4: Juilliard Teacher on How Kids Can Nail Those Auditions - Dr. Juna Bobby (RRK Podcast)
If you are a music teacher, or have a child that plays an instrument, or participates in musicals or plays, you are not going to want to miss this episode as we interview Dr. Juna Bobby who teaches the Science of Resilience at Julliard and answer Riordan’s question about how to not let her nerves negatively impact her auditions.
Connect with Juna:
MindBodySpace Podcast: https://mindbodyspace.com/podcast
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/junabobby/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindbody_space/
Juna on Insight Timer: https://insighttimer.com/juna
MindBodySpace Courses: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12uCBLWQvDP1XPqhRlsIb0UZxD2i8GrasVZpC4pPNoao
Thank you for listening to the Raising Resilient Kids Podcast where we provide parents, teachers and coaches with ideas and strategies to help kids and teens build their resilience and achieve their potential in a healthy, fulfilling way. It takes a village to raise a healthy, resilient child and this podcast gives you, as members of your village, tools to do exactly this.
For more information on the podcast, or if your child, student, player or performer has a question they would like answered by one of our expert guests, please visit us at - https://www.smarthwp.com/raisingresilientkidspodcast.
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] If you're a music teacher or have a child that plays an instrument or participates in plays or musicals, you're not going to want to miss this episode as we interview Dr. Juna Bobby, who teaches the science of resilience at Juilliard and answers this month's kids question about how to not let nerves negatively impact auditions.
Welcome to the Raising Resilient Kids. Podcast, where we provide parents, teachers, and coaches with ideas and strategies to help kids and teens build their resilience and achieve their potential in a healthy, fulfilling way. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, sister. Hello, brother. How are you today? Excellent. How are you?
I'm doing great. Thank you so much. It's sunny here in California. What is it there in Illinois? It is that you would expect. There's a little bit of, uh, flurries. It's a bit chilly out. But that's okay. So you don't want to hear that it's 65 and sunny right now, right? No, I don't. Not at all. [00:01:00] Got it. Got it. You always bring this up.
Got it. Okay. We'll just course correct. What else? Well, I am psyched for this episode, but I thought I wanted to start, uh, with David Beckham. David Beckham is really handsome. So let's start with him. Okay. So is that the all you know about David Beckham? Okay. Here's what I know about David Beckham. I know he's married to a Spice Girl.
Hey, which, which Spice Girl? Uh, Posh. Very good. I know he's a soccer or football player. Very good. And I know he's a super cutie. That's about it. Excellent. And, and, and, sorry. And I do know that he had a documentary on Netflix, but I have not watched it. Okay, that is exactly why I wanted to talk about him.
Um, I definitely recommend it. It is still out there, last I checked. It's a great documentary. Especially the first two episodes I found very enlightening and really relevant to what we talk about here. Because one of the things that I think kids don't understand when they see somebody like David Beckham, who's, you know, this [00:02:00] superstar footballer, like you said, very cute, and it's, people don't realize the struggles that they go through.
So, you know, I think most people just think he is this great, you know, footballer who everything went well for him. Sure. And I never knew this. I'm sure people who follow the sport knew this, but, um, you know, when he first started out, fantastic. Everybody loved him. Just, you know, a phenomenal athlete. And they show in the documentary about how his very first World Cup.
So he goes, he gets. On the England world cup team, they wound up qualifying for the world cup. He's in the world cup. Um, and during one of the games versus Argentina, I believe it was in the middle of the match, one of the players on the other team on Argentina, uh, well, kind of slams into him, knocks him down.
And as he's about to get up, he kind of. It's that that player, uh, really quickly, um, the player kind of, you know, [00:03:00] does a very good acting kind of falls back and the, um, the, uh, the ref then basically pulls out a red card on David Beck. Do you know what a red card means? I mean, I know it's bad, but that's about it.
Okay. Yeah. So it's not only a penalty. He's basically kicked out of the game. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Kicked out completely. England winds up going on and losing the match and basically they're out of the world cup then. Oh, geez. He then, it was, it was unbelievable watching this episode. It was the second episode of the documentary about how England just.
Turned on him. And he was the most hated man in England. People were like swearing at him as he's walking down the street, spitting on him, basically, just, I mean, just, you know, one, one bar actually hung an effigy of him outside the bar. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's how bad it got. And he was super young, right?
Didn't he start out pretty young? Exactly. He was only 23. Wow. 23 years [00:04:00] old and you're on top of the world. Oh my gosh. Exactly. Yeah. So, and it just shows, you know, luckily he had a really good team. So Manchester United was the team that he was playing for. They really protected him and did well, but he went through, you know, a lot of depression, really, really down, you know, Pretty much that whole next year.
And I think that's important to remind kids and to look up, you know, the histories of people that are really, really successful, really, really famous, because they've gone through a lot of tough times and they get through, we can remind kids of that. I think that's so important that it's not just spoose sailing straight up.
It's just such a good message for kids. And honestly, for all of us, you know, whenever we go through a hardship, I mean, that guy, I knew he was, he was like a number one star worldwide. And I know how much, you know, Europe loves. Soccer and loves football and to think like he was a star player and to be pulled down at that had to be on, that had to be unbelievably hard to deal with and to be able to go back out onto the field.
And yet he did for many, many, many, many, many years after that. Yeah. Well, shall we jump into Dr. Gina Bobby's interview? Oh my gosh. [00:05:00] I'm so excited about this. I need a doctor who works at Juilliard. This is my dream. Let's do it. Question for this podcast. The question from a kid comes from Reardon of Naperville, Illinois.
And she asks, what are some things I can do to make sure my nervousness and anxiety does not hurt my performance when I'm auditioning for the spring musical? I can relate to this question for sure. I can't imagine somebody who would be better to answer this question. Um, we've got Dr. Junabobby with us.
Dr. Junabobby is a mom MD. She's host of the Mind, Body, Space. podcast. She's a faculty member of the Juilliard school where she teaches courses on procrastination, stress, and resilience for peak performance. She's all about making self care fun. She's created this great stuff called exceptional tools for K through 12 and beyond.
There's a whole bunch of classes and books she has in curriculum for teachers and parents. It's phenomenal. Dr. Bobby, thank you so much for being here. We are thrilled to have [00:06:00] you. Thank you. This is so much fun. I wish I would have had you around when I was 16 years old, you know, auditioning for, for my musical.
So I am excited to hear what your answer is for Rearden. Me too. I wish I had this stuff when I was 16. First of all, it's like that old joke. I don't know if you guys know this joke. Maybe she doesn't the color, but it's called, um, how do you get to Carnegie hall? What's the answer? I don't know. Practice, practice, practice.
So I know it sounds silly, but um, it's not actually, it's the most important thing. for not getting, you know, hurting your performance is to practice like crazy. So if you haven't practiced, it doesn't matter how much relaxation response or whatever calming exercise you do, you're not going to do as well as you want.
And that's for anything like test anxiety, all of that. You have to study. You can't just take deep breaths and Hope for the best. There's something special about the practicing too. So you want to [00:07:00] practice in a deliberate way. It's called deliberate practice, which is paying attention, having sort of an intention for that practice, uh, the outcome you want from that practice.
So if we're going to practice for 20 or 30 minutes, you might say at the end of this 30 minutes, I'm going to get a little better at rhythm. Or, I'm going to get a little better at my dynamics, or my emotions, or, you know, all those things. And then you can, you know, before the performance, this is actually a great thing to do, you want to pretend that you're going on stage.
And you want to play it for anyone, like, the, you know, your neighbor comes over, you're going to be like, Hey, do you want to hear me play this? And when you get closer to that day. You want to kind of practice in front of other people and you know You're gonna do that whole thing like you're gonna take the bow if you're taking a bow You know when you get on stage you want to do all of that and you want to do that fake performance During the time that the actual performance is gonna be so if you're [00:08:00] gonna perform at like 8 p.
m. Or 10 a. m You want to try to do do the practice at that time? Why is that? That's interesting So first of all, we have that the whole circadian rhythm thing so you might have different moods or energy levels, right? So you're gonna practice at that same time of day. We also have eating patterns So if you're nervous and you just ate a big meal, you might might not feel so good So you're gonna practice a little bit of what you're doing before you do the performance So, um, yeah, so maybe eat a little differently or maybe eat a little earlier before you even do the practice performance.
So all these things will come up. If you do that, that totally makes sense to me. I mean, just thinking about there's so many variables, right? Whenever you're doing an audition or a performance that you can't control, but you can control, you know, that it's going to happen at 7 PM. And so feeling, what does that feel like with the light being the way that it is?
I never thought about that. That's such a [00:09:00] smart thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. You got to get close to that time. I love that one. And then also mental practice. So you're going to pretend that you're there. And that's, that's something else we can talk about how our brain gets us ready for what we're going to do next.
And that, that's that like whole, um, crux of mind, body medicine is that your brain, even if it's real or not, or imagined, it gets your body ready for whatever you're thinking about. Sure. You could maybe go into that. Cause I know you talk a lot in your classes and the stuff that, you know, on your podcast about neuroscience, about the nervous system.
If you could expand on that, that'd be great. Uh, yeah, so one of my favorite things is to use your imagination and talk about placebos. So we talk about sugar pills and placebos and how it's been used over, uh, hundreds of years by doctors and how the body gets ready, depending on what your mind [00:10:00] is already thinking, right?
So when we do that lemon exercise, right, where we imagine maybe we can do it now, if you're listening, you could just close your eyes. And pretend that you're in the most beautiful kitchen of your dreams. And there is this gleaming bowl of yellow, bright lemons. They're beautiful. You grab one out of the bowl, and you roll it around on your marble countertop.
And then you, or your mom, or whoever, gets a knife and cuts it open. And you take this amazing It smells so good. You take it and you squeeze the juice into your mouth. Now, open your eyes. Yeah, I definitely, I could smell it. I could taste it. I had that bitter taste. Yep. I was like swallowing, trying to [00:11:00] swallow it down.
Like, okay. Wow. Wow. I have lots of saliva in my mouth right now. Exactly. I have to drink some water. So our brain is, a predictive organ. So it likes to predict. That's what it's for. We all have imagination as human beings and What our brain is always trying to do is predict what's going to happen next and generally it evolved to predict where we're gonna Go in three dimensional space So that you know, we can imagine how we're gonna get there or like what we need to get ready for You know, maybe there's gonna be like wild animals on the path there, you know, so the brain evolved to predict And it gets us prepared physiologically for whatever is going to happen next.
So that's why with the lemon or anything else, like if we're thinking about stressful thoughts all the time, you know, that is [00:12:00] actually going to release the same, uh, neurochemistry and hormones and all of those things in our bodies and change our biophysiology. That's why when you smell something good, you start salivating, your enzymes start going, um, all of that.
So. Yeah, and that's the placebo effect. If we could maybe kind of take a step back, you had a pretty interesting career path, where you were a doctor in Manhattan, um, and then kind of, kind of took the change to do more of this lifestyle medicine, this, this mind body medicine. Can you talk a little bit about that and why you made that change?
So I'm a trained, I'm trained and board certified in radiology, and specifically I was fellowship trained in Uh, breast imaging and women's imaging, which means, you know, I was, I would look for cancers, basically, I, you know, I look at all the studies like MRIs and mammograms and such to see if people have cancer.
So, I was [00:13:00] working on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which is where very stressed out people live. And I was in a, in a private practice. And luckily, interestingly enough, as a radiologist, normally you don't see the patient. The doctor tells the patient, or rarely we'll talk to the patient. But because this was a small private practice, we would see all of our patients.
I actually saw every patient and they would come to me for years repeatedly and get to know them. And a lot of them had high risk for cancer. So I wanted to give them something, like, I was so happy when they didn't have cancer, but I wanted to also give them something so that they felt empowered, so that they knew that they could do something lifestyle wise that could actually prevent or lower their risk for cancers.
And, you know, most people didn't know about this, um, back then, and I would talk to them about it. It was very unpopular because breast cancer, the [00:14:00] risk increases with alcohol. So nobody liked me when I told them that, but I mean, like, you know, there's that recommended you could drink one to two glasses of wine or one glass of wine for women.
Uh, there's no minimum where that, that effect can take place where you increase, uh, risk for breast cancer. So even one glass a week at, you know, it's dose dependent. And then there's also exercise. So I would tell, I would talk to my patients about how exercise. It was also dose dependent. So if you, the more you exercise, the lower your risk of breast cancer.
And that was very enlightening for a lot of them. Nobody knew about that stuff back then. So that was fascinating to me. So I started coaching my patients on that. Uh, I also talked to them about stress management because at really at the bottom line of all behaviors, whether we're reaching for a cigarette or.
Another glass of wine or you know, if we're not exercising and watching Netflix [00:15:00] Right for hours on end binging That all has to do with how we manage stress in the end. So basically, um, I started to talk to them about stress management and at the time I had, uh, gone to the Benson Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Harvard Medical School and had met Dr.
Benson and He, he had done a lot of research on blood pressure and meditation and you know, it was the first time I saw a physician and not to mention a cardiologist from Harvard Medical School speaking about this stuff. Then the other part of it was I'm a mom and I have two kids and I've always been on kind of the anxious side and then my son was also.
a cellist, like he was a little cello prodigy, we found out when he was 10 years old. And then he was, yeah, he was like, all of a sudden he's memorizing all the huge concertos and playing them on the cello. So he would have to perform. And you could hear like a pain drop [00:16:00] and it's nerve wracking. I would be, my heart was racing in the audience.
So I just kind of wanted to help him. I didn't want to be like that pressure, you know, causing mom. And instead I, you know, I tried to, um, I definitely did cause stress. Believe me throughout my children. I'm not saying I didn't definitely did. Um, but I also gave him the tools. So, his first solo performance with an orchestra, I sat in the, in the green room and we did a meditation and I actually was so nervous, I gave him a recording of a meditation that I recorded.
So he could just listen to it instead of me. So that's what we did and it did help him. So that's how I started and I, you know, I just love it. I love kids. I love education. I love learning. I created an education company that teaches mind body medicine and So the visualization, I'm very interested in you kind of going through, cause I think it's a great tool, especially for, you [00:17:00] know, somebody who's a performer on the stage or musician or things like that.
At what age can kids start that? Like when, when can you start to introduce that? Oh, um, yeah, you can start at the minute. And anytime, like really never too young. Right. And because the little kids have such great imaginations too. When you see the little kids play, they are not nervous. Yes. And then, and then later, well, the, the, their brain starts to develop and then they start to become very socially, acutely aware of their social surroundings.
And that's what's happening in the teen brain and the tween brain. So they're super sensitive to other people at that point and how people are seeing them. So all of a sudden you can have a kid who's been perfectly fine. The mom's always like, you know, they used to play so well on stage. And then all of a sudden, like 12, 13, 14, and then they're getting really anxious and like getting stage fright and all those things.
It's just the neural development pattern. [00:18:00] This is why I'm doing what I'm doing, making sure that. As many kids and as many moms out there as possible can understand and, and teach their kids and learn themselves about their nervous system. They're brain and their spinal cord and like central and peripheral nervous system because because the nervous system changes over life, lifetime, like our brains, you can say like a toddler use that tool and it was great.
But then all of a sudden at 12 they're having different things going on. And once you can, you know, tell the kid, Oh, you're 12. So this is what's happening in your brain. The frontal lobe is starting to connect, you know, there's changes happening, there's neuroplasticity. Once you understand your brain and you understand what, how the brain changes, even though it's not easy to change, I'm not saying it is, but once you understand how those little neurons are changing connections with each other, then all of a sudden [00:19:00] you're like, Oh, That's how change happens.
That's how I can change into someone else and then and I do all these like fun things like in One of my lessons I make them bring like a baby picture in okay I say like what part of you do you see there like what has changed? I mean like you're completely different physical being yeah, so then that whole change is possible thing is a big big one I am working on a full, uh, line of like workbooks from pre-K all the way to 12 and beyond, and they're gonna be available in the coming year, 2024.
Okay. Um, I'm so excited because I want every single mom to, you know, talk to their kid about their brain. And their nervous system. And I, you know, when they sing that song, Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, there's going to be like brain in there somewhere. Because I, I am 100 percent sure that if kids understand their brain and their nervous system, [00:20:00] that so many, so much suffering can be prevented.
So much like, what's wrong with me? Like, why am I like this? That kind of thing. You know, it includes, everybody's unique. Neurodiversity is a true thing. So cool. So you said those, those will be coming out sometime next year. Yeah, and that, and I have, um, the courses out right now. And I, I'm, um, working with teachers, educators, parents, and kids take my course online.
I have digital courses. Do you have anything else coming up in the new year that people should know about? Yes, actually, it's nice that you asked that question because I'm so excited. I'm partnering with, uh, I think you know her, Dr. April Hirschberg. She is a board certified psychiatrist at Mass General Hospital at Harvard Medical School.
And she and I are going to do some stress and resiliency courses just for moms. So, we're really excited about that. Um, I mean, you know. Moms are stressed and she and I are both [00:21:00] know what it's like to be stressed moms. So that's coming up in 2024. So really excited about that. Let's end with our final three questions.
So we, we end each and every podcast with these. The first one, um, is, you know, stress and anxiety is inevitable. Pretty much, you know, every everybody's got to go through it, especially if you want to reach your potential, what Dr. Bobby, what causes or maybe caused you stress in the past and how did you handle?
What, what were some of your favorite techniques to handle stress? Uh, what didn't cause stress?
So the main, the main thing is, um, you know, again, thinking about my brain and, you know, I, I did my research in medical school in neuroscience at, uh, at NYU school of medicine and understanding that my brain could change and that I could kind of coach my own brain. And, um, that, that's the main thing. And then the tools, like [00:22:00] cognitive tools, like cognitive behavioral therapy, like breaking down your thoughts, kind of examining your thoughts, uh, seeing what's helpful and what's not, understanding that everyone has these irrational thoughts all the time.
That's definitely, uh, super powerful. Then, uh, exercise and just, you know, I did do some meditation and yoga and all those things. Anything that works for you really, you know, but mainly understanding your brain and being able to separate your thoughts and emotions from you as a person. That's the most useful tool.
Stress is actually normal. You would be dead if you didn't have stress because you wouldn't be able to get up in the morning. You need a cortisol rush to get up in the morning. Next question is on failure. So we always try with this podcast to let kids know that, Hey, failure is just a part of life. If you want to achieve anything, you know, important or special in your life, you're going to have to deal with failure.
So we like, especially talking to people like you who are [00:23:00] incredibly accomplished, a mom, an MD, a radiologist, you teach at Juilliard, you have your own business. I mean, there's just a long list of things that you have. Have you ever failed? You know, what's one of your failures that you had to go through in life?
All the time. Every day. Like with everything, right? So I love that you asked that because I just, I'm going to plug my podcast, the MindBodySpace podcast. MindBodySpace. And, um, so I had a professor from Harvard Business School, Dr. Amy Edmondson. She came onto my podcast to talk about her new book, The Right Kind of Wrong.
And it's all about failure. And she talks about failing well and how to fail well. So again, it's kind of like that deliberate practice. You can just like fail and not reflect and not think about like what went wrong and just move on. And then that's not really feeling well, you know, failing well as like [00:24:00] examining, learning from it, changing something to move on.
And then of course we know that with the brain. When you fail, that's how we learn. Last one that I've got for you, Judah, what's, you know, the main takeaway you would have for kids, for parents? Like, let's say, you know, parent can only wants to maybe play a segment of this podcast for their kid or a coach or a teacher wants to play for, for the kids that they're working with.
What's kind of one main takeaway. Maybe it's something we talked about, maybe something we didn't talk about today that you would, you would want to leave everyone with. I'm like a broken record, so, and I'm actually glad that I am now because before I was like, I don't want to repeat myself, but, uh, repetition is the key.
And I want the one takeaway is to get really curious about what is sitting behind this very hard skull and that you have a brain. And get curious about it, because if you're [00:25:00] curious, you're going to learn so much about yourself. And the brain is the thing, the organ, that runs all of our perspectives. I mean, yes, it's connected to our gut.
And the gut is the little brain. But, yeah, get really curious about your whole nervous system. It's going to change your whole life. Juna, thank you so much. That was fantastic. Thank you. I appreciate you being here. So fun. Thank you so much. Tom, when you told me that you, you know, had booked Dr. Juna Bobby for this and told me about how, you know, she is a professor at Juilliard, being a kid that auditioned for things and was in musicals, like you, you know what Juilliard is.
It is like the, What's the word? The met magnum, magnum, creme de la creme, creme de la creme. That's better. I'm gonna look like an idiot. Hence the why I didn't get into Juilliard. I didn't even audition because what would be the point, but that is like the creme de la creme. It's where the top, top people go in that profession.
And so to be able to [00:26:00] sit down and talk to somebody, um, who works alongside and works in that school, it's just so cool. And she just offered such a different. Perspective on all of this. The idea of it being that there are things going on in our bodies, in our children's bodies that are making them feel whatever which way as they're getting older.
It just was such a different perspective than anything I've ever heard to be quite honest. It was, it was very interesting. I thought, I thought it was a great interview. Lots of great information in there. Another thing that I really liked was the whole deliberate practice, which I had heard of before. Um, and it was a good reminder, you know, about having an intention for the practice, you know, so that, Hey, I'm today, I'm going to work on this aspect of whatever it is, you know, that, that I'm either playing the musical instrument or singing or even, you know, sports in general.
Um, and another one I hadn't thought of, which makes complete sense is just Doing, you know, practicing at the same time that actual audition [00:27:00] or that tryout is going to be that just made a lot of sense because, you know, you'll have an idea of, all right, you know, what time of day it is. Am I going to be tired or am I going to be energetic?
How soon have I eaten before that audition and everything? I thought that that was very insightful as well. Such a cool conversation. Thank you so much to Dr. Juna Bobby for being here with us today. We learned a lot. We appreciate you. And make sure that you check out her podcast. Yes, definitely check out her podcast.
It's the MindBodySpace podcast. Again, a huge thanks to Dr. Juna Bobby for being our guest and a huge thanks to all of you for listening. And we'll see you again next month. The Raising Resilient Kids podcast is sponsored by Happy You're Here. Educational, safe, and joyful videos for kids. Through music, visuals, and sound, your baby, toddler, and preschooler will learn about letters, numbers, and so much more.
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