Episode Transcript
Transcript:
Intro: This is words that move me, the podcasts where movers and shakers, like you get the information and inspiration. You need to navigate your creative career with clarity and confidence. I am your host master mover, Dana Wilson. And if you're someone that loves to learn, laugh and is looking to rewrite the starving artist story, then sit tight. But don't stop moving because you're in the right place.
Dana: Hello? Hello, movers, shakers, friends, and family at this point, really, truly some of you guys that have been with me from the beginning, it really is starting to feel like family. I see you out there. Well, of course I don't actually see you. My field of view is almost entirely dominated by a microphone and a pop filter. I don't actually see you, but I so appreciate your engagement on social media. Over at words that move me podcast on Instagram is one of my favorite places to connect with you guys. I'm seeing such awesome daily doing out there. If you are new, by the way. Hi, hello and welcome daily doing might be a mystery to you as of now. That's probably because you haven't listened to episode number one or episode two strongly encourage you take a moment, go check those out. I mean, it's not essential listening, but that doing daily is definitely at the heart of the words that move me podcast community. I see you daily doers out there. I feel you. I appreciate you so much. All right. I'm jazzed as always about this episode. So I want to get into it, but first wins. Oh, by the way. Yes. If you're new, I start every episode by talking about wins. I think it's very, very important to celebrate wins, especially in the creative fields where our work is a reflection of ourselves, our human values, our emotional state and so on and so forth. And we are especially critical of our own work. We're critical of our work. We're critical of ourselves. It definitely pays to celebrate your wins. Even the small ones, especially the small ones. Man, they are money in the bank. So let's invest together. Today the win that I am celebrating is that I am taking responsibility for the living things in my home. Let me explain. I do not have any human babies or children or teenagers or adults actually, for that matter. I don't have any pets. What I do have are plants. And what I don’t have is a very green thumb. Historically in my life It's been hard for me to keep plant objects alive. Maybe it's part of me. Maybe there's a hint. Maybe I consider them objects, not living beings. Um, I struggle with plants. It used to be because I was in and out of town a lot I had a pretty irregular schedule and then the COVID crisis. Okay. Can't use in and out of the house as an excuse. So what is it really? I think for me, it was that I simply didn't know what to do or when. What's too much water?What's not enough water? When should I mist them? When should I wipe them? It just was also overwhelming. So I've committed to doing a little research, figuring out what I'm doing and keeping my plants alive. And let me tell you what I am loving this journey. I love that the plants in my home are green and not yellow or brown. I love that they're all perky and lifted. Um, and I love learning. So I'm learning about plants right now. I'm learning how to keep them alive. And the next phase of this, which I'm so excited about is going to be to grow my own food. Now I've got training wheels. I've been using a little hydroponic, um, kitchen, pod grower thing for, uh, it's called Aero garden. Total. Disclaimer, not advertising, not paid to say that, but I love my Aero garden. I grow, grew, growing. I am growing, um, basil all of the basil Thai basil, Genovese basil, all the basil. Love the Basil, um, mint, chives more basil. The Rosemary didn't do so well. I'm not gonna lie. The Rosemary didn't do so well. Um, basil.. Is that really all I'm growing? What else do I have over there? I can't. Oh, dill and basil. So I'm growing the basil in the hydro, in the Aero garden, and then I've been transplanting them outside when they get too big to keep their in their little pods and Holy smokes, the garden, the herb garden is taking over. Someday soon I am going to be growing food. You watch it happen. I'm announcing it here. You heard it here first. So I've been so enjoying caring for the plant beings in my home. Um, I'm counting this a win because I'm now seeing and feeling and thinking rewarding thoughts about my ability to keep things alive, my ability to take care of things other than myself, which by the way, pretty darn good at taking care of myself. Um, but to extend that care, to see the fruits, no pun intended of my research, my focus, my labor, if I could call watering labor, then yes, feeling good, counting it a win. All right, that's me. Now you go, Oh my gosh. I just thought of an awesome pun. I usually say, what's going well in your world, but I'm going to now say what's growing well in your world. Do you like what I did there? All right, but really what's your win. What's growing well in your world. Take your time.
Amazing. Keep winning, keep growing really truly I mean it. Today I am sharing with you an interview that I did with the one and only Heather Morris. This interview was conducted in partnership with my dear friends over at CLI studios during their 2020 dance experience this past summer. And Heather and I got to sit down and chat one-on-one. This is the first time this had happened in a really long time. Heather and I moved to LA around similar times. I believe. We would see each other, always at the studio, in class, pretty regularly at auditions. And, you know, we were a part of that come up together. And then I had the absolute pleasure. And so did the rest of America in watching Heather come into her own as an actress, performer and full fledged movie star. Thanks hugely to her role on Glee as Brittany. Now, watching Heather in Glee is one of my favorite favorite things, truly like I wish you could see the smile on my face right now, just thinking about my favorite Brittany moments, but sitting and talking to the person that is Heather Morris was as exciting as it was grounding. I say this because this is a very genuine, honest, open and thoughtful person that has been both student, performer, teacher, mother, so many of the things and so giving so willing to share her experience and her lessons learned. I do want to mention that this podcast was recorded before the death of Heather's dear friend and colleague Naya Rivera. So if you're tuning into this episode to hear more about that, you will not find it in this episode, what you will find, however, is a ton of information and inspiration about navigating this Wild West of an entertainment industry. Especially if you're a person who is interested in nurturing a family and having a life outside of a studio. In this episode, Heather and I talk a lot about paths and how the thought that there is a fork in the road, a moment where you have to choose one thing or another is really usually just that. A thought, not the reality of our worlds. In this episode, Heather and I talk about how our life's paths are more like trees than actual paths. Take a listen and see if you agree. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Heather Morris.
Dana: I’m Dana Wilson. This is Heather Morris, and this is the first ever words that move me and CLI collabo cross cast.
Heather: How does that feel?
Dana: It feels really good. I feel very good about it. So excited. I'm excited. And I'm glad that you're here. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for being here and talking to us today. I have to admit I'm a little embarrassed that we're friends and have been friends for so long, but I will be asking you these questions as if I'm, I don't know you and I kind of I'll be learning you. I'm very excited about it. Yeah. Okay. So you just taught jazz class. Yes, it was awesome. I saw you going to the ground and coming back up. Great job. And you made it, um, so other than being a jazz teacher here at CLI, just tell us everything that you want us to know about you
Heather: As a teacher or just in general human, beside being a teacher and like human being? Heather Morris is two different people because I am a Heather Morris but I'm also a Heather Hubbell at home. Oh my goodness. Isn't that crazy?
So you you've kept your professional name?
I kept my professional name, Heather Morris. Um, it was just, I mean, financial reasons, maybe, you know, you have to pay and I'm like, whatever, let's just leave it. People know me that let's keep it there, keep it simple. And, but I did marry and take my husband's name, Taylor Hubble. So I am now Heather Hubble, which I love that name kind of obsessed with Heather Hubble. Yeah.
I really love doubles. BB L E. My husband is R E E T Z. I love it a double. So we lucked out, both of us.
Yeah. Um, so I don't know. I think like we, um, I’m at home right now. We're trying to start our own YouTube channel. I'll I'll tease it called Hubble Home. So I'm kind of bringing my Heather Hubble home life into the reality into people's minds, into people's hearts. Um, cause they know Heather Morris and of course I'm goofy. Just like, you know, we both are very goofy people have a lot of fun. Um, so I'll just bring, I'm bringing people into that lifestyle. Um, you know, I, I like to be consistent. I'm a consistent person and I like to have fun. I like to be, I'm an adventurer. I like to go places. I get really like mucky when I'm stuck. You know, like when I'm somewhere for too long, I get really antsy and I want to like move. I got to get out of the house. I got to do stuff. That's kind of the person I am.
So how's quarantine going?
Quarantine.. Actually It's good for me. It's learning, it's learning. It's helping me learn to take breaths and take moments and really practice sitting still, especially for my children, because my oldest is just like me. So he likes to nonstop walk around the room, nonstop, chatting, but talking, you know that like when you like keep talking, when you're moving, cause it like makes your mind go. And I'm really trying to like figure out how to communicate with him. Like that might not be your best self, your best route. You know? Like as you're getting older, let's maybe like learn techniques to just have conversations without riling ourselves up. So,
I'm all for techniques. I'm all for conversations. This is a match made in heaven.
It's hard. So I'm teaching myself at the same time that I'm teaching him like learning. Yeah. Let's finish up this conversation. Let's move to the next. We don't always have to plan out our day because sometimes when you plan things out too much, you don't end up enjoying it. So yeah, that's kinda my quarantine life and now we're traveling. They're done with homeschool. So I went to Arizona, I went to Sedona. I saw the beautiful weather and the beautiful rocks. And now we're going to Del Mar for summer week vacation.
So you're moving. You're still you're out in the world and you're yeah,
My husband knows me enough. Like he knows that we go. We got to get out to do stuff.
I love this. Um, one of the things I talk about a lot on the podcast is this concept that dance lessons are life lessons and your sons are not dancers, correct?
No.
Okay. So how are they learning the things that we learned in dance, like how to communicate, how to be in touch with yourself emotionally, how to manage your time and schedule and listen to authority and all of the things that I value most, I think I learned from dance. So how are they, how are they learning and how are you teaching the things that you value most that you learned from dance?
Yes. It's really funny that you mentioned that cause existentially, I'm thinking about that throughout everything that I'm doing with them daily. And maybe sometimes I feel too outside of myself when I'm talking to them like this, where maybe they might not understand my words. So really trying to water and dumb our conversations down to like this works, but what would help it work better is if we did this, like that's, it's hard to communicate that young age. Um, but that's a really good point that you brought that up because there are life lessons we learn listening to authority is huge. So with my second one, he is a real pistol and he loves to question authority, which is great. It's good to just, you know, those memes are like, it's good to question. It's always good to have opinion. Yes. To an extent
And,
But give and take, Ooh, that's a good one with my oldest is he's not a good give and taker. That's kinda what I'm looking for right now is he likes to talk and talk and talk and it's constantly maybe taking from somebody, but I'm trying to teach him with his friends to stop, listen to what they have to say, then respond. Yeah. How hard is that? Well, not crazy. Like trying to teach your six year old that like, yeah.
It's, it can be definitely hard. I just stepped on your toes as I did. Like, how do you share space? This is another dance lesson that is a life lesson. You see somebody freestyling in a circle and you - you develop this sense of when are they wrapping up? When can I start to head in? How do you share space? How do you, I mean, I think a social distance is an incredible skill that a dancer I'm noticing are not as good as we thought we were about. Um, distancing something. Cause yeah, I, I think dancers are close types. We like to be close.
Like to be close with, like to be touching my kids for some reason really understand it. They will wear their masks maybe because I will wear my masks so definitively they will. Yeah. Um, but yeah, yeah. But the distance thing is really interesting.
Oh, I think dancers, I think dancers are a remarkable period, but I also know a lot of people get similar training from being a part of a sports team or something like that. Sports was not a part of my family, but your husband is a baseball player. Yes. And are the boys?
Yes. They both played baseball and we were starting flag football. Well, we'll see how that goes. My oldest is kind of a, he's emotional. So, you know, I don't know. It's a flag, which is fine, but once they start to get into the touch, that might be, um, a one and done. Maybe
Interesting! I can't wait to find out.
Yeah. We'll see how it goes.
Okay. Question for you outside of the parenting mode, what dance training. Cause you you've been dancing for what like
32 years
Since, since the Dawn of time
I was seven months old.
Um, so I would love to know since you've had such a multidisciplinary career, what was something that dance didn't prepare you well for?
Ah, good question. Something that dance didn't prepare me well for, I would say into the acting space was I wasn't prepared for my own opinions. I was never taught to give my input. I was never taught to have my own voice as a dancer. You're really taught to mesh your voices, kind of shut up, do your job. And that's what I grew up doing. And then I got put into a spot where I was spotlit. If that's a word spotlit
Um, spot spotlighting, spot Spotlighted. I think
I was in the spotlight, but I didn't quite have the voice. So it felt like this whole new thing for me, I didn't know how to use my actual voice. I didn't know how to let my ideas like sputter and go, I mean, naturally conversationally it's easy, right? Like we can sit here and chat, but then I went into, uh, interviews for a camera and I didn't know how to like express myself because I was never asked to. So I felt really uncomfortable in my own skin. During interviews, I felt like the attention was too much. I was never used to that. I was never somebody who grew up on the third of three girls who people asked me things. I was always just kinda like quiet in the corner. And then you get to, um, people wanting to know more about you. And I always like in a shell, shy, not loving the attention. So it took a while for me to like break through and feel like I could use my voice and express myself just as I am and not feel embarrassed about it. You know?
What gave you that training?
Uh, I think just time, I think.. Americans have this funny way about ourselves where we like to a lot of fun. It was a lot of funny where we like to learn the hard way first. And I've noticed it about times right now, maybe with the COVID pandemic, we're learning the hard way first because we want to feel good about ourselves. And I think I learned the hard way first. Um, and I was just doing all this press or I was just going for it, not thinking twice. And then dumb me would watch the tapes back later. And I'm like, that doesn't sound like me. Who was I answering for? Like, that's not my persona. Like that's not who I'm representing. I just was kind of like filling this spot, I guess, to fill the time that's I guess that's really personal, but it's how I saw it. So then I took a step back and I didn't do any of that stuff cause I felt so uncomfortable because I was giving such a fake voice off. Hmm. Um, yeah, I dunno. It was kinda my voice, but it was fake and I just like would listen to myself crazy. So I learned the hard way with mostly everything. And I think I've done that my whole life.
And it sounds like you were able to remove some of this notion that you should be happy or should be a certain way all the time. And when you embraced that. No, no, no. It's not all that all the time. Then you were able to step into it.
Yeah. Once you watch other actresses who really embrace themselves and like are just cool and happy and fun. Yeah.
And, and, and sad and dark and broken and hopeful and all of these.
They are not always Perfect. Yeah. And they don't care. They really don't care what you think. Not to the extent of like F you, I don't care, but like, this is my time. Let me, let me recoup and then I'll come back and we'll be a better, um, so that was the hard way.
That's awesome. I love this. That's very powerful. And that's a good segue too into my next question. Something I want to talk about is this idea of a creative path or a career path. And visually in our minds, we see that as being like an actual path, like a hiking trail that goes that way, or it goes that way. So you have these really limiting thoughts of like college or dance or acting or dance or acting or family. And you're a person that's been able to really keep, um, a flexible path in your career and in your life. I think it's really unique and admirable and special and cool. So I would love to hear about the interests that guided you on, on one direction and how you were able to, um, be in more than one place at once.
Yeah. That's really interesting because it's not planned. It's never planned. You do make a plan and it never falls into place the way you want it to. But in the beginning of my career, I went to college for a whole year because when we would sit in class with Mark Meismer and whoever, and they would say, raise your hand and tell me if you want to be an, a dancer. And I would never raise my hand. It wasn't in my cards. I was not interested in being a dancer. It, it didn't pay enough. Um, it didn't seem like it was fulfilling. Maybe because I was just like, starting out learning technique.
Or because you subscribed to the idea of the starving artist. Sure. This thing that like, if you want to do that, you can't have other things.
Yeah. Right? Yeah. You'll live at a certain level. Um, which money was never my thing, I don't know, but so I never want to do it, went to college for a year and found out that dancing was actually the love of my life, aside from my husband, but it was the love of my life. And since then I pursued acting because I always had wanted to act when I was growing up. And I thought, why not? I'm out here. I'm going to study it. I'm going to do it because dance still, to me, wasn't my end goal. I thought acting could be. Um, and just like dancing, acting is really tough. There are a lot of people out there and they're all searching for not 20 spots in a gig, but they are searching for one spot in a gig. So I'm auditioning with 50 people, 30 people. Yeah. Maybe I have a name doesn't care. Me, guarantee me a spot. Maybe they want, um, you know, a different ethnicity. Maybe they want whatever it is they're looking for. So living it at the time, living through it, going through every emotion and not settling and giving myself a limit to it, not saying, okay, I can't do this anymore. Has helped me find the, the paths I want to go down. Because I love the arts. And I like to come up with ideas. I love to create, I don't care if it's not successful. If it is a good idea, I know it's successful and I'm going to keep going for it.
Um, Oh, this is great.
So I just keep exploring things. If acting's not going to be it right now, if I'm not going to get those jobs, I'm still gonna write stuff and I'm still gonna, I want to be a producer, like more than anything. I just have seen it unfold with everything I'm doing. I love to get people, artists, writers, directors, together, and making a really awesome project.
I love this. You're stoking me up. It's very exciting. And you're also answering questions that I had downstream. One of which was, I mean, you've in your career from, I mean, you have a podcast of your own with Ava Bernstein, shout out whatupgirl dancer, but also voiceover feature, film, stardom, super acting, dancing with mega pop stars, uh, reality type TV shows Dancing with the Stars. And So You Think also way back, way back in the early times, um, and TV and all the things. So you're answering the question my, that I had in mind was what, what is the next creative rock that gets lifted and looked underneath? Is it producing? It's also the channel with your family.
Absolutely. Yes. YouTube we’re like, okay, We're having fun with that, but that's also its own thing. Right. You know, you have to edit it
and you're fully,
I'm fully involved hands on. Yeah. We're doing it ourselves.
You also mentioned, even if it doesn't make money, you're interested in doing artistic things. Yes. So what makes a successful artistic endeavor for you? What makes it successful?
What makes it successful? Um, I think if people are passionate about it, which is very broad. Yeah. I, you just, you have to have a good attitude with your projects. A lot of people will come into work and maybe they take like past trauma from other jobs and they bring it to their jobs, whether they're in it for the right reasons or not, they might not seem like the right people to work with. And I think listening to that doesn't seem like the right endeavor for me at the moment. Cause I've been there and done that. And that's just, it's not a fun workplace to be in. Really hard to say no, but it's good to stick up for yourself. Um, so I just think that people are in it for the right reasons. It really grounds it.
So you keep your finger on the pulse of group energy and like the feeling of a project?
Yeah. You can't, I've tried to carry things for Myself. I've tried to be the only one doing stuff. And it just takes so much
Out of you.
This is why they say it takes a village, takes a village,
Not just at your home. So I have a home life and then trying to balance producing or writing or editing, whatever it is. It's like, it'll just end up taking too long, you know?
Okay. So let's jump back to past them. Cause that's like eight different paths. I think that the imagery of the fork in the road is dangerous and limited. I much prefer to think of paths and creative careers as being like a tree. And you start climbing up the creative tree and out here's dance branch and dance branch is close enough to acting branch. So you could even like jump from this branch to the other one.
But You don't have to let go. You don't see that branch.
Yeah. You can reach right across and grab it. And, and there's a great Shirley McClain quote that I am afraid I will botch.
Um, she says that she likes to live. She likes to go out on a limb because that's where all the fruit is. So you can stay very close to the trunk and you can feel pretty safe here. Or you can branch out as we like to say, and you go to the ends of the branch and you find like, Ooh, I really, really like this. This is fruitful. This is beneficial. This is success. This feels good. And then you can also decide, Oh, you know what, college I'm going to go back over here. And I'm going to try this LA thing for a second. Yeah. And from the LA branch, you can look at acting, look at improv, look at making a family, finding a different thing. And I think that's so interesting to see somebody without a plan. That's so good at having a structure. That's having this, climbing this creative tree and being able to make things work. Even without it being mapped out. It's not a path that can be map it out. It's a tree, it's three dimensions.
I don't understand how people can, people can dream board and have a map. And they're still like living their life. Good. I can have a map because if I have a map, I stick too hard to it. I had this tattoo on my shoulder that says, let go, because I've just learned the hard way of grasping something too hard. Um, and then you kind of like, you lose everything you loved about it. Yeah. So I, I really learned to let go
The let go, analogy doesn't work quite so well. Or the leg, let go, quote, doesn't work quite so well with the tree analogy. You should hold on the tree. But if you hold onto the tree, okay, here it comes. So if you're on this tree, this career tree, and you're out on the branch on the very end and you look over at family tree and you're like, man, I kind of want to do that thing and kind of want to have a family. Then you can do the little spider monkey thing or sugar glider or whatever it is, where you let go and you jump from this tree and you can be like, and be in a new place.
And Hollywood make you feel really bad about that. Yeah.
Will it? Tell me what Hollywood would make you feel?
I feel like not that I'm suppressed, but that because I chose to take a break and I've because I'm always trying to find other people that are like me or just take people's stories and liken it to mine. I I've noticed people who've done that. Who've gone to have a family. Who've taken a breath who felt overwhelmed with work because God knows it. Working in the industry is so tough. 16 hour days working on a set six days a week. Most of the time, because you end at like 5:00 AM. I like to sleep. I'm not, I just can't work that hard. So I needed a breath when you need a breath. And all these people in the industry go to take a breath. It's like an iron door closed behind our back, trying to get back in. And that's a challenge is trying to get back and challenging to switch my brain on to say, okay, how do I get through this iron door? This is probably a learning experience for me that I'm supposed to be taking, because maybe there was some traits about myself that- that how I was working before that weren't right in that moment. And I needed to get out and step out the door, work on them so that when I do come back in and they're fixed so that I can work the right way for longer periods of time. Do you know what I mean? So I don't feel burnt out..
You develop skills and know how to set boundaries, how to work smarter, not harder. This is the sweet spot always. And that line kind of wiggles and is a little different on every project. I'm curious about this door. Um, because I think that a lot of people listening are probably people interested in breaking into the industry, not necessarily reentering, although some perhaps as well. And I'm wondering how you would relate the door that you're knocking on now to the one that you had to knock on to get into the industry?
In the very beginning, I think there is a naive, um, and a naive outlook we have when we're first coming here at a younger age that we maybe don't have one we're growing a little bit older, maybe in our thirties, in our thirties, we have settled into ourselves. We're not questioning at 18, 19, I was exploring everything. Um, I was willing to give up dong sure. I took every class. There was, I just want it to be in class. We were always in class together. I loved class and I'm not a person that's gonna talk your ear off. I'm not going to try and pitch myself to you. I'm not going to give you my best part of my personality to wow you. Uh, I just, I don't know. I don't know why I'm not like that. I feel weird doing it. So I'm gonna go prove myself. I'm going to go take class until I'm blue in the face. Even if I'm not good at that particular class, I'm going to go back and I'm going to learn how to do the movement. Like the teacher wants me to do it. I'd say maybe the same for acting roles. So when you're going into meet with casting directors, not the class per se, but when you're going to meet with casting directors, they want to get to know you and they want to feel you personally. Um, and they want to give you adjustments and they want to know, you can take it just like a dance class. If a teacher comes up and gives you an adjustment and you don't do it, they're going to be like, I don't want to work with that person.
Theres no time for that. There's no time for that.
You need to hire someone and you need to get it in a second. So if that's the hurdle, you need to jump to be a dancer that you want to be. Maybe start working on that now. Like if you get adjustments, you don't have to do hard every time. Maybe you work on like the specifics, the, the, what is it? Like the, all of those adjustments. Yeah.
So, so I think what I'm hearing is that when you're younger, you're able to make adjustments quickly. So knocking on all the doors is actually fun and it's exercise. And now you're like, listen, I've done my exercise. I've done my training. I am here. I am full. I am complete. But you also know that this, this whole student thing and progress is forever. Like you will always be evolving and always be changing. And that door just might not be the door that you really want to be opening.
Maybe it's ready for me when I'm 50. Exactly.
Oh my gosh. 50, 50 year old Heather.
50 year old, Heather
I think that if 50 year old Heather came knocking, I would open the door and I would have like teams of, of welcome party behind me. Yeah. I love this.
Yeah. I always keep my eye on. Like, there's always
The long game. Super important. I love this. I love this like multilayer approach to getting stuff done. There's like, you get stuff done today on the ground with your kids. You're teaching, you're doing this thing. Yeah. In the longterm. You're developing this, this project, whether it's a YouTube channel or producing this something else, that's like, kind of now ish, because you gotta be working on it now. Otherwise it will not happen, but it's also not here right now. And then there's this 50 year Mark. Right? Okay. Talk to me about that. 50. What are you doing there?
Listen, comedy like 50 is just the prime 40s maybe, but like 50 is just prime, especially in women. Right?
Live our lives and be loud and make jokes. No
Nobody cares anymore.
Or people care and it's just that caring. And it's like, I don't know. I'm very interested between the fine line between grief and comedy and the older you get, the more real stuff gets right. You see, um, you've seen more tragic things. You've experienced more trauma. You, the people in your life, maybe passing on, maybe getting divorced, maybe losing children or you know, loved ones. And that like that's life out there. It's not necessarily better life. Just because you're older. We may be like a fine wine, but we aren't a fine wine. We don't necessarily get better with age. So out there, you need different tools that help you deal with life as it gets that way. That's why the funniest people in my life are Toni Basil, who is 75 years old. She might be 76 by now and my parents. And I just like tap. I love talking to people that are older than me. I love talking to you too. Don't get me wrong. But there's like, there's a perspective and a way of coping a way of inviting things, specifically humor into your life.
And what is it about young people feeling like a threat? That again, like younger, younger people, when you're younger, everybody seems like a threat to you. I never felt that way, but I always sensed it from other people.
Interesting.
That was a, it was always weird. Maybe more so than acting because it's so limited. It's very competitive. Dancing, It's so inclusive and everybody wants to hug each other and we're kind of all in it together. And then you like go into a smaller box and you become this actor. And like, it just seems like everybody feels like you're a threat to them. And
And we're, We're in this together, this human thing. So how can we think more like our future selves right now? Because I'm telling you what we don't need any more competition. We certainly don't need any threats. We don't need to be threatening anyone period. So how can we invite future us that, that, that future selves that are funny and compassionate and smart and, um, all the good things.
Yeah. It's tricky because when you are a teen into your twenties, you hear scientifically your mind is not fully developed and that's a big hurdle. And whenever I do, um, these cameo things, you can do these, uh, celebrity cameos, where somebody will pay you to do a video. And they're younger. And I'm always telling these kids, I'm like, y'all are going to feel threatened, or you're going to feel like people are judging you or people are looking at you. Maybe they do make comments. But what I need you to learn right now is that your mind might not be fully developed. Always remember that so that you can trigger your brain to go. My brain’s working this way. Let's work around that. Yeah. Let's steer our, our reaction to a positive one, or just mind your own business
Or mind your own mind at the very least. I think there's kind of circles to what you were saying about talking to your sons, how you have to explain things to them in a way that they will understand, right. And how old are they? Six and four. So here we go. This is the lesson today. Everybody gets the lesson today. The lesson is, if you can parent yourself, if you can parent yourself with compassion and curiosity, the way that you would talk to a five-year-old talk to yourself, treat yourself with kindness, treat others with kindness. That is how we have the future that we want to have. And that's how we have it. Now
You heard it first guys.
Wow. Thank you, Heather. I wouldn't have got that on my own. That was very much a collaborative roundabout that we came across. Yeah.
Its true, you gotta be so gentle with yourself. Yeah. Yes. Be kind, be kind to yourself. Be kind to other people, Respond to haters with kindness, you know, Sarah Silverman, she does she's on Twitter. Have you ever seen her responses? So when there's a troll and someone's very unkind to her and calls her something, she gets their information and she finds out how to help them. She, if they are suffering from something, like say, they said I don't, blah, whatever. And she finds out she'll direct message them. Find out details about these people. Maybe they're overweight or something like that. She'll get them like medical help. Like she's like respond to negativity and find the kindness. I just love that. This is awesome. Once I found this out about Sarah Silverman, I'm like, Hmm. I wish..
Has that changed the way that you absorb or not absorb that you handle haters?
Yeah. Kill them with kindness.
Its funny my mom has said those words for my whole life, kill them with kindness is my mom's famous words. But it somehow takes like, watching that in practice for you to actually be able to be like, Oh, like That. Yeah. Aha.
Yeah. Cause it's easy. Our primal selves are, you know, like you're gonna fight me. I'm gonna fight you back
Survival. This is what we're, that's what we do. That's how we're human. But we can do with kindness because we've evolved. We're solving. Exactly. Okay. Guys, be kind, be good. And definitely keep it funky is something that I say on the podcast and in my life. And when I was watching your class, I was like, dang. She's funky. Thank you so much again for being here. Thank you everybody for tuning in.
I loved it. Thanks for joining.
See Ya! All right. My friends there, you have it. The one and only the extravagant, the phenomenal, the very, very real Heather Morris. I hope you soaked up a lot of goodness out of this episode. And I hope that this episode has made you want to go climb a tree, be safe, be smart. And of course keep it funky. I'll talk to you very soon.
Thought you were done? No. Now I'm here to remind you that all of the important people, places and things mentioned in this episode can be found on my website. theDanawilson.com/podcast finally, and most important, you have a way to become a words that move kickball, change kickball to patreon.com/WTMMpodcast to learn more and join. All right, everybody now I'm really done. Thanks so much for listening. I'll talk to you soon.
