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Why am I working so hard?
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Feb 20, 2020
Caren Glasser goes live with Storyteller Evan Kent on the next Super Boomer Lifestyle Show! Join the conversation. #superboomer™ Check out more shows here: http://www.carenglasser.live. Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/carenglasser Follow us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/carenglasserlive Follow us on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/carenglasser Visit The Super Boomer Lifestyle store: https://thesuperboomerlifestyle.com/ #Storyteller #entrepreneur #evankent My Direct Links, Programs and Equipment I use for my Shows and Promotion: BeLive: http://bit.ly/3p7E0DB Get Your Book In Front Of Thousands of Potential Buyers! https://bit.ly/2HJ38Qu Logitech HD Pro Webcam: https://amzn.to/362BuXP Wired Earbuds with Microphone: http://amzn.to/3p1pmOi Lavalier Lapel Microphone: http://amzn.to/3p9EFVo Blue Yeti USB Mic: https://amzn.to/395hExi ATR2100-USB Cardioid Dynamic Microphone: http://amzn.to/3qzEy5A LED Video Light Kit: http://amzn.to/360Qg1w Neewer Ring Light Kit: http://amzn.to/392bON2
View Video Transcript
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Hello, everyone
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Karen Glasser here, and welcome to the Super Boomer Lifestyle Show, brought to you by the SuperBoomerLifestyle.com
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It's your one-stop shop for brands that we know you will love
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Today, I am especially excited. We are welcoming storyteller Evan Kent to the show, and today's topic is, why am I working
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so hard? I know that you've asked yourself that question. I ask myself that question probably on a daily basis
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If you're here live, we love it. If you're here on replay, make sure you comment below
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And of course, as we say every single week, share, share, share
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So before we move forward, the Super Boomer Pick of the Week, I'd like to share with you
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right now. And this is The Greatest Showman, and you're going to understand why I'm actually picking
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this as my pick of the week. If you haven't seen it, you should go see it
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The music is awesome. The talent is awesome, as is my guest. You can go and pick this up at the
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Super Boomer Lifestyle store, and I will put it in the comments as well. All righty. So without
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further ado, we're going to jump right in. My guest today is Cantor Evan Kent. Evan is a storyteller
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He's a performer. He's a cantor serving his congregation for 25 years
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But in 2013, he moved to Israel. It was not retirement, but chapter two
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Now, you know why he's on the show. Currently on the faculty of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, where he teaches liturgy and sacred music
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He's also a musical theater performer, having started many productions in Jerusalem
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His one-man show, Shards, Putting the Pieces Together, has been presented in Jerusalem, Prague, and throughout the United States
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And in 2020, Shards will be performed all across the United States, including San Antonio, San Diego, Nashville, Manhattan, Santa Rosa, Chicago
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But we have him here. So without further ado, I'm going to bring Evan Kent in
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And here he is, Evan. Welcome to the show. Hey, Karen. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on
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Or should I just call you the greatest showman? I am far from the greatest showman, but I'm trying real hard
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Well, I am just delighted that you're on. We go way, way back, even though we didn't actually officially meet face to face until we decided to have you come on the show
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So it's kind of funny. I mean, we're both cantors. We both have been in the industry and you moved to Israel
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and we're going to talk about this. We're going to talk about why we say, why are we working so hard
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I know I say that all the time. So I like to always start the show with a definition of what
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is a super boomer. So I define super boomers first by what they're not. I say super boomers are not
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defined by their age. They're defined how they show up in life. As a matter of fact, it's fearless
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with a watch me attitude. That's how I describe a super boomer
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Evan Kent, how do you describe a super boomer? You know, I've been a boomer
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You know, I'm born in 1959. I'm 60 years old. And I think that when people say you're 60
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I sort of can't believe it. But at the same time, 60 is just not old
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I just don't feel old. And especially now that I'm sort of embarked on this sort of second career as a performer and living in Jerusalem and traveling around the world, it's like a whole new me in some ways
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I will tell you that the other night I was performing my show in Naples, Florida, which is quite beautiful
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And at the end of the show, I sing a song. Actually, it's in the middle of the show
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And I say at 60, the line is at 60, I'm still wondering, am I the sum of all my fears
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That's actually the lyric that I sing. I wrote the song and I heard from the back in a very large whisper from some woman in the back
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She says, he doesn't look 60. And that's true because I don't I actually don't know what 60 looks like
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Exactly. What do you mean exactly? And I don't know what it means
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And all I know is that I feel as active. I feel is healthy. And I think more importantly, now that I've left and I had a wonderful 25 years at Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles
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now I'm able to take all that that I earned and learned for 25 years and put it into a whole other aspect of my life
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So I really have at 60, I've become perhaps the performing artist that I put on the back shelf for 25 years
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because as a cantor, you really do try to sublimate your ego to sort of the prayer and the music
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And now I'm out there doing this storytelling show that actually is that I wrote
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It took me about a year and a half to write and performing it all over the place. I think that's wonderful. I'm hoping that you will come out to Los Angeles area
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In fact, we were talking about that right before the show because I want to hear you live
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I want to actually see the show live. If you're just tuning in, we are talking with Evan Kent
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And the topic today is why am I working so hard? Now, I am sure, I'm sure that we have all said that to ourselves, if not daily, weekly, maybe by the hour
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Sometimes I say to myself every single minute, oh, my God, why am I doing this
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Why am I working so hard? How about you? I often wonder that. And actually, I had a really interesting discussion with my voice teacher
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And at the age of 60, I'm still taking voice lessons. And for anybody out there who is a singer, I will tell you that if you want to be considered vibrant and a healthy singer, you need to take lessons
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That's just something I teach my students. You just have to keep doing it
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But she said at a certain point, it was a very smart observation. She said at a certain point in your life you reached you you accumulated all the hours of practice and study to create your art and I find that most of my time now is I would say about 30 is spent on the art And now that I have the show
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70% is spent on self-promotion. And it is a world of self-promotion
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that I was up until about a year ago unaware of. It's Facebook, it's Instagram
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it's calling my colleagues, it's getting on the phone, it's responding to emails, it's trying to open up new markets
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And it's a lot of work. It is. And it's also in many respects. I don't know about you
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Since as a cantor, you're right. You stand up and you're on the bema, the stage
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and you are singing on behalf of the congregation or they're singing with you. And you do kind of your ego goes out the door
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Was it hard when you decided to step out and shine that spotlight on yourself and said, here I am
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Yeah, because as a cantor, I mean, I was employed, gainfully employed for 25 years
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I've never had to ask anybody to hire me. Right. And now you find that, you know, people don't respond to emails
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I give them about five or six days. I then say, you must have missed this
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And it goes on and on and on. And nobody, what's very interesting is I've never, because I've always been an employee
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I never considered myself entrepreneurial. And somebody says, somebody said to me, a good friend said, you must be kidding because
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look what you've done. You are booked all over the place. Actually, I was just hired or booked into the Marsh Theater in San Francisco
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This just happened this week. They're a theater that specializes in solo performance works
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And I'm part of what they call their Marsh Rising series, which is up-and-coming artists
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So it's sort of funny. At the age of 60, I'm an up-and-coming artist
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You know what, Evan? I mean, that's the whole focus of this show is that it's not about age
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It's about what we're going to do in our next next or the second act or the third act or the fourth act
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And that we can't let the number get in the way of what we do, because as you said, what does 60 look like exactly
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I don't you know, I actually will say I look at my parents who are in their mid 80s and are both very healthy, both very active, both still working on some level
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But I will say that those of us who grew up as baby boomers, those of us who are children of the 50s and part of the 60s, I think there's a different attitude
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We there's for better or for worse, there's a sense that we're almost infallibility that we can really do whatever we want
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And I think it's both good and I think it's sometimes it's bad because sometimes you you there's a sense of being an overachiever, at least for me
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And so I'm not just going to be a good performer. I'm going to be a great performer. And that is it's difficult
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It is. It is. So, you know, I'd like to ask my guests, if you could go back to 2025, would you? Because I wouldn't
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The only way I'm going back is if I go back with everything I know now. Exactly
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And that doesn't happen. And it doesn't happen, you know. And so it kind of makes me sad in a way that our young generation, the younger generation, of which we were at a certain time in our life
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that we didn't know what we now know now? And would that change our life
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Or do we need that journey that we go on in order to get, you know
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I'm going to do this kicking and screaming as I run through life. Do we need that to get to where we are today
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For me personally, my show that I wrote, so very briefly, my show is called Shards
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And it's really about trying to put those very different pieces of your life together
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And for me, I discovered after moving to Israel, You asked, I really, in my show, I said, there's one moment where I say, when I move to Israel, who will I be
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What will I become? And will anyone remember me? And, you know, when you've been a synagogue leader, I mean, you know, you're co-leading the synagogue, co-leading prayer
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Everybody knows you. I could, you know, take my car through Ralph's and everybody would, you know, I can't imagine how many people would stop me
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When you move to a new place and you don't have that identity, you become a very different person
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And I realized that now I had to sort of put myself back together
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And part of that, especially moving 5,000 or 7,000 miles away from Los Angeles, was trying to understand exactly why was why did I pick myself up and move
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There were religious reasons, ideological reasons, political reasons. But what I discovered is that as I started to look at my own family history was that I was one of many sojourners of immigrants, of emigrants
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And I was just sort of part of this larger puzzle of travel, of journeys
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And that's what the show is about. I love stories of my immigrant grandmother, a grandfather who I didn't know until I was 25 years old
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I didn't even know he existed. And my own my own struggles with Israel
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it's not you know to we talked we dressed before we started we talked about what it means to
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sort of move move even in Los Angeles or even move in Southern California and it's not easy
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but there is there is something about the theme of the show about putting the pieces together
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and and the pieces you realize don't always fit the way you think they will and then you have to
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deal with what you have and that's what the show is about well it's funny it's a funny story I too
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everywhere I would go, I would run into a congregant. I mean, I would be in on a cruise
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ship and there'd be congregants. I go to Las Vegas. I literally moved out of my community
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to the city. My synagogue was in the valley so that I could at least have some private time
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And guess what? I moved into a building in which I had three congregants who lived in the building
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I had no way of knowing that. So it was everywhere. And it sort of feels like starting over. I know
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that when I left the pulpit, I felt like I was starting over. Did you feel that way when you moved to Israel
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Yeah. I mean, I, I, listen, I'm moving to Israel. I, my husband and I, we all, we had jobs lined up
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We had a, we lived somewhere. We had community, you know, a small Anglo community
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but it was really a language acquisition It is not easy I will say as as as as wonderful as it is to be 60 language acquisition does not come like when you were when I was studying a foreign language in college
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It's just a very different thing. But you are starting over. You're starting over about sort of who are you? And it's a big it's a big challenge
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It is. You know, I introduced you as a storyteller because that's kind of as I as I look at what you what you're doing now and even what you have done
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I follow you on Instagram and you did this really great thing. You tasted donuts. You went out the story and that you're a storyteller
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What does that mean to you when you when somebody says, oh, you're a storyteller or when you introduce yourself as a storyteller
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So I've learned as actually I will give a shout out to Karen Golden, who is in Los Angeles
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Karen is a good friend. She helped me write one story before, and we worked via Skype for about a year and a half to craft the story that I currently have
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And she is an amazing talent and an amazing director and a writer. And what I learned from her is that there are really three types of stories within sort of the Jewish framework
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There are rabbinic and Talmudic stories that help to explain text or explain morals or our history
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Then there are sort of those folkloric stories. You know, we all know them, a lot of us, sort of like the wise men of Helm stories and sort of some of the mystical stories
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And then there's the whole category of life stories. And those are the kind of stories that I tell
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Those are the stories that would appear in sort of storytelling evening, something like The Moth, which is, you know, on NPR
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And for me, those stories are a way of recapturing my past
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And I mean my historical ancestral past. And in some ways, I'm sort of guaranteeing my own immortality, my own my own viability as a human being
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I tell the stories. I had another show where I told stories when I was every Friday when I would come home from school
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My mother would have on the table a Linzer tart, you know, which is, you know, an almond cookie filled with raspberry jam
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They're still my favorite. And the bakery where I got them is around the corner from my mother's house
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And somebody came up to me years ago, a couple of years, and I hadn't done the show in 10 or 12 years and said, are you still eating those linds or tartars
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Which means that the story has an impact. I just got a congregant from the synagogue in Naples in Florida just sent me a note that after watching my show, she hadn't thought of certain aspects of her grandmother in 20 years
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And all of a sudden it brought it all forth. And that's why I tell stories
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Exactly. You do it to encourage others to listen to the stories from their generation
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Correct. Correct. And to learn knowledge and to encourage them to share the stories
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I did a workshop a Sunday morning where I use storytelling prompts on life stories
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And somebody said, you know, I've never told anybody in my family this story. And I said to him, I said, but you need to because that's the only way
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By only sharing the stories, can they become part of your family's sort of legend and lore
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So, so, so, so true. So, you know, I know that you've been told that one tip that we're told never to be afraid
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Never to be. That's right. That's correct. That's I my my step grandmother, my grandfather's wife once told me a fascinating story
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She had had some sort of debilitating orthopedic disease. And this is the 1940s or 1950s. They went to see a physician who is also a faith healer in London
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And he literally laid hands on her and she recovered. And she said to me after when we were sitting and talking to me, she said, the most important thing in life is never to be afraid
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And to coming from a woman who was bedridden and who had been through so many physical struggles, I found that to be a very profound moment
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It actually is recounted in the show. And I think that has been sort of sort of an axiom, words, wise words
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If I could put it on a pillow, I would. Because if you don't go out, if you sort of always live with the what ifs, the what ifs never arise
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They never come up. And you have to, you know, listen, after we're writing this, we're doing this show just a couple of days after we heard the news, the terrible news about Kobe Bryant
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And it was like this was somebody that lived life to the fullest. And it's a terrible tragedy
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But the reason why we, I think, all feel so, especially those of us from Los Angeles, feel so shattered is that he was larger than life and somewhat immortal
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And we learned great life's lessons from him. So if you have, especially those of us who are in our late 50s, 60s, even 70s, there is no physically stopping
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I mean, I'll tell you that I go to CrossFit about four times a week. And I'm generally one of the oldest in the session
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But I am not the slowest or the weakest. I was just going to say, you're probably, if not the strongest, you're pretty much up there because you're motivated
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But that's actually what you just hit on. There's great motivation. I think when the motivation stops, I would say that I'm actually quite a happy person
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But I think that I'm always looking for, but often, to my fault, often not content
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And that means that I'm always trying for something, you know, as a musician, it's sort of the state that we live in, that every performance could be better
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It could have been, you know, we could always do a better job. And that is, I think, both a blessing and a curse
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I agree. Just a question. Do you are you glad you made the move
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If you and you don't have to answer today, reading the news
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I mean, if you were to do this all over again, would you do it
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You know something? I would have to say yes. Why? Because moving to Israel made me realize, gave me the fuel to write the show
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The show might have arisen out of just staying in Los Angeles
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But it gave me sort of the raison d'etre to write the show
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I will say that we live in perhaps I don want to get particularly political If you want politics you can go to my Facebook page But I will say we are living in such complicated times that I
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could never imagine it in my life. And Israel has become an increasingly complicated place today
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If you open up the news, it's even more complicated. But I think that I'm glad we made
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the move because it has given me, it has, in some ways it really created a juncture between
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my past life and my future life. But I would also say that, you know, it's a 10 hour plane ride
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My parents are getting older. Our nieces are starting to think about maybe having families
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creating relationships. And then what? And then you might want to be closer
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Yeah, I get that. My sister, her husband is a rabbi in Philadelphia. Two of her three children made Aliyah. They moved to Israel. Both of them have multiple children. And so my sister and her husband, they go to Israel six times a year because their grandchildren are there
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And it's difficult to have your family members somewhere where you're not, especially when they're getting older
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That's true. I mean, you miss the even with our close friends in Los Angeles
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I will say that the distance you miss the day to day, the weekly check ins
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But that's part of you know, but we've also created new relationships, new friends and new situations
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So we're sitting here today talking to Evan Kent. We're talking about, you know, why does it have to be so hard
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If you'd like to follow Evan, which I think you should, you should go check out his website at www.evankent.com
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You can also follow him on Instagram, as I do. And that's because, you know, I like donuts
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And I'm just kidding, actually. No, I'm not. If you wait, I'll be back in Israel in a few weeks
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And the hamantashen will be out in the market. So I taste those too
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I love it. very creative and it really goes to your storytelling and
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and the ability to put together out of probably nothing, an entire arc, an entire story. I enjoyed it
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I really had a fun time following you. Is there any last minute thoughts that you would like to share with our
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audience? The time is just zipping by. We're almost done. And I don't want to go without you making sure that you have shared what you
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want to share. I really think that at this point in life, I think I'm very grateful to be where I am to have, you know, and we're all dealt a different deck
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But that to maximize what you have. I mean, I will say every morning when I get up, there are traditional Jewish blessings that I say that really thank thank the powers that be the larger forces out there for the gifts
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And I think that that is very important to, I mean, it sounds sort of corny as sort of an attitude of gratitude, but I think it's very, very important
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I also think that you never know what gifts will materialize. A woman that was sort of the host for me when I did this Artisan Residency Weekend in Naples
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later in life discovered great skill, great talent as a visual artist, as a painter, as doing collage
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So it's all out there. We don't know. I mean, you know, to the voice teacher when I graduated from music school who said, I hope, you know, you'll never have a great, a big career
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What I say to her posthumously is you never could have imagined the career that I've had
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And I think we're all that way. We all have we all have second and third and fourth chance
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Oh, my gosh. That's why I call it the next next. It doesn't matter what age you're at
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There's something next right over the hill. And it's our job. I think it's our responsibility not to just sit down and die at this this preconceived age that we just keep on going with the next next and that we do it in an arena where, you know, here we are
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We're sitting on technology. We are doing a live stream on video. And I know it's a miracle I was able to figure it all out
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But there's a lot of people out there that say, I'm too old. I'm never going to learn this stuff
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And I'm obvious. I'm 63. And I'm here to say, get over yourself, guys
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You know, if you don't want to learn, that's something different. But if you think that you can't learn, you can
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If it's something you want to do, set your mind to it, right? Exactly
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Evan, I want to thank you for taking time out of your title. You are
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I mean, you're out there on tour. You're doing your thing. And I'm going to make that connection that we talked about after the show
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Because I would love for you to come out here as well. I want to thank you
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I'm going to drop you into the green room as I do my Super Boomer moment. And then we will say goodbye to everyone
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All right. Thank you so much, Evan. Thank you. So now is the time for the Super Boomer moment
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This is the time where I share something or some things that came up in the show that really touched me
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And I just want to go with the storytelling. And I want to go with the importance of stories and the legacies and that we are we really do need to touch base with the generations that come and have come before us because their stories
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It's our history. And that's what moves us forward. And I just love how Evan said that
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And I kind of want to be well, not when I grow up because I'm older than you. I guess I can't do that
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Oh, darn. I just I do want to step into performing as a as a visible artist where I used to be a cantor
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So I'm going to maybe follow you on that. And we'll see. Maybe we'll do a show together
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I'm not sure. So I'm going to drop my super boomer here
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And as we say goodbye to everyone, as we do each week, I do want to thank you guys, our viewers
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We know that you have a choice as to how you spend your time and you chose to spend it with us today
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And for that, we are eternally grateful. So go out and give somebody an awesome day
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And we'll see you next week on the next episode of the Super Boomer Lifestyle Show
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Goodbye
#Acting & Theater
#Seniors & Retirement