Master your musician mindset: Interrupting Shame and Embracing Authenticity

Michelle Lynne: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Fearless Artist Podcast. I am so happy to have on Emily Workman from Classical Voice Coaching today. Emily, thanks for coming on.

Emily Workman: It was so nice to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this all week.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, that’s so nice to hear. Thank you. I know we’ve been trying to connect for a few months, so it’s finally time that we can find in our schedules: time zones, concerts, teaching. You’ve got a lot going on in your career, so I’d love for you to introduce yourself to our audience.

Emily Workman: I’m Emily Workman, and I guess one of the biggest things I’d say people know me for is kind of teaching teachers how to teach. My messaging has kind of been a little bit mixed lately, but ultimately it’s teaching teachers how to teach in a way that is more science-focused. I have courses available for people, and there’s just a huge gap in that realm. And I taught at university for five years. I was the Director of Voice at Utah Tech University, and so I know what teachers are being taught.

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Emily Workman: I should say, students are being taught about the voice before they graduate. And unless you go into a pedagogy field,

Michelle Lynne: Then…

Emily Workman: You don’t really immerse yourself in performance. So you’re missing kind of the immersive information and learning that comes to you through being on stage and all of that stuff. But if you go into performance, you get one little pedagogy class, probably usually in your last year. It doesn’t have any practical training at all unless you add it yourself. But it’s not required by the National Association of Schools of Music. So to be accredited, you don’t have to add any kind of, um, case studies training or like, ear-tuning exercises, how to listen for attributes of dysfunction. They don’t have any of that in those classes, and I know because I taught them and I knew what was required. And so this huge gap of students were graduating, realizing that they can’t make full-time income performing.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: I think people, if you’re on the other side of this camera, feel a wash of shame when that comes up. You are in the 99 percentile.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: This is normal for all of us, even myself. It’s harder and harder since COVID happened. It’s just impossible to pay your bills exclusively from performance gigs. This is okay. This is normal. And so for me, I have had all of these vocalists turn to the thing that will give them the most flexibility so that they can audition and allow them to make some money, whether that’s teaching online or teaching, um, in a studio, which can be difficult to find. But, you know, these days, everybody’s teaching online, and it’s a very viable place to be. So, but they don’t have the training and they’re scared, and they’re like, “I know how to teach, but if I, what if I lose my credibility? What if I can’t, like, I don’t know how to talk about this, so I’m just gonna say what everybody says.” And it’s just like a fast spiral into imposter syndrome and self-doubt, and it starts to color all your performances. And like, it’s just, it’s just not necessary because there’s so, so many easy ways to train this and learn about the voice. And so I’ve spent a lot of time on the science side, spent some time researching with a local hospital around ways to identify dysfunction through different methods like ultrasound and things like that. So I’m very well-versed in this type of thing. I’ve been doing it for decades at this point. So I just wanted to kind of bridge that gap, and that’s, I guess, what people know me most for. But I went to Yale, got my master’s in performance for the last decade, so I spent some time in those realms and am well-connected there. Wonderful, ’cause then I can get real honest feedback from people at the very top. People usually come to me. I always say that I’m the teacher that people cheat on their other teachers because they come to me with problems, and they love their teachers. They don’t wanna leave them, but they have a problem they can’t figure out, and they start looking for a little bit of a different kind of help. And so we meet, and then they’re like, “Oh my gosh, this changed my life.” And then they post something successful online and it’s like, “You figured it out!” And they’re like, “I know,” but they can’t like…

Michelle Lynne: Oh, that’s funny.

Emily Workman: They don’t want their teachers to know that they’re meeting—they met with me or they meet with me. And so it’s just, it’s kind of a weird situation that I’m in because vocal rehabilitation is kind of my specialty. So,

Michelle Lynne: And also very humble of you to not jump in and be like, “Excuse me, like we did this together.”

Emily Workman: I get frustrated. I definitely do because social proof is the most important part of marketing.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: And if you don’t have it, you—it can be frustrating, but word of mouth,

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: You don’t need social proof. If you’ve got word of mouth, you want to help people so much that they go tell their friends.

Michelle Lynne: Absolutely.

Emily Workman: If that’s the case, you don’t need to put it on your website. So I do. Okay. I do. All right.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, good for you. And thank you for just giving everybody a sigh of relief listening that portfolio careers are completely normal. There’s no shame in that. Already so much of the language that you’re using resonates deeply with me because The Fearless Artist is very much a no-shame culture that we’ve built. Um, Deanna studied at Juilliard, and she’s got her stories. And luckily, I was at a very open, kind space at the University of Montreal. Um, but still, like, just the industry, you know, this competitiveness, this pettiness. So just like everybody can take a sigh of relief, it’s normal to search out for multiple income streams. It’s actually smart to do that,

Emily Workman: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: So,

Emily Workman: To me, that competitiveness is just a way that people are basing their confidence on a hierarchy scheme.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: It’s the only way they think they can get it, and that’s just not true. And I think when you recognize that confidence is something that you don’t get, it’s not a series of what you do. It’s something you remember. We’ve always had that since we were kids, and somebody told us we needed to stop, or we needed to compare ourselves to this person or that person. And it’s just the most false, oldest ghost script that we listen to every damn day. And can I swear on here?

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, sure. Go for it.

Emily Workman: It requires like vigorous vocabulary.

Michelle Lynne: I’ve never heard someone describe it like that. Tell me more about this: Confidence is something that we remember.

Emily Workman: It’s something we would—I mean, look at any 3-year-old, they’re running around with so much confidence unless somebody comes up to them and says, “You should be ashamed of that, and you should look at the way this person is doing it, and you should see that they’re doing it better than you are because they’re getting a response from society that looks like this, and you—you can’t tell why they’re getting that.” There’s just no way of doing it. It’s pointless. And so you start to build these protection mechanisms and say, “If I can just be better than that person, if I can just do it like them, but better, if I can, then I’m gonna get the confidence that I need. Then I’m gonna get the praise that I desire, then I—” And it’s a disease looking for approval from others and love from others, which is really what it is. It’s not necessarily approval, it’s love.

Michelle Lynne: Yep. And acceptance and approval.

Emily Workman: If we’re continually trying to get that, we’ve got a disease, and we have to, we have to address it really quickly and swiftly. And that means interrupting those ruminating thoughts because they’ll drown you, and you live

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: The rest of your life fulfilling all your dreams, singing at the Met, going to all these places that you wanna go, and you go home and you’re devastated that you still don’t feel loved. And then you start chasing for the next thing, which is to be hired back, or to get, you know, whoever to comment on your Instagram thing. I mean, I’ve got—I have fallen to that trap. I have some people who are very big in the country industry, you would know their names. Um, very big in the classical world, very big in the metal world, who follow me. And when they first did, it’s like, “Oh my gosh, look who’s following me!” And you wanna repost it on your stories, and you wanna—and I’m like, “Outsourcing my credibility.” That’s outsourcing my confidence. I don’t need that. They don’t need it. I respect them. They respect me.

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Emily Workman: Leave them alone. Like, they’re people. Everybody poops, you know?

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: Let them like treat them with dignity and respect that they deserve because they’ve earned that, certainly. But as far as, okay, I need to demote myself now, is just not a practice that we should, we should have. You’ve gotta be clear about where your, your gaps are in your ability. But when it comes to hierarchy, that’s not where we find confidence.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: You don’t fake it till you make it. You just need to remember that you had that to begin with and give yourself permission.

Michelle Lynne: It sounds like you’ve done, yeah. You’ve done so much internal work to go through. It sounds like you’ve gotten some tools to help you.

Emily Workman: Otherwise you drown on social media, don’t you? People can be brutal.

Michelle Lynne: You have a big following, 43K. How has that been for you, navigating the growth, the fame, the comments, anything that you’ve had to deal with?

Emily Workman: Um, thankfully, not so much in music. Um, I think if you look at other people who are in different, I guess, worlds, even musical niches, they have to deal with a lot more inappropriate comments. Um, some sexual, some aggressive and rude. My model’s always been “block and blast.”

Michelle Lynne: Yes. Heard that before.

Emily Workman: I don’t even rest on—I don’t even

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: Look at it for very long. If I like to consider that they’re asking with real curiosity that can sometimes come off a little sharp in text, I’ll still consider it and be like, “Look, they’re genuinely asking, and it’s a fair question.”

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: I’ll—I’ll leave it in and address it. If they come back with any kind of character assassination, we’re done.

Michelle Lynne: Yep.

Emily Workman: Like, I’ll just block ’em. I don’t really care. And, and I don’t dwell on it much longer than that. So when you recognize that you don’t have to participate in every argument that you’re invited to,

Michelle Lynne: Oh, that’s a good one.

Emily Workman: Life gets a whole lot easier. But it, um, I guess when I grew, I grew to about 47, and then I took about six months off just for family issues, some other things that were going on. I just needed to not be provoked by the simulation that is social media.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Workman: And, um, I lost—obviously I lost a lot of them, and it just happens. You lose every day. So it’s not a big deal. If you’re not actively trying to grow, you lose followers. And so I didn’t care much about that, and it was kind of reassuring that I didn’t care.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: I don’t care. People wanna be here, they’ll stay here. If they don’t, they’re not gonna convert anyway.

Michelle Lynne: Right. Exactly.

Emily Workman: Going to…

Michelle Lynne: Exactly.

Emily Workman: Word a lot,

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: Just meaning like, you build enough trust with them that they see you have the solution to the problem, and they will—you know this, but I’m just for the…

Michelle Lynne: No, absolutely. I’m happy to.

Emily Workman: And they’ll come into your programs to get the help that you offer. So they trust you enough to do that. Um, people who are there to hate or there to leave because you spent a week selling a product, like, they were never gonna buy it anyway. And the truth is people expect you to be extremely, uh, altruistic. Um, that the word I wanna use? Very philanthropic.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: Musicians. This is business.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: My full-time business. No, no doubt that we’re exchanging value here honestly and earnestly as much as I can because I don’t wanna do anything else. I love this. It’s what I’m good at. It’s what I’m an expert at. I’ve seen people’s lives change with one cue, and then they’ll come back and say, “Why didn’t my teacher ever tell me this? Oh my gosh, why didn’t anyone ever explain it like that? This is so much easier.” Those moments, man, I live for those moments. They’re so exciting, and you can see people get a lot of freedom from that. But I think that it’s, I mean, I’m weaving out of the story a little bit. I could go on and on, but the people who aren’t there to participate in that exchange of value, bye. Like, have a good one. Hope you find what you’re looking for.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: So I don’t, I don’t really care. But navigating the growth, I mean, it’s just basic marketing principles. That was kind of fun to see happen. But then when I tried to, uh, turn it into an exchange of that value, I got a real sharp wake-up call.

Michelle Lynne: Oh.

Emily Workman: Like, “Oh, this is not as easy to sell to people. It’s not as easy to show them and help them see that you can solve the problem that they have, and they may not even know they have it.” So you

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: Look into that as well. But have you experienced the same thing? I mean, you’ve got a healthy audience as well.

Michelle Lynne: Yes. Uh, well, at The Fearless Artist, what I’ve had to learn is there’s so much education that I need to do to teach my musicians about the power of investing in themselves.

Emily Workman: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: So even if I can tell ’em,

Emily Workman: What do you mean for you? Like, investing in themselves? What does that mean?

Michelle Lynne: Paying money for you to be in professional development situations that are going to ultimately help your growth without maybe an immediate return on that investment. So our membership is priced quite low. I think it’s $57 a month. However, many people, you know, they, they think, “Okay, well how long am I gonna do this? After a year, it’s $500. What if I don’t get anything?” So I spend a lot of time trying to tell them, “By being in a healthy community, you are held accountable to go after your goals, which are to earn money. And if you don’t have this system in place, you are probably gonna fall victim to overthinking, procrastination, rejection, some spiral that will make you inactive. So this is forcing you to stay in the game.” Just like we had in school, we had this pressure of deadlines, systems, teachers, accountability. Um, so some of them get it, some of them don’t. And I’ve learned to let go and just keep giving content. You know, the podcast is obviously free value for everyone. And then people realize like, “Oh, I need more of this.” And then the ones who realize they want tailored career development strategy, that’s what we have the mastermind for, which is a much higher price point. But I understand that that’s gonna be the very, you know, highest percentage of my audience.

Emily Workman: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: But you’ve said so many interesting things that I wanna unpack. So with this, you know, going back to the mindset work, are you also doing that with your clients? Because it sounds like you’ve learned so many tools to help you get out of those, you know, low confidence or, uh, triggering. Like, you’re no longer triggered if you lose followers. Like, you’ve done the work. So what has, what has helped you?

Emily Workman: Do I do that with my clients? Uh, surprisingly, yes. Even the more, um, elite-level performers, they’re—I think they have the most beautifully decorated masks. And I think that

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: Myself in that.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: Everybody has them. Every single person has them. And I don’t think it’s about taking the mask off. I think it’s about recognizing that you are not the mask… And I think we confuse ourselves with the mask. And so when we’re not getting work and we’re not looking like a certain thing, um, we wonder who we are. And I think we all have kind of existential crises, but one of the most beautiful things that, uh, performers ever said to me, I did a show in Poland with Diana Montague, who’s this incredible mezzo… A huge career, just delightful. Like we just had so much fun. She’s a riot and full of wisdom. And she said, “You know, everybody wants to get hired at the Met, or they wanna get hired at the Royal Opera, or they wanna A, B, C, and D. And then they get hired. And like I said before, then what? Then the goal is to be hired back. And then the goal is to do this, and then it’s to do that.” And I’d never sat next to someone so comfortable with her own life whether she did it or didn’t. She wasn’t—she truly didn’t ask permission

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: From anyone to be confident. And that mean it’s like, “Oh, I’m not gonna ask permission, I’ll be confident, and that’ll make me make less mistakes.” And that’s not it.

Michelle Lynne: It’s like a protection.

Emily Workman: That’s not it.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. The goal.

Emily Workman: Is to not make mistakes. It’s to grow and learn and get as competent as you can as an artist. That’s important. That matters. It’s about getting to a point where you’re not asking permission to mess up sometimes, knowing that 80% of the time you are solid and you’ll show up and do what you’ve been asked to do. And I think that in our heads, we kind of look around like, “Is it okay that I’m, is it okay that I’m doing this?” And ironically, the better you get, the more you ask permission, because people do not like when you do well and they don’t like when you’re confident that you’re doing well. I—I’ve received more resistance to that than failing. People are

Michelle Lynne: Because if you fail, then you’re on everybody’s level, ’cause everyone’s struggling. But if you rise, and it triggers everybody, ’cause we’re like, “Oh wait, what? You could be successful. What if I didn’t put in the work? What if I missed it?”

Emily Workman: Yeah. Or like, “What if you’re judging me for not doing this?” Or it comes back to that hierarchy thing.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: I am basing my level of confidence on whether or not I feel above or below you. The minute that starts to change, people get real frosty. They just get really snarky. It—like those dynamics change. I’ve experienced it myself, and I’m like, “This is the stuff you read about in books. This is the stuff you see in movies. Like this is actually happening. What?” Or they feel conflicted. And that it’s like, “The fact that my success makes you feel conflicted at all is troubling.”

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: And that makes me feel like if I’m not doing well, you don’t feel conflict at all, which is also troubling.

Michelle Lynne: You’re making them comfortable.

Emily Workman: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: Ultimately, I just, I can’t think about them,

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: Or I’m not gonna do well. And so if I think I’m gonna do well, you’re afraid someone’s gonna come up to you and be like, “How dare you think that you’re not humble?” Like, and you know, for, for people who are raised in maybe a little bit more controlling religions, um, I certainly was, I won’t get into that, but there is this element of, “That’s pride.” If confident

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: Equals pride, um, you’re actually more acceptable and righteous if you doubt yourself.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: If you don’t do too much, if you’re not too big, if you’re not, you know, we just can’t do that.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: We just can’t. You look at anyone who’s a top-level performer. I mean, I went to school with Rachel Willis Sorenson.

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Emily Workman: And like, there’s just no—just not asking those questions. She doesn’t show up and ask, and maybe she doesn’t private. I think we all kind of worry about it a little bit, but I’m not gonna put words in your mouth.

Michelle Lynne: I think she just posted yesterday. She was giving a workshop to some students, and she was talking about walking in, being confident, and that it’s not arrogance, but it’s just knowing that what you just said, you can do the job that you’ve been asked to do.

Emily Workman: Yeah, she never apologized. I—I remember listening to her sing, uh, I think it was Don Giovanni, uh, in undergrad.

Michelle Lynne: I.

Emily Workman: And I just kind of went in the top rafters. They were just rehearsing. I walked in and she was with several other of our colleagues and friends, and they were singing their little bits and beautiful voices. And then she sang, and it was like five times as loud and beautiful. Not like a circus event where you put up a sign that says, “I sing loud,” and like, that’s—it’s a blow horn. Like, that’s not it. It was—it was just warm and colorful, and my whole body like was impacted by

Michelle Lynne: Oh, wow.

Emily Workman: It. And I’ve seen her at the Met a couple of times since, and just like, there’s so much to that. Can you imagine if she walked around asking permission to, to let her voice be what it is?

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: How exhausting?

Michelle Lynne: Right?

Emily Workman: To spend your life doing that.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: She just does it. And I think that there’s a lot to be said for that. It’s like, “Well, Emily, how do I do that?”

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: It starts in here. It’s a practice. Remember that the thoughts that are coming into your head are what’s comfortable. It’s a habit. It’s not necessarily what’s right. We don’t always do what is right. We do what’s familiar. And so if you have a script that’s running that’s familiar, I set an alarm on my phone. Every 20 minutes it goes off so that I can check what I’m thinking.

Michelle Lynne: No way. I just read this yesterday in Hyperfocus. I don’t know if you’ve read this book, but he says, “An hourly to ask yourself, ‘What is your attention on?’” This is the same concept.

Emily Workman: Where is it? Mm-hmm. And a lot of times it’s on this stuff. And I say this because I have had to work so hard to get out of my, of my head. It’s just, it’s rampant, and it—it suffocates creativity. It—it may—it’s the stuff that makes you wake up and go, “Today’s gonna be a bad day because I’m not this and I’m not that, and that person’s doing that.” Suddenly you’re on social media and you’re looking at, “Well, that person was in Rolling Stone Magazine, and that person was in Opera News, and that—I’m never gonna get,” like, it’s just, shut up. Like, get out. I can’t.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: I can’t live like that.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: Even if I believe it, and there are parts of my body that like crumple inside because I sadly, I—I believe it sometimes, and it’s like, “Oh, angel baby. Like, why we—you’re imperfect. They’re imperfect.” And I think that understanding, not that people are imperfect because that shouldn’t make us feel better. “Oh, yay. They’re not, they’re not perfect.”

Michelle Lynne: Well, then it’s coming back to what we were saying. We don’t want other people to feel around us when we succeed.

Emily Workman: It’s the understanding that everyone, I mean, everyone is suffering and everyone is insecure. This is not up for debate. This is fact. Everyone, every person you’ve seen at the top, at the bottom, in the middle, everyone who’s got the clothes, the bag, the voice you think is impenetrable in terms of fault. Everyone is suffering. I mean, I’ve got massive burdens on my mind right now, and this last week has been difficult. I think my family’s never gonna be the same, and I’ll probably not really ever be able to talk about it openly. But as I walk around,

Michelle Lynne: I am so sorry.

Emily Workman: Or I drive around, I’m like, “I’m carrying this.” And no one has any idea what are they carrying,

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: You know, like, what is—I mean, when Rachel did her debut of, um, she was pregnant. No one knew. She hadn’t announced it yet. So I was with her teacher, and my teacher also, and he was like, “Nobody knows.” And she’d had a horrible performance, which she did not. It was incredible. It could have—it could have been for a number of reasons. And people would be, “Well, she’s losing her touch,” or, “Oh, she’s blah, blah, blah.” Like, you just can’t, you can’t—you have to stop those thoughts so fast and just be like, “Everyone’s suffering. Insecure.”

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Emily Workman: So why don’t we just do our best? You know? That helps us forgive ourselves. It helps us forgive them. And, uh, it just changes our focus from one of jockeying for position to actual creation. Like, let’s just do that.

Michelle Lynne: This is beautiful. So every 20 minutes you catch yourself. Let’s say if, if you are in a familiar script, what is the new thought that you put in your brain instead?

Emily Workman: Um,

Michelle Lynne: I.

Emily Workman: “What are you afraid of?” That’s usually the question I ask.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: This? What

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: Are you, what are you afraid of? And it’s usually that, that I have no significance in the world, that I’m not accepted by the group I want to be accepted by, which is musicians,

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: Um, or that, uh, somebody disapproves of me or doesn’t like me. It’s, uh, it’s usually one of those three things. And it’s hard to admit ’cause I’m kind of a, you know, science-based, like fact, you know, like, let’s get into the bullet points of all of these things. Let’s look at the foundational root of all of the ’cause. I don’t like, I don’t like being, um, I don’t like to, I don’t like to be provoked. I don’t like to be sold to…

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: And lied to. I’m pretty skeptical human. You can see the wrinkles under my eyes.

Michelle Lynne: I can’t. You look great.

Emily Workman: There’s a filter. There’s not a filter. There isn’t. I’ll get up close. I’ve got the rinks, I’ve got ’em. But yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of skepticism. And so for me, it’s difficult to, to ask these questions because it makes me—I have to be very, very humble,

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: And it’s very uncomfy.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: Uncomfortable to be, to recognize that you have needs, ’cause we like to think of ourselves as impenetrable emotionally.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: That’s what you need to be as an artist, and you need to not care what people think. And it’s like, it’s not about not caring what people think. It’s about getting comfortable with the idea of social rejection and judgment.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: Because I think that’s the biggest fear for most people.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, absolutely. Being accepted is number, number one, foundational.

Emily Workman: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: I think it was Ed.

Emily Workman: Myself, oh, go ahead. You.

Michelle Lynne: No, Ed Sheeran who said, “If we didn’t care what people thought, we wouldn’t release our music.”

Emily Workman: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: He was like, “I would just keep it for myself if I didn’t care what people thought.” I thought that was so interesting.

Emily Workman: Exactly. I think, I think it’s how do I, do I plan my actions, and if I plan them around what people think, that can be, that can be troubling.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: So. Yeah, it’s just, it is just the, the, the lens that you decide to see the world through. And I say decide because it is a decision. It’s a, like I said, a habit. I’ve not always been good at it. I’ve had stints in my life, six months or so, especially the last maybe up until maybe three months ago or so, the last six months, where like just letting these old scripts of, of negativity and self-pity and, you know, just run rampant. And every day was like, “Oh my gosh, life is awful. I don’t really want to, really wanna do anything. I don’t wanna be a part of this anymore.” And when I kind of woke up to that, I was like, “Oh, again, angel baby. Like, what are you so scared of? What are you afraid of?”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: What need is not being fulfilled here?

Michelle Lynne: Hmm. What?

Emily Workman: Shame are you trying to hide?

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: We all try to hide shame. I think that’s what the masks are.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: Hiding. Shame.

Michelle Lynne: Of course. Especially when artists are supposed to be—well, we are these public figures. I think that’s where it really gets disorienting because everyone’s seeing, and as much as we try to be authentic, I find your content very authentic. Um,

Emily Workman: I, yeah, I try to be.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. And for me personally, like after years of being triggered, I just learned to kind of unfollow all the people that I could catch this fakeness coming from. ‘Cause I’m like, “I’m comparing myself to this. I don’t even know if this is real.” And then you meet them in person and you’re like, “Yeah, this is not genuine. I don’t, you know, my ne—my thought for you is, has your inner circle changed now that you’ve learned, like, okay, my success makes certain people uncomfortable or I’m, I mean, you, you sound to me like someone who’s continually looking for that next level. So have you anchored yourself around key people in your life to, to center that?”

Emily Workman: Hmm. I’m not, yeah, I know this is gonna sound really egotistical, but it isn’t meant to be. Um, myself.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: I—I think we dismiss that relationship with ourselves. I don’t think that means we don’t need social connection. I certainly have that. My family, people who I know I can trust with good news, I know I can trust with the worst of me.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: And they won’t judge me. I definitely have that. But it’s a small, it’s a small group. I mean, Deanna and I have been friends for I think almost two years now, and she’s one of those people. I can—we talk all the time, and so I can send her a message on WhatsApp and be like, “Man, I’m in a shame spiral about this. I really hate this. I’m really not loving this. I don’t feel strong in it.” And she gets it. And she will hold that and not look at me like, um, I’m, I’m only friends with people who are really successful. Like, or, or like, just seem to be really successful.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: I’m not interested in those relationships,

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: And, and I don’t think she is either. So anyone who is like that in my life is—it’s really important. And I think, I’ve called social media simulation before, and I—I’m glad that you feel my content is authentic because to me, authenticity is a combination of vulnerability and honesty.

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Emily Workman: And I don’t know that it’s always been trends. Like, what’s authentic about a trend? Let’s not like mince words. There’s nothing authentic about a trend. It’s a way of popularizing a, a dis—like, and dispensing information in a certain way.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: That are like seeing as funny or interesting, but that’s not authentic. If I were authentic, I’d just sit down and talk like this,

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: Like, you know, lecturing like I used to.

Michelle Lynne: I.

Emily Workman: In school all the time and with a certain outcome in mind, of course. So I don’t waste people’s time, but, but I think anchoring into those few people who can see me and not judge me,

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: I think that’s the most important thing.

Michelle Lynne: I mean, mine is Deanna too. So

Emily Workman: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Lynne: My Deanna, she can hold space for all my shame spirals. I was with her last week in Minnesota, and flying back over to Europe is always very emotional for me, going back between these two lives.

Emily Workman: Yeah. Do you find

Michelle Lynne: Um,

Emily Workman: A cognitive dissonance there where you’re kind of swapping out versions of yourself?

Michelle Lynne: Uh, well, it’s been—it’s been like so long now that I’ve been abroad 12 years, that in the beginning, I’m sure I felt like, I remember feeling like I needed to go home and prove myself. Like I needed to give enough reasons for me to be here in Europe.

Emily Workman: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Lynne: Like, “Look, I’m doing enough cool things that it’s worthy of me being so far away.” Now, I don’t have that anymore per se, but just the big question of like, “Where should I be? Where’s the most impactful place I could live?” I’m in a smaller city right now, but I do travel a lot. But then the big question of like, “Oh, should I move? Should I, am I missing out? Am I, you know, my network?” And so I think most of the time I have peace with it. But then sometimes somebody makes a little comment like, “Are you sure?” And it’s like that little snake in your mind, you know? And you’re like, “I dunno if I’m sure.” And then I, I fly there and you see what life would be like over there, and you’re like, “Well, maybe I should be here.” And, and so it’s just, but I don’t know. It makes me crazy. I’m learning to kind of just take it. I think I’ve zoomed in a lot now. It’s like, “Today, what do I need to do today?” Because I can’t, I can’t think three months, six months, five years anymore. I, it’s going

Emily Workman: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Crazy.

Emily Workman: Yeah, yeah. It’s so true. What do I need to do today? And I think that another element of confidence is exactly what you just said, and it’s not what does the me today need, it’s what does the me tomorrow need?

Michelle Lynne: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: Do I, you know, and I heard somebody say that that’s all the discipline is.

Michelle Lynne: Oh.

Emily Workman: Putting the needs of your future self ahead of your present self.

Michelle Lynne: That’s so good.

Emily Workman: And it’s so stinking true so that you can look back with, with gratitude instead of resentment and anger,

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: At your past self, you know? So it’s like, “What does my future self need today?” I have sometimes put, um, you know, those, those aging apps that you can like age yourself,

Michelle Lynne: I was horrified. I couldn’t look. I couldn’t look.

Emily Workman: Tough.

Michelle Lynne: I was like, “Do I need to do Botox?”

Emily Workman: Everybody ages, everybody like, no, I don’t care who they are. Everyone gets older, and I’m settling with that more and more as 40 approaches.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, you do not look 40… That’s for sure.

Emily Workman: It’s coming. We’re six months away. I’m in my 40th year. I’m actually really excited about it. I think

Michelle Lynne: Good.

Emily Workman: These are gonna be very interesting.

Michelle Lynne: I believe you.

Emily Workman: But I—I would do that aging app and then take a screenshot, put her on my lock screen because she’s the one who needs present me to do the right things more than anybody.

Michelle Lynne: Oof.

Emily Workman: So it’s like, “How, what do I need to do for her today?” It’s like, “Well, she needs to like be walking at 80. She needs to,”

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Emily Workman: You know, hopefully not with this issue and that issue. So I’m gonna get my protein. I’m gonna go to bed at a reasonable time. I’m gonna make sure that I, it’s—so it’s like 115 degrees here. So I’ll go to like a big grocery store and just like lap it times and then go up and down the aisles just so that I can,

Michelle Lynne: Get your steps in. Good for you.

Emily Workman: I want to? No, I don’t.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: I don’t wanna do it. I wanna sit down and drink Diet Dr. Pepper and watch Amazon show. But you can’t do that. You just, you can’t do that. My tomorrow self would be so mad. She’d be like, “Look at this mess you left for us.” You know? And I think it’s the same with singing. I think it’s the same with practice.

Michelle Lynne: I was thinking practicing for sure.

Emily Workman: Yeah. It’s, it’s like I’ve gotta keep up these skills, and I have to practice the mental, um, I love what you said about your program where that accountability because when you go and do a high-pressure program, like my master’s at Yale, I didn’t have time to doubt myself.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: It was the most—I did like that would come in and then I was like, “I really don’t have time for you.” Like, “I have to do it. So what do I need to think in my brain to get me in a positive place?” And there were, I remember our teacher talked to one of my colleagues and I was in their lesson at the time, and she said, “Are you ready to do your, your memorization?” Like, run. They, we had like two weeks to learn our entire recital repertoire. Like they loved to put really short timelines on massive amount of rep to learn as a practice so that we could kind of fill in if a job ever came up. So she said, “Are you, are you prepared to learn all of this in two weeks?” And she was like, “Well, I don’t know if I can.” And she said, “It doesn’t matter if you can’t or you can’t, you must.” And I was like, “That’s so true, and I hate everything about it. But also it’s so true.” And so if it’s not a question of, “I can or can’t,” you have to. So now we start asking the right questions. “Well, how do I, what are the outcomes I need? How can I sort of reverse engineer where to start to make sure I meet them reasonably?” Then implement a delusional amount of self-forgiveness. There’s no other way.

Michelle Lynne: Tell me about self-forgiveness and how it’s impacted you.

Emily Workman: You know, if you can just start crying, you can talk through it. But it’s the moment when you start, you just kind of have to get it over with.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: It’s changed everything. And I think, I think when things go wrong, you just hate yourself so much because somebody told you you were not lovable or acceptable if you didn’t perform. The only rewards so many of us got as creatives and musicians were, were as a result of a good performance or something that made them look good or made them feel proud. Or not everyone, but a majority of us had those kinds of experiences as kids, um, in middle school, whatever. So you’re so hard on yourself. The reason I’m not loved, the reason I’m not accepted is because I didn’t do this well enough. You might have done it better than anyone ever has, it’s just timing or the platform you released it on. And you—you just can’t forgive the fact that you’re not loved because of you or because of blah, blah, blah. We talk about love a lot, and it kind of seems like this big thing over here. I think that when you search your body and the response you get when you are loved, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And I think we make it our fault, and you are always deserving of that. And it shouldn’t have come as a result of perfect performance or something that was better than everybody else, or, you know, something fantastical and loud. And when I recognized that of the things that happened in the past that went poorly, that made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be loved when I really decided it’s not a moment, it’s a practice, decided to practice that everything in here changed. I would be in the studio and I would laugh at myself more.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: Didn’t work. “Wow, that was a lot. Ooh, honey, I—” I pat my face a lot. “Ooh, what’s going on today?”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: “Are, are you on your period? Like, what do you need?”

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: “Are you embarrassed? Are you feeling shame about something? Are you mad if that guy cut you off and you just kind of wished he would run into a telephone pole? Like, are you still feeling angry about that? Like, where is that? Why are you feeling that?”

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: “Are you, are you feeling less than someone? Are you not feeling connected enough today?” Uh, these are, these feel like very wiggly questions because growing up, I was very like, “That was silly. That was kind of embarrassing to ask those questions. That was very woo-woo. That was very,” whatever you want to say. Not anymore. That’s the only way. It’s, it’s the only way to,

Michelle Lynne: When you ask those questions, you sound like a very safe mom to me. So it sounds like you’ve done a lot of gentle inner parenting to that little version. ‘Cause those, it is similar to me. Like all I’ve learned, I did a lot of, uh, life coaching with a wholehearted artist coach,

Emily Workman: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Lynne: And it was like, hand on your heart, gentle, “How are you? What do you need right now?” And just,

Emily Workman: That used to make me cringe. That used to make me just like, roll over. Like, “Don’t have, are you hold a—hold a crystal?” Like, “Oh, I hated it so much.”

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Emily Workman: It was too like, you know, like I was super resistant to that. Wait just a second, because we’ve got a whole bowl of crystals over there and all of these little rocks that I keep just to get myself out of that resistant mindset. I’m still not a huge crystal blessings kind of gal. But, but I keep them around because I’m stopping myself from investigating the scripts in here.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: Ultimately what it is, is these old scripts that somebody else put in there, and I’m, I’m letting them rule my life. So if I look back on something I’m embarrassed about, it just makes me sick to my stomach. I’m like, “Oh.” I just think of it like a funny computer game level. “I lost Mario Kart. Well, that was, that did not go well. I fell off the bridge like seven times.” And it’s funny, and maybe everybody else beat me, but it’s funny

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: It go, you know? And so it’s like I just can’t, I can’t drag that with me, and I have to forgive. It’s like, “Forgive, forgive yourself.” But sometimes I don’t deserve to be forgiven. Listen, here’s what I think. It’s ridiculous, and the word, dare I say delusional, to think that you are the worst thing that’s ever existed, that was the worst performance that ever has happened. No one’s ever done it as bad as me. And you probably were like functioning at about 80%, 75% of your best, which is

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: Darn good.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: You’re already—I learned this from from Chase Hughes. You guys need to go look up Chase Hughes ’cause he’s changed my life. You are already delusional. That’s already the dumbest. Like, when I heard him say that, I was like, “Oh, good Lord, I really am delusional to think that I’m the worst or that it’s as bad as I thought it was.” So you may as well pick your delusion. And there was something about that that totally changed the way I felt about myself, the way I felt about the students that come to me. “Oh, this is just so bad, everyone. I’m gonna get fired.” Like, “I have to do this huge run. I have to do every single,” you know? And it was like, you’re, you’re a little, um, what’s the word? Everything’s a little too catastrophic right now.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: And it’s a little delusional to

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: Think that’s gonna happen. It’s probably not. So why don’t we choose our delusion and think the opposite direction? And that just set me free in a whole new way, allowed me to forgive myself.

Michelle Lynne: Okay. So how are you delusional now?

Emily Workman: I don’t think I’m the very, very best, but I do think that I know how to get people from point A to point B almost 100% of the time. I’ve never had a student that I can’t affect change with.

Michelle Lynne: But that’s not being delusional. That’s accurate. That’s—that’s facts. That’s science.

Emily Workman: That’s, that’s…

Michelle Lynne: Like you’ve proven it, you know, you’re doing it with your, yeah.

Emily Workman: Is that, isn’t that not what’s in the head? You can, you can, a lot of people would say, “You have a master’s from Yale. What are you doubting about yourself?” And it’s like, that’s the whole problem is that the mental scripts that are in there are very, very, I very hard on myself. I can be, I can be very hard on myself. Um, that, that forgiveness has to be there, and you’ll find yourself doing it throughout the day. That’s also what that 20-minute timer is about: checking in. “What am I thinking about? Am I, am I thinking about past things I did that I hate myself for?” Um, I don’t know that many people will, will identify with this, but I know a lot, a lot of artists would be willing to admit, “Sometimes I regret going into music.”

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Emily Workman: Am I allowed to say it?

Michelle Lynne: You can say whatever you want. Let’s hear it.

Emily Workman: I, sometimes I do.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: Not always, but occasionally because you have to pay your bills and it’s hard.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: And…

Michelle Lynne: Of course.

Emily Workman: You can feel a lot of resentment.

Michelle Lynne: We could’ve been accountants. I could—I, I was like, “I should have been a nurse.” I’ve said that a hundred times. You know, “I should have been a…”

Emily Workman: I should have been a…

Michelle Lynne: Nurse.

Emily Workman: You would have the same feelings.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: You just can’t know whether one path would’ve made you more comfortable than another path. And so here you are. And so there again, that self-forgiveness comes in where I’m like, “I made the best choice I could have made at the time I made it. And whether that’s true or not, you can’t go back. So what are you. Narcissistically thinking that if you think about this and feel shame about this, like you think you should, somehow that will make it change?”

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: “You think you have that much power, Em, you really do.” Like, that’s such a, such a like bizarre way to view the world. It’s like, “Well, I forgive you for that, but I also forgive you for the past. Like, that’s done.”

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Emily Workman: Part of the game. Let’s play the next level and see what happens with better skills and more information. And I, I get that question a lot online. You asked what people ask me. I get that question a lot. “How do you know when to stop when you can’t pay your bills?”

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Emily Workman: Like, it’s as simple as that. But what are you stopping? Making music? If you’re, if you’re a musician, if you are someone who loves making music, never, not ever. What are you even talking about?

Michelle Lynne: Right. Once a musician, always a musician.

Emily Workman: Geez. Yeah. But you may have to go do something that is not what you envisioned a successful musician to be.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: And if shame just flooded your body at the idea of that, welcome to the club. We’ve all felt it. There’s just, you gotta pay your bills. You have a responsibility to do that. No one’s gonna shame you. Like I have a friend who cleans headlights for a living, and he plays bass around the country. Like, nobody cares. Nobody’s thinking about you that long. And if they do, it’s for a moment. I mean, uh, I mean, about the biggest, gosh, Michael Jackson, he passes away. How long did you think about that? How many times a day do you think about him?

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: He’s like the biggest, one of the biggest names in music. We just don’t.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: Go make your money. Go do what you need to do to enjoy music and, and do it the way that you think it should be done. And I think we get trapped in this idea of, we can’t let anyone know that we’re music educators because that means we’re not performers and everyone will know, and then they won’t hire us to be performers. So we have to secretly not make money,

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: To market ourselves so that we can actually live a comfortable life. I will not sacrifice the beauty of my life to music.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: I just don’t think that’s fair because I really matter, and you really matter. And like beyond this, if music went away forever, you’re still a soul. You’re still an important person. And, um, I just think we get way too attached to what it should look like. For

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: I think they’ve done a good, a good job of keeping us very trapped in this one way of doing it because it makes life easier for them. But the jig is up. Social media is here. The middleman, we do not have to ask their permission anymore. We don’t have to sit in front of a panel and ask their permission to sing for our audience. I’ve had more people hear my voice through my social media than in any hall I’ve ever sung in,

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Emily Workman: And it’s not quite the same. Obviously that collaborative, performative is really fun and important and beautiful, and there’s nothing like it, but that middleman is just not there anymore. The world is yours. Like, go get it and forgive yourself.

Michelle Lynne: This is so empowering. I love this. Um, thank you. Thank you for being so open and honest and vulnerable and saying what so many of us are thinking. And, uh, I just wanted to add to what you said, the, “We don’t wanna share that we’re teaching ’cause it shows that we’re not making all our money performing.” The only people who actually know the depth of that niche is our colleagues. So,

Emily Workman: And look at any professional performer, they all end up teaching anyway.

Michelle Lynne: Probably yes. And also because they want to. It’s leaving a legacy. It’s, it’s continuing on the tradition. I mean, what are you doing with all of your clients? You’re, you’re helping them unlock their voice. You’re, you’re impacting thousands also with your Instagram. I mean, it’s about the impact that we’re having.

Emily Workman: Right. Yeah. And I mean, they, everybody teaches or they do master classes, or they—even those in the prime of their career right now, I just don’t know why they’re so separate. We’d…

Michelle Lynne: Think they should. I think it’s a responsibility to continue on the traditions. I mean, especially with a number of great pianists passing away recently, it’s kind of like thrown me. I’m like, “Well, we gotta make sure that the technique is being passed down. The interpretation, the how we approach the instrument, the method.” I mean, who’s gonna carry this on? We have to make sure that the lineage is there. Uh, they have to teach us. They have to teach.

Emily Workman: Why? I—I mean, well, you can cut this out if you want to, but why is that such an important—I mean, I can see it in your face that that’s a really important, uh, maybe value that you have even. Where did that come from, do you think?

Michelle Lynne: I mean, the strong tradition of how we interpret, how we approach the score, how we, uh, you know, it, it can’t just be whatever. It has to be with intention, integrity, understanding style. Uh, and so working with different teachers, you get different interpretations or understandings of the music. You know, I mean, even my, my technique foundation is so excellent because of my pedagogy lineage. I came from, you know, I can trace back my teachers, and I know where it came from. And so then when you see someone else who has tendonitis or can’t do their octaves or something, and you think, “If they’d had my training, they wouldn’t have these problems.” And so the, just keeping that consistency, excellence in our art, the craft, right? It’s like passing on any other craft.

Emily Workman: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: I think discipleship, almost like we’re create, we’re forming disciples of our craft. And so when you have a good teacher, a good pedagogy, then the music, the integrity, the excellence, the interpretation,

Emily Workman: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: You know, because I mean, I even have a colleague right now, they’ll, they’ll post on Instagram and they’ll be like, “Oh, you know, it’s, I just play it how I feel. It.” It’s like, “Well, actually, that’s disrespectful. It’s disrespectful to the art form. It’s disrespectful to the composer. It’s disrespectful to the score.” And you can tell me all you want to, but you wanna feel your emotions through your music. That’s fine. But you can’t play Chopin however you want with, uh, whatever extra notes you want and say that it’s, it’s okay because then what? We’re, we’re diluting this art form, and there’s a standard.

Emily Workman: I had a, an acting coach who said, “You can move however you feel like moving, but what if how you move looks stupid?” I was like, “Fair.” Like, okay, like not always super aware of your own like movements and intention. And

Michelle Lynne: I had a German professor tell me, “You play with your mouth open. You need friends.”

Emily Workman: What?

Michelle Lynne: I was like, “Thank you for telling me that. I will close my mouth when I’m playing.”

Emily Workman: If you play with your mouth open, you need friends.

Michelle Lynne: Tell you this. That’s what he was saying. He was saying, “You need friends to tell you this. You like, are you aware that you have your mouth hanging open?” I’m like, “I’m trying to be emotional.”

Emily Workman: It’s so true. One of my, uh, weightlifting trainers, she was a ballet dancer with Meck Ballet Theater for a long time. It’s probably been a decade and a half since she did that, but she’s just super strong. She owns a gym. Like she’s it. And every time she does a hard lift because she practiced this face she’s in pain, it’s this beautiful ballet like effort face.

Michelle Lynne: Oh.

Emily Workman: So every time she’s doing this hard lift, she’ll have like a big squat with this big barbell on her back, and she’ll like go deep into a squat. And her face was like, it’s the most beautiful, stoic, squat face I’ve ever seen. Like, somebody trained you.

Michelle Lynne: That’s funny.

Emily Workman: It’s so, it’s so important. It’s, it’s interesting because I kind of dip into every genre, and those restrictions are, are not as important there. Um, you know, and you see it, it coming out in a really positive way in some cases. And so I think in classical music, I agree with you when it comes to like the experimentation, I think interesting things can happen when we do follow our, our instincts. Um, I think there’s a respect and an integrity you have to you. If you’re gonna be a, a musician, you have to at least know,

Michelle Lynne: Right?

Emily Workman: And then…

Michelle Lynne: What rules you’re breaking.

Emily Workman: Make some, yeah. Only to just like be able to appreciate. It’s like you, you can love the music you love, but if I’m gonna be a qualified, uh, teacher of integrity, I have to be able to appreciate the music. I don’t like,

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: Is that?

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: Can I listen to a Schoenberg and not be like,

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: And yes. But I can also go, “Ugh,” at the same time. ‘Cause I don’t love, I don’t love all his stuff.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: I mean, there’s some operas I would never want to hear again. No thanks. Like there are a lot of ’em actually. I don’t care for. I love Mozart, but I’ve heard so much Mozart, if I have to listen to another Mozart, like I just need a year break. Like I just need, I just need a little bit of time.

Michelle Lynne: Right. Fair enough.

Emily Workman: That’s fine. But I, I really love the experimental element, especially with kids in piano.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: I want you to have a relationship with your voice that’s unique. And if you feel inspired to do it a certain way, great. But I swear if you, if you add a riff to Puccini, we, we might not be a good match. You might, you know, go to the Modern School of Music in England. Like, go. So that’s fine. But that’s not, that’s not the studio that I want to run.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: I’m not gonna condemn people for experimenting, ’cause I think that’s how new things happen. I think people are bringing a lot of classical ideas and elements into modern music. And I, every time I hear it and see it, I’m like.

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Emily Workman: Not quite right, but yes. You know, like at least it’s getting out there, and we’re exposing people to it. So,

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. And innovation, bringing in new audiences.

Emily Workman: Mm-hmm. Retaining new audiences, which is the biggest issue for people ’cause they just don’t know what they’re supposed to be.

Michelle Lynne: Apparently 90% of people who go to a classical music concert never go back.

Emily Workman: Yeah. I think we probably follow the same, um, woman who does a lot of marketing.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Aubrey. Aubrey, she was on the podcast, uh, two weeks ago. Yeah.

Emily Workman: She’s, she’s got it down. I, I talked to our local symphony ’cause they needed a new marketing person, and I do sales copywriting also along with what I do. And so I understand the sales funnel and, you know, the, the way that you kind of walk a client through, um, sales. And we were talking about ways that they are currently promoting their seasons, and they’re just, they’re just so archaic. And I was like, “What? What are you doing?” Like, it’s just, and so even mentioning new things, there was a lot of resistance. I mean, we’re still putting flyers in gas stations. Like who’s, who’s coming? You can’t even track that metric. And that’s the biggest issue I have is that it, it’s not trackable.

Michelle Lynne: Yep.

Emily Workman: You don’t know unless you survey them when they show up.

Michelle Lynne: Exactly.

Emily Workman: You have not earned the right to survey them. You haven’t given them anything.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Emily Workman: And so it’s very, it’s very frustrating. I’m like, “Why don’t you set up like…”

Michelle Lynne: I.

Emily Workman: Big, like accordion walls in the lobby with something they can listen to, like a museum that kind of walks ’em through what they’re gonna hear, show them specific parts that they should listen for, why that’s important, why that’s cool. They did that at, um, LA Opera. It wasn’t LA Opera, but it was the symphony there. And, um, my, my current housemate right now, she’s like, “I love the symphony ’cause of that one performance, they actually told me you should listen for these four things.”

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Emily Workman: “And what they’re trying to show you. This is what’s important.” She was like, “It just opened up a whole new world of discovery in classical music.” And she loves going now. And she goes frequently when something’s available, but they just don’t know what they’re sup—like, “Tell me how I’m supposed to feel about this. I don’t know.”

Michelle Lynne: I mean, when I go to the museum, I get the audio guide because I, I don’t know what to look for unless you tell me this symbol, this color, this pose. I’m like, “Okay.” Thank you for explaining it to me like we’re supposed to educate our audiences.

Emily Workman: Yeah. And I think that…

Michelle Lynne: I.

Emily Workman: They are, are willing to be respectful of the applause. No applause in jazz concerts in classical. Like, everyone’s got a different expectation, and I think that’s okay. As long as you tell them why that tradition started. Did it always used to be that way? Like, like invent some funny script. You can talk about practice together as an audience so they don’t feel stupid.

Michelle Lynne: Exactly.

Emily Workman: You know, clap in the middle of, nobody likes that. You’ll lose their trust, you’ll lose their love of the event. They’ll have a, a sour feeling in their stomach the rest of their lives toward classical music, and I just think we’re doing a poor job. It’s almost like we don’t want people to come into our theaters.

Michelle Lynne: Because we’re elite. We have to, if we, how can we welcome people in? If we wanna stay elite? Right.

Emily Workman: Well, your elite will, will…

Michelle Lynne: Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Emily Workman: I know.

Michelle Lynne: No, but Aubrey is the one who mentioned the shaming. The people don’t come back because they feel shamed at a concert if they don’t know what to say. They don’t know where to sit.

Emily Workman: Out if they, and I’m just like, you.

Michelle Lynne: They don’t know when they can clap. They can’t bring a drink. They can’t talk. They can’t go on their phone. Exactly.

Emily Workman: I honestly, I don’t love the idea of having a lot of phones in the audience. I think especially during moments that are really like, don’t clap during one of the last arias in Tosca, please. Like emotional arias that the tenor sings. Like, oh, I really don’t want the distraction of a phone. So what if we had like prompts on the side of the stage that said, “No phones during this song,”

Michelle Lynne: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: Blah, blah, blah. But so we could help them enjoy and, and be physically involved in an appropriate times, not feel stupid if they want to do it. Like we just, we just, we could do so much,

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Emily Workman: And we just don’t. I think that we’re afraid of people who have money because they’re the ones that donate and expect to be given, have their rules obeyed. Do you know what I mean?

Michelle Lynne: Yep. Yeah, we didn’t even touch half of what I wanted to talk to you about marketing, so I think I have to have you back.

Emily Workman: We talked just about marketing ’cause it’s so life-changing, man. I…

Michelle Lynne: Especially, yeah. How you’ve been selling your course. Mm-hmm.

Emily Workman: Yeah. Than I did at, uh, university on a tenure track position. Like half as much work. It was still a lot of work. A lot of work. But, um, it just, it set me free. It, it is just a whole, I don’t love it all the time. I’ve had to set some real boundaries there, ’cause it can just suffocate you. But it’s definitely something that, um, people don’t take advantage of as much because it’s, I, they, they have to get comfortable with social judgment.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Emily Workman: Possibility of it is always there and it’s never going away. And if you can get over that and deal with it every day, get your mental scripts together, it’s, it’ll set you free in a big way.

Michelle Lynne: That’s so powerful. Um, we love to finish every episode with the action point. I mean, we’ve touched on so many things today. I, I’m gonna listen to this episode on repeat. It’s been so helpful for me. What would your action point be for everyone listening?

Emily Workman: Well, something practical, physical, uh, set a timer. Interrupt your ruminating thoughts. Make sure that they’re in the right direction. They’re not self-hating or doubting or regretting or, or shaming. And then, um, I guess the natural segue from that is just this radical, delusional, unreasonable, even self-forgiveness. Everything stems from that. You’ve gotta have it for yourself. You’ve gotta have it. And I just think that it changes everything when you start to practice that. And again, I don’t, I don’t know that it’s a decision you can make once and then it just is there. I have to decide every day, especially at the 20 minutes that timer goes off and I realize that I’m back in shame. I’m back in that thing. I did that one time. I told someone I could play that thing and I actually couldn’t. And I got up and totally bungled the whole, and every parent and high school student looked at me like I was crazy. Shame spiral. Like such a shame spiral. I forgive myself. It’s okay. Forgiveness. And I just, I just have to learn to do that as a practice.

Michelle Lynne: It’s so good.

Emily Workman: You won’t believe it. You, your brain will be like, “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that. I forgive you.” You’re gonna believe it because I’m gonna choose to think about something else instead of living the rest of my day thinking about this and worrying about this and letting it affect my confidence.

Michelle Lynne: So powerful, renewing your mind. Thank you so much, Emily.

Emily Workman: You’re…

Michelle Lynne: Where can people find you? How can they follow you?

Emily Workman: Classical Voice Coaching on most platforms, Instagram. That’s kind of where I am the most.

Michelle Lynne: Okay, everybody set a timer. Go follow Emily, and we’re gonna have you back on for marketing part two. Thank you so much for your time today, your wisdom.

Emily Workman: Thanks. I appreciate you.