Relationships: WHO you know = HOW you know
Welcome to the ArtsBound Newsletter. Every Tuesday, I share three thoughts or insights meant to help performing arts students and young professionals flourish in their life and career. Today we’re looking at how our relationships with others impact our understanding of ourselves and our world.
You can read a web version of this newsletter (and past newsletters) HERE.
- 3.5-minute read -
(NOTE: I started ArtsBound because I believe the world would be a better place with more people living their true calling. If you know a student or young professional who is searching for their niche in the performing arts world, consider forwarding this email to them. If this email was forwarded to you, you can sign up to receive my newsletter every Tuesday. It's free, and I’ll never share or sell your data.)
1. Relationships as vessels for our understanding.
On my first official day as a fully employed teacher, the superintendent of schools (who happened to be a former music teacher and led the committee that hired me) addressed the entire district - from high school principal to night time custodian - in a talk that outlined his vision for the work we would all engage in that year.
I remember many of the ideas he expressed in that talk, but the most poignant was a single sentence he uttered early in his address. It was this:
“We are in the relationship business.”
The allusion should be familiar to most of us - the trope in which a salesman or businessman reveals his motivations pointe blank to a customer: e.g. “Howard, I’m in the business of selling cars!”
The superintendent's message came through loud and clear: In a world full of facts and figures, transcripts and test scores, our most important ‘products’ - that which must receive our primary focus when it came to quality-assurance - were the relationships we would establish and maintain with our students.
By this time in my life, I had already heard the expression, “Students don’t sign up for a class, they sign up for a teacher.” But this simple idea spoken by my superintendent permanently and instantaneously changed my perspective on learning.
Relationships serve as an emotional filter through which we take in information about the world around us, and it is through our relationships that we interpret our experiences and then decide what information is important and what we can ignore. Therefore, the people in our lives have a profound impact on our understanding of the world and our role within it.
Regarding careers, your relationships (especially those early in your life) can impact many factors, from the types of jobs in which you feel comfortable to how much money you believe you deserve to make.
It is also much easier to picture ourselves in a career when we have a personal relationship with someone in that career (a concept that came up in the first Special Parent Episode of the ArtsBound Podcast). And when it comes to careers in the arts, so many roles take place behind the scenes that young people are unaware of... let alone know someone working in that role! (Increasing awareness of these roles is among the top reasons I started the ArtsBound Podcast.)
When we are children, our relationships are generally defined by the other people in our lives. But as we grow, we become empowered to establish the relationships we desire, shape them through our choices, and reflect upon how they are shaping us.
What are your relationships teaching you about yourself, your career, and your calling as a creative individual?
2. Interview with a music educator.
The topic for this week’s newsletter was inspired by my interview with Christian Lopez. Christian was my student teacher in 2018, and he now works as a music teacher in a parochial school in New Jersey, in addition to freelancing as a percussionist and vocal director for music theatre companies in his community.
When you talk with Christian about teaching, his commitment to nurturing the relationships he has with his students is evident. In our conversation, he speaks directly to how this aspect of teaching allows him to find fulfillment in the work.
In our interview, Christian also touches upon his desire to continue growing as a performer while teaching, shares the role his parents played in encouraging his passion, reflects on his own question of whether he chose teaching for the sake of job security, and discusses the impact his identity as a Columbian-American has had on his relationship with his social environment.
LISTEN to my whole interview with Christian.
3. Your relationship with yourself.
Many schools of thought in contemporary psychology, philosophy, and spirituality recognize a differentiation between the ego and the soul; the false self and the true self; or the persona we present to the world and who we are at our spiritual core.
By definition, our external world is ego-dominated (even more so in the left-brain, rational society in which we live). With so many external factors fighting for our attention - and the practical need to engage in the external world - it can be easy to fall out of touch with our spiritual core.
And yet it is our relationship with our soul that teaches us about our true nature and guides us in the honest pursuit of our calling.
Nurturing a relationship with your spiritual core - through contemplation, reflection, and imagination - might seem weird, difficult, or abstract. But with the right framework and a courageous attitude, it can be quite insightful (if at times challenging)... and even fun!
In the spirit of your flourishing, I encourage you to pursue a deeper relationship with yourself. And should you ever be interested in personal support and guidance along the journey, don’t hesitate to reach out.
See you next week!
Lee
PS - I started ArtsBound because I believe the world would be a better place with more people living their true calling. If you know a student or young professional who is searching for their niche in the performing arts world, consider forwarding this email to them. If this email was forwarded to you, you can sign up to receive my newsletter every Tuesday. It's free, and I’ll never share or sell your data.