dare to dream

Finding our Reality in reality TV

Unlike American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance, America's Got Talent opens up auditions to a broad array of talent, from animal trainers to stilt walkers, and welcomes both solo acts and ensembles.

But here's what's interesting.

All four finalists are solo acts.

And...

All four are singers.

Yup.

Despite a wide variety of acts that the judges purposely placed in the top twenty -- the voting/dialing/push-buttoning audience has chosen a fairly homogeneous group of finalists -- four singing soloists.

While it is probably true that American Idol has influenced how we vote, there is something much larger at play with America's Got Talent, and all reality TV.

Each is a hero's journey. Each involves thousands hoping to be called to adventure. And as we watch, and participate by voting, we begin to feel that we are on the journey as well.

But we can't be on the journey, unless we can identify with the contestants, and so we find ourselves drawn to and voting for solo acts, rather than ensembles, to people who talk/sing/beat box to us, rather than those who don't. When the contestants speak to us, we can connect with them, and find our voice, even as they find theirs.

We've talked about this before, so now let's analyze the idea further.

Will you quickly listen to the YouTube clips of the four finalists for America's Got Talent?

Who do you identify with?

Terry Fator, Butterscotch, Cas Haley or Julienne Irwin?

Why?

I identify with Terry Fator.

And I'll tell you why, as soon as I ask you this question -- When I say that I identify with him, does that mean that I want to become a ventriloquist, that I want to see him perform live, or join his fan club?

Perhaps.

But because I want to be the hero of my story -- and for you to be the hero of yours -- rather than focusing on the who, I want to focus on the specifics of the why.

And, my gander of a guess is this.

Terry Fator is a man who's been perfecting his craft for decades, laboring in obscurity, wondering on many occasions if he shouldn't just pack up his puppets and go home.

I too sometimes feel that I work very, very hard at whatever I'm working on, and it isn't necessarily acknowledged or valued. And I too want to pack up my puppets, as it were, and go home.

But, Terry Fator didn't pack up and go home. And given how very capable and competent he is, how happy we are that he didn't.

Which is when I begin to wonder -- am I -- are you -- competent and capable too? Far more than we know?

And with that wondering comes a slice of hope.

Delicious and delightful hope.

Who do you admire at the moment? Why?

Rachel, Leah and "So You Think You Can Dance"

Pop Quiz:

What percentage of dance students throughout the world are girls?

I'm going to guess 9 out of 10, or 90%.

How many of the teachers from L.A.'s inner-city schools that attended the So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) workshop were women?

I'm estimating 7 out of 10, or 70%.

How many of the SYTYCD choreographers this season were women?

Roughly 4 out of 19, about 20%.

Of the eight choreographers invited to choose their favorite dance, how many were women?

1 in 8, or 12.5%.

Which of the dances did the judges regard as the most profoundly moving?

A dance choreographed by one of the women, Mia Michaels.

Some of you may say, Wake up Whitney, it's a man's world. Women would like to choreograph, to have a say within their professional community, but they just can't break in.

But, but, but... we're not talking about technology, we're talking about dance, a field in which women are trained to dance, to choreograph, to critique.

So I only buy part of this argument.

If we have a gift for and love to do something, and we don't pursue that something, don't we bear some responsibility for our not breaking in, breaking through, for allowing our Leah to remain in the building?

Choosing to be Rachel is not easy, at least not for me. I seem to ask Leah to leave nearly every day.

But when you and I make the choice to move away from Leah toward Rachel, just think of what we can do, what we can create, of the stories we will tell.

Stories like those told by Mia Michaels.

What do you have a gift for, that you love to do, that you aren't pursuing?

Why?

Do you really not want to, or is society telling you not to?

What I've learned by identifying my heros

Writing about my heros (which you can find at the bottom of this post) was indeed revelatory. Here's why:

1) I was surprised by how much my heros have changed over time -- from Bewitched's Samantha to Peggy Noonan?

2) It was also interesting to observe that my childhood heros were imaginary. A reminder just how much children identify with the imaginary, magical world. I wonder too if I over-agonize about the quantity of television my children consume. I clearly watched television as a child, yet most would consider me a contributing member of society.

Who were your heros as a child? Who are they today? How have they changed?

2) My heros have played a greater role in who I've become than I would have predicted prior to this exercise.

Example A: The fact that I so admired Samantha and Shirley Partridge as a young girl makes it a lot less surprising that I care about mothering well, my many years of "not wanting to have kids yet" notwithstanding.

Given your current vantage point, anything about your childhood heros that surprises you?

Example B: I'm rather astonished that my interest in attending UCLA was piqued because of their cheerleaders; were it not for a providential fluke, I would be a UCLA graduate. Which leads me to wonder what other decisions I've made on the basis of who I admire. Perhaps more importantly, why did I admire them in the first place?

What about you? Any decisions that you've made that now surprise you given how little forethought went in to the decision?

Example C: If I consider a cheerleader a metaphor for a hero of support, I've observed that in some aspects of my life I've internalized this role so thoroughly, it has actually been problematic as I've pursued my career. Sometimes you can be too good at something.

3) On the premise that my childhood heros have helped shape who I've become, I am consequently hopeful that I can become like my current heros, whether Peggy Noonan, Laura Laviada, Galadriel, or India.Arie. That I can, in fact, successfully undergo Psyche's journey, learning to be the ship AND the harbor, the hero of support AND the hero.

Who are your heros today?
What do they tell you about what you are hoping to accomplish?
Who and how you want to be?

****

Below is what I wrote for Matt Langdon's Heros Interviews:

My hero as a young girl was Samantha on Bewitched. She was pert, adorable, and no matter what kind of tangle she found herself in, she could make things better with a wiggle of her nose. I also idolized Shirley Jones, who played the mother in The Partridge Family with whom I became even more enamored when I saw her as the ingénue in the film Oklahoma. As an eight year-old, it was magical to see that the same person could be a mother and ingénue.

In high school, my heros were pretty, popular, feminine cheerleaders. So much so that UCLA became my top college pick because I loved watching their song girls perform whenever they played Stanford in football (my father took us to Stanford football games every fall from the time I was 7-8 years old). Footnote: Stanford was actually my top choice, but I was on the waiting list, whereas I was accepted to UCLA.

My heros today are women who successfully embark on Psyche’s journey: they’ve learned to say no, to exercise choice, to achieve goals without throwing their caring and compassionate selves under the bus. In other words, I see all of these women as living in a both/and world.

These heros include: Peggy Noonan, a Wall Street Journal columnist who made her name as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, Laura Laviada, the former CEO and major shareholder of Editorial Televisa, Mexico’s largest magazine publisher (and who I had the privilege of interacting with when I covered the stock Televisa (NYSE: TV), Galadriel in Lord of the Rings, and India.Arie, a musician-singer-songwriter who it would appear loves Stevie Wonder’s music even more than I do. Until very recently, I would have also included Sydney Bristow, the fictional lead in the television show Alias.

What do Bewitched, Alias and The Lord of the Rings have in common?

Matt Langdon over at The Hero Workshop recently interviewed me for his Hero Interviews.

He asked only two questions:

Who was your hero as a child and why?

Who are your heros today and why?

If you can believe it, I hadn't ever asked myself these questions, certainly not in a compare and contrast format.

My answers were surprising (the title is your hint), and thus revelatory, and I can't wait to share with you what I've learned.

In the meantime, who are your heros?

Psyche's 4th Task: Learn to say no

Lonely? How can you be lonely? You’ve got yourself, haven’t you? If you ever lose yourself, then you’ll really be lonely. Joseph Delaney

Whenever I attend PTA meetings I seem to volunteer for something.

A big something.

Last year, I volunteered to chair the Cultural Enrichment Committee; this year I'm also the Hospitality Chair.

Here's how things unfold.

The PTA president asks for volunteers.

Amidst the ensuing, and uncomfortable silence, my brain starts to run the script: good mothers volunteer at their children's school; over the years, I have volunteered far less than most because of my work schedule; I want to be a good mother; I want others to think I'm a good mother.

Impulsively, dare I say compulsively, I volunteer.

Five minutes later, I regret it.

Have you ever said yes when you really wanted to say no?

Photo courtesy of Steve Santore aka Valentinian

Learning to say no, and thus exercise choice is Psyche's fourth and final task.

Before she can be reunited with Eros, Psyche must descend into the underworld to fill a box with beauty ointment. This journey is especially difficult because she encounters three people whose pleas for help she must not heed.

Setting a goal and pursuing it in the face of requests for help from others is especially difficult for women whose lives are focused on care giving. And yet, as we say no, we are learning to set boundaries, to exercise choice, and, paradoxically, can more capably say yes to relatedness and nurturing..

In his book The Power of a Positive No (thanks to Anna Giraldo-Kerr for her great summary), William Ury, writes:

I learned...[the importance of saying no] early on in my career from the...extraordinarily successful investor Warren Buffett. Over breakfast one day, he confided in me that the secret to creating his fortune was his ability to say No. "I sit there and look at investment proposals all day. I say No, No, No No, No, No--until I see one that is exactly what I am looking for. And then I say Yes. All I have to do is say Yes a few times in my life and I've made my fortune." Every important Yes requires a thousand Nos.

One more time, and with feeling -- Every important Yes requires a thousand Nos.

For women these thousand Nos are particularly nettlesome, as they require us to move from an either/or mindset to both/and to do what Ury describes as "marrying the two must fundamental words in the language: Yes and No. Yes is the key word of connection (Psyche embarks on a hero's journey to say yes to Eros). No the key word of protection (Psyche says no to others to say yes to her self, her loved ones)."

"The secret to standing up for yourself and what you need without destroying precious relationships is to marry the two."

This is no easy task.

It wasn't for Psyche.

But isn't it worth saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no...

So that you can capably say yes to you, your relationships, your dream?

P.S. Yes, I am going to honor my commitment to chair the Hospitality Committee, but I'm going to take a page out Psyche's book and delegate.