Nike Athletes Salute Kobe Bryant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hi0skAwlHM

Elaine Konopka | Caspar Schjelbred

http://elainekonopka.com/caspar-schjelbred/

-- Elaine Konopka

In this article, Caspar touches on various subjects, notably fear and the difficulty of accepting oneself.

It is loaded with lots of useful quotes:

TAB: While improvising, I’ve noticed that negativity comes more easily and spontaneously to many people (including myself) than acceptance and agreement. Any idea why that is?

CS: Yes. Fear.

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CS: When you’re afraid, the default response is to say no and to close down and become smaller, occupy less space, disappear….

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TAB: Yes! Absolutely. One of the main realizations I’ve had in your classes is how difficult it is to really see, hear, and respond to the person you’re “playing” with. We’re so busy with what we’re going to put out there that we cut off our awareness of what’s going on around us. I trace it back to fear: being afraid to not be funny, to not know what to say or do….

CS: Exactly. The great tragedy of improv is that most improvisers don’t understand that they are, in and of themselves, the fundamental “offer.” So people practice coming up with stuff and get very good at it. But as far as I can see, it’s futile. Most people can’t stand being on stage and being looked at for even five seconds without having to say or do something.

---

TAB: So what do you teach about handling this fear?

CS: You have to first simply acknowledge it. Not be ashamed of it. It’s really about accepting yourself, your presence in the world. I am what I am and what I am is here. In front of you. Being in your body is the answer. Feeling yourself. That’s what we call stage presence, charisma.

---

CS: The way people improvise reflects how they are in life, to a high degree. I don’t see a lot of patience in improv. It’s very rare. There are a couple of guys here in France who do a show called “SLOW.” They really take their time. It’s not that nobody else does it, but it’s rare.

---

CS: An issue in improv is that people are too polite, too socialized if you will, and adapt too quickly to “society,” i.e. their fellow actors. Personally, I am getting better at making people meet me on my turf. But that sure as hell did not come from improv. That came from working with Ira.

Being Breanna Stewart

http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/espnw-stewart160329/how-breanna-stewart-leading-uconn-huskies-fourth-straight-national-title

-- ESPN

I actually created my dream job. I do what I love. I’m happy every day.

-- Angèle

You are the person you chose to be.

-- Paul Arden

Listen to your drum and your drum only. It's the one that makes the sweetest sound.

-- Simon Sinek

Get your testosterone up. Get your cortisol down. Don't leave that situation feeling like, oh, I didn't show them who I am. Leave that situation feeling like, I really feel like I got to say who I am and show who I am.

-- Amy Cuddy

I realized that she had not just faked it till she made it, she had actually faked it till she became it. So she had changed. And so I want to say to you, don't fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become it. Do it enough until you actually become it and internalize.

-- Amy Cuddy

I was so afraid of being found out the next day that I called her and said, "I'm quitting." She was like, "You are not quitting, because I took a gamble on you, and you're staying. You're going to stay, and this is what you're going to do. You are going to fake it. You're going to do every talk that you ever get asked to do. You're just going to do it and do it and do it, even if you're terrified and just paralyzed and having an out-of-body experience, until you have this moment where you say, 'Oh my gosh, I'm doing it. Like, I have become this. I am actually doing this.'" So that's what I did. Five years in grad school, a few years, you know, I'm at Northwestern, I moved to Harvard, I'm at Harvard, I'm not really thinking about it anymore, but for a long time I had been thinking, "Not supposed to be here."

-- Amy Cuddy

Match-to-match, the question that materializes time and again out of that fog of unforced errors and poor footwork is: "Will Serena come out of it, find her game, win again?"

It often appears that she's running on fumes, and perhaps in some ways that's true. But she is a woman of remarkable physical and emotional strength and will, and if that isn't enough, there's always that ability to exercise the equivalent of the nuclear option: that magnificent serve.

-- ESPN

This quote brings to mind what the Flow book says about emotions and will (... At least as much as intelligence, it [control over consciousness] requires the commitment of emotions and will ...)

If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you'll become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.

-- Mihaly Czikszentmilhalyi

I was so terrified that I could barely open my eyes on stage and I was grabbing onto the mic stand for dear life as the one thing between me and the audience. If you are a guitar player you have this thing in front of you it sort of feels like a security blanket. But if you are a singer, you don't have that. So it was hard, and it was very stressful, but again there was something about it that just felt like I was releasing a part of myself that was not able to be expressed in any other place.

-- Joan Osborne

An excerpt from an interview with Billboard's Soul Sisters Podcast

When you are a musician, when you are a singer, or whatever, you start out imitating the people that you love. And through that process, you find your own thing to do. So I definitely borrowed a lot from the people that I admired, Etta James, and Al Green, and all those people, but then you also bring something of your own to it.

-- Joan Osborne

An excerpt from an interview with Billboard's Soul Sisters Podcast

Just to have that kind of confidence and that kind of swagger, I wanted to be that and I wasn't that. But I was very attracted to it and if I could sort of fake my way into that as I was performing a blues song on stage, then I could kind of pretend to be that. And it was exciting to me ... I think after a while I was able to kind of own that a little bit more.

-- Joan Osborne

An excerpt from an interview with Billboard's Soul Sisters Podcast

You are drawn to the people who are doing the thing you want to do yourself.

-- Joan Osborne

An excerpt from an interview with Billboard's Soul Sisters Podcast

Le plus grand ennemi de l'homme, c'est la peur - qui apparaît sous des formes aussi diverses que la honte, la jalousie, la colère, l'insolence, l'arrogance... Quelle est la cause de la peur ? Le manque de confiance en soi.

-- Swâmi Prajnânpad

Find out what you like and what you hate about life. Start doing more of what you love, less of what you hate.

-- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Pain and pleasure occur in consciousness and exist only there.

-- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"If there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do you no harm."~African Proverb‌

-- Les Brown

Empowering individuals to tap into their greatness.

-- Les Brown

This could be a good example of a WHY.