24: Fostering Community through Deaf and Disability Theatre with Col Cseke

01/19/22 • 43 min

Col Cseke is the Artistic & Executive Director at Inside Out Theatre, which is a Deaf and disability theatre company in Calgary invested in artistic excellence, community development, and deepening our cultures’ accessibility. He also runs a podcast called Mad Practice with his best buddy JD, where they talk about living with madness and generally just revel in their friendship. In this episode, we explore his journey with theatre and the connections he’s made within that industry, as well as the mental health effects of the pandemic and how it’s shifted our interactions with people. A candid and inspirational conversation, he shares a lesson he learned this past year: “Good people know good people.” In other words, connecting with one good person who is very involved in the community can lead to all these other relationships with awesome people.

Highlights & Takeaways

Col has always had an inclination towards storytelling and community building, and so a life in a theatre gave him a chance to do both of these things
Inside Out Theatre emphasizes that work created by and centered around artists with disabilities or deaf artists is a really vital part of us. It’s not a charitable or “nice thing to do”, but that in itself is a rich and thriving culture.
How during the pandemic he convinced himself that he was introvert and didn’t need to be around other people, which wasn’t true. But it was his coping mechanism as a way to not ask for help or be vulnerable with others.
Becoming comfortable with reaching out to friends just to talk and catch up, and not for any other particular reason or facade
How it’s difficult for a lot of people to make friends as an adult, but recognize that that’s okay too

Resources Mentioned

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Music by Meghan Rennie - Instagram / Soundcloud

Website: excusestoconnect.com

Email: [email protected]Support Me: Buy Me A Coffee

Highlights & Takeaways

Col has always had an inclination towards storytelling and community building, and so a life in a theatre gave him a chance to do both of these things
Inside Out Theatre emphasizes that work created by and centered around artists with disabilities or deaf artists is a really vital part of us. It’s not a charitable or “nice thing to do”, but that in itself is a rich and thriving culture.
How during the pandemic he convinced himself that he was introvert and didn’t need to be around other people, which wasn’t true. But it was his coping mechanism as a way to not ask for help or be vulnerable with others.
Becoming comfortable with reaching out to friends just to talk and catch up, and not for any other particular reason or facade
How it’s difficult for a lot of people to make friends as an adult, but recognize that that’s okay too

Resources Mentioned

______

Enjoyed this episode? Share it with a friend and make sure to follow Excuses to Connect on Facebook and Instagram.

Music by Meghan Rennie - Instagram / Soundcloud

Website: excusestoconnect.com

Email: [email protected]Support Me: Buy Me A Coffee

Previous Episode

23: Task-Oriented and Relationship-Oriented People with September Plumer

September Plumer is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) currently working towards her MBA. She is also currently the President of the Dinosaur Toastmaster club. She sees Toastmasters as a great middle ground of having activities for both task-oriented and relationship-oriented people. What does she mean by this? Well, a few years ago, she read about people either lean towards being task-oriented which means you’re great that you’re getting stuff done, but struggle in relationships. Or you’re relationship-oriented which means you’re great at connecting with people, but you don’t get as much done. In this episode, we explore this dynamic as well as her project to write down 4500 things she was grateful for.

Highlights & Takeaways

John Gottman’s concept of bids (any attempt to connect with someone) and the 3 ways it can be responded to. This is what separates long-term happy couples from those who are less happy
As an accountant, she can spend a lot of her career by herself, but how in her MBA right now, she’s been challenged to think more of how she can manage and motivate others effectively
Gratitude journaling helped her to be more relationship-oriented by writing down people she was grateful for and then texting them to let them know
When she hit 4,500 items of gratitude, she felt like she had strengthened that muscle to where it needed to be and that it had totally changed her life, even though her circumstances hadn’t changed
At one point in her life, her house was bursting with all the things she had bought thinking that it would make her feel like she was enough and was doing okay, but she now realizes that decluttering is one way she could take control of her life
If she could put any message on a billboard for the world to see, it would be: “Our lives affect and influence the people who are around us [...] So remember you make a difference, no matter how big or how small your circle is.”

Resources Mentioned

______

Enjoyed this episode? Share it with a friend and make sure to follow Excuses to Connect on Facebook and Instagram.

Music by Meghan Rennie - Instagram / Soundcloud

Website: excusestoconnect.com

Email: [email protected]Support Me: Buy Me A Coffee

Next Episode

25: Personal Branding as a Tool for Connection with Isaac Mashman

Isaac Mashman is a businessman, podcast host, and public speaker. Over the span of several years, and nearly a dozen various business ideas, it was in 2020 that Isaac launched his company Mashman Ventures, a public relations firm that specializes in working with people who want to be followed, in-demand, and respected to build their personal brands. In this episode, we hone in on what personal branding means and also how it relates to making meaningful connections with others.

Highlights & Takeaways

An elevator pitch is how you would sum up what you have going on in a short amount of time - Isaac approaches it by building rapport and focusing on the other person, rather than immediately trying to sell
Personal branding is something that you have already had since you were born - it’s who you are, your reputation, and your relationship with the general public
How Isaac was able to facilitate a connection between his musician friend and a famous local artist whom he respected, but never met. Now the artist has been managing Isaac’s friend for a year now
You don't have to grow every relationship, because you might be going in a different direction and have different values than each other
Aggressive patience is understanding that things take time, but also recognizing that if you have a vision of where you want to get to, why not get there sooner if you can?

Resources Mentioned