00:01:43.240So let's talk about my first experience.
00:01:46.800So quite a few years ago. And by quite a few guys, I mean 20 years ago. Oh, good God. 20 years ago, I started teaching. 20 years ago, I took a vacation with my best friend, Shelly. She said on my first year of teaching, we were going to go to Costa Rica and learn how to surf.
00:02:36.260So over the course of 10 days, we were there for 10 days every day. We got up in the morning,
00:02:41.860had breakfast, surfed, lunch, surfed. And then around five o'clock, we're done. We have dinner.
00:02:48.680You're so freaking exhausted. You go to bed by like nine and you wake up and do it all over
00:02:52.420again. It was the best vacation I've ever had. I came home Zen. But here's a story that scared me.
00:02:58.380So probably, I don't know, maybe around six days in. So I've been surfing now for five days. I got,
00:03:06.100we've taken lessons. I got a pretty good hold on it. I'm doing well. Shelly and I go out later in
00:03:13.220the afternoon just by ourselves. So not with a group, not with our instructor, just by ourselves.
00:03:20.500And we go out and we catch a few waves. Now they made it very clear. They said, guys, listen,
00:03:25.240at 5 p.m. the tide goes out. I said, okay. He's like, no, you don't understand. When the tide
00:03:30.860goes out that means no new waves are coming into shore so do not be on the water when the tide goes
00:03:37.140out because you're not coming back in we're like okay no problem no problem guys I was out in the
00:03:43.280water and I didn't know what time it was I mean I guess it was close to five who the I'm not wearing
00:03:48.500a watch on the waves anyways so I'm paddling paddling we're catching a couple waves Shelly
00:03:53.640goes I'm done I'm gonna go in I said great I'm gonna catch one more guys be aware be be pensive
00:04:00.960be critical of the, I'm just going to do it one more time kind of mentality. I'm just going to
00:04:06.680do it one more time. I'm just going to try it one more time because this one's about to get me in
00:04:10.760trouble. So Shelly takes the next wave in and it's me alone in the ocean. I find it quite peaceful,
00:04:17.140so I'm not scared yet. And then all of a sudden I recognize the water, the ocean has gone flat.
00:04:26.800Now, I don't know how many people surf or have been on the water. When it goes flat, I think you're supposed to be afraid. I didn't even know I was supposed to be afraid at that moment, but everything went flat. No more waves at all coming in. What that meant, in retrospect, was the tide was going out.
00:04:43.340So as I'm sitting there, I'm recognizing no waves are coming. I'm also noticing I've, you guys,
00:04:48.980I've sort of, you know, across the way, I have a checkpoint, I have this little sort of symbol on
00:04:55.600the side of the of a pier down the way that I want to keep myself in line with that, right? And I
00:05:00.140notice I'm floating further and further and further out. So I'm like, well, I got a paddle to get back
00:05:05.900in. So I start paddling to get back in. I figure, okay, fine. I'm not going to catch a wave, I'll
00:05:11.400just paddle back in, whatever. Who cares? I'll catch a wave tomorrow. Guys, as I start to paddle,
00:05:18.820I recognize that that checkpoint I have off my right-hand side of my board, I don't know,
00:05:25.180is that the port or the bow or the stern? Who the hell knows? Does that apply to surfboard?
00:05:30.100Anyways, to my right, that point as I'm paddling, I'm still pushing further and further out into
00:05:37.900the ocean. So I'm paddling harder. And then I realized the hardest I paddle, the most I can
00:05:44.500paddle, the hardest I can paddle, I'm barely keeping in line, right? So as I paddle the hardest,
00:05:52.740I'm keeping myself in that part of the ocean. And I'm going, guys, I felt like I was going for an
00:05:58.800hour. It's probably about three minutes. And I was paddling and paddling and paddling. And I'm
00:06:03.520shouting out to Shelly, Shelly. She's lying on the beach. I can see her however far away. I'm like,
00:06:09.040Shelly, Shelly, get up off the... Nope. She's not even looking at me, guys. She's passed out,
00:06:14.620lying down. No big deal. I'm paddling. I'm sweating. I have water all over me. I am sweating.
00:06:20.440I am freaking out. In my head, I'm like, where does this take me? I don't know where this takes
00:06:26.480me, I'm pretty sure, you know, like, I don't know, Africa. If I keep going this way, what's the next1.00
00:06:34.100major piece of land that I actually hit? I'm thinking the West Coast of Africa. That's it.
00:06:39.840That's what I'm in line with. And what happens if it pulls? Anyways, I'm freaking, freaking out,
00:06:45.320guys. Paddling, paddling in my head. I'm going, one more time, Joanna. Why the hell did you say
00:06:49.240one more time? Who cares? What a stupid paddling, paddling, paddling. And guys, I swear to God, at my breaking point,0.91
00:06:56.480And I know you feel a metaphor coming on here.
00:06:59.200I apologize for how heavy-handed it is, but this really happened.
00:07:02.820At my breaking point, I swear to God, I get the tiniest wave.
00:07:08.560It was as though if there was a Mother Nature looking down on me, or God, or Allah, whatever,
00:07:16.400kind of going, oh, this girl, this girl and her one more time,
00:07:19.600this girl and they're not listening to the 5 p.m., all the tide goes out.
00:10:18.320We think mortality is a distant possibility, you know, and we do things and we put ourselves at risk and we don't even know we're doing so.
00:10:28.300but when we get out of something like that when something like that becomes dire it is not ours
00:10:36.160to say i'm going to go roll the dice again it should be ours to say okay i learned from that
00:10:41.760i know i can get through that but i also know how to avoid that the next time so moral of the story
00:10:50.560don't not do it because you're scared right i was terrified i was terrified in that moment
00:10:58.680it doesn't mean that i stopped surfing it means do it it means learn from it it means
00:11:03.680find power that you have that you never knew you had and and really importantly it means
00:11:12.400look for the little waves always find the little waves okay so that was surfing in
00:11:19.100Costa Rica. Hold on. Just for those who aren't watching me, I'm just going to have a drink of
00:11:23.220my Coke slushy. Side note, does anybody drink anything but Coke slushy? Because if you do have
00:11:30.460a talk, I have to have a talk with you. It's ridiculous. My second story takes place in0.98
00:11:36.560Tanzania. Now, I went to Africa. I took a group of students to Tanzania, oh, I don't know, about
00:11:43.340five or six years ago. And again, I'd never been to any country in Africa before.
00:11:53.480I obviously had a significant amount of education and we were going to go there. We went there with
00:11:59.560me to we. So I knew like, I was never really worried about my safety. I just had no idea
00:12:04.940what to expect. We lived in tents when we were there. There was like, it was very, very rustic,
00:12:11.200which my delicate sensibilities, not necessarily what I like anyways. So, and I was taking,
00:12:17.840we took 17 kids, 17 kids. And what we were going to do is we were going to go help build a school.
00:12:24.400Technically what we built was the foundation of one building in this school. So it took us two
00:12:29.820weeks just to build the foundation. I'm going to explain that in a second. Um, but I was terrified.
00:12:36.120I was terrified of going, being responsible. Like this isn't just being responsible for kids on a
00:12:40.560day trip. This isn't just being responsible for going to the United States. We take kids to
00:12:47.100Washington and we take kids to New York City all the time and all of these trips. But guys,
00:12:52.220those are baby trips, right? Tanzania, to get to Tanzania, it took us a full 24 hours of travel.
00:13:01.280It was insane. That alone. All right. So I'm going to tell you two stories of this because
00:13:07.860I think it deserves two stories but the first story started on the first day so I get in I'm
00:13:15.340going to get on the plane and one of the students is very sick like she's throwing up and uh I said
00:13:22.060are you okay whatever what's going on she's like yeah I'm just not feeling good I don't know what
00:13:26.080the deal is and she she'd already thrown up that day and I'm like okay but we're going to Tanzania
00:13:31.300are you sure because my my big fear was somebody getting hurt or or sick right we did a lot of
00:13:37.080serious work. I'm fine. I'm fine. I talked to her mother. Mother said she was fine. She said,
00:13:44.500no, she's going to be fine. Go ahead and go. Okay. So we get on the plane and this kid throws up
00:13:50.200for about 17 hours. We were on the plane forever because what we did is we flew to Ethiopia. We got
00:13:56.080off in Ethiopia, then we changed flights and then we flew to Tanzania. It was arduously long.
00:14:01.780anyways i didn't know how much she was sick until we got to ethiopia we got to ethiopia and we were
00:14:08.140going to change planes we had a small layover and she came up to me and said i'm you know i can't i
00:14:14.140can't seem to keep anything down i said okay um let's go try to get you like something a little
00:14:19.860bit something to eat maybe you take a grab all she tried to take it did not stay where it was supposed
00:14:24.500to stay like okay guys we haven't even been a day into the trip right we're not even a day into the
00:14:30.460trip. And so I say, okay, fine. And at that point I was with another supervisor on the trip. I said
00:14:39.840to Ryan, I go, we're going to have to talk to some sort of medical group. So I take her outside
00:14:45.200kind of on the tarmac. So in Ethiopia, you can kind of go on the tarmac where you're waiting
00:14:50.320for your gate. It's very different than here. And she's sitting out there and we have a bag
00:14:54.300and I have this guy, this random guy gave us his brand new orange Fanta because she looks so sick.
00:15:01.580She goes, have this. I said, no, no, no, we can buy one. He said, no, no, no, have mine. I'll buy
00:15:05.480another one. How nice is that? You see somebody throwing up in Toronto? Please, you're not giving
00:15:10.560them your Fanta. Lovely guy. Anyway, so we sit down outside. She's still throwing up and I'm
00:15:16.840getting a little nervous here, right? And so the guy that gave the Fanta said, I'm going to call
00:15:22.280like the medical team. Now you got to understand this is in pretty broken English. So
00:15:27.620I don't quite understand, but I understand that he's going to call a doctor.
00:15:33.060So as we're sitting outside her and I, and she's 19 by the way, so she's not a kid. She can make
00:15:39.360lots of choices on her own. This is, this is a big difference between being somebody underage0.91
00:15:43.440and somebody of age in this situation, but nonetheless, she's still my responsibility.
00:15:47.160so we're sitting there and three women come up to us I'm assuming doctors nurses I don't know0.99
00:15:54.160medical staff and we say she's really really sick she's and I'm assuming that it's from flying0.89
00:16:02.000right she wasn't feeling well she gets on a plane and just got worse from there
00:16:06.280and they speak to us and they say again in broken English we're going to give her a shot
00:16:12.600and i'm like hmm a shot a shot of what and i say gravel and they don't understand what gravel
00:16:22.200means and i'm like and so they gave me the word i guess in their language that probably they kept
00:16:29.300saying the word plasma but i don't understand what plasma means but they're like it's going
00:16:34.900to settle her stomach so they kept pointing to her stomach and saying it's going to settle their
00:16:38.320stomach. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Maggie, she didn't have any allergies, whatever. And I0.93
00:16:45.300look at Maggie and I say, listen, you're an adult. I said, you're going to have to make a choice here
00:16:50.860or is this something you're okay with? Cause there's, we're not rolling the dice any other
00:16:55.020way here. She goes, yeah, let's, let's do it. I said, okay. So they say, come on out here. So
00:17:01.360we're on the tarmac and they ask us to go to this bus. You know, those buses that would go from like
00:17:07.600plane to plane kind of thing. It was pretty big. We're like, we're going on a bus. I thought maybe
00:17:12.360we were going to go to some sort of health unit. No, no, we're going to get on the bus. And then
00:17:17.720these three women, there were three women get on the bus with us. And they say, we're going to give
00:17:22.500her a shot here. And then they dim all of the windows. So nobody can see in the bus. And I'm
00:17:28.840like, what do we have to dim? And Maggie looks at me. She's like, what, why are we dimming the
00:17:32.860windows i said i don't know for your privacy and she goes i guess i go but just to get because we
00:17:38.460know we're getting a needle at this point i said okay so so she sits down and maggie rolls up her
00:17:44.100sleeve and the nurse looks at her and goes not there this kid looks at me and goes not there
00:17:54.940and she looks at me she goes joe where are they gonna put the needle i go oh hon they're gonna1.00
00:18:00.100to give it to you sort of in your hip in your butt I said so that's why they you know blacked0.75
00:18:07.600out the windows kind of thing she's like oh god I'm like again we can say no at any time but I0.85
00:18:14.540think this is what it's good for you right so I turn around the nurse does whatever she does gives0.57
00:18:22.580her a needle fine okay everything's great these were the loveliest women if I knew who they were
00:18:29.040it's like, if the situation wasn't so crazy, if I knew who they were, you know, I'd be sending
00:18:35.080packages of thank yous. I really should be, but nonetheless. So anyways, she takes the needle
00:18:42.240and we go back in the place and she's okay. And she starts to feel better. And I'm like, well,
00:18:46.340there it is. Right. And she's like, Joe, thank you so much. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, when we land,
00:18:51.120when we finally get to a place we can call, we're going to call your mom. We're going to let her
00:18:53.780know what happened she's like yeah yeah but everything's fine so okay we get to Arusha which
00:18:59.160is this small well it's not in Arusha actually it's about 45 minutes outside of Arusha Arusha is
00:19:04.840like one of the major sort of cities where we're going to be so we get to our camping environment
00:19:11.520and she's been doing great the whole time right that whole day she's doing better better better
00:19:16.340and we're going to bed that night so we go to sleep as pretty much we get there we go to sleep
00:19:22.600and the next morning she wakes up and she's been up for a few hours throwing up again so guys
00:19:30.680i barely know where we are and what happens well now we have to go to the clinic basically a
00:19:38.040hospital to find out what's actually wrong with her and i'm like okay all right let's we gotta go
00:19:44.440right and she's like i can't i'm still throwing up she's like maybe i go home i go hon but you can't
00:19:49.400can't go home like this. We've got to figure out what's wrong. You can't just be on a plane.
00:19:52.940I go, we're going to call your mom. But again, it's not like there's phones all over the
00:19:55.840freaking place, right? At that point, I had my cell phone. But again, we couldn't get a hold of
00:20:01.640her mom for some reason. But her mom couldn't have made any other choices, right? It was really up to
00:20:07.840her at that point. Anyways, so we get to the back of a truck. Now, guys, going from the small
00:20:15.520village we were in to Arusha is about 45 minutes on like back roads of, you know, it's not just
00:20:23.120potholes. They're like divots and crevices and like, you know, splits in the earth. So it is
00:20:30.180bumpy the whole way there. And just, I was feeling sick and poor, this kid was just handling it like
00:20:36.880a champ. We finally get to the clinic. It was actually quite cool because the Aga Khan, which
00:20:42.180is the Ismaili Foundation, the Ismaili Faith, it's run by the Aga Khan. They have put health
00:20:46.740units all over different parts of Africa, and they're all funded by the Ismaili Faith and the
00:20:52.660Aga Khan and whatever. And they're put to all these places so that they can be used by people
00:20:57.420who need them. So we get in there and very quickly, she's on fluids. So they lie her down,
00:21:04.360they give her, I'm speaking to the doctor and the nurse, they actually speak quite good English.
00:21:08.580And I'm speaking to them and they say, we're just going to give her fluids because she's super
00:21:11.480dehydrated of course so she lies down she gets quite a bit of fluid and I'm like wow she was
00:21:15.740really dehydrated and then they run test after test after test to try to find out what was
00:21:20.380what's going on with her and in my head I'm like we have insurance but the way insurance works when
00:21:27.620you travel you pay and then when you get home you claim it so I'm sitting here thinking oh my
00:21:34.700goodness. We're going to owe so much money. We're going to owe, I don't even, I couldn't even guess
00:21:42.500how much money we were going to owe at that time because all of this money, all of these tests that
00:21:49.420were being done, we had to run them, right? We had no choice but to run them. So we kept, sorry guys,
00:21:56.840I'm just having a power problem. So we kept running all of these tests and he's like, I'm going to
00:22:02.740test for this i'm going to test for that and i'm like okay you got to do what you got to do and
00:22:06.220i'm thinking in my head it's okay joanna you ever you have a good size visa whatever needs to happen
00:22:11.440is what's going to happen and you're going to pay for it and then you know you'll get the money back
00:22:18.300later who cares this is it and again i'm doing a lot of math because i know what it could have
00:22:23.040cost in let's say the united states and i have no idea what to compare it to so they're running
00:22:27.700tests, running tests. The doctor finally comes in and he says, listen, what medications is she
00:22:32.360taking? There's nothing wrong with her. All of her blood's fine. Everything's fine. Are you taking
00:22:36.580any medications? Maggie says, no, I'm not taking anything. And I said, oh, except for we're all
00:22:43.160taking malaria meds because when you're in Toronto, the travel doctor said, take malaria meds.
00:22:50.300And he went, oh, he's like, yeah, stop taking that. And I'm like, what? He goes, not a lot,
00:22:57.700but a good percentage of people have a really violent reaction to malaria meds. These are
00:23:04.720preventable medication, right? And he goes, and P.S., there's no malaria here. If you go to the
00:23:10.600coast, sure, but not in Arusha, not where you are staying, absolutely none. I've been a doctor for
00:23:17.14030 years. I have never once treated a case of malaria in this region. So then we have a choice
00:23:23.360to make, right? I said, okay, because the guys back home really scared the snot out of us about
00:23:28.380the whole malaria thing. And I said to Maggie, well, we're going to make a choice and we're
00:23:33.500going to call your mom. We're going to see, does she want you to come home or do you want to go
00:23:37.500off these meds? Cause you can't keep taking them. And so we called her mom and she said, no, I'm not
00:23:42.620going to take them. We called her mom and the mom said, whatever you want, Joanne, whatever you
00:23:45.960think's best, Joanne. I'm like, oh, that's, that's a lot of weight in my lap. But again, she was 19.
00:23:51.440she can make her own choice right so she stopped taking it boom that was it perfectly fine for the
00:23:58.960rest of the trip in tanzania so there's a handful of of meaningful stories here number one i think
00:24:08.160it's hysterical how much when we we talk about going to places like africa and places places
00:24:14.160like you know the continent of africa any any country a lot of people from the west or who
00:24:18.640who have never been there, really talk about what's so dangerous. You never know what's going
00:24:22.680to happen to you. You can eat something wrong. You could do this. You could do that. What I
00:24:26.440think is hysterical is there was only two problems in Tanzania. Both of them came from the West.1.00
00:24:34.960That was the first one. Malaria mints that we didn't even need to be taking came from the West.0.97
00:24:40.380And the doctor should have known and said, start taking them earlier, even if we were supposed to
00:24:45.340take them. So that's number one. Number two, the only other thing to happen to any student on that
00:24:50.880trip was dehydration. That's it. Dehydration. And the first person that happened, well, dehydration
00:25:01.060and that one student got dehydrated, which is pretty scary, actually. I don't know if you guys
00:25:05.740have ever seen anybody get dehydrated, but it's purely like all he didn't do was drink when we
00:25:11.420told them to drink because you have to kind of be regimented about when to drink. And also you get
00:25:16.020very sick. And another young student, well, she was 18, but didn't tell us that she had to
00:25:22.920consistently eat. I can't remember the name of it, but if she didn't eat, she got very sick,
00:25:26.380hypoglycemia. So she had to consistently eat. When we were there, there was one day we skipped
00:25:31.800one meal because we were kind of trying to learn what it was like to be on a diet that people
00:25:37.300within that particular region, how they would feel being on a certain amount of calories per day.
00:25:42.080Right. And this kid didn't tell us that she had that. And all of a sudden we're in a marketplace.
00:25:47.200And this is the second story I want to tell you. We're in a marketplace packed, just packed with
00:25:52.960people. Okay. And predominantly women all selling food, right? Fruits, vegetables, whatever. And
00:25:59.820then another sort of section where they were selling actual like clothes and things like that.
00:26:03.900and this kid again started throwing up and i'm like oh my goodness and then when she starts
00:26:09.760throwing up she tells us why okay so we try to get food in her system we try to get liquid in
00:26:14.340her system and she's sitting down and she's throwing it up and i'm taking care of her and1.00
00:26:18.980and these women from tanzania who speak not a lick of english can see she's very very sick0.96
00:26:23.960and guys no word of a lie i had a woman come over to to this student give her a banana did she ask1.00
00:26:33.260for money? Nope. Did we give her money? Of course we did. But did she ask? Nope. She wouldn't even1.00
00:26:37.980take our money initially, but she said, take this. It's going to make your stomach feel better. Not
00:26:43.580in English. She said it, you know, and, and she also was very worried that my student had drank
00:26:49.280the water because she knew that the water in certain areas would might make somebody new to
00:26:54.860the country sick. But I watched this woman who had nothing except, you know, love in her heart,
00:27:03.320give this kid a banana. Then she sat with us and she very just gently like pat the back of her
00:27:09.960hair, tried to comfort her, take care of her, right? The entire, and I'm watching this interaction
00:27:16.540and I'm obviously worried about the student, but I'm watching this interaction. And all I can think
00:27:21.600is the stereotypes and the prejudices that keep us from traveling and the fear that's entwined with
00:27:28.980that is really a self-perpetuating fog of ignorance. It truly is. It stops us from doing
00:27:38.460anything significant. And a lot of the kids that came with us, they had all these preconceptions
00:27:43.960of Africa as a continent and what the countries are like and what, you know, all of that kind of
00:27:49.220stuff. Meanwhile, from those two stories had nothing to do with, like, our kids getting sick
00:27:57.160had absolutely nothing to do with the country. And then to watch people from another country0.99
00:28:03.180that we, as the West, have sort of created this delusional identity for them, and then to watch
00:28:12.920how loving and caretaking and supportive they were. I'll tell you what, guys, I've never felt
00:28:19.420so at home. I know it's such a weird thing to say. I mean, my family's from England. My grandfather's
00:28:24.520from Poland. My lineage does not trace back, but I'm telling you, I got off the flight. I got off
00:28:29.780the plane in Tanzania. I felt at home. And then every person I met along the way only verified
00:28:36.420that feeling only only supported that kind of idea right but if any one of us ran on fear we
00:28:43.760never would have gone and if we didn't go there is no book in the world that can teach us that
00:28:49.000right none i can sit here and tell you the story right now and i hope some of it
00:28:55.200you know you absorb it and go holy crap because i think that's true of most people around this
00:29:01.040planet. I don't think it's the other, right? But it's that kind of love and compassion, even amidst
00:29:08.360absolutely having no ability to communicate with each other, that is so incredibly powerful. And
00:29:15.720that changes your notion of how you see people. And so when people talk about, I obviously support
00:29:22.020education. When these people talk about education, I always include travel. And don't travel and
00:29:29.240just stay within your bubble. Travel and talk to people. Experience people. Do it safely. There's
00:29:35.880lots of places in Toronto you should be walking at night. Be aware. But don't dismiss whole parts
00:29:44.380of this world because of a preconceived notion of what it is. Because I guarantee you, nine times
00:29:54.820out of 10, you're wrong. And it's only your fear and bullcrap prejudice that keeps you from0.77
00:30:00.780actually experiencing that. So there we go. It's another fear. Afterwards, I've been to lots of
00:30:08.680different places with Metro. I'll talk about them on another episode because I think they all have
00:30:13.540stories to be told. And that brings me to today. Well, today, a lot of you already know, I'm in a
00:30:20.700play. Please pause for pure, unadulterated, sweating panic. Why am I not at play? I got to
00:30:29.900take a drink. Well, because over the last couple of years, it's been a little crazy, right? Life
00:30:37.020has big changes. COVID made us all a little crazy. I start TikTok. I start a podcast. I'm doing all
00:30:42.260of these things. And at some point I decided I'm not going to say no to things because I'm afraid.
00:31:17.440and this year, when I said, I'm going to say yes, I didn't even know we were going to do a play
00:31:23.040because of COVID, right, and he started doing it, but I said, I'm going to say, if he asked me to do
00:31:27.760a small role this year, because that's usually what he was getting at, like, something small,
00:31:31.460I was going to say yes, I was going to say yes, I was going to give it a go, no matter how bad I
00:31:35.380sucked, and then COVID, like, COVID kind of resurged, and we lost a couple students because
00:31:43.280their anxiety like they missed a lot of classes we didn't lose students sorry that sounded weird
00:31:48.200but one student actually um was no longer at the school because he graduated early so he had to
00:31:54.960fill that spot and another individual their anxiety just got so high and they felt they
00:32:01.600were so far behind in their school that they couldn't do the play so ryan came to me he goes
00:32:06.540joe listen if i need you to do this character i think you would be great at this character
00:32:13.240um but if you don't do it i can't do the play because it's really late in the play to have a
00:32:18.780student sort of jump in and sort of you know feel comfortable enough to do it i said well a
00:32:23.980i don't feel comfortable enough to do it either and he's like you'll be great at it he goes but
00:32:29.760i understand if you don't you know if you can't and i said well ryan you know this year that i've
00:32:35.740resigned myself to saying yes so i absolutely i will do it i'm in he goes take the night i said
00:32:42.900no, I'm in. I'm in. I'm going to say I'm in right now. And he goes, that's amazing. That's
00:32:48.300amazing. He goes, here's your script. You're playing Tracy in Sweat. Now, if anybody knows
00:32:54.340the play Sweat by Lynn Nottage, it's amazing. It's just fantastic. It's been on Broadway. It's
00:32:58.940been in London. It's this amazing play about sort of the shift in American manufacturing and all of
00:33:06.480the rust belt in Pennsylvania, in Reading, Pennsylvania, and all over the place, all these
00:33:11.560jobs that got lost all of this transfer of sort of manufacturing culture to not doing anything
00:33:18.440culture and then the underlying drug and alcohol issues and then it even ties in racial issues of
00:33:25.260affirmative action and how that played out in this whole thing amazing play he knew I'd love
00:33:29.760the play he knew I'd be sold by the play the play is who I am in the sense like it's everything I
00:33:35.180teach and I'm passionate about and I want guys the character of Tracy I think has the second
00:33:45.720or maybe third if not second most lines in the whole play
00:33:49.060when I said yes I didn't quite know what I was saying yes to and then I was in and then I was
00:33:59.540in and and once i say yes that's it that's it but guys i need you to really truly understand because
00:34:06.900i know some of you're like well joanna you're on tick tock all the time you do this all the time
00:34:10.500but this is always me this isn't doing the one thing that i've always been terrified of doing
00:34:17.700is is acting is pretending to be is is figuring out how to let myself go because i've always
00:34:25.380i've always wanted to be so authentic to let myself go to be something else and to risk0.72
00:34:32.100to absolutely risk looking like an absolute moron doing it i i'm not i'm not scared to0.76
00:34:41.220speak in public if i get a ted talk one day i'll speak to 2 000 people three that won't even i0.93
00:34:47.060won't even flinch guys but acting acting's a whole so now i've started and now i know
00:34:54.580a couple things. I make it very clear to the students that I'm terrified.
00:35:00.100So what it's done, I think, is allowed kids to see that everybody can be terrified of something,
00:35:07.460that everybody can do something that they're not good at, that they're risking something at.
00:35:12.100And the more that I verbalize that, it's really awesome that I see them helping me and I see them
00:35:17.860coaching me, you know? And the more that I learn and the more that I watch them and I can learn
00:35:23.380from them and what they do. It also shows students that they have a lot of power that adults
00:35:30.320can draw on, right? That's not all me teaching them. When you're a teacher, you realize pretty
00:35:35.900quickly that your job is fine, 50% teaching and 50% learn. It really is that kind of pendulum
00:35:46.160because kids are brilliant and kids are sometimes in some ways a lot less terrified and a lot less
00:35:53.360set in their ways and a lot less, you know, boxed in, if you will, than adults are. And so I've been
00:36:02.680muddling through it. And the other day, we did a scene and all of a sudden, in that scene, I kind
00:36:08.460of we did it. And it just flowed and it felt good. And I looked around the kids and I went,
00:36:14.900wait, was that good? And you had the kids go, yeah, that was really good. And other kids like,
00:36:20.140oh my god I didn't even like I felt like you were I don't know how good we were guys I don't know
00:36:26.180we're not at the play part yet but that little baby triumph doing something you're afraid of
00:36:33.620that's all you need that's the wave right not to bring it full circle but there's the wave
00:36:38.940and so when you do something you're scared of and you do something you're fearful of
00:36:44.840um and and the only reason i'm i mean there's things to be afraid of because you're putting
00:36:50.760yourself at risk i'm not talking about those things i'm talking about the things that we
00:36:55.640we consistently allow the fears we consistently consistently allow to get in our way for doing
00:37:02.560anything great and usually those fears are all about the way that we perceive ourselves0.91
00:37:07.740how we want to protect ourselves our own insecurities not looking stupid that's it0.95
00:37:13.020right? Everybody should be afraid of a bear, but we're not facing bears. Nobody's doing that,0.98
00:37:19.720right? Every single day, every single day, we can do something we're afraid of, or we can allow that
00:37:28.160fear to stop us from doing something, whether it's being in that play, whether it's learning how to
00:37:33.220play the guitar, whether it's talking to that person you're interested in, whether it's quitting
00:37:37.700a job and going for something else. All of those are fears and they're fears of the unknown.
00:37:44.140They're fears of never being good enough. They're fears of being embarrassed. There's fears of not
00:37:48.120looking, but they're all bullcrap fears, right? They're all bullcrap. And as soon as you step0.98
00:37:53.360into it, as soon as you step into it, and you want to step into it with the right people,
00:37:57.800but as soon as you step into it, you'll find these little waves, these little moments where
00:38:03.980I used to be 99% terrified of this play. And I'm sitting at a healthy 60%.
00:38:11.300I'm not saying my fear's gone. I'm just saying that's a pretty solid 40% reduction
00:38:19.420in less than a month. In less than a month, I've had a 40% reduction.
00:38:25.480And if we can do that, if we can take those fears, face them, if we can become educated,
00:38:33.580And I don't mean by studying from a book. If we can become educated in real world things and understand that the more risks that we take and the more fears that we face, the better, the stronger, the more diverse, the more useful you become, I think the more powerful we become.
00:38:53.740We don't become powerful at doing something we're great at consistently, and that's it.