Episode 169: Interview with Michelle Leagans
Dr. Chelsea: Do your dancers struggle with face-to-face conversations or have a hard time handling their emotions? If you're like most dance educators I've talked to, having real conversations that are face to face, that are productive but still kind and provide real benefit, is exceedingly challenging. Our dancers are used to communicating behind a screen, and it's hurting their relationships, and honestly I think it's hurting their ability to perform well onstage.
So today, I have a guest with me who has found a solution. Her name is Michel Leagans, and she created a journal for dancers called “Hey Dancers… Let's Talk About It!” This journal is different, and the way she explains how it works and why it works will make you want to give it a try. Michelle is a former professional dancer from Texas who currently owns and teaches for Power Intensives, and she's a sought-after choreographer and master instructor.
During this conversation, Michelle talked to me about the power of journaling individually and how to use it in groups if you're in a team setting. We also talked about addressing burnout and this wonderful idea of glimmers, which provides a much-needed dose of positivity when you need it. (You're going to want to try it.) And if you've been listening to the show for a while and you enjoy it, if you've found these episodes helpful, please be sure to follow and subscribe. That simple action genuinely supports the show, so I can continue to provide great conversations like this one.
So go to www.followthepodcast.com/passionfordance to subscribe and follow on your favorite podcast platform. That's www.followthepodcast.com/passionfordance. Okay, here's my conversation with Michelle!
_______
[Motivational Music]
Hi, I'm Dr. Chelsea, a former professional dancer and mental performance coach. I know what it feels like to be a passionate dance teacher who cares about your dancers, but you want to challenge them and help them be their best, and I also recognize that some traditions and teaching practices in the dance world are harmful. So I'm on a mission to change our dance industry by creating happier, more successful dancers using positive mental skills.
When you understand how to help your dancers with their confidence, how to find their own motivation, work together as a team and more, your dancers will unlock new levels of competitive success and happiness. And it's not just about them; you deserve the same. So we'll talk about how dance teachers can use positive mental skills to be more confident, resilient, and motivated as well.
Be sure to hit “subscribe” wherever you listen to podcasts. There are new episodes every Thursday, and each week you'll hear from me and my guests with advice and actionable tips for building mental toughness, covering topics about mindset, motivation, resilience, and building a community. Passion for Dance is a show designed to help dance educators like you have a positive impact on every dancer you teach.
[Motivational Music]
_______
Dr. Chelsea: Hi, Michelle! Welcome. Thank you for being here!
Michelle: Thank you for having me!
Dr. Chelsea: Will you tell us a little about your own dance background, your journey here?
Michelle’s Dance Background – 2:54
Michelle: Definitely! I started a long time ago at age two. I think like most dancers in the world, we start when we're really young, and I danced all the way through high school. I went to college at Oklahoma City University. I’m very, very proud of my education there, and I'm very proud I got through the program there because it is intense for anyone that knows about Oklahoma City.
I, then, went and danced for the NBA and NFL and moved here to Houston, Texas, and I was on the very original team for the Texan Cheerleaders. I loved it. I started, then, doing choreography and teaching in the city, and now I'm freelance and choreograph for drill teams and studios and run my own company.
So everything has kind of, you know, progressed in the way I would have loved for it to when I was little thinking where I wanted to be when I was older. And then I wrote a book, which kind of came out of nowhere, actually. It was not on my ten-year plan to start something new in my life. But as you get older, you have different aspirations and different goals, and my teaching career kind of took me a different way. So, you know, you get out of performing and things change, and now things are changing again.
Dr. Chelsea: That is — absolutely. It's always going to evolve. That's the fun of the journey is to let it evolve where it's supposed to be. So did you want dance to be your career when you were younger or was that part a shift as well?
Michelle: I did. Especially as I got into high school, I got with a studio, and I just fell in love with — we didn't compete a lot, but I fell in love with all the different styles. I became a tap dancer. you know, things just evolved. And then when I got into college, it was everything I ever dreamed of. As I started taking pedagogy and learning how to teach and integrating my thoughts and doing choreography classes, it's all I really ever wanted to do.
I didn't have — I'll be frank, which I think a lot of dancers need to hear this, but I didn't have the family that was like — they were like, “You're never going to make money. What are you doing?” right?
Dr. Chelsea: Right.
Michelle: “What's your backup?” And I was never the person that had the backup. I'm like, “I am gonna dance! I am gonna be a choreographer!” So, luckily, I think I was strong enough in my motivation and drive that I was able to make it happen because I know it’s never — the arts is not an easy path anyway, but yeah, I had no other dreams of anything.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, you're right. I think we're often told, “What's your backup,” or, you know, “Dance can be your side gig, but what are you really going to do,” right? And not allowing for the room to say, “No, but this is what I really want to do, and I will have a career with it.”
Michelle: Yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, so I feel like that's part of the kind of identity of it too. If you're like, “Nope, I'm a dancer. I'm a choreographer. I want to be in that world,” without worrying about what other people are saying. Yeah.
Michelle: Yeah, I just had to find a way.
Dr. Chelsea: And that's, like you said, the motivation piece, and I think you will find a way, and there is no backup when it's genuine to who you are, when it's like, “This is, you know, in alignment, who I am, what I love, therefore I will make it work.”
Michelle: Yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: I want to dive in and talk to you about journaling because that’s something that I have talked about on the show plenty of times. I've used it myself with my own dancers, and I know it's something that you feel really passionate about too.
Michelle’s Experience Journaling – 6:21
So let's start with when you were younger, did you use a journal when you were younger or in college or have you used it as a dancer and seen how it helped?
Michelle: I didn't do a lot of that when I was younger. I did it when I was older, and I didn't do it in terms of dance. I did it in terms of therapy, yeah.
So, you know, you become an adult, you have traumatic things that happen in your life. I went through a really traumatic experience, and I got myself into therapy, and my therapist used journaling as a way to help me, and I'd never really done it before. But what was interesting was it wasn't just the writing it down for me, it was when I had to speak it back and I had to read it out loud and re-listen to what I actually wrote. It was eye-opening to me because I almost — when you're writing, you almost sometimes don't even know what you're writing, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Right.
Michelle: It just kind of came out of you. And so, then when I would read it and then we'd go into these discussions, I would just I think I learned more about myself in a year through that journaling process as a human then I think I ever have, and I wish I would have done it younger because I think some things in my life I could have handled better if I would have really understood the tools of writing it down and listening to myself and being honest because it was the honesty and the journaling that really changed my life, for sure.
Dr. Chelsea: Yes, and I similarly didn't start it when I was younger either and now, you know, try to share with everybody, “Start it early. Start it with that awareness,” because it is the awareness. It is like, “Oh, that's what I was thinking about?” or “That was the emotion?” and you don't realize it until you say it back. And I think you're right. That's such a powerful part of journaling is rereading it at least but saying it out loud because when you do switch to hearing it, a lot of times you hear either the catastrophizing right? You're like, “Oh, that's not real. That was a little extreme,” or you hear the real emotion. You're like, “Oh, I didn't realize I was hurt. I thought I was mad.”
Michelle: Exactly.
Dr. Chelsea: You see how you really were thinking and feeling behind it. And I started because it was just in my planner, and as an adult, I think this was my favorite planner at the time when I had my first son and I was in this, like, “How do I do this working mom — too crazy. I don't know what to do,” and my planner just had essentially monthly reflections, but they were a deeper monthly journal. And then at the time I was like, “This is just relaxing. This feels nice.” Like it just felt nice, right? But then at the end of the year — like the December one was to go back and reread, and the first time I did that, I was like, “Oh, wow.” And now I'm grateful I've captured some of those moments of that special time, and I saw more of like, “Oh, that's what I was really thinking or why that was so hard,” and started to figure out like, “Oh, this journal reflection cycle is amazing of what it can do for you.”
Michelle: It’s very interesting, and when you use it within a group setting too, I think it's great for dancers because you think you're the only one going through something that you wrote down, something that's an emotional part of your life, and then the next person answers the question the exact same way. You're like, “What? What do you mean?” Oh, and it can create bonds, if you let it, and new friendships with, then, people that you realize, you know, you have some of the same experiences and some of the same feelings, just being a dancer and having those things in common.
How to Use Journal in a Group Setting – 10:10
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Will you talk about how you do that in a group setting? So I'm assuming, jumping forward, that you use this as a teacher with your students, so how this works for you with your dancers?
Michelle: Yes. Okay, so I actually haven't gotten to use my new book for it, but what's interesting is back in January I had the idea for this book, and McNeese State University had been following me on Instagram and brought me in to work with their dance team, and not teaching dance but speaking, which was very new to me, I'm going to be very honest, because typically I'm using motivation and things in terms of the dance class, not talking. That's normally not my thing.
I took the baby, baby first version of my book. It was only three little chapters. I had taken my book, and I had them — we sat in a circle, they all wrote things down and we all started answering questions in front of — and they were like, “What do you mean I have to read this? I don't want to say this out loud,” or they were scared of hurting someone's feelings or not talking about the things that were the real problems going on. I mean, it might've been — it was two hours of crying, good crying, the kind like making them stand in front of each other and say what needed to improve, what wasn't working. “How can we make this team thrive and be there for each other?”
And I left tired, emotionally tired, but I left like, “Okay, I have to do this. It works. Journaling really works,” and I know I've heard from their director, and they've all got the book now. And she's like, “It's been different. We actually talk.” Sometimes it's just letting journaling open some communication, which I think is great.
But that was my one experience that led me to my path because when I left, I had sadness for some of the things they said, but joy for the feeling of how I might've helped.
Dr. Chelsea: Sure, well, and I think that people are nervous to let too much come up, right? To like, “Okay, I want to help communication, but I don't want somebody to get hurt. I don't want there to be animosity after this,” which I understand that you create the safe environment to do it. But I think if we shy away from any of those hard conversations, you're stuck, right? Like you said, you have to open that gate to genuine communication, right?
Michelle: And it has to be honest, right? I think that's one of the things I talk about a lot is you can answer these questions just to answer them in a journal, but if you're not answering them real, from your gut, from being truly honest, that honesty is what makes you become a better human. It makes you become a better teammate. It makes you become a better student. It's all of those things involved together that, then, in turn, you know, can make the growth happen. But you have to be honest.
And I'm honest sometimes, and I don't like the things that — I mean, none of us are perfect. I don't like all the things that I sometimes have to be honest about, and that was what my therapy sessions back in the time were. Really being honest and then hearing my honesty so I could improve. I could be better and understand things that had happened to me that I could improve from.
Types of Questions to Journal About as a Team – 13:35
Dr. Chelsea: Sure. So when you're doing this with a group, dig into the types of questions because I want to be practical. I want to be — you know, things you could go try. But are there questions about the dancers reflecting for themself or the dancers reflecting on the team or both?
Michelle: I think there's a little bit of both. It depends on the chapter. Let's just say, for me, my first chapter is “Why Do You Love to Dance?” That’s a very interpersonal question and something you need to answer honestly about so you understand on the bad days why you're there to begin with.
Then there's reflections on things like confidence versus arrogance. That's one of my favorites, but that also goes into more team. It is: “How is your team perceived by others? If someone was to describe your team in three words, what would they say? Would they be positive,” right? You might think that because you go in, everybody thinks you're wonderful, but it's also the behind the scenes. How are you treating other people?
So I think there's a little bit of everything in the way you need to approach because, yes, we need to study and work on ourselves as individuals, but then also to be the best team, we've got to work on how we're presenting ourselves as a team. How are we working together when a guest choreographer comes in? All of those things are all the presentation and reflection of who we are individually and together.
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Yeah, because I, of course, come at it with this group-dynamic lens, like looking inward is always a good — you have to start there and be honest with yourself and be able to express how you feel and a lot of hard conversations. You can protect it by not attacking the other person. “You're doing that wrong. I wish you would do that differently,” but just talking about, “This is how I feel. This is what my experience is.” But then going to a team level works if you're able to do it where, like I'm still on the team. So, “Our team–,” it's that language, right? “We,” “our team,” rather than, especially if you're going to complain about something, or, like you said, “We're not motivated enough. We're being lazy. It's ‘we.’ I'm a part of this too.” Not like, “The rest of you were screwing this up. I'm over here doing fine,” right?
Michelle: Yes.
Dr. Chelsea: Because I could see that dynamic being a problem.
Michelle: Exactly. You've got to be able to sit there and have an open conversation about who you are and what your strengths and weaknesses are and then include that in the team dynamic. So if you're each looking at the things you are bringing to the team or could do better with the team, then the team discussion should be easy.
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Michelle: Then you're all seeing each other for both your strengths and weaknesses. It can't just be one or the other.
Dr. Chelsea: Right, yes. So I think it definitely helps, like we said, this communication, being genuine with each other, which I think is more important now, and I, you know, have been teaching and working with teenage/college for, like, 20 years now. And these kinds of conversations, they were never easy. These are hard conversations, but we could go, “Everybody just write a letter to the team,” and we'd talk about it, and it went fine, right? And now, I think we need more structure around how to do this well and helping them. You know, we're not talking behind a phone. We are going to sit down and talk face to face and have this conversation. I don't know if you've seen this, like in-person conversation part shift, that that's harder or something that they need more education on how to do it?
Michelle: I totally agree, and I hear a lot of dance directors tell me it's like post-COVID that it's changed a lot. That time of everyone being on their computers and everyone being connected and down with devices has made looking each other in the eye and having conversations a little bit more difficult.
And I do think that guided conversations are a very good thing because then the person who's talking and needing to answer those questions doesn't feel as uncomfortable, I think. And they understand they're in a safer space if it's kind of being guided or, you know, you had a book or something that you can write things down in and then have those conversations.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Well, and I've heard you talk about how journaling, again, like we said, increases self-awareness. It's what opens up these conversations, and for so many dance teachers and coaches who are trying to get their dancers to open up, to be honest, to be real, this is one good way to do that, right, to get started. So do you have a sense of why it works or why conversations like this need to be opened up more? I think I've heard you talk about it somewhere. It's not just that journaling facilitates it but that we need it. We need these deeper conversations with our dancers and for them with each other.
The Importance of Deeper Conversations Amongst Dancers – 18:28
Michelle: I agree. I think that when you get into these structured rehearsals and everything that we're doing in the dance world is so busy and there's always something coming up, we forget that you can't enjoy all those things coming up if we're not unified and understanding each other. So, for me, when I set a piece of choreography, if that team isn't on the same page when I'm there that day, you can feel it, and they don't learn together. They're criticizing each other. They're using their eyes to be like, “I wish I was in that spot. Why am I not there?” You can feel all those things happening. And they don't understand that we can feel it, but we do because we have to take room. That’s part of our job.
So, sometimes I feel like if those conversations had happened and they all came into that rehearsal with those set goals, those set ideas of the things they talked about that they want to get out of that time with that guest teacher, everything would go better and smoother and happier. The learning process would be better. They would memorize quicker because their brains would not be on all of these other things. It would be on their target task.
And I know so many directors say, “We don't have a lot of time for this,” and “We'll try to make time for this.” I think, as important as the dancing is, as important as competition and all of that stuff is to so many teams, the health of your team and the wellness of your dancers needs to start becoming as big of a priority as the competitions. Because when they leave that high school or they leave that college team to go be adults, ultimately as teachers, our goal is to make them the best adults they can possibly be. Sure, maybe they'll go into the dance field, but I would hope that some of these conversations would make them better people for their friends and future loved ones down the line.
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Yes, and I think so many dance directors will talk about, “How many hours a week do you practice?” and some that it's a lot. I'm like, “Wow, are you getting that much cleaner with that amount of time?” I don't know.
Michelle: I know! [Laughs] It's so much. How do you have time to do anything else?
Dr. Chelsea: I’m like, “No, it's too much,” and then they're like, “But we don't have time. We never have time!” I'm like, “But if you did –.” My belief, and I’m agreeing, I think this is what you're saying too, that if you do more of the foundational work, the rest of that happens faster. Like you said, you learn faster. You don't need as much time to lay the choreography down. You clean it faster. You've done that work ahead of time. So it is a brain thing. Like you said, you're not distracted. The dancer is not watching the dancer next to them. They're like, “Oh, I wish I was in that highlight.” Blocking instead, they're like, “I'm learning my choreography,” right? They're able to process things so much faster because they're not distracted by the team-dynamic stuff because you've done it.
Michelle: Right, and it can't just be — someone will say to me, “Well, we work on that kind of stuff in the summer.” Well, that's a really long year that you have coming up.
Dr. Chelsea: Right. I'm like, we are 365.
Michelle: Right! You need some refreshers. You need some idea of — like, read the room. If that team is not gelling that day, stop. Sit them in a circle. Let's ask those questions. Let's get it out in the open and then stand up and get back to work because then the work is going to be better. It will be better. And just the time that we live in, it just is what it is now. We've got to find ways to make sure that everybody is healthy and happy.
So, too, I'm sad when I see dancers burn out and get so tired and unhealthy in a way that they don't continue dancing, which always is supposed to bring you joy.
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm. Right.
Michelle: So I feel like if some of these conversations were happening, maybe we wouldn't lose as many dancers as early as we do.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, and it's something that I have shared a lot about too. This is not about coddling them. It's not about like, “Oh, baby, you're so sad. We have to talk about it.” It's like, no, it's genuinely hearing how they feel and genuinely letting them understand themselves, which is part of this awareness, but then say, “Okay, you have this icky emotion, or you're upset about something on this team, or we're not on the same page. We're going to acknowledge it and then figure out how to work through it to move forward.” It's that lesson and, like, “Yeah, we're going to dredge all this up so that we can learn to talk through it and work through it and grow from it rather than hide the negative emotions or pretend like they're not there and, you know, try to just power through it. It's like these conversations are hard, but part of it is learning how to have them so that you can stay healthy and, you know, be able to find all that, all the positive too.
Michelle: I agree, because you're not going to wake up the next morning and it all just be gone.
Dr. Chelsea: Right.
Michelle: It's still there, right? And so, I think the younger age group now goes through so much more than I did when I was younger. I mean, we didn't have social media. We didn't have cell phones. So you look at all those things. That's why so many more conversations need to be involved in the team dynamic. And even in the studio. It’s not just drill teams or dance teams, but even in the studio, it is okay to take a few minutes before you jump into that, you know, cleaning rehearsal and just say, “Hey, here's our topic for the day. Let's go.” Take that few minutes and then get into dancing, and I think you'll see a difference.
How Often to Do a Journaling Day – 23:58
Dr. Chelsea: I think so too. Do you have an ideal setup for how this would work in a season? I mean, you kind of mentioned people are like, “Oh, we'll do it in the summer,” and then it drifts off, but we need more than that. So do you do this like once a week? Is it just as stuff comes up? How do you handle when to do it?
Michelle: I think once a week is great. I think it'd be — you know, knowing that coming in on that particular day as your book study or journaling day, you know, you're ready to go. I think during certain intense seasons, I think it should be used more. I think if you're in a really high-level competition season for teams that are competing three, four, five, however many times they compete, then you need to kind of reset yourself for the next competition. You're dealing with a lot at that time, of pressure from yourself, from your directors, from outside sources, and it's sometimes nice just to come back together over something that's motivational, inspiring, positive, whatever it is, so that the longevity of your season remains happy. The minute that burnout starts to kick in, that journaling should kick in faster so that we can get to the bottom of it, understand what's happening, fix it, and then go back to the enjoyment of what we're doing.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely. And one of my favorite things to do after a competition is to have dancers think about like, “Okay, what went really well? What didn't go so well, or did you personally have something –,” it could have been a specific skill. It could have been how much fuel you felt you had. Like, “Is there something that was not as good for you? What do you want to be better next time?” And being able to ask dancers, “Let's actually sit and think about how that went,” and spend a few minutes on it before you just jump straight back into conditioning or cleaning or training. It's, they're going to be so much more motivated to go back at it.
Michelle: Even at the end of my classes sometimes we'll be doing cooldown, and as we cool down I'll say, “Right now, think of one thing that you are so proud of from class today,” and we’ll do a little cool down. And then the next thing I'll do in cooldown is say, “Okay, now, the next time you're in class, what would you have liked to have seen improvement on today?” So I always try to start with that positive to make them really think about what they did well, then think about what they could improve on. But I even think it needs to be — I just do it during cooldown so when they walk out of the class, that's what their brain is already triggered of thinking positive and negative so they can be ready to improve the next time.
Dr. Chelsea: I love that approach because I do think there's the common challenge to this is, like, there's no time, and that's true of all of the mental toughness things. Like when you're talking about focus and motivation and confidence, it doesn't have to be the sit down and cry for two hours. That has its place, and it should probably happen for a lot of teams at least once.
Michelle: Yes.
Dr. Chelsea: But that's not what we're talking about every day. There's that session, but a lot of this is just during your classes. It's just how you approach your classes and integrating these things. You're not taking time away from the training and the physical preparation.
Michelle: Right. I sometimes have heard dance parents say, “Oh, well they were just sitting and talking.” Okay, there are moments that that is okay. That dancer and those dancers are growing in those moments. Now, I'm not sitting and saying talking and gossiping, right? We're talking about actually sitting, having constructive conversations that are going to make those dancers improve every single class and get better at every competition or performance.
And so, if a parent’s sitting in a window and they're sitting and they're having these conversations, don't look at that as a negative thing. That teacher, then, is doing something great for those dancers by opening up a conversation that means she cares about them, not just for their bodies, but she cares about them for their brain, for their mind. They're mentally in the right place to perform at their best.
Dr. Chelsea: Absolutely. Well, because otherwise rote repetition is okay for memorizing and for, you know, getting it in your body. But you do reach a point where, focus-wise, you disconnect, right? And rote repetition, you're just going over and over and over and over again, and your brain isn't even paying attention. That's not helping you necessarily grow in a way where if you were more attuned to, like, “Okay, how do I want this to get better? What muscle am I focusing on? What coordination am I paying attention to?” And if you paused and talked about it before you went into it, you get so much more out of it. So maybe we talk for 3 minutes before this 12-minute exercise instead of doing it for 15, you're going to get so much more out of it by having that mental focus, yeah.
Michelle: Right! I completely agree, and I think that, you know, I love all these organizations and different things that are also educating parents on things like this so that they understand that it isn't just drive, drive, drive in a class, that there are ways that different structures and different methods, they all work, right? And our mind does control our body, so we've got to be healthy in both places.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, I know I've had a side note on the parent side of me. My kids are both in karate, and they do a lot of this to me. I'm like, “Wow, this is so dance.” My son's not a dancer, but he's a black belt, but I see the parallel.
Michelle: Oh, I love it. That’s amazing.
Dr. Chelsea: There’s a lot of — I had no idea until he got really into this, but my point being the sensei will stop sometimes, and be like, “We're talking about this module’s character trait is honesty or is courage or these great character traits,” but they stop class and talk about the trait. And there was always, you know, the rumbling, especially when he was younger, right, like six, seven years old, and the parents are like, “This was only a 45-minute class. Why are they just gonna –,”
Michelle: Yes.
Dr. Chelsea: “– sit and talk about honesty for five minutes?” I'm like, “No, please sit and talk about honesty for five minutes. Let's share this.”
Michelle: That's part of the education, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Michelle: There's an educational side of dance and karate, of every sport, every discipline, that goes further than just moving your body every single second.
Dr. Chelsea: Yes, because it's back to that attention. When you know why you're doing it, where is it coming from? And like you said, having the journal originally about like, “Why do I love this?” Because if you lose that, then you go back into, “I show up. I throw my bag down. I go do the same combo at the barre that I do every day.” It's resetting your mindset around why you're there.
How Journaling Helps with Motivation and Confidence – 30:20
And so, I think we've talked a lot about how journaling can make a big difference in the harder emotions, right, when things are challenging in team dynamics. But I think they also help on the positive side. So will you dig into that, like how you've seen journaling help with motivation and confidence, even dancers’ ability to improv? I think so many dancers are scared of that, right? So building those positive mental skills as well?
Michelle: Yes, for me, I talk a lot about the ways you celebrate things, the way you find little joys in things. There's a term that I really love, and it's called glimmers. It's like a lot of people I say the word to, they're like, “We don't know what that is!” It's a term that was phrased by a psychologist, and it was the opposite of trigger, right? It's the way of you finding tiny little things on a daily basis that bring you joy and happiness and remembering what they are, so when they happen again — the opposite of a trigger being negative is triggering happiness.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. You notice it more.
Michelle: Yes, you notice it. And I think writing down what on a daily basis are things that bring you joy, so that when you write it and then you read it to yourself and it happens again, you're remembering that. I also think topics like motivating other people. You know, it's not just about yourself. How did you make that other person in dance class feel great that day? And then let's write about it. Or what did someone do for you that made you feel special on a day when you were having a really bad day? Let's talk about that. Let's remember that because those are the things that on those bad days or the day that you just were not good in dance class, because we all have those crazy days that it's just not happening, that you can go back to that journal and write down and read, “Oh, on this day — I remember this.” Like, “I need to bring that back into my dance class,” or “This person was so nice to me. I need to remember to tell them thank you again for that kindness that they showed me.” So then they're just reiterating all these happy, positive things —
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Michelle: — that are going on. Another big thing, one of my favorite, favorite questions — or it's not even a question, but it's give yourself a pep talk. So, on a bad day, you go back to that journal, you pull out that question, you read that amazing pep talk you gave yourself and you refresh your brain, trigger it back to the positive feeling and get away from whatever that negative was that happened that day, and treat yourself with kindness. We can treat everybody else with kindness, but sometimes it is okay for us to treat ourselves with a little bit of extra positivity too.
Dr. Chelsea: Absolutely. Well, and when we talk a lot about negative self-talk, like when dancers get stuck in this thinking bad things about themselves, or “I'm not good enough,” or “This is too hard,” there's kind of two approaches to how to handle it. And one of them being to intentionally replace it with something positive, which is great, and there's science behind it, but how powerful to have it be your words. I think that's a great way to do it, and writing it down at a time when you are in a good place and you are motivated or you found it so that when you're not in a great place, it's hard to come up with that. So having it written down for you sounds great.
Michelle: And, to me, a journal isn't about just in the moment that you're writing it down, right? It's about all the moments that come later when you need to go back to it, when you need it to be there for you, for you to remind yourself that this is what I did feel, this is what I do remember and trigger those feelings back again. And like you said, especially when it's your words and you're writing it down. Because even when I was journaling in a traumatic time, right, I was writing those hard things down, but then I started writing the good things.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Michelle: And so, then I was changing my thought from negative to positive, and that, yes, these things were terrible, but look what is happening to me because of them. I might not have turned into the person I became, I might not have realized that writing a dance journal somewhere 15 years down the road would be in my future, but it triggered. Those memories came flooding back because I had that negative-to-positive switch because of things I was writing down.
Dr. Chelsea: Right. I think that's such a huge point that I just want to summarize and capture in this, that the journaling is not just about the act of actually writing it down, as wonderful as that is and that has its own power, it's in going back to it. And I think we miss that, and we forget that that's what that's for.
Kind of like I said about that December review going back over the year, I also do one word for the year, and my word this year is actually reflection. And I've tried to be more intentional about that because I was just like produce, produce, produce, go, go, go. Like, nope, I have to stop. And not just reflecting in the current moment but reflecting back on the last six months. It's that awareness, again, of if I was in a really good mood or things were going great, why? What was going on? Was there something that I can recreate, that I can capture and find that again?
So yeah, I think that intentionally going back to your journals might be something that people are missing or haven't done before.
Michelle: Right, just because you finish it doesn't mean you put it on the shelf and it's over, right? It should be something that you pull out on a specific day or a specific memory or, you know, and go back and let it help you for longer than just the few minutes you actually wrote it down.
Dr. Chelsea: You’re inspiring me. My journals are sitting over there and I'm like, “I'm going to go pull one out.”
Michelle: I need to do it more. For me, So much of my life has switched to being more on the motivational side.
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm.
Michelle: I think I taught back in the day as a teacher that wanted to win. Now I teach as a teacher that wants to motivate. So it's very, very different for me in my mind switch, and what's crazy is I am so much better now.
Dr. Chelsea: I bet.
Michelle: My approach to children, my approach to choreography is all more about the process and the joy within the process than it is actually about the end result, which of course in our jobs, you know, your clients want the end result to be great too. But you hope that in the long run the actual process is what they remember.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Oh, you know, you're speaking my language. It's not about that end outcome.
Michelle: I used to just be only about outcome because I thought that's the reason I had students. That the only reason people came to me was because I won, or the only reason people hired me was because my choreography won. Now, I do still think that's the case, and I always want to produce winning results, but I don't want to do it in the kind of way I used to where I feel like it was more in fear than in — I taught more fearfully, like afraid, afraid I was not going to win, than teaching because I actually want a relationship with the people that I teach for them to remember the things I'm saying not just what I got them.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Well, I think, like you said, when we're in that fear place — and I'm with you, I definitely had that phase before I came to recognize the work that I do now. That when you're focused on the fear and you're focused on, “What if I don't get it right,” then, again, that's your thought pattern. That's where your focus is, and you get to the end and your like sense of success is rooted in some judge's opinion of what happened, and you can't do anything about that or have any control over that. And once you shift to the process, like, “I can get to the end, and sometimes we win and sometimes we don't, but I still had an incredible year that made a difference. I got better. They got better. There's still the growth there,” and it's like taking the reins back, taking the control back.
Michelle: Yeah, it took me a long time. It took me a long time, and I still feel that I change and get better every single class by making my mindset be, “What are these kids going to walk out feeling,” you know? Because, you know, one class isn't going to make or break what they do with their lives as dancers. But that one class, that one little thing you said to them, can make them just enjoy the next class even more.
Dr. Chelsea: Thank you for that, Michelle. I think we are definitely on the same page. You and I have very similar approaches to this. I love finding more of us who are out there doing this work. So will you share more about your book? You mentioned it. I want to make sure people can go find it. Where is it? How do we find it? How do we learn more?
“Hey Dancers… Let’s Talk About It!” – 38:50
Michelle: Yes. So the title is “Hey Dancers… Let's Talk About It!” And I started an Instagram series kind of out of nowhere one day. I had a bad day, and I wrote something on Instagram, and it took off. And then I was like, “Oh, I'll keep writing. Oh, I'll say more. Oh, people are listening.”
And then everyone was like, “Michelle, you've got to do something with this.” So that's when it became an actual book, and then I was like, “Okay, well, now it needs to be more than that.” So then I made it a journal. So I kind of put all my ideas into one thing. It's 25 chapters. I kind of like to think of it as going through a dance season where the beginning of the book starts with why do you love to dance, and then it goes into cheering on other people, supporting other teams, competition season. And then it goes into burnout, which we all know happens right after, and then it goes into what are your dreams, what are you doing for other people, where do you find the joy.
So I feel like it can bookend an entire season if you want to use it that way, or it could just be that on this day, you see that one topic — like negative energy is a big one people talk to me about. “We had a class that the energy was not good. Pull it out. Let's go to that chapter. Let's figure out why this class happened like this today. How can we make the next class better?”
It came out in about a month ago, and it's on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and I'm in Texas and it's getting ready to go into some dancewear stores, which is really, really cool to me to think that locally someone could just go to the store and pick this book up and look through it and be like, “This would be a great gift for my dancer or for her friends or someone down the line.”
I also, in my head, because I work with drill teams, had it as a book study idea of everybody sitting with the book, having these open conversations, and just truly talking instead of dancing every single second, so that the talking can improve the dancing, and then the dancing can improve the talking.
Dr. Chelsea: Yes.
Michelle: Everything, you know, to me, would be kind of hand in hand, but it's been an incredible journey. I've never done anything like this in my life. I never thought I'd write a book. I never thought I'd be published. I just didn't. It wasn't in my head. And then I just really started enjoying writing and hearing people's stories on Instagram and people were very open with me. “This topic hits home,” or “I can't wait to go home and read this to my dancer,” or “You need to talk about this because this is something that's happening in the studio world,” things that I wasn't even kind of aware of, I guess, in my own little universe.
So I’ve liked it just because I’ve met people from around the world that are — you know, we're all so similar. Someone said to me the other day, “So many of these topics you could have talked about ten years ago and you could talk about ten years from now.” They're not just about right now. It's very, very — bullying.
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm.
Michelle: Crazy as that is, that's not going to go away. We want it to, but, you know, I have a lot of honest questions in there. “How have you been treated? How have you treated other people?” And I think it's a really good way of just having the device to make these conversations happen like you and I were talking about because sometimes you just need an avenue, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Yes.
Michelle: You need an avenue. You need something that you're holding that also, as a director — a lot of directors have said to me, “I'm saying some of these same things, but they're not hearing me because I'm their director and they hear me every day, all day. Then I pull this out or I read this Instagram post and say, ‘Oh, Miss Michelle posted this on Instagram. I'm going to read it.’ And they're like, ‘Okay, yeah,’ and have these conversations. They're like, ‘I just had this conversation with you yesterday!’”
But if you have a guidepost, and these aren't conversations you really want to have, the guidepost allows you to have them without it coming from you directly.
Dr. Chelsea: Yes. Oh, I love that you can use it in different ways. Like you said, make it a full, big book study. It can be an individual thing. It can be front to back. It can be pick the topic. So a great way to be able to facilitate the conversations, and you're right. I get a lot of the same with my work. You know, they're like, “I'm saying the same thing!” I'm like, “I know.” It's the director effect. It's the mom effect. They don't listen when it's you, but this gives such a solid tool. And that's what we need. Like, here's the structure, here's the tool. So if this is resonating with you, go check it out because this is going to give you that — like I said, the guideposts tell you how to have these hard conversations.
Michelle: Right, and I think that there's plenty of happy conversations in there too, right? There's plenty of amazing ways that you can just inspire on a daily basis through one simple question. Maybe you don't have to sit down and answer all five questions with that one chapter. You could just pick that question and know that your team, your dancers in that moment need that question. You know, it's like the pep talk question. It's in there. If that day you want to pick two dancers and be like, “Hey, What'd you say in your pep talk?”
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. I love that.
Michelle: Right? “Share that with the group, so that we all can be motivated by you.” So then you're just bonding. It's just bonding, right? And sometimes I love that people play games and do all kinds of things like that to bond. I do think, though, that bonding can be talking too, and that that's an okay thing.
Dr. Chelsea: Wonderful. I agree.
Michelle: And that if we can get more people to talk and open up, then I think the dance community will, you know, work. The dance community is bigger than it's ever been, and I want to keep it that way,
Dr. Chelsea: Right.
Michelle: You know? And if a conversation will make that happen, then I am all about it.
Dr. Chelsea: Yes. I love that. Thank you. So we can definitely go find the book. Where else can people find you if they want to follow along?
Connect with Michelle – 44:27
Michelle: I'm so on Instagram, it's my name. It's @michelleleagans, and then I have a new website: www.letstalkaboutdance.com, and that's my full book website. So you can go on. You can order the book through there, and I'm going to eventually start blogging through that as well once we have everything kind of set up and going. But I'm still posting brand new topics on my Instagram all the time in terms of also hoping to, you know, maybe every year create another type of journal, maybe one for teachers, maybe one for parents, you know, different ways of keeping the conversation open in our community for any way.
So I do different posts for dancers, parents, and I do some for studios too, just as a way of keeping some topics alive. A lot are coming to me from people, and I'm trying to help them by writing about the topic. So I am taking a lot of requests because I don't know every single entity that's happening in every single studio, and the more people share with me the more, then, I hope to be able to have a voice to help.
Dr. Chelsea: Yes. Oh, that is so wonderful. Thank you for helping to keep this conversation going because we need it, and I love what you have created is making such a huge positive impact on our dance community. So thank you so much for Michelle. Thanks for being here!
Michelle: Yes, definitely. Thank you for having me again! I’m following you too, so it's nice to actually have a face to an Instagram account.
Dr. Chelsea: Yes! Isn’t it? I know. It’s like we’re real people!
Michelle: We're actually real people!
Dr. Chelsea: Yep. We're really just trying to make a difference.
Michelle: Definitely.
Dr. Chelsea: Wonderful. Thank you, Michelle!
Michelle: You're welcome!
_______
[Motivational Outro Music]
Thank you for listening to Passion for Dance! You can find all episode resources at www.chelseapierotti.com/podcast, and be sure to follow me on Instagram for more high-performance tips at @dr.chelsea.pierotti. This podcast is for passionate dance teachers and coaches who are ready to change the dance industry by creating happier, more successful dancers. I'm Dr. Chelsea and keep sharing your passion for dance with the world.
[Motivational Outro Music]