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This is the stop time podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Hopkins, and I'm here to engage you in thought provoking motivational conversations around practicing the art of living in the moment. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm excited to dig deep and offer insights into embracing who we are and where we are at.
Luke Iorio:
Welcome once again to on this walk. Today, I wanted to speak about the audacity to follow your own path. And so I wanted to invite two individuals on that I felt could speak to this so incredibly well, the first of which is Lisa Hopkins. Lisa is an ICF certified professional coach, energy leadership, match practitioner and core dynamics specialist. She is a dedicated lifelong learner who has been trained in positive psychology and mental fitness, and continues her ongoing studies in mental health, mindfulness and spirituality. I'll be honest, right now, I feel like I'm reading some of my own background, well respected for excellence. As an educator in the performing arts. She remains in demand as a teacher, creative advisor, and even event curator Lisa is passionate, creative professional with over 25 years of experience working in the performing arts industry. As a director, choreographer, producer, writer, dance educator, she also hosts the very popular podcast, stop time, and has a vision to share the power of her coaching work with the entertainment community and beyond by creating safe, mentally and spiritually healthy spaces for all those who thrive creatively, and become artists in their own lives. And so if I give just that big invitation, as it were to tell a little bit of that story from that audacious angle, I'd like to open that up for you guys. And maybe Lisa, if we begin with you.
Lisa Hopkins:
Yeah, Audacity is huge. And I love I love what you talked about with the sort of juxtaposition of the two meanings right? When two things existing at once. And I identify so so strongly with that, because in my life, I think it would be fair to say that from the outside, some people would view me as audacious, you talked about the need to be audacious and I don't think I've ever felt the need to be audacious. But I absolutely feel that in my life, particularly as an adult person, although if we go back, I can feel it growing as a young person, right? If I look back now, with the perspective I have, but to answer your question, the implication that audacious is something to break away from, rather than to step into, or to open up for I think that's where I've always come from, I've remarked on when people would say, wow, you know, you're so dot, dot, dot, fill in Maverick fill in lucky fill in Brave fill in loud. It's so ironic to me a because as a young person I'd never spoken to spoken to. I was absolutely an observer and I still am. But my own sense of agency. That's what I like to call it. My inner agent is funny, I just wrote about this, it came to me as an opportunity, saying you can do whatever you want to do. And at 16, I received this message. And because, you know, I was 16. And I was really into dance. I had to, you know, attach it to something. So I was like, Cool. I heard the voice and I said, I will dance and dance. I did. So off. I went to New York City, and I pursued it. I was not the best dancer. I had no green card. I really couldn't audition for things. But I was going because I could do anything. I heard the voice loud and clear. Now in the seat that I sit in, I realized that that was what I call agency as opposed to not as opposed to maybe it's in we can talk about that. I'd love to know your guys thoughts about how that fits into, you know, the other a word, right? And I realized now that the agency is with me, no matter what I do. It's not what I do. I wasn't bold to go to New York. I mean, sure. I mean, someone else might say I was I wanted to go to New York. So I went I didn't deserve a a metal. For that, I wanted to be a coach. So I trained I studied, I learned still learning, still training, still studying, these are choices I make there. I don't think they're audacious. I think they're open. I'd rather be a gate opener than to sort of rebel against the gatekeepers. I don't think about gatekeepers. I'm my only gatekeeper. Let me
Luke Iorio:
ask you about two things. One is if you could just say a little bit more about having received that message, what form did that take? Or what did that mean to you? What did it mean to receive that message?
Lisa Hopkins:
It was visceral. It was literally just a feeling a random feeling. I wasn't trying to do anything. I was sitting at lunch on the floor in my high school, it came to me this memory, again, of sitting there. And I remember telling it to my students, I never knew how to explain the lesson. It was more just like it came to me, which is, you know, I would always sort of as a young person, it bothered me when people said, I was just lucky, right place, right time, all these sorts of platitudes about how things happen. So there was no big romantic moment or whatever. And it's almost in retrospect that I know what it is. It just felt like a clear message. I looked back at the date, like, what was happening in the world around that time, as I was researching the article for myself, because I was thinking, what's the context here? Right. And I was wondering, and curious to know if it's around the time that John Lennon was assassinated. And it was. And I think that triggered the sort of bigger thinking about life.
Luke Iorio:
Even in that, I mean, you just say it's, it's maybe not that big, so called cinematic or romantic moment, or what have you. But I think maybe it's why I wanted to ask is that I hear this often enough. And I hear the other side of that in people that have written to me or side conversations, or otherwise, of people who felt, whether it's that message or that nudge, to lean into something, or to move in a certain direction to open up into something, and they didn't lean into it. Because something in them did not allow them to access that agency. At that time, there was something that was chipping away at them from being able to do that. And so I just want to be able to acknowledge, it's not always the parting of the sea burning bush kind of moments, right? It can be sitting on the gymnasium floor, when you're 1617 years old. It For Me, it can be out, you know, hanging out with a tree, because those are some of my best friends in the world. It can be any number of things, right? And so it doesn't have to be the big moment. But it's to pay attention to what those messages are those nudges even are, and even to just follow them to whatever degree you can open yourself up to in the way that Lisa, you described it. Was that because dance was already there for you. He was like, No, I want to go to New York, you said you attached it to dance has something I wanted to come back, you know, because that's what was present for you. And at that point in your life. But it was like, once you were clear, this is where I'm going, then all of a sudden, it's like the forces kind of aligned behind you to send you in that direction. And I guess I just am really curious. It's like, why do we have to get to that point? How do we bring that agency? And how do we connect to that sense of agency earlier? Because maybe we will choose to stay? Maybe we'll choose say, You know what this part of our chapter of our lives isn't done yet. And I'm okay with the fact that it's not right. I want to lean into it. That's okay. But it almost feels like we're waiting to really, truly access that point of agency. How do you see this?
Lisa Hopkins:
It's really interesting, because what really comes up for me big and strong is that there was no countering anything. There was no, screw it, I'm gonna do it or dammit at all. So it wasn't a moment where I woke up, it wasn't like an awakening. Yeah, I feel like in many ways, again, with my wider lens of being able to look back on myself, I just don't see it as an if then thing or now I'm going to change or I need to have it all the time. I really honestly feel and I've struggled with this, ironically, not struggled, I just recognize it and know it. But even going into the coaching training, you know, that sort of, okay, let's talk about the voices in your head, let's find your Gremlin. It's not that I was so self actualized at all, but it's just my perception. I think of the moment always felt, I trusted it, I guess. And whether that's trusting myself or trusting the moment trust comes back again. And so people again, ascribe it to confidence or to where did that come from? My parents used to say, Oh, my God, after he went to New York, I was always that confident I maybe didn't operate in that way. Or maybe there were other things at play, you know, that we need to do when we're younger. Like and I'm not saying snuff is I don't need fire. Oh, is that fire? I certainly don't need audacity and I think again it for me it's not a breaking away from it's an entering into and I think what it connects to which is probably why I teach and I coach is I want to share it. I want to tap into that so that others can as well. You've been listening to an excerpt of my conversation with the brilliant Luke Iorio, who has a wonderful podcast of his own called on this walk I recommend that you look it up. There's some really wonderful material on there and our whole interview is there as well. And thank you, Luke. I was so honored to go on this walk with you. Thanks so much for listening everyone. I am Lisa Hopkins. Stay safe and healthy and remember to live in the moment. In music stop time is that beautiful moment where the band is suspended and rhythmic unison, supporting the soloist to express their individuality. In the moment, I encourage you to take that time and create your own rhythm. Until next time, I'm Lisa Hopkins. Thanks for listening