Elizabeth M. Stevens

I would say my parents. They're the ones who instilled in me, work hard, do your best, that's all you can do. They instilled in me my faith, knowing that if I do all those things, I'm gonna be on the path I should be at. I think that's really important because people can really stress out over where they think they should be, and it's like, you know, just work hard. Find your gift, work hard, do your best, and don't worry about it. You know, things go the way they're supposed to go.

To stay true to your values, work hard, and focus on your own journey rather than comparing yourself to others. Elizabeth credits her parents for teaching her that success comes from dedication and character rather than external validation.

The first thing that pops into my mind is be grateful for the women of the previous generation, because every generation has it a little bit easier because of what the generation before them did. People of this generation don't always realize it wasn't always like that. When I was just out of my graduate work at SMU with my Master's degree in performance, I wanted to play. I went to a military base and auditioned. I did great. The person who auditioned me went to get the conductor, and the conductor came out, looked at me, turned around, and walked back. When he came back out, he had to tell me, the conductor said, I can't have a woman in my band. People of this generation don't realize it isn't always like that. I know I could audition now and would be accepted, because it wasn't the ability that was lacking. It was my gender that was not what they could accept back then. Things have changed. Now that would be an issue. Back then, it was. And that changed the whole direction of my life. People should be grateful for their opportunities now, and not think, well, I just have it so easy. Be grateful for the generation before you, because not everyone has had it that easy. I can look at myself and say, I'm grateful for my mom's generation, because my mom said she did not go to college, because in her generation, you either were a nurse, a teacher, or a secretary. Those were basically your choices. I had a lot more than that. I had to break the glass ceiling, as they say, but I believe that through my work, and doing excellence in my work, whether it be at the office, or through my students, or through playing at church, or whatever I did, that I helped evolve the system so that this generation now has opportunities that I didn't have, just like I had opportunities that my mom didn't have.

Right now, my biggest challenge is getting the word out about the film. That's really hard. I understand that sponsors want to sponsor people who have large communities, but there are also sponsors who want to align with just excellence. Knowing the right people can sometimes open doors, but figuring that whole area out is tricky. It's tricky because there's a lot of stuff out there, and the way that TV works now is you have to know to search for it in order to know it's out there. I had a similar experience with the children's books I wrote during COVID. They were published by Waldorf Publishing and put on Amazon, but never really got any kind of promotion. The problem was, how do you get the news out there? Who's gonna know to search for the porch puppies on Amazon? You could figure out how to do the work, and then when the work is done, like, what do you do with it? How do you get to that next step? You need somebody who knows that whole area, or has a little push, or could open doors. As far as opportunities, if I can get a sponsor, then I will happily make more films. We feel like bringing this high-performance, educational slash travel fun part of the show to people in the comfort of their own home is really going to be well received. Not everybody's gonna want or have the ability to actually go to concerts. Attending concerts is a wonderful experience, but not everybody can get there, whether where they live, or financial, or quite frankly, you get to a certain age, you just don't want to go out at night. There's huge opportunity there if we could just get that next hurdle of getting it into people's homes so that people know it's out there.

I think integrity is huge. You gotta... I mean, you just have to act... you know, you just have to have your act together. You just have to be trustworthy. No matter what you do, that's huge. But then, as I've said many times, you know, you need to have a work ethic. It doesn't matter how talented you are, it doesn't matter how smart you are. My parents used to always say, there's always somebody prettier, there's always somebody more talented, there's always somebody smarter. Don't compare yourself to others, you know? You can't. Whatever your gift is, work hard, do your best, and then don't worry about it. And I think that if you just keep it simple like that, and you do it with integrity, then, you know, you're gonna enjoy what you do, you're not gonna get overly stressed out about it. You're not gonna feel badly because you didn't get that award, or that, or this award, or you didn't achieve this, or achieve that. Don't compare yourself to others, you know, just do your best, work hard, don't worry about it.