In this episode, we have Dr. Arna Alayne Morton, PHD in violin performance, share her experience with burnout in her doctoral studies. Not only was she completed her PHD, she was maintaining a YouTube channel with over 90K subscribers. The multi facet income stream brought her more stress than she can managed. for the past two years, she has been gradually recovered from her burnout.
Today, she is on the show sharing her story and valuable insights she learned from her own journey. We discuss tips on recovery and prevention, and how to maintain a balanced lifestyle.
She will also share her incredible newly launched music course - HIIP method. It is a proven to be efficient practice method that help you to achieve more and faster in your practice room.

Skillshare TWO months free premium: https://skillshare.eqcm.net/v7Ddd

And if you like to sign up their annual premium, here is a 30% off for their annual subscription: https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/2337555/677296/4650

let's think about some of our beliefs and values, are they all really coming from you?
Today we will talk about how to find yourself in this information-saturated world and how to stay centered with knowing who you really are. If you have already listened to our last episode, me and my friend Luke Ellard have briefly touched upon the idea of "being authentic and find things makes you happy". We will dive a lot deeper in this episode with my personal story and my thoughts on this topic.

Skillshare TWO months free premium: https://skillshare.eqcm.net/v7Ddd

And if you like to sign up their annual premium, here is a 30% off for their annual subscription: https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/2337555/677296/4650

always check in with yourself what makes you happy and fulfilled…embrace the fact that it might not aligned with what you think you should be doing. —Luke Ellard

Ever since he was a kid, he has been always interested in electronic music. But electronic music to him feels like never was allowed to do in the music school mindset. Each of the music in his album reflects the past 10 years of his life experience. As he tried to connect with others, it became stressors for him as some are not healthy relationships.

Have you ever talk to yourself negatively or thinking others are possibly judging the way you talk and behave? I believe showing our vulnerability is a form of strengths instead of weaknesses. In this episode, I will bring you into my past insecure self, and unravel ways to release the self-judgement from your mind.

In this episode, Sarah will tell you her success story on how she turns her creative passion into an actual business. As she says

The creative person can not always be satisfied by a creative career. We need to be able to separate needing the creativity in the practice room and getting creativity elsewhere.

Getting creativity elsewhere is an important skill for us to learn. And the creative outlet elsewhere is actually making us a better musician, helping critical thinking in practice room, and building a healthier body and mind.

Her story is a lot like many college students as we have a busy schedule with studying and practicing. But after she makes the commitment for herself to start cooking, not only does she become healthier, she also found her creative outlet that she eventually turned it into a business.

Have you ever say to yourself "I'm not good enough"? In today's show, I will tell you my story behind this unhelpful self-talk and how I changed this unhealthy mindset.
2017-2018 were the darkest years of my life, I buried my sanity under this heavily tormenting low self-esteem issues. Doesn't matter how much people around me give me compliments, I seem to only see the flaws of myself. In our professional field, some of us are scared at admitting that we are human and mistakes are inevitable in learning challenging music.

There is a famous saying by Tim Hiller, a former football quarterback, "Don't compare your beginning to someone else's middle" I tend to forget the second half of the quote. that is "don't compare your middle to someone else's end." As high-achievers, we tend to compare. But comparison is a foolish attitude because we are all unique, and we all started the journey at different times of our life. The mistake I learned is that What we can do is simply looking at our present self and appreciate where we are now! To be able to focus on growth, we have to appreciate where we are now. If you read the book "mindset" by Carol Dweck. it is the concept of a growth mindset. It's easier to tune out the negative self talk when we are present with ourselves, so what we see is our reality and the goal we are heading towards. This is my core principle when I consume contents on my friend's newsfeed: Always feel happy for other's accomplishments, but don't attach your feelings of inadequacies to their success because it is their life, not yours.
A great quote by Eleanor Roosevelt for you to take away in this episode:
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

A quick announcement in the beginning of the show explaining why we have changed the podcast name. There was a duplicated name on iTunes, and we decided the change is better early than later. So, if you just subscribe and join us, welcome to the Thrive x Strive family, where we learn and grow together!

Hope you enjoy the show! See you next week!