As freelancers, one of the biggest responsibilities is when we have the opportunity to recommend a colleague to join us on a gig. We usually have to choose between someone who is a great player and not the nicest person, or a super nice person, and a just OK player. (Side note – is it that hard to be a nice person?)

What’s at stake when we choose one over the other? Is it just our reputation that suffers, or the quality of the ensemble too?

We take a look at some of the times we’ve faced this question, what we did, and what we wish we could have done differently.

On today’s show, we’re talking about seeing the world with a little more compassion-towards others, and towards ourselves. Because most of us musicians are our own worst critic. How do we push ourselves to practice and improve, without making life miserable because we’re beating ourselves up.

Looking outwards, how can we be supportive colleagues, encouraging friends, and positive influences at rehearsals and gigs to those around us? Empathy and Self Compassion.

Those aren’t topics that we’re that good at, or know a lot about. So we brought in an expert to walk through it with us. Our guest has a Ph.D in clinical counseling and is a Lecturer at Lynn University in the school of Clinical Mental Health Counseling. She’s Dr. Angie O’Gieblyn, and yes she’s my wife.

Thank you to our sponsor: Ficks Music Publishing for providing the hosting for this show. For your sheet music needs, check out www.ficksmusic.com

As a thank you to our listeners if you use the promo code PERSERVICE, to get 10% off your order!

It’s so good to be back here with you all again. Whoa-what a crazy week it was here. If you’ve listened to the show for a while, you might have heard that I moved to south Florida…the Boca Raton area to be precise. And this little thing called Hurricane Irma gave us a nice warm welcome. So, we evacuated and our power was out for a week, so that knocked me out of my normal publishing schedule. But thank you for staying with us.

Dealing with the hurricane was a prime example of handling changes whether you want them or not, and we chose this topic weeks ago even before we knew about the hurricane. But as musicians, we have to adapt, grow, and persevere thorugh life’s ups and downs.

And as a podcast, that’s really what we strive to embody here and why we’re here. Life in the arts is full of ups and downs. We must adapt and continue to change as the world changes. Getting bitter, jealous, or anxious about what’s happening, (or not happening) isn’t going to help you rise above it all. So we think talking about things that we’ve learned, and things that inspire and encourage us makes a difference.

In short your hosts are Anna Luce, a violinist in New York City but soon to be nomadic playing Hamilton on the National tour. Christian Marshall a violist in Graz Austria who is our deep thinker in residence, Jessica Wiersma-an amazing violinist in Indianapolis, my karaoke partner in crime and also keeping post it notes in business, and me I’m Michael O’Gieblyn, I’m a violinist in Boca Raton, Florida and yes. I’m currently sunburnt.

One last thing, we would like to thank Ficks Music Publishing for providing the hosting for this show. For your sheet music needs, check out ficksmusic.com

There are a lot of things I do to save money, like cutting my own hair…I know it’s not glamourous. But one place I never regret spending money is on good sheetmusic.  Yes, you can probably print and tape up everything from imslp, but it’s not trustworthy, and I usually just end up losing it. But at ficksmusic, you can get great editions of music, and get it fast and for a super great price.

For the month of September 2017, they are offering free shipping on ALL orders- as in, no minimum purchase. But best of, as a thank you to our listeners if you use the promo code PERSERVICE, to get 10% off your order!

visit www.ficksmusic.com

Welcome back to the Per Service Podcast. On the show today, we’re thinking about Happiness. How we can find it regardless of how the gig is going, how we can share it with those around us, instead of being a complainer. And where we can focus our energy to make the biggest change.

This is a podcast for classical musicians who want to live a creative, successful and happy life at each and every service. We know that it’s not always easy to do this. There’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of concerns about money, a lot of criticism and comparison out there. So we host these conversations to take a break from all of that, and encourage and inspire each other. And we’d like to thank you for listening and subscribing to the show.
*Show Notes Page:
www.perservice.co/30
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*Thank you to our Sponsor:
www.ficksmusic.com