Alexis Booth 0:05

Hey, I'm Alexis Booth, and welcome to the Breakout Booth. I was a senior manager at Google, I'm a wife and a mother. And I learned the hard way. If you're not fired up, you're on hold. I believe success is closer than you think. There's a set of skills and habits you can grow to unlock unbelievable outcomes. In this podcast, we'll explore them through real talk and bold conversation because I want to help you break out.

Alexis Booth 0:39

Hey there and welcome to the Breakout Booth.

Setting the stage - and Alexis' confession

Alexis Booth 0:42

In today's episode, we are going to explore a topic that has always felt a bit out of reach for me.

Alexis Booth 0:49

Confidence. It's a big word, not a particularly long one, but as soon as you start talking about it, it's hard to not shrink a little bit in your seat. I'm going to start off with a confession. This episode almost didn't see the light of day. Developing it has involved an unplanned journey that I did not enjoy going on.

Alexis Booth 1:11

See, the tricky thing about confidence, at least for me, is the only time I pause to think about confidence is when I'm already struggling. And when I reflect on confidence in these moments, it usually leaves me desperately longing for something I don't believe I have. And that very thing is confidence.

Alexis Booth 1:33

It's almost undeniable that I have more confidence today than I did even a year ago, let alone in my 20s or my 30s. And yet the exploration of confidence as a topic, which I find truly fascinating, it got lost in a sea of negative and disordered thinking about me being confident. As a kid, it was instilled in me that one of the worst things I could be in life is arrogant, conceited, overconfident. And the act of making this episode forced me to wrestle with deeply held beliefs and fears about the ways other people see me. So I wasn't only pondering questions like, what is confidence? And how can I help other people develop it in themselves? I was fighting intrusive thoughts. Why would anyone listen to me about confidence? What are the things that I say are wrong? Do I really want to put myself out there?

Alexis Booth 2:36

When I finally revived the conversation I had with Anthony, I came to the unexpected realization that there is wisdom and meaningful reflection sprinkled throughout the discussion. I found comfort in our words, and they helped me let go of an unhelpful story I had created around the episode, instead claiming a newfound sense of confidence about confidence. I mean, it's very meta.

Alexis Booth 3:07

Before I cut to our conversation, I'd like to quickly walk you through the way it's structured. I

Alexis' model of confidence: 5 core elements

Alexis Booth 3:13

framed our discussion using a model of confidence I came up with. It's based on the idea that true confidence is made up of five core elements. And combined, they are bigger than the sum of their parts.

Alexis Booth 3:27

The first two are internally focused, self-worth or self-love, and the belief that you can grow and learn. The second two relate to how you interact with the outside world, taking action and being intentional about how you present yourself and your work. The last of the five elements is a base that holds everything together, a sense of purpose. If it's missing, you'll find it is far more difficult to persist through the hardest moments that are an inevitable part of life.

Alexis Booth 4:05

In making the episode, I also came up with my own definition of confidence because what I found in the dictionary didn't really hit home for me. My definition of confidence is a sense of calm certainty that you can do or become anything that you want. While I don't touch upon the definition in my conversation with Anthony, I did want to memorialize it in the episode as I believe it's a useful way to think about confidence. I will also let you know my thoughts on the topic are continuing to evolve. Thanks for listening in today. Without further ado, let's cut over to my conversation with Anthony.

Hi, Anthony!

Alexis Booth 4:49

Alexis Booth 4:49

Hey Anthony, and welcome to the Breakout Booth.

Anthony Moseley 4:52

Hi, Alexis. It's great to be in the booth with you. Hold on, I think um, let me close the door behind me. It's ajar. <errrrrrrrrr - sound of squeaky door closing>

Anthony Moseley 5:02

There we go. Now we are in the booth.

Alexis Booth 5:05

We're officially here. Awesome.

Anthony Moseley 5:07

We are in the booth. It's great to be here in the booth and uh with with Alexis Booth. Very meta. And um confidence, no pressure. Okay. I'll leave my humbleness at the outside of the booth.

Alexis Booth 5:22

This - so this is gonna be a real talk. And this is not let's put on like the posturing and everything. This is actually trying to get into it.

Anthony Moseley 5:31

I'm down.

Alexis Booth 5:32

Awesome, cool. Well, so I first got to know you through the theater company Collaboraction.

Anthony Moseley 5:38

I'm in my 25th year as the artistic director.

Alexis Booth 5:42

That is a long time. But I know you are also much more than just the guy who does Collaboraction. Can you give me a little background on really who you are, where you came from?

Anthony Moseley 5:54

Why I would love to. And I have a thing that every time you introduce yourself or tell your story, you are performing the piece of art that durationally you have spent the most time on.

Alexis Booth 6:07

I love that.

Anthony Moseley 6:08

And

Anthony goes waaay back with his bio.

Anthony Moseley 6:09

so every time you introduce yourself, you pick which story to tell. Right. So and we have many different um branches on the tree. And sometimes you just skip whole parts of the tree. So I will I will choose one. Subconsciously, yeah. And so the last time before you pass to the other side, when you, you know, you hopefully you're you're you know well aged, um, that would that's your la longest piece of art that you've been working on. I was born uh I was conceived in uh Oklahoma. Uh and born

Alexis Booth 6:45

We're really starting all the way at the beginning!

Anthony Moseley 6:48

Uh well, I was gonna I gotta pick my moments here, you know.

Alexis Booth 6:51

Yeah, let's go for it!

Anthony Moseley 6:53

So I was I was, yeah, that's the beginning, right? I was born in Peoria, the son of a Vietnam veteran and golf pro. My mother was an all-state athlete and and a great mom. And I grew up in the North Shore of Chicago. My dad's Vietnam PTSD reared its head and shook up my family, I moved to Stanford, Connecticut after my freshman year and high school. And then I went on, yeah, then I went over to the University of Notre Dame and I was a finance major.

Anthony Moseley 7:25

I'm the Anthony James Mosley III. I'm the firstborn son of a firstborn son. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be successful and make money. And once I made my first 10 million, then I would turn the boat around and decide to pursue uh a life that um maybe had some joy and fun in it.

Anthony Moseley 7:47

And then shortly after getting out of school, I read too much Deepak Chopra, and I realized that I had it backwards. And I started pursuing this, you know, really huge desire I had to be a storyteller, to bring people together, events and story and theater and acting and film and music. And I um went through uh a program called the Stephen Ivcich Studio here in Chicago, where I kind of got my acting toolkit and I developed my own little theory that any piece of art is only as good as the artist's willingness and ability to share themselves. So let's make space where we can be vulnerable and not judge ourselves, and we can really collaborate in a free way.

Anthony Moseley 8:41

And then I got cast in Collaboraction's third show as an understudy, and and uh yeah, I was that guy that uh, you know, I got I was the understudy, and one day at rehearsal, uh, the gentleman in in the role had like a conflict, and I it was like my second rehearsal, and they said, get in there, and I basically stole the role away from him. They let him go.

Alexis Booth 9:03

Oh my gosh!

Anthony Moseley 9:04

Yeah, and then I really dove headfirst into the thing, and in October, I became the artistic director of the company, and I really created a vision to make theater exciting and accessible and energized while also unpacking some of our deepest, most critical social issues. And and you know, being the son of a Vietnam veteran who saw a little too much action always had made me more interested in dealing with our trauma and our shared pain in hopes that by bringing it out of the darkness that we can maybe together we could heal and move forward. You know, I have my wife is my greatest collaborator and partner. Her name is Sandra Delgado.

Alexis Booth 9:52

She is amazing.

Anthony Moseley 9:53

She is. Um, she is. She's a writer, singer, actor, dancer. And the two of us built a life together, you know. And it was really important to have each other to do it because it could be daunting to um, you know, say, I'm gonna be a professional artist, me and my finance degree. And along the way, we've just I've had incredible joys and relationships, and you know, it's been really, really great. At times quite difficult. And along the way, I've done a bunch of TV and film and got in SAG and and done a lot of important things. And I've just I've created some mental tricks for myself to uh stay confident and to and to really not get lost in fear and doubt and all of those things, which are critical for survival and beating the you know, the rush at at the grocery store, but really don't serve you when you're trying to really connect with other people.

Alexis Booth 10:55

Wow. That you went a lot deeper there. Thank you for going into all of that. I do recall you talking about having a quarter life crisis, which I think is perhaps that shift from your finance degree over into the the world of.

Anthony Moseley 11:10

That was my my first quarter life crisis, and then my second quarter life crisis got me into theater that was really about it's about that social change part, about really looking at some of the way things are that just aren't right, and really devising experiences and stories and sh creating space for sharing that inspire new knowledge and empathy, dialogue and action. And that's kind of what we're all about at Collabor Action. And luckily for me and the team, we've had 20, the company is actually 28 years old. So uh coming up on 29 next month. So we've had a long time, we've had a nice runway to develop and to be able to then uh reap the benefits of of that long gestation period to become something unique, I think, and valuable to the city and our little blue dot.

Alexis Booth 12:04

It's all interesting because as we talk about confidence, there's the inside and there's the outside -in view.

Art and impact with Collaboraction

Alexis Booth 12:10

Collaboraction is well celebrated, but perhaps the the easiest to look at is you've now received three Emmys for the work that you did on Trial in the Delta.

Anthony Moseley 12:22

Yeah, we we uh adapted the missing trial transcript of the State of Mississippi versus the men who killed Emmett Till. And the court reporter never filed the transcript. So what happened in that courtroom in Tallahatchie County in 1955 was not public. And Marion Brooks of NBC 5 Chicago found it while working on a on a series and and brought it to me. And I brought on my collaborators uh Willie Round and T Riley Mills, and they um adapted that into a screenplay that we filmed in one day with NBC at the old Jerry Springer Steve Harvey studio. Yeah, right next to the Judge Mathis. Like we had our courtroom, and then there is the Judge Mathis courtroom on the side.

Alexis Booth 13:12

Oh my gosh, that's so wild.

Anthony Moseley 13:14

Yeah, it is. It is. And and um if those balls could talk. And then we went on to stage it as an immersive play at the DuSable Museum. And so it's just an honor to be able to serve the excavation of that important material that was a big part of the civil rights movement.

Alexis Booth 13:35

A couple of the other things, the pay equity work that you're doing. I mean, actors, stage directors, and everything, in so many places still, they are not getting paid. They're doing free internships, and um, it's not a sustainable place to work.

Anthony Moseley 13:51

Yeah, we pay everybody a minimum of $18 an hour across the board.

Alexis Booth 13:56

And including also um, do you call them summer internships or you sponsor --

Anthony Moseley 14:03

Well, we we have a program we call it The Light, and we we train and mentor them to create their own pieces of theater and music, spoken word, dance to inspire new knowledge, empathy, dialogue, and action. We call that KEDA around the social platforms that they are most passionate about. And so, yeah, that's been really, really special. And we're gonna be expanding that work quite a bit in the next few years.

Alexis Booth 14:33

It's awesome.

Alexis Booth 14:34

Let's bring this episode back to confidence.

Element 1: Self-Love

Alexis Booth 14:37

I think the most natural place for us to start is what you brought up to me last week, and that is the topic of self-love. Can you share more on this, what it means to you and how you see it all connecting to confidence?

Anthony Moseley 14:53

Yeah. I mean, to me, you know, not just loving yourself, but really accepting and celebrating who you are is foundational to all relationships, all public interactions. And I'm sure that sounds cliche. Let's go dig in a little bit more. For me, it really comes down to embracing what maybe even you think are your weaknesses. There'll never be a better you than you. Ever. Yep.

Anthony Moseley 15:33

Just to be born healthy is one in a trillion. You know, they if you take the possibility for all the DNA combinations that could ever exist, the ones that do exist are a tiny percentage of the total possibility. So just the fact that our DNA and our ancestors came together for us to be made, we're walking miracles.

Anthony Moseley 15:59

And we get tough on ourselves and we let other people's fear and jealousy sometimes get to us and make us self-conscious. But if you can take those things that people made fun of you for in elementary school and high school, and really say, you know what? That's what makes me me. It's okay. For me, these are things like just that I'm loud, I have a big head, I have a belly, I got I got a good belly on me, I am going gray really fast, you know, all you know, all that that I can just, you know, anyways, I won't go through all my faults right now, but you get the idea. Um, so if you have issues accepting and loving yourself for those things, I really recommend being honest and talking to the people that love you about that.

Alexis Booth 17:08

And maybe a therapist.

Anthony Moseley 17:10

Yeah, oh, definitely a therapist, yeah. And you know, our our lives are scarred by pain and loss, and those things can can really hurt us, but we can also use those things to be major points of growth and personal assets. And if you're listening to our voices right now, you know, you you are it, and there will never be anything that comes close to you that is better than you. And please love yourself. We love you. Yeah, yeah.

Alexis Booth 17:49

When I think about self-love, especially now that I'm a parent, you know, I have a five-year-old and a nine-year-old, so you know, we still have pretty young kids. You know, I do really think about the idea that as a kid, so much of who you are and who you are becoming is shaped by the people around you, the external validation of, oh, you're good at this thing and keep on doing this. There is this period of your life where you're moving away from the validation of everyone else, even getting, even if you're you know, graduating high school, graduating college, this is all other people judging your work and deeming that you've done the thing, you you deserve the grades, you deserve the degree.

Alexis Booth 18:35

There's like this point at which you shift and and you actually have to work on coming up with your own belief and values about yourself that are not based on what other people are saying and telling you. It's a really difficult process because it part of that is exactly what you're talking about. I have, I have all sorts of issues and vulnerabilities and other things that are not the best, but but you're right, they're my faults. They're they're the things that also make me me. And I can, I have chosen to work on some of them, but I do think that part of the whole journey of life, there is a point at which you actually have to shift over and take inside. And if you don't, you're now at the mercy of what everyone else is telling you, and that's the only thing that matters. And I know I've I've definitely had a few points in my life where I've really, really struggled with that. I had to do a lot of work of really figuring out who am I, what, what are my values, what do I care about, what makes me special, and really try to get that sense from within and get comfortable with it.

Anthony Moseley 19:50

Yeah, there's so much there, and I want to echo, you know, those first two years, those first five years, are so important. And that does tie back to your comment about therapy. As far as making that change, you know. John Wooden, the great basketball coach, would say, the past is behind us. There's nothing we can do. It's done. The future, the only way to impact the future is today. Make each day the best you can. And then go to sleep and do it again tomorrow. Make each day a masterpiece. You know, if you can have a week where you have two or three really good days, that's a great week. And so it's tough. And so how do we take these thoughts and feelings and even subconscious urges and then turn those into actions day in, day out? I think that does circle back to confidence. And we're going to talk about

Element 2: Intentional learning

Anthony Moseley 21:05

that.

Alexis Booth 21:05

So the second one of those inside your head kind of aspects of confidence that I put in my model was your ability to do and grow. So meaning today you have competencies around certain things, whether it's knowledge or actual abilities, but not only that, your ability to continue growing and pick up additional skills. Can you connect with that? Any thoughts around that one?

Anthony Moseley 21:29

Oh, yeah. I mean, when my daughter Stella came home from Kindergarten, she said, they taught us about growth mindset today, Daddy. You know? And I was like, oh wow. Yeah, that's a good idea. Just because you can't do it right now doesn't mean that you can't do it in the future. And if you don't try or work towards it, you will never do it. There's no doubt about it. Wayne Gretsky said, you will miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Look at most of our heroes took a chance, put 10,000 hours into something, and took a huge chance, and life happened, and destiny, you know, we have to give it a go.

Anthony Moseley 22:18

So we have to be okay with failing, missing, trying, and learning. It's uh, it can be scary, especially in in the beginning, when you're just trying something new, it can be terribly um frustrating and embarrassing. And most of us, and that's why they call it craft. Because you have to develop it, you have to, you have to hone it, and you have to, in some instances, if you want to be great, you have to be a little obsessed. You have to really be willing to go harder and further than the average person because you have this drive and interest and you have something you want to share with the world, and you want to share it at a level that you feel inside of you. And it takes sometimes a long time for your hands and your mouth and your body and your brain to be able to actually make the feeling for other people feel like it does inside of you.

Alexis Booth 23:16

When I was younger, I was much more willing and able to do hard things. Um, there was a point, especially after I became a mom, that I had acquired and amassed these wonderful things that were also obligations. I was now married. I had a mortgage. I now have these two children I have responsibilities for. And this was something I did not notice as it was happening.

Alexis Booth 23:45

But I finally noticed at a point when I tried, I took on a new role and I was having a really hard time learning some like core new skills. And I realized I had stopped practicing doing new stuff. And I think a lot of it is because it got scary because if I screw up, I have so much to lose now. There's like an ease of when you're when you're young and broke, like, who cares? Whatever. And like even the financial planners are like, oh no, that's when you're supposed to take risks. Like, go big and just like try the thing. But then when you're like in your 40s and you've got all this stuff going on, and you're like, I can't take a risk. The stuff that all brings me so much joy and it's beautiful, and I'm so thankful that I have these things. There is also this like flip side of it, of it also can feel overwhelming and weighty in a way that can also be scary to try and do things. Cause like, if I screw up, like, am I gonna get fired?

Anthony Moseley 24:52

Society, media tells us that you know, as we get older, we become not just less able to change, but really deprioritized. And this ties into even ageism, you know. Yeah, that's what I and and it starts early. It's starting earlier. There are 20-year-olds who are like, I should have started playing guitar when I was 10. Uh, it's too late. I'm too late to be uh of this or that or the other. And um, and you see it, you see, you meet people, you know, and if when you have children, it just it accelerates it all because you are really deprioritizing yourself. They have to eat before you eat, you know, they have to, you know, you spend all your extra money on them and their growth. And it's and I find, oh, these people who who like you you see a photo or a video of them from 25 years, and you're like, that's a different person. You that person was fun and wild and creative and alive. And I you're amazing, but you're amazing, but you know, and and of course I never say that. And there are I may be one of those people on some days, no doubt. But um the the most interesting elders I need are the ones who are still learning and changing, and they make me say, Wow, I want to be like them. And it's it's so we have to, you know, lifelong learners. No, it's real. Because, you know, here's the other thing.

Anthony Moseley 26:37

My daughter is 17, and she's in high school, and we're looking at colleges.

Alexis Booth 26:43

Wow.

Anthony Moseley 26:44

And and for all the talk we've done and the thoughts uh we've had about where to go to school, what to study, what to major in, and what to project for your life in the dawn of just next level AI that we are in right now, which they say the great technological shifts of the last you know 300 years are gonna be electricity, internet, AI. And AI is supposed to be bigger than both of them. I can't even fathom what that means. But as a 17, 18 year old, I think what's most important is that you learn how to learn.

Alexis Booth 27:28

Oh, definitely.

Anthony Moseley 27:29

You know, absolutely. The jobs aren't even invented yet. So you need to

Alexis Booth 27:33

Well, who even knows what's next?

Anthony Moseley 27:36

Yeah, yeah.

Alexis Booth 27:36

We we could easily go on a very, very long dialogue about AI. AI is beautiful and terrifying in the same breath. I'm gonna come back into the uh topic here.

Alexis Booth 27:47

I love some of the quotes. It's making me think of the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today. Um, which starts sort of a nice little segue into point

Element 3: Taking action

Alexis Booth 28:00

number three in my model, which brings us into the outside world and interacting with it, taking action. You've already sort of let into it with a lot of the things you're talking about. Anything else?

Anthony Moseley 28:13

Oh boy, I have a couple things. I mean, our family makes goals. We do lifetime goals, top five lifetime goals, top five five-year goals, top five one-year goals. We do one year, five-year lifetime, five each, and we do that once a year, and we share them and we put them on the fridge.

Alexis Booth 28:36

Oh, that's so cool!

Anthony Moseley 28:38

Yeah, and then the next level is tactics per goal, and then reviewing that as often as possible, ideally daily. Subconsciously, it'll get in there now. Um, so that just helps create your own a little bit of a roadmap. A trick that I do, if I really want to do something, I'll tell somebody. I'll I'll put it into the universe.

Alexis Booth 29:04

Yeah, you manifest it.

Anthony Moseley 29:06

Yeah, I'm doing this. And actually, I told my dentist about my new play about cancer and my dad and the meaning of life. Who's the I had this play in my head for a couple months? I told them about it. I think I was trying to also like just keep him out of my mouth, you know. And so I, you know, they said, What's your next project? And I was like, Oh, I never told nobody this one. Let me go for it. And then I got out of the appointment, I got in the car, my teeth were all clean, and I was like, wait a second, what if I set the play in my dentist office?

Alexis Booth 29:41

Oh my gosh, yeah.

Anthony Moseley 29:44

And that was the show. It became the and then the dentist in the whole office came to the show. So I think it's important to get it out of your head, you know, write it down, but even more so, tell somebody and tell somebody who's gonna ask you about it in a month or two, you know.

Alexis Booth 30:01

We're social beings, yeah.

Anthony Moseley 30:03

Yeah, for me, it's like the conversation is the soil. Turn in the soil, you know, every now and then we plant the seed, and then it turns into something great. And if you don't get it out of your head, it'll never get into the soil. And the last thing I'll say briefly is also intuition. It's so important. It's a completely untapped part of our psyche. You know, our stomach is sending messages to our brain all the time and not just about what we want to eat. You know, that's why they say trust your gut. Intuition, the feeling of I should go on that trip, or I should pick up the phone and call that person. Tuning into your intuition and actionizing your intuition is a huge key to making manifesting.

Alexis Booth 30:54

Yeah. I love a lot of the things that you just talked about. The conversation and the planning is where you're moving into I will do this. Those are the commitments that you're making. We do the things that we say we're going to do. We do the things that we actually start tracking that we're doing. And I think that is a really good way to solidify it and start moving toward the actions themselves. Divvy it out into the little or the smaller things. Because especially if you have a big thing you want to go do, it's not like you can go eat the whole what, eat the elephant, isn't it? You're supposed to like

Anthony Moseley 31:32

One bite at a time. Yeah.

Alexis Booth 31:33

Yeah. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Um, so I love what you've just described. You know, I think the other part about taking action, usually the only time I'm thinking about confidence is when I don't have it. Either I'm I'm noticing in myself the lack of it, or I'm noticing in someone else that I admire, that they have this thing, and like, oh, it's like a sometimes it can show up as like a jealous or a thing, a thing that I'm envious of. But the reason that I see it in another person is because they are doing the things. They've published the book, they've shown up on a stage, they're this big presence, they're doing things that are noticeable, they're making changes that, you know, are trickling across the universe of all of the things. It's because they are actually taking those actions. Sometimes you don't want to do it. You just got to do it.

Anthony Moseley 32:26

Yeah, you got to get on the other side of it. You know, there's those things on the to-do list that you never get to. And on the other side of those things are a bunch of stuff you want to do, usually.

Element 4: Deliberate presentation

Alexis Booth 32:36

Yeah. All right. So let's move into number four, which is an interesting one because you and I were debating whether or not this warrants its own thing or not. I think it does. I'd originally called it performance, but I think it's bigger than simply performance. It's how you present all of the things. You need to make them accessible for other people to receive them. Any thoughts on that?

Anthony Moseley 33:02

You have to definitely think about the perspective of your of your audience or the person receiving your communication. And that is of the utmost importance is to really in theater, what what I used to say, and I still believe it, is that we would make shows for like a 10-year-old who had the cumulative wisdom and life experiences of all 4,000 people that were going to come to the show. And we would think about that Uber audience member in a youthful mind and really make sure that we are tending to their experience.

Anthony Moseley 33:45

Now, at the same time, I also believe that you have to share yourself deeply make yourself vulnerable to transmit cleanly and powerfully to that audience member. If you're hiding stuff, I mean, you know, at some point, sheer talent can get you really far. But when Dave Chappelle starts talking about his personal stuff in his life and things that he went to, even his comedy is better. And when a photographer is, you know, capturing moments that reflect their own hopes and fears, the work seems to be illuminated differently. Same thing with painters and writers. So that's all really important.

Anthony Moseley 34:39

At the same time, and I'm talking about artistically, not necessarily pitching uh a business proposal or a partnership or a relationship. But artistically, it's also important to not change or bend the thing that you're trying to share to accommodate somebody else. So I guess there's a dynamic tension there. And if you don't have both sides pushing, being the I am making this for you with you in mind, and this is the thing that is coming out of me that I don't want to compromise for you. And that's how you can get some really audacious piece of art, you know, great masterpieces of writing or film or music that is singular and unique.

Anthony Moseley 35:38

You know, David Foster Wallace wrote these epic, huge books. And I'm sure there were people who were like, Man, nobody wants to read this. It's too long, it's too much. What are you even talking about? You know? But he was also very specifically crafting every word for the reader. So I think there's a combination there. And like this goes back to never being another you than you. Nobody will ever perform, the way you show up and share is singular. So don't try to be like other people. Try to be like the best, most unique, special version of you.

Anthony Moseley 36:21

Bob Dylan is a great example. Everybody makes <makes comic version of Bob Dylan singing, bah dah ba dee ba dah> If he didn't sing like that, he wouldn't be Bob Dylan. You know what I mean?

Alexis Booth 36:32

I'm trying... it wasn't Bugs Bunny who you were just sounding

Anthony Moseley 36:35

Like Elmer Fudd, baby! Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit Oh my gosh, I'm losing it over here! Everybody's gotta get stoned

Alexis Booth 36:47

Oh my god. So um I hear you on the tension. And in the business sphere, you actually also need to hold firm. There were plenty of times where customers were, I'm the customer, I'm right. And it's like, actually, this is what our product really does, and the purpose and the value of it. And I want to help you actually unlock things that you don't even understand that you don't understand. It's like the unknown unknowns to them. And like bringing them to the other side, it's surfacing things that people don't even know that they don't know.

Anthony Moseley 37:20

It's just not watering down the you-ness of what you're bringing to the table. Now, to what you just said about clients, there is a point where if you're in the restaurant business, a waiter, bartender, you learn that when you say no to the customer, your tips go up.

Alexis Booth 37:36

What?

Anthony Moseley 37:37

Yeah, it's a real thing.

Alexis Booth 37:40

Actually, I remember the most productive and like powerful meeting that I ever sat in was one where I told a CIO, no, we can't do that. In fact, you need to do this thing that he didn't want to do. And suddenly he was leaning in to the conversation. Yeah.

Anthony Moseley 37:59

Yeah, because a lot of people with power are walking around looking for someone to be honest with them. And so there's big rewards to have if you have the courage and the confidence to can I have that with the sauce on the side and instead of broccoli. Can I? No, you can't do that. Our chef is special. They design this for you. And if you don't like it this way, maybe this special restaurant. Or go, yeah, get something else, or go to a restaurant.

Alexis Booth 38:33

Yeah.

Anthony Moseley 38:34

Which is an example of bending to the client, right? Like the and then, oh, I went to this restaurant. They made me have a mustard sauce that I didn't know I even like mustard sauce.

Alexis Booth 38:42

Yeah. I'll also share a little story here on, I think it's almost more the performance act of confidence. One of the best possible things that I think people can do if they are looking to develop confidence is to take a public speaking class or a presentation skills class. I went to this class, and the woman teaching it, she was like, Yeah, you're, you're, you're good at presenting. This is good. But Alexis, I'm going to give you some very important advice. You need to stop tilting your head and you need to stop playing with your hair because what is going on right now is you look like you're flirting with me as you're giving me this story.

Alexis Booth 39:27

I do think that part of confidence is how you carry yourself. And this is literally the way I show up to the world, and the way I present myself is how the world sees me. And I think I show up as a hell of a lot more confident ever since I took that class 15 years ago.

Anthony Moseley 39:45

If we if we may, I'd like to just take a moment to talk about that class.

Alexis Booth 39:49

Yep.

Anthony Moseley 39:49

So, really, as a theater director, I would call that you went to rehearsal. And doesn't it make sense if you're gonna perform that you should have a little rehearsal? Rehearsal. Is the space where actually the thing gets made. And if product equals process, then rehearsal is it. So if you need to do something public in front of other people, you really need a rehearsal. And it has to be a real rehearsal with a, you know, somebody who's really in the role of what I would call director or coach or teacher that can bring their expertise to the table and give you real feedback.

Alexis Booth 40:28

Yeah, there's so much more I want to talk

Element 5: Purpose

Alexis Booth 40:30

about there. But let's move on to number five, which I was talking about is sort of a core base ingredient upon which everything else flourishes or it doesn't, which is purpose. So when you think about confidence, do you think purpose ties in? How so? Thoughts?

Anthony Moseley 40:50

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was the great thinker about connecting, um, exploring grief in the afterlife and death. And she is the one who came up with the five steps of grief. She had a partner, I cannot remember his name, but after she died, he went to her family and said, Elizabeth and I had had found the sixth stage of grief. And it's really important. And I am pitching you with her in mind, she's talking to me from the other side. And the sixth stage of grief is purpose. Without purpose, you have no traction.

Alexis Booth 41:35

Yeah.

Anthony Moseley 41:36

You have no - you're not gonna be able to run the marathon. It is the battery and the compass and that uniquely human thing that will you know allow you to do the thing that only you can do and that maybe you didn't even think that you could do. So, yes, and and and often the purpose it does tie back to our early years. It ties back to our trauma. And in many ways, I can attribute a lot of my purpose to being the son of a Vietnam veteran and to wanting to, you know, make decent usage out of this little amazing life that I have. And remember that it's that I'm just a little tiny vibration in the wave. But yeah, it's all about purpose. And for you, embarking on this new endeavor.

Alexis Booth 42:43

Who knows what it is, right yet?

Anthony Moseley 42:47

Taking action. You know, I'm sure that purpose has been a compass for you, right?

Alexis Booth 42:54

Definitely it has. When I'm thinking about purpose, I'm thinking about what's your why? What, you know, what's the thing that really drives you. Ultimately, for me, the places where I felt like I've made the most difference is when I'm sharing my stories with people who are saying, Oh, you had that too. Oh, and I can get past that. Or, you know, I'm I'm giving people another possible pathway to do things.

Alexis Booth 43:24

But I always had this innate desire to be loud and boisterous and like get on stages, even though for a long time that'd be like, I don't know what to do up here. This is frightening. But like, ah, I like to be up here! You know, like I'm I'm now at a microphone. That I mean, it it feels pretty natural for me to do in like this form that it's showing up in. I'm pursuing topics that I want because I don't know what's next. I don't know exactly where I'm going. It's been an interesting exploration in sort of trying to understand well, what what even makes up these things and are they important? I am growing. I'm learning about things that I never had the time or willingness to dig into, but I'm I'm also trying to share this with other people because maybe it's useful to other people too. I don't know. It's fun and it's taking action, and it's you know, there's the a lot of this is like the performance nature of things because I just I love I love that.

Anthony Moseley 44:22

You're dancing around a lot of themes and words that resonate with me in different ways. And so that's my intuition saying, capture that, grab that, speak on that. So, first, to love and to be loved is the greatest human desire and experience.

Alexis Booth 44:40

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Moseley 44:41

And if you don't love yourself, you how can you love somebody else if you don't even love yourself? And then how can you expect them to love you if you don't?

Alexis Booth 44:49

Right.

Anthony Moseley 44:50

And then, so I believe that an artist should make the work about the things they have the most to say or feel, or the thing, and and if you're a you're trying to make change, you're trying to change the way we are as people so that we can be better to one another and make the world better for everyone, then it's the things that you can that really irk you about society, you know, for if the things that keep you up and that you really have passion for, if you then reverse engineer something to raise questions and ideas and feelings around that thing, what we do, what I do is I then spin form and content.

Anthony Moseley 45:42

So I, what's the thing we want to change in the world? Reverse engineer a story or an experience or a happening for people. And then how do you okay? I want uh, okay, the impact of divorce on children is something I have a lot to talk about, right? Because my parents got divorced. Yeah, we know about some of my trauma. So that's like something I have a lot to give and to share, and a lot of feelings and memory and trauma and pain and joy at times. So if I wanted to make a show for other people to raise questions and ideas and feelings about them, I would take content and form and I would spin them. So the form would be like, and what, how is this story taking place? Is it a play? Is it a monologue? Is it a podcast? And then the content would be, you know, who are the characters or what are the colors, or until they just my intuition says, that's it, you got it. The purpose shows up in the identification of the thing, the feelings, and then it pushes forward the process to identify the content and form, and then manifest that. And you know, like black uh what's anti-gravity without dark matter, right? Gravity, we'd all just be stuck into each other. It's the it's purpose is kind of the dark matter of action. It's the thing that keeps it moving forward and alive.

Alexis Booth 47:19

I think there's a lot of that that resonates for me when I put purpose in here, or caring. If you don't have those, you're never going to be able to persist through the toughest moments. And there will always inevitably be hard moments of either the world happens to you and things get hard, or you're literally trying to do a very, very difficult thing that you've never done, or it's scary. There's hard bits in everything, and I think it's the purpose is what is the driving force that keeps you going even when stuff gets tough.

Anthony Moseley 47:54

Yes.

Advice on how to boost your confidence

Alexis Booth 47:55

All right, why don't I leave you with a last parting question? Someone came up to you and said, Anthony, I want to be more confident. I just I don't feel like I've got it. What do I do? What do you do?

Anthony Moseley 48:09

I think you get out a piece of paper and a pen and you write down the gifts that you have been given. You make a list of things you're grateful for, and then you read those to somebody you love, and then you look at their reaction when you share those things for them. And then with them, you get out into nature, if you have a dog, even better, and you take a nice long nature bath, and you come back to that piece of paper and you flip it over, and you say, These are the things I want to do in the world. This is what I need to make it happen. And you accept the reality that all you can do is today, and it might just be one little tiny thing at a time.

Anthony Moseley 49:00

And when you have a bad day, you turn that paper up, you flip it back over, and you remember all the amazing things that you've been given. And if it's not making sense, then you go get help. But you know, that I would start there and create a cycle of love and good vibrations, create a love loop and don't forget to, you know, get away from your devices in your house and connect with nature and remember that um we really don't know much. We are a tiny spinning, perfect little planet that is, you know, just it it it we just don't know much. And so don't get twisted worrying about all the things that we don't know and just focus on on the fact that you're you're really, really unique and really special.

Anthony Moseley 49:53

You know, of course, all of this I say, and I need to hear it myself, you know. So thanks for letting me um get it out of my head. And even, you know, everybody has really bad days. And I've I've met some really amazing, successful people, and I've seen them have bad moments and bad days. And you realize that like it's just all it's about is you and your journey. Don't compare yourself to other people because they are not you and they'll never be as good a you as you are.

Alexis Booth 50:25

I love that. Thank you for that. It's beautiful. I think it's especially beautiful the idea of bringing someone else in. A lot of the time when we think about confidence, we think about it as like me, me, me, me, me. And I really love that you bring this back to bringing other people on board. That by the way, the other people are also probably gonna say, Hey Anthony, you missed this. What about this? I also see this in you. You how how did you not put this on the list? You are so good at this. And I think you will get a lot more of things.

Alexis Booth 51:03

I actually hear four out of the five things because there's self-love in writing it. You're thinking about what you're gonna do and what you're gonna grow. The taking action of actually moving from the can do to will do, putting and talking that through with someone else and ultimately tying it back to your purpose. Why am I even trying to do this in the first place? I think the performative act is very much when you're actually out there and doing the thing and like bringing it to light. But I actually hear that in what you just described.

Anthony Moseley 51:36

Yeah, and you know, if I may just add, don't be scared to ask. I've learned that when you ask somebody for something, even if they can't give you what they want, usually they come back in a different way with something. Most people want to be asked, and they want to then help. And so, and if your intuition is telling you that's the person to ask, you know, whether it's for a promotion or a date or a help or money or gear, you know, we don't even ask for the thing, and we obsess over asking.

Anthony Moseley 52:17

Collaboraction's Board of Directors is a good example. We've asked numerous people to join the board. 50% of the time they say no for some reason. Usually it's time. 95% of those people increase what they give to the company after they say no. Just like the waiter who gets bigger tips when he said when he finally tells the customer

Alexis Booth 52:41

Or she.

Anthony Moseley 52:41

they can have the mustard sauce. Or she or they.

Alexis Booth 52:44

Thank you.

Anthony Moseley 52:45

Thank you.

Alexis Booth 52:46

All right. Well, it is time for us to close out here. Thank you again, Anthony, for being here. This has been such an intriguing discussion. I'm so glad that you've explored this with me. Thank you. And uh any any last parting words to our listeners.

Anthony Moseley 53:04

Oh, thank you for for bringing me into the booth. And um, you know, I just it is cool how when you do something like this with somebody, you get to know them better. So I look forward to uh our new relationship now that we know each other better, and I will let myself out of the booth.

Alexis Booth 53:27

All right, thanks everyone, and have a great day.