Matt Wilson--What Medical Clowning Can Teach Us About Resilience, Uncertainty & True Vulnerability

Matt Wilson is a true Renaissance man; a performance scholar, clown, unicycling EMT,
an Emmy Award-winning tv host, medical clown and now TED Resident (and has his
own ted talk coming out super soon). His eclectic career has taken him around the
globe, with exploits ranging from the intimate to the epic: street performing in traffic with
a youth circus in Capetown, South Africa; the PBS Kids TV favorite ‘Cyberchase: For
Real’; the West Coast Premiere of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical ‘The 25th
Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’; and the amphitheater spectacle ‘Circus’ starring
Britney Spears.
As a supervising clown doctor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York
City, he witnessed the capacity of the expressive arts to humanize experiences of care
within vulnerable communities. arts in public health is a growing global movement, and
he’s developing a project for investigating and deploying performance in non-traditional
spaces The like hospitals, long-term care facilities, schools, and detention centers.
He also helped disrupt the group fitness experience as Chief Ridiculous Officer at the
cheeky NYC fitness start-up Mark Fisher Fitness.

In this episode, we dive into:
● Matt’s journey from army brat, to an aspiring pediatrician, to EMT, to clown
doctor, circus performer, performance scholar, to the chief ridiculous officer at
Mark Fisher Fitness, and now, Ted resident and speaker.
● What exactly a clown doctor DOES and what it is really like to be in hospital
rooms in dire situations as a medical clown.
● Performance as a transformational, transcendent and spiritual experience.
● How we find our purpose ONLY in concert with other human beings.
● The importance of play (both as children and adults) in teaching us boundaries,
vulnerability, and trust (without even pointing it out).
● The importance of “embracing the flop” and getting comfortable with “not
knowing” or having answers.
● Why our emotional health and happiness is largely related to the people we
surround ourselves with.
● How the idea of vulnerability has become commodified and misused tool for
performance on social media & what it REALLY entails.
● The crucial importance of establishing trust and choosing who you are vulnerable
with intentionally.

Resources/People Mentioned:
Brene Brown: A Call to Courage on Netflix
Worthy Stokes on Fiercely Human podcast
Elizabeth Swedos
Elizabeth Gilbert
Mark Fisher Fitness

You can find Matt at:
@Iknowmattwilson on IG
beepbeepboing.com

You can find Beth at:
@bethclaytoncoach on Instagram
www.soulbodylife.com
Grab your free e-book, “The Secrets in Your Sabotage” at www.soulbodylife.com/free-stuff
Beth’s TedX RIGHT HERE.