phone and she says, I'm on with Matt. And you're like, well, hang up with Matt. You know, I think I heard you say that. And I was like, okay, he's, he's fine. You know, we're, we're good. Um, so, so let's, let's reframe this really quick and go, okay, what happens if I expect the best in somebody?

So I walk in, I got disconnected from Shea. I want to see, first of all, is the connection okay? Like, is she all right? I go and I peek and she's on the phone. If I expect the best in her, I immediately just assume she knows not to be on the phone during this. If she's on the phone, there's a fire. There's something so important that she needs to be on the phone.

Cool. I trust her and I'll leave her a note that says, Hey, call me as soon as you're off the phone so I can reconnect afterward, all out of curiosity, ask, who were you on the phone with and why? Right. Then we go back to Matt and go, okay, why would Matt be calling during this? He's not a moron. Like he knows, he knows what Shea should be doing.

He understands that she shouldn't be answering the phone. If he's calling her, he's making the decision to interrupt because he's trying to pass on some valuable information about our program that will help us do what we're doing. Yeah. And if you, if you would have made those two assumptions, you could have reframed it and gone, Oh good. We're getting feedback from Matt. I'm going to assume the best in him.

He's calling because he's watching because he wants to help because he wants to make us better. That's why he's calling. Otherwise Matt would never call during a recording because it's his rule in the first place that we're not on the phone. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so, so that's like that whole idea of like, okay, if I start from, let me, let me assume the best in you, it, it cools me down and I'm relaxed.

Then from there, if it turns out not to be the case, you've put the other person in a position where they can say sorry. So, so if you had, you assume the best in me and then I said, you know what? I forgot you guys were recording and I totally called at the wrong time and I wished Shea hadn't answered. It's totally my bad. I'm really sorry.

Then you, then I could have said that too. And you'd have been fine either way. Yeah. Right. So there's never a harm to starting from the place of, um, love and the place of, of, I expect the best in the other person. And I really need to stop because I'm assuming our audience members have zoned out since Brian just did a second ago. I thought I heard the door.

I know, I know, we all heard the door, but Brian, Brian's eyes were just going. I actually, I didn't hear the door to be honest. I was very focused. All right. Well, that's our podcast, everybody. Thank you for checking in and being focused the whole time until the very, very end. Have a dearing day, everyone. Booyah.