Acting Business Boot Camp

Kick Your Acting Career in Gear

Okay, so today's podcast is motivated by someone writing to me, wanting to me to talk a little bit about nepo babies, nepotism. 

Of course, I'm going to say that nepotism and keeping the focus on yourself is the key. 

The focus because there's nothing you can do about somebody else is, birthrights or relatives, but you can do something about keeping the focus on yourself because that is your birthright.

So my wonderful listener gave me this topic and she asked what my take on nepo babies and their advantages and disadvantages are in booking roles or projects. 

Again, what I would say is this is not something that you can control. And I talk about this in terms of the serenity prayer. 

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

Courage to change the things I can. And wisdom to know the difference. 

And what that means for me is to grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Means I cannot change. Make your ears grow bigger. 

Or control other people, places, things, or situations. 

So whether I'm going up for a role where there is someone's famous relative going up for the role, As well, that is not something I can change or control.

Courage to change the things I can. I can only change, manage, or handle myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions. 

My focus on that audition, regardless of who else is up for it. 

And wisdom to know the difference. Wisdom, my favorite word in the American language.

Wisdom to know the difference. And that wisdom is the ability to know what I cannot control, which is other people, places, and things. And I can't change that either. 

And what I can change, manage, handle, which is myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions. So the ability to differentiate that.

So my take on NEPO babies and their advantages and disadvantages in booking roles and projects, it's none of my damn business. My business is to stay focused on my work and what I can do for my life.

This listener goes on to say, “What chance do I have, if I even have the opportunity to compete with one?” 

Again, none of my damn business. 

It doesn't matter who else is up for the role. 

It matters that I am up for the role. And that I take advantage of every opportunity that I have.

And I need to do that by being good at my job, by being good at the business. 

But most of all, by knowing me, by being emotionally self-sufficient, I can get myself over these mental and emotional hurdles, so that I can do my job. 

I want to see, there was one more thing she said that I really liked.

She mentions this, and then kind of goes with this, but I want to add it in because I think it's so good and you may relate to this. “I had just said to a friend, I feel like I'm always coming in second.”

This is what I would say: Second best is only one step behind the first.

Second is one step behind first. 

And last week I talked about tenacity and I talked about doubling down. 

If you feel that you're always coming in second or third or you're getting the avail but you're not getting the job or you're getting put on hold and you're not getting the job, my joke is all the different ways we can, we we can term that avail check, pinned, first refusal.

If you find that's where you're at, it is time to listen to that Podcast episode, the one before this, right after you finish listening to this one and doubling down on your commitment.

I also want to just give you a few tips on keeping the focus on yourself because I always like to be at the cause of my life and not at the effect of it.

And if you think about the theme of this particular podcast it's right in there. 

The first one is this, and I said it before, but avoid comparison and despair. 

It's a wonderful little phrase. Compare and despair. 

Focus on your own journey and progress rather than mention than measuring yourself against others.

Rather than measuring yourself against others. Another great one is watch measuring someone else's. 

Stop putting your self worth on and depending on other people's outsides by judging on your insides. 

It's just not comparable. 

The other thing is to prioritize self care. Make sure that you're taking good care of you. 

So that you don't abandon yourself. 

I did a great podcast a little while ago that got more listens than just about any other podcast I did about abandoning the self.

Regularly engage in activities that nourish your physical, mental, and emotional being, and I talked about last podcast allowing me to be your mentor, allowing me to be that positive voice in your life, listen to these podcasts while you're doing the dishes, you're doing the laundry, you're doing the mundane.

Because one of the things that I did while I was really starting this work, is on my cassette tapes, I would listen to, that's how long ago it was, I would listen to positive messages. 

So no matter what I was doing, I had positive messages going in, not the crap that was going on between my ears.

And the final one that I want to tell you about today is really setting personal boundaries. 

Learning how to say no to distractions or demands that take you away from what it is you really want. 

Your personal goals and your priorities. Personal growth.

Kick Your Acting Career in Gear

Okay, so let's talk about being tenacious. 

The number one thing about being tenacious is actually embracing it. 

And I talk about this in terms of my own experience, which is that my biggest mistakes have been my best teachers. 

My biggest mistakes have been my best teachers. 

And really understanding, when you make a mistake or you have a roadblock, you don't get a role that you really thought you were going to, is looking at the situation and asking yourself, what can I learn from this?

And if what you can learn from it is what my mom always told me when I was a little kid, which is you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off, and you start all over again. 

And sometimes the hardest parts of this business, I was going to get emotional about this, has really shown me how incredibly strong I am.

How incredibly strong and resilient I am. 

And what that teaches me is self confidence, and self esteem. 

Persistence comes from resistance. 

Diamonds are made under pressure. 

The other thing I want to talk about in terms of tenacity is maintaining focus. 

I think that is another huge lesson, one of the things I find when I start to get scattered is I tell myself to double down on my focus, double down on what it is I want to do to achieve. 

And just like I can look at my setbacks and write down what I've learned from that. 

What I can ask myself in maintaining focus is what do I need to do to double down? 

What do I need to bet stronger on me and on this goal that I have, keeping in mind my long term vision and not letting distractions or setbacks derail me from making progress towards my dream.

The other slogan I love in this is progress, not perfection. 

Because remember, perfectionism is something that derails me and it derails me because with perfectionism, I get procrastination. And with procrastination I get paralysis. 

And that is the absolute opposite of what I need in staying tenacious in my acting career. 

The third thing I want to talk about is breaking it down. 

Now if you know anything about me, I am a big one on baby stepping. 

Because sometimes I'm either too frightened, or too intimidated, or too tired, or too scattered to focus on something big.

I need to break it down into bite sized pieces. 

Now, not that I advocate eating elephants, but anyone can eat an elephant one bite at a time. 

Setting small, achievable milestones to make the pursuit of my goal less overwhelming and more manageable is key. 

And also I think what's important is what am I going to do to celebrate?

What am I going to do to celebrate my win for today? 

I'm watching a television show that I'm really enjoying. 

Because I say to myself at the end of the day, I'm going to make dinner and I'm going to organize myself for the next day.

And then I'm just going to, I'm really going to enjoy watching this show because I've put in a good day's work. 

The other thing about that is something that a friend of mine told me at the very beginning of doing this work, which is I'm only responsible for today. 

I'm only responsible for putting my head forward.

I'm going to be talking about the importance of being on the pillow tonight. 

That's all I'm responsible for from now until then. 

And this one, this next one is huge. Cultivating self discipline. 

Consistently pushing myself to work hard even when motivation is low or progress feels slow.

Now, one of the biggest self-disciplines that I have is my physical fitness. It was something that I started at the end of the pandemic. And it was something that I applied using one of the tools that I talked about before, which is I doubled down. 

I decided I was really going to push myself.

Because how I do one thing is how I do all things.

 So if you can get disciplined in one area of your life, it's going to help you to get disciplined in other areas of your life. 

Remember how you do one thing, that is how you do all things. 

The other thing, and this is my last little tip, is surrounding yourself with positivity.

Now sometimes that's difficult because either the people you live with or your family or maybe even some of your closest friends may not be able to support you. 

But you can support you. 

You can listen to me. This podcast, have it going on in your ears as you walk down the street, as you drive in your car, as you do your dishes, as you do your laundry, as you do the mundane.

Have positive messages like these core work sessions or maybe one of the interviews from the past. 

We have over 200 podcasts here.

Let me be your positive mentor. 

Let me help you. 

Let me be there for you. 

Because we want to be seeking out those positive messages, those positive mentors, peers, and environments that encourage your ambition and your growth.

And that's why I always say, I also think watching shows or movies that get you, and that can even be a silly action film that gets you going, that get you psyched. Another thing that I use is music to get me going, to make me realize that even though things may not look good, they really are.

So let's go over those little tips again. So I talked about embracing your setbacks. I talked about maintaining focus. I talked about breaking it down. 

Remember, anyone can eat an elephant one bite at a time. I talked about cultivating self discipline. How you do one thing is how you do all things. all things.

And I talked about surrounding yourself with positivity. We have a wonderfully positive community here at Acting Business Boot Camp. 

This week we're going to talk about gossip.

Oh my god, I used to love gossip. 

I used to love to talk about other people, what they were doing. Ugh, it was so amazing. Can you tell I was a teenager in the 80s? 

But today I'm going to talk about why gossip is actually not that great. 

And I have really been the target of gossip as well, and maybe I had to burn through some karma there. 

It's really hurtful, so hurtful when you are the one being gossiped about and you find out that somebody else is saying something about you, whether it's good or bad. 

If it's good, it's nice, but if it's not so nice, it's not great. And I think we probably have all been on both sides of it.

If not, you're probably not human. 

But I want to talk about why it's not great as an actor. 

And it's something that I have really honed in on. 

It's been a long time now, but yeah, it's just something that I've really tried to curb. Because it's not nice. Gossip isn't nice.

And I know this is not this might be one of those podcasts where you're like, I don't want to listen to this one. Let's listen to another one. 

But if you're feeling that way, make your ears grow bigger. 

So here's the thing about gossip. Number one. I have five points about this. It erodes trust.

Yeah. It's very hard for me to trust someone who's talking shit about somebody else. 

Basically, what it does is gossip, it undermines. It undermines trust. It really undermines, and I also, there was once I had an acting teacher at Guildhall who said, if you don't want to be judged, don't judge.

Because it really undermines trust, and especially if you're in a production of some sort, whether that be film, television, theater, commercial, it doesn't matter, it really erodes trust. 

It also creates an environment, and you create your own environment in this industry of suspicion. And it breeds insecurity.

Oh my god, let's talk about acting class. 

I want my acting class where I need to be free, to be free of gossip and bad talk. 

And the thing is that people then if there's an environment of that, you become wary. 

You become wary of sharing personal information that really might be helpful for the work.

And isn't that what we're trying to do? To become better actors. They may feel or someone may feel or I may feel that information that I shared while trying to find truth in a character might be misused or spread or might damage a relationship. 

So this idea that, gossip at the moment sometimes it feels so good, and let's talk about why it feels so good.

It feels so good because it gets the focus off of ourselves. 

I have to tell you, I just had this feeling come over me, which was like, yuck. And that's the whole thing. Gossip is really yuck. 

Because what it is doing is It brings me back to this phrase, winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners.

And that's why gossip is so harmful to us, but also to others. 

But I wanted to do a podcast about this because I feel this is not a subject that is brought up enough around in the acting community. 

And it needs to be because we are a creative community. 

The other thing is, and this is, it's very painful is that it really can damage people's reputations. 

There's two sides to every story, and maybe we don't know the whole story. 

And also, why is it our business?

I find I, in the past, I've tried to make something that isn't my business, because I didn't want to focus on my life and take responsibility for what is going on with me.

And damaging somebody else's reputation is so unfair. It's so unfair. 

The thing is that when we keep the focus on our own lives and our own creativity and on our acting training and on our business and on our core work, when we do that, man, we don't have freaking time to gossip or to focus on somebody else.

And also, I was teaching this in my private class and actually in the weekly class as well, this thing about assumptions. We assume things about people. Or we assume that somebody means something when they don't. 

Watch assuming that somebody means the same thing that you do. 

We always want to get clarity.

Are you saying, just so we're clear, nobody ever is upset about getting clarification. 

I once heard that assumptions are the mother fucker of all fuck ups, and that is such a great phrase. 

So I don't want to assume something about somebody else, just because somebody else had said it about them.

And this is a biggie. This is a biggie. You know what gossip also does? It increases stress and anxiety. 

And I don't know about you guys. I don't know about you. I don't need any more stress. I don't need any more anxiety. 

And this is the thing, it also can make you feel very isolated. 

You think that you're connecting with somebody about how bad somebody else is or what somebody else did.

But ultimately, it's going to lead to some kind of anxiety and possibly even some kind of depression, depending on which way of the spectrum you like to go. I personally like to freak the fuck out rather than get depressed. But, whatever your bag is. And it can negatively really impact your mental health when we talk about others.

And look, I've done it! I have done it! I used to do it a lot! Especially as a teenager. I didn't know any better. 

But these are the things we want to think about. Because again, what are we trying to do? 

We're trying to do that thing that we most need to do, which is keep the focus on ourself and as actors on our acting training, becoming a better actor, moving ourselves forward in business and doing the work on ourselves.

So when those opportunities come, we are ready for them and gossip has no place in any of that. 

And again, going on this idea of the toxicity. of gossip, is we want to create health in our lives. 

And what gossip does is it really creates like a toxic work environment. 

And that work might be in our very own apartment while we're chatting on the phone, or negatively texting about somebody, or negatively emailing about something.

That might get passed along. We don't need that. 

We don't need that. We want to create support and love in our lives. 

The last thing that I want to say about gossip is that it's time consuming. 

Because let me tell you, it's going to be easy to find somebody who's going to want to jump right in there with you.

Jump on the bad, the hate bag bandwagon. We don't need to do that with gossip. Other people, and we don't need to do it to ourselves. 

Because that energy could be spent on productive tasks. 

That energy could be spent on becoming more efficient in our acting career. Becoming more focused on our acting career.

And that will stop us from being more positive. 

If you find yourself doing this, and this is a big one again, it's using your mind to govern your brain, I beg of you, catch yourself, just stop. Stop. 

Apologize to the other person. Say, you know what? I want to stop this because this is not making me feel good and I'm sure on some level it's not making you feel good either.

Let's just stop. Let's talk about something else. 

It's okay to do that. It's okay to do that, especially when you're moving yourself in a more positive direction. 

Okay, one more thing. Just thought of this. It wastes energy. And we really only have a finite amount of time and a finite amount of energy.

Let's make sure we're doing it that's moving us towards something good, Like a fabulous acting career. And a fabulous life. 

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Today I'm going to talk about the abandoned actor and this is something that I have been really delving into on a deeper level in my private work, the private work I do with clients, but also in my weekly classes.

And it's the idea of when we audition, or when we go to a set, or anything, maybe it could even be in your personal life when some kind of pressurized situation happens. We abandon ourselves. 

And I'm gonna start talking about I, just to make this easier to explain. 

I would abandon myself. Meaning, I would abdicate my feelings, my point of view, my talent to everybody else but myself, and that's what I mean by abandonment. 

One of my weekly classes is in my sister coaching company called Chiropractor for the Mind. And what I teach is emotional self sufficiency. 

And it's emotional self sufficiency, by teaching you emotional intelligence and teaching you to raise your intelligence emotionally.

And this idea of emotional self sufficiency, let me just talk about that for one moment, is that when I'm just talking about me, when I am emotionally self sufficient, that means whatever comes my way in life, I am able to coach myself, I am able to help myself out of that emotional confusion.

And emotional confusion is a problem for an actor because when you go in to do a scene, you want to be in the moment, emotionally on point. 

You want to be emotionally understood. 

You want to be able to access every single emotion in you in the moment. 

But if you are emotionally confused as a human being, oh boy, do we have a problem.

So here's the thing, through core work, which is all that I talk about, that's how we become emotionally unconfused. 

And it is also where this ability to coach yourself is so important, and that is especially important when it comes to this idea of how do you abandon yourself.

Now, a lot about abandonment has to do with feeling that you are a victim, thinking that you can't handle it, that you can't manage the situation you are in. 

But as all of my teachings have taught me and others, it is that we will never be given more than we can handle, but we will be given more than we can control.

I'm just going to use the audition situation to keep this easy. 

Why when we walk into a meeting or an audition, why do we feel the need to abandon us? 

Why all of a sudden does it matter what the writer, director, producer, casting director thinks, but not what we think? 

And one of the things I talk about with my private clients and in the weekly classes are, this idea that if I go in and pretend I am the character of Sally. 

If I believe I'm Sally, if the only person that I am focusing on that needs to believe that she is Sally is Peter Pamela Rose, guess what automatically will happen?

Automatically, everybody else in the room will. And I've only had to put the focus on making myself believe.

And when I do that, I am not abandoning myself. 

I am not abandoning myself. 

Now let's just talk about anxiety and abandoning ourselves.

 I want to talk about a few points of When I start to feel that I am, like, abdicating my responsibility for myself to someone else, the number one thing I need to do when that happens is, I need to become aware.

And I need to acknowledge my feelings.

I talk about awareness, acceptance and action. the first step in core work is becoming aware because you don't know what you don't know, right? 

So becoming aware. 

And as I am aware and I accept that, “oh, look, I am doing this,” then I can, then that awareness happens, the acceptance that I am doing it happens, and then I want to move very quickly into action.

The subject of awareness and acknowledging is really about recognizing and validating my emotions and also allowing myself to say, “okay, it's okay to feel it,” but this is the thing, if I try to say it's not happening, or just go away please, which is what I always like to say to my anxiety, it's not going to work.

I need to be in the room, with my feelings and go, this is happening, okay, how am I going to help myself with this? 

How am I going to walk through it? 

And this is the thing. I don't want to judge it. I just want to acknowledge it. 

Because as soon as I start to judge it as being something bad that is happening, that's me trying to get rid of it.

Not gonna work. It's not gonna work. 

I need to figure out how me and my, let's say, anxiety can function together so that I can say, Oh, look, there you are. Oh, okay. You don't want to eat. Okay. What do I know? I need to do need to make sure when was the last time I ate. Okay. It was an hour ago. Okay. Set my alarm for three hours from now. That's when I'm going to eat. 

In other words, I need to practice tough love with myself and support myself and love myself through the feeling of abandonment. 

I also recommend that when this happens, you immediately go to either talk to someone, Journal, talk to the universe, or listen to one of these podcasts, one of my core work podcasts.

Why do I say that? 

Because we need to get out of ourselves. 

We can't cure a sick mind with a sick mind. And when we're in that, we're a little sick. Our thinking is stinking. Stinky thinking. 

Journaling helps because our, the smarter part of ourselves, our higher coach gets in there and can help us.

Praying helps, okay, or reaching out to the universe, talking to a friend to get us back on point. 

Or, listening to a podcast like this to get yourself back, to get yourself back. 

The other thing that's very important is that I take care of myself. That's why I go to the food. I know when I get anxious, the number one thing I don't want to do is eat.

Therefore, I need to put myself on an eating schedule and then decide how much I'm going to eat and then I don't allow myself to get up from the table until I finish it. 

And if you think that I don't like doing this, you are correct. Not my favorite thing. But, it does work. Why? Because I'm going through.

The best way out is always through. 

The other thing is, I really need to challenge my negative emotions and my negative thoughts. 

What is my stinking thinking telling me? And how is it making me want to abdicate responsibility for whatever is going on in this moment? Because I am capable. 

I am the most capable person I know.

How am I going to take care of myself at this moment? What do I need to tell myself? What good things do I need to tell myself? 

And then, after I've done these things, then I need to put it all into action. 

Put it all into action. And not forget to Baby step it. Baby step it. 

It doesn't matter how small it is, because when we accomplish small tasks, we build what?

We need that thing that we really need when it comes to abandonment. Knowing that we have the ability to get ourselves out of it. 

Knowing that we have the ability to get ourselves out of it. To regain, to take back our power in that audition room. And focus on the job. Which is to act. 

There's no need to abandon yourself.

Stay with yourself, love yourself.

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This podcast is called what's at stake. AKA the most important podcast you'll ever listen to. 

There's that phrase that says that life is not a dress rehearsal. 

And for those of you who are in your teens, 20s, 30s, and I'll be even honest, your 40s, I didn't get that then. I didn't. 

I didn't get that life is not a dress rehearsal, but this is it. I didn't get that till 51.

It was the end of COVID, and I was sitting on the balcony in our then apartment, and it was a beautiful apartment, it overlooked Marina del Rey and the water. And I realized at that moment. That I was not living up to my full potential in my life, and I had just had a year off as we all did of being isolated, and I don't know maybe that's what it took, a year of slowdown, to have it really sink in that this is it.

There's not going to be another 50 again.

There's not going to be another 49, there's not going to be another 48, there's not going to be another 47 and go all the way down to zero. 

There isn't going to be that anymore. That this is it. 

And what do I want to do with it? And while I was saying, what do I want to do with it? 

What do I want to do with this gift?

Because it seemed to me, at 51, I was not really showing up for what I really wanted. and what I really wanted the second act of my life to be.

And it started out with, I looked I was, I remember the way I was sitting and I looked down at my waist and I went, there's a really healthy body underneath there. 

And I started with that, I started with the discipline of, and I'd always exercise because I had a back injury when I was at Guildhall, and I started with that, and I started with that discipline, and I took that discipline into everything, because how we do one thing is how we do all things.

And I want to read you a quote that I think also influenced my decision. 

And you know where this homework assignment is going, right? 

It's a Jen Sincero quote, and she writes the badass books.

Now, I'm going to be honest with you, I did change one little bit out of this quote for the purposes of this podcast, but I think you'll get why I did that.

“Because this is what I realized. You're gonna have to push past your fears. 

Fail over and over again. And make a habit of doing things you're not so comfy doing. 

You're gonna have to let go of old limiting beliefs and cling to the decision to create the acting career that you desire like your life depends on it.

Because guess what? Your life does depend on it.”

And that's the truth.

That's the truth, and that's the realization that I got at such a deeper level three years ago. 

You're going to have to push past your fears, and you're going to have to fail over and over again. 

And you're going to have to make a habit of doing things you're not so comfy doing.

And I talk about with my in my weekly class with actors, if you're interested in that. It is a very affordable class, and we offer a class for free. 

I talk with them about how when you're exercising, when it starts to feel uncomfortable, that's when you're building strength.

Not hurt. But when it starts to feel uncomfortable, that's when you're building strength. 

Guess what? That's what it's like in life too. 

It's doing the uncomfortable things. 

So if you are ready to do some uncomfortable things, if you're willing to push past your fears and fail over and over again because the other thing I have learned is that it is in my biggest mistakes, I have my biggest lessons and I have my biggest growth.

Let me repeat that. It's when I have my biggest mistakes that I have my biggest growth. 

I have my biggest learning. 

And you're gonna have to make a habit of doing things that aren't so comfy, if you are willing to do that. And finally, really and become.

I hope you will honor me and let me honor you. That's actually where I want to go. Let me honor you with a free consultation. Let's talk this out. You're not alone in this journey. You don't have to be alone. 

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We are going to be talking about the importance of fun.

So I'm going to be really honest with you, this is a topic that I have had so much trouble with. 

Yeah, I have had trouble having fun. 

I thought that, I don't know, life was to be endured. And even though I had a positive, natural positive attitude, I didn't know how to have fun. I had no idea how to have fun.

And you know what that hurt? That hurt my acting career and that hurt my ability to act because I wasn't experiencing all emotions, especially the really good ones. 

But the thing is that when we as casting directors, agents, managers are meeting with you, we want to be with people who are Professional, but also are fun to be around people that we want to work with, that we want to be on a set with day in and day out now.

Okay, that might not apply for the casting director or the agent or the manager, but I am going to be working with you a decent amount. 

So yes, it does apply to that, but it really applies in your auditions. 

Are you having fun? Do you know how to have fun? 

And if you don't, that's okay. 

You can have fun learning, and you may make mistakes while having fun. 

I've certainly done that. 

I thought something was going to be fun, and then it really wasn't. 

In fact, I hated it. 

Anyway, so I'm going to read a little thing out of Melody Beattie's Language of Letting Go.

“Have some fun with life, with the day. Find the good things in the day. Find the fun things in the day. Life is not a drudgery. That is an old belief.” 

And as I said, truly an old belief of mine. 

“We can let go of it. We are on an adventure. And this adventure is life. It is a journey. Events will come to pass that we cannot even fathom.”

I think that's one of the gifts of being deaf. Age is that with age, you begin to appreciate life more. You begin to appreciate the day more. 

And lately I've had podcasts and podcasts that will come up about being decisive, making mistakes.

You can have fun with all of this. 

The big thing is we want to create the best life and career and experience with this one amazing shot we have on this planet. 

“We want to try and replace our heaviness and weariness of spirit with joy. Surround yourself with people and things that bring lightness of spirit as opposed to that heaviness.

Become sensitive to happiness, to lightness, to the incredible wonder of life. 

The journey, it really can be an exciting adventure. Let yourself be. Enjoy it.”

One of the mantras that I gave myself recently, creating amazing experiences in my life is fun for me.

Creating amazing experiences in my life. is fun for me. 

Again, fun. It's so important. You want to be around people who are fun. 

Why would that stop in a casting office? Why would that stop in an agent's office? Why would that stop at a manager's office? Why would that stop in auditioning? 

Have fun. This business can be fun.

It can be exciting.

Yes, it can also be trying. But let's have fun on the adventure.

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Today I'm going to talk about something that I have found to be extremely helpful. 

And that word is being decisive. 

Now, sometimes when I'm decisive, I make mistakes.

But this is the thing. Everything is fixable. 

And mistakes are how we grow. 

But in my being decisive, what happens is that things get put in order, into motion. 

And the thing is that if I keep doing what I've always done, which can be being wishy-washy about something or procrastinating with something because I just don't know what to do.

By the way, this is why I'm recommending these free consultations with me so we can get you out of that kind of mess. 

What happens is that when I set myself a clear path and I get decisive about things start to happen, big things start to happen. 

And I find that making a decision, and then following through with that decision is sometimes the most valuable thing I do in a day.

So today I'm going to talk, I have five points about decisiveness. 

They are efficiency and time management, confidence, reduce stress and anxiety, opportunity seizing, and clear direction and focus. 

So I'm going to talk about each of those subjects and how being decisive has helped me and how I feel it can help you.

So efficiency and time management, decisiveness helps in making quick decisions. Quick and effective decisions and saving time and increasing productivity. 

So this is the thing. Not making a decision is making a decision and it keeps you stuck as an actor. 

And this is the thing. I don't want to waste any more time in my life.

I've got a finite amount of time on this planet and I want to make sure that I am enjoying it. Every single moment of it, and the things that I'm doing for my life and my career are moving me forward, not backward, and certainly not keeping me stagnant. 

So what happens when I'm more decisive?

I take less time, humming and hawing. And that is, that's why I'm offering the free consultation, because I want you to stop humming and hawing. 

Either decide you're going to work with someone to get your shit in gear, or don't. 

But, for goodness sake, let's make a decision. So what happens is that when you make a decision, chances are, when you leap, the net will appear and the universe will support you.

And that's why that decision will be effective. 

Also when I make a decision, I decide what I'm going to do instead of hemming and hawing about what I should do. What happens is that I save time and that is time that could be spent effectively working on the acting career. 

Also because I'm saving that time, I have increased productivity.

I get more done creating more Opportunities. 

So I'm going to actually jump to opportunities here. Because what happens is that when you do more things, you put yourself more out there, more people know about you, more opportunities can exist. 

And decisiveness allows individuals to capitalize on opportunities quickly before they are lost to hesitation.

See, I want as many agents, casting directors, managers, producers, directors, writers to know about you, but how do you get in touch with them? 

I want to show you how to do that. I want to also encourage you to be decisive in your career, whether you're working with me or not, but even by listening to this, you are working with me a little bit so that you can have opportunity.

Bill Timoney, who is going to be on Broadway with Our Town, he always says, and he's such a friend of Acting Business Boot Camp, he says, “you want to have as much access to opportunity as you can.” 

And that's what I like to help actors to access. access to opportunity. 

The other thing about being decisive is it makes you more confident.

Decisive individuals often exude confidence, which is crucial for effective leadership and inspiring trust. 

So this is the thing. I am a casting director. I hire actors, I audition actors that exude confidence, who are good at their job, and almost more importantly, know they are good at their job.

And that inspires trust in me, the casting director, to either directly hire them for a job or to continue auditioning them so that they have access to opportunity. 

Now I'm going to talk about how being decisive reduces stress and anxiety.

Because making prompt decisions reduces stress and anxiety associated with prolonged uncertainty and indecision. 

That's the thing. The more you procrastinate, the more anxiety and stress you build up. 

It's time to eradicate that from your life. 

The stress and anxiety that is caused by indecision, it doesn't have to be there.

How do I know that? Because I used to be a hand wringer, a pearl clencher, a hyperventilator about making a decision. 

But once I started to get decisive, things started to happen. 

And finally, let's talk about how being decisive in your acting career gives you clear direction and focus. 

It helps you to align your efforts and your resources toward achieving specific goals, which is, hopefully, to be a working actor.

So again, clear direction and focus and being decisive provides clear direction and focus, helping you to align your efforts and resources towards achieving specific goals. 

And that's what I want to help you to do in these consultations, is I want to hear where you are at and where you want to go and how we can align your efforts and your resources and my resources to help you to achieve that goal of becoming a working actor.

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Today, I'm going to talk about mistakes. 

Something that I'm going to be honest, I am not very excited about. Meaning that like I don't even want to admit to you, let alone myself, I'm not perfect.

Because my name is Peter Pamela Perfection Rose. 

And just like things to be all neat and buttoned up and look good. 

And here's the thing, when I started this podcast, I remember the first few actually the first episode I did, it took me two hours to do it. 

And then I finally said to myself, there is no way I will ever do this, or keep this up if this is how long it's going to take me. 

Because I was trying to get it perfect and I was trying to say, oh, I'm going to do one thing and it's going to be like this, to only find out that maybe that wasn't the best way. 

And so what I decided was, is that in this weekly podcast, come what may, no matter what, I was going to do one every week.

And sometimes I batch them. I do a few in advance. 

But I never really do more than four in advance. 

So always, what you're hearing, I've recorded very recently. 

And the other thing that I decided was that I was just going to be who I was. I wasn't going to edit unless it was absolutely necessary.

Absolutely necessary, including the interviews, because what I wanted you to see was that you could accomplish something, and not be perfect. And come on. If you've been listening to my podcast, you've heard me stumble. You've heard me say things wrong. You've heard me go off, get lost on a tangent and come back.

You have heard me make so many mistakes. 

And I've just recorded a podcast, because I am batching this one but like I said, you will be hearing it very soon. Where I really felt like at the end I went off and then a phone call came in and I just felt off and I was like, Ugh, should I re record?

And I said, No. No, I shouldn't. Because again, what I want to show you is, what I want to emulate in my work is that you don't have to be perfect, that this is a podcast that if you're expecting perfection, you're not going to get it, okay?

Go listen to somebody else. I'm not perfect. I'm not going to do this podcast perfectly, but what I always will be is honest, and I will always be talking from the heart. 

A lot of my older clients call me mama bear and they are my baby bears. 

And I feel what a good mama bear does is she teaches her baby bear how to fish. 

And she teaches through example. 

And that's always how I wanna teach. And when I talk about the core work, I'm always talking about the work that I've Guinea pigged on myself, on my own, anxiety, on my own imperfection, on my own character defects, and then coach you to do it.

Because I figure if I have done it with myself, coaching you is a piece of cake because I have to go up against all of my own messiness and I do it with lots of mistakes. 

So I have a couple of books I'm going to be reading from today and talking about this mistakedom.

The first one is actually a Hazelden meditation book called In God's Care.

It starts with a quote from Ethel Barrymore. How appropriate. “You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself.”

“Do we sometimes think the whole house of cards will come tumbling down if we make one false move? 

There's nothing wrong. with making mistakes. That's the way we've learned in the past and that's how we're learning now.

We laugh affectionately at the foibles of others. Sometimes it's irresistible. But we can laugh at our own with the same good humor.”

And, one of the things I find about life is not taking myself so seriously and not beating up on myself when I have made a mistake. 

There are times when I've made some really big mistakes, and I need to go back and take responsibility for that.

But most of the mistakes. are just little mistakes where I'm tumbling over my words or I'm in a recording session and I misread something. 

I just say, okay, pick up and I go on. 

The fact of the matter is that in life, everything is fixable. 

And when we do something wrong, we make a mistake.

I just saw something on social media and it was Simone Biles as a small girl doing the vault. And it was in a meet and she didn't do that well. 

And then they showed her ten years later, doing a far more complicated vault. And it was perfect. It's through making our mistakes that we grow.

And it's okay not to be perfect. 

But this is the thing, it doesn't really matter that I tell you it's okay that you're not perfect. You need to go through the same process that I go through. 

Which is, I need to know it's okay with Peter Pamela Rose, that Peter Pamela Rose isn't perfect. The reading goes on to say “living a spiritual life doesn't mean we have to be grim.

In fact, increasing joy and merriment is an unavoidable result of turning our will over to that of the universe's. Now we can relax and enjoy life, and that includes enjoying our less than perfect selves.”

And that's the other thing, I think, that in mistake making, that when I make a mistake, I go to the universe.

I start talking with the universe. 

And I talk a lot about in this podcast and in my weekly classes about your relationship, that incredible relationship that is open to you with the universe. 

Everybody has it, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, is up to you. I just think that, acknowledging it and practicing a relationship with it makes life a lot easier.

And the thing is that with that relationship, when I make mistakes, I can go to that energy and say, wow, I really screwed up here. Please guide me, show me what it is I need to do. 

The thing is that I can also give you my experience of being an actor. I've been a professional actor for over 30 years.

And let me tell you, when you're starting out, there is no mistake that is career ending. There is no mistake that is career ending. All it is, is a learning experience.

I'm going to go on a little bit more here now. 

The Language of Letting Go

“Many of us picked on ourselves unmercilessly before getting into the core work. We may also have had a tendency to pickon ourselves after we begin the core work because what has starts to happen is we become aware.”

 and that's the whole thing is a mistake is a wonderful opportunity to become aware.

And the thing is that we cannot become better. We cannot become more skilled unless we have awareness about what we are doing. 

And I always talk about that awareness, acceptance, and action. 

And why do I talk about it so often? I talk about it so often because it is such a key part of the process of becoming better.

Better in our lives, creating a better life for ourselves, and creating a better acting career for ourselves. 

If I was really doing this, I wouldn't be doing that again. 

Ugh, how many times have I said to myself this, Oh, I should be further along. I should be further along in my acting career. What the, who, who said that?

I did. Who said that? 

That is just making things so much harder for you. 

There's a wonderful phrase that Louise Hay says that I love which is, “Stop, stop beating up on yourself. Stop it. Stop it. Be nice to yourself. Be kind to yourself. That's going to go so much further.”

These statements that we say this, if I was really doing this, I wouldn't do that, or I really should be so much at my age, I should be so much further along than I am.

These are statements that if we indulge in them, we are feeling some sort of shame. And when we are feeling shame, we are feeling that we are defective. And you are not. Defective. 

We do not need to treat ourselves this way. There is no benefit. 

And that's the thing. Perfectionism leads to procrastination, leads to paralysis.

And I don't want to be paralyzed by shame because shame blocks us. 

But self love and self acceptance enable us to grow and change. 

Again, we need mistakes in order to grow. 

Now that doesn't mean I'm going to go out and try and make mistakes. 

But it does mean that when we make them, we can be kinder to ourselves.

If we truly have done something we feel guilty about, we can correct it with an apology, an amend, or an attitude of self love and self acceptance. 

Sometimes when I do something to someone else, I need to forgive myself first, and then go ask for forgiveness. 

And this is the thing, even if we slip back into old shaming behaviors or old thinking or feeling or behaving, we don't need to be ashamed.

We are all going to regress from time to time. 

It's two steps forward, one step back. 

Sometimes it's five steps forward and seven steps back. 

But ultimately we are, if we stick to this work, we are moving forward. 

That's how we learn. That's how we grow. We relapse. We recycle. It's an important, necessary part of recovery.

And when I talk about recovery, I'm talking about recovering our true selves. 

Because when we recover our true selves, we can bring that into our acting work. And what does that give us? It gives us truth. 

It's those performances that are so undeniably truthful that we are seeking to do, to seek to achieve.

And the way out of recycling is not shaming ourselves because what that does is that puts us into a shame spiral that just gets us deeper and deeper in. 

So much pain comes from trying to be perfect. Perfectionism, or trying not to make mistakes, is impossible unless we think of it in a new way.

Perfection is being who we are and where we are today. 

It's accepting and loving ourselves, Just the way we are. 

We are each right where we need to be in our lives, in our career. 

Now that doesn't mean you can't do things to change things up. 

But what it does mean is taking off the pressure of yourself and start treating yourself as the beautiful child of the universe.

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Today, I'm going to talk about positive energy and energy and the actor and why it is so intensely important. 

I have found positive energy and positive thinking to be one of the most important things for a happy life and a happy career.

So I'm going to start with a quote, which is Gandhi, which is “be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Anais Nin, “We do not see the world as it is. We see it as we are.”

And so what I want to see the world is, especially in such tumultuous times, is I want to see the good in the world. 

Not the bad, because the more I see good in my world, the more good is reflected back to me. 

And because we see it as we are, that is why we want to have as much positive energy going through us as possible. 

And when I talk about positive energy, I talk about anabolic energy. 

I'm talking about that anabolic energy and that anabolic energy is growing, building, healing energy. 

And it is who I Truly am and that's truth with a capital T, whether I believe it or not.

Another thing is that anabolic energy gives me a high chance for success.

It has me being fully conscious. 

It has me in a state where I believe in myself. In me, but I also believe in that power greater than me, in that universe. 

So now I'm going to move into my favorite text of The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie.

“It's so easy to look around and notice what's wrong, it takes practice to see what's right.”

The reason why it's so easy to see what's wrong is because that's what my motherboard, my limiting beliefs, have taught me, programmed me to look for the bad, not for the good, or to look for the negative instead of the positive.

That's the only reason why that happens. 

It happens because I was programmed that way. 

And there's that wonderful joke that your parents know how to push your buttons because they're the ones who installed them. 

It takes practice to notice what's right. 

Now, remember when just a moment ago I said it's easier to look around and see what's, what's wrong or what's negative.

I put that word easy in quotes because quite frankly, It is actually far easier to do this work and have a happier life than continuing to look at the negative and continue to build and foster that. 

That just keeps me in that awful state of negativity and that awful area of status quo, where I know that pain that you know you could be doing so much better, but you aren't.

I'm sorry, but that is not easy. 

Melody Beattie goes on to say, “many of us have lived around negativity for years. We've become skilled, we've become skilled at labeling what's wrong with other people, our life, our work, our day, our relationships, ourselves, our conduct, our core work. We want to be realistic and our goal is to identify and accept reality.”

However, this often is not our intent when we practice negativity. The purpose of negativity is generally annihilation. 

I do not wanna annihilate. I do not want to annihilate a good life for myself because of the way I was programmed. 

No, I want to create a good life for me, a happy life for me, a place where my life is in the position for a high chance for success.

And this is what I want for you as an actor. 

“Negativity empowers the problem.”

The problem of not working as an actor. The problem of not knowing what to do next. The problem [ of nothing ever good happens to me. It empowers that.

I'm sorry, I don't want to go there. That's not what I want because negativity takes us out of harmony. 

Negative energy sabotages and destroys. 

How many actors have said to me, I sabotage myself. I sabotage myself. 

I used to be someone who used to sabotage themselves. I no longer do that. I no longer do that. 

Let's put it this way. I no longer choose that. 

I choose to work for myself instead of against myself. And that is the far easier path. 

“Negative thinking empowers the problem. It takes us out of harmony. Negative energy sabotages and destroys. It has a powerful life of it’s own. 

and it has the power to enable our self sabotaging. But here's the catch, and here's the good news. So does powerful energy. 

“Each day we can ask what's right, what's good about other people, about our life, our work, our day, our relationships, ourselves, our conduct, our recovery.”

 And this is something that I truly believe. Negative energy comes from my ego. It comes from that thought system. That power system. 

And positive energy comes from the universal. Thought system, the universal power system, that is infinite, that is positive.

And here is the thing, my ego thought system is finite, it only has so much energy. 

But positive energy, when I hook up my pipeline to the positive energy, to the universal energy, that is much stronger than the negative energy. 

That is why I say in my weekly classes, I talk to my clients, my students, my actors about this.

You put in one inch of core work, you put in one inch of effort, and you will get more than one yard back. 

Because the positive energy is so much stronger than the negative. We just have to choose it. 

“Positive energy heals, it conducts love, and transforms. Choose positive energy.”

I love that word transforms.

Because I truly used to be a very negative person. Mainly about myself. Every other thing I said to myself was, I'm not something enough. That is not the case anymore. There is truly hope. 

If I can help myself, I can help you. 

The other thing about Energy is that everybody wants that positive energy. Everybody wants that abundant life. And the thing is that living that abundant life begins with believing in focusing on that abundant world. 

Practicing gratitude. Just even mentioning three times a day or three things in a day that you want to practice gratitude for, that is a phenomenal way to have positive energy in your life. 

I have a very special offer for you. If you are interested in working with me, but you would like to talk to me first, click on the link in the show notes. And we'll get in touch and we'll set something up. 

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We're going to talk about the two energies of the actor. 

We're going to be talking about anabolic energy and catabolic energy. 

But first, what we're going to be talking about Is the term consciousness. So what is the term consciousness? The term consciousness is your awareness of who you really are, as opposed to the you that you believe you are, and we're taught that you are.

Now, here's the thing. Who you really are is pure anabolic energy.

Who you think you are or believe you are, or were taught that you are, or all of the above, has a bit of catabolic energy in it, which means it's energy that works against you. 

So what we're gonna be talking about today is these two energies and how you can stay more in your catabolic energy than your anabolic energy. 

Let's get into the definitions of catabolic energy. Catabolic energy is isolated. It's lonely. You need everything outside of you to validate yourself. The world is scary, and it's angry. And this is the biggest thing to know as an actor, you have a very low chance of success.

You're working unconsciously, and you have very little faith in yourself or in the Universe.

And then there is the wonderful energy of anabolic energy.

Now, anabolic energy is like mind over so-called reality. 

It's when you're seeing that things around you at the moment, things aren't going well, but you know these truths. 

One, this too shall pass. 

And two, everything I'm seeing now is only preparation for more good to come. 

In this energy, you have real energy.

You have a real awareness. You have, and this is so key, faith in yourself, but also a faith in the Universe. 

This is where you live and where you have high potential. 

You also have a high level of success. 

You live more consciously and this is who you are, whether you believe it or not. 

Ananias Nin says that “we do not see the world as it is, we see it as we are,” meaning that I see the world either with anabolic eyes or catabolic eyes. 

And quantum physics has shown us that the world is a creation of our perceptions. 

So if we want to create more enjoyable life experiences, we want to focus on that anabolic energy, and that's why gratitude is so important.

The more we point out what we are grateful for, the more we will bring into our lives again, like energy attracts like energy. I also want to mention that one of the ways we can move into more anabolic energy is to really change how we speak because changing our language changes our reality. 

And I'm going to show you this in terms of anabolic and catabolic energy. 

Language or words orient our thoughts and our feelings.

And I talk a lot about how we have a thought that then becomes an emotion and that emotion then dictates an action and then that action reiterates the thought. 

So I am good enough, I feel good about me, I go to my auditions, I do a great job, see me, I am good enough. 

Now, notice how I used a real anabolic example there.

Words and the intention or the emotion, which are truly the fuel behind them, are either catabolic or anabolic. 

And they convey a lot. underlying messages to our energy. 

And what that does is that creates a physical, an emotional, a mental and a spiritual response, not only in ourselves, but in others.

So what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to give you examples of anabolic and catabolic language choices. 

And we're gonna look at that. 

So if you are in catabolic, that lonely, isolating negative energy, the words you may use are, should, or might.

Now, the anabolic response or the anecdote to that would be I choose, I desire, I want.

Again, another example. The catabolic word choice would be, I need to. 

The anabolic word choice would be, It's important to me. It's important to me that I do this thing. Not that I need to do this thing, but it's important to me. 

The catabolic word choice on the next one is, I have to. I have to. I have to. I have to all over the place.

Like I should all over myself? I have to all over myself. 

And the, again, the anecdote to that is I desire to. I desire to, I choose to, I desire to. 

Another catabolic word choice is can't. Instead, maybe you're just not willing to. Or I'm choosing not to, but I can't is unconscious. I choose to is conscious and therefore anabolic.

I always, never, those are catabolic word choices. 

The anecdote to those are, I sometimes, I often, I seldom. 

The next one must. Ooh, catabolic word choice there. Must. As opposed to, I choose. I desire, again, making your words more conscious so they are in that anabolic energy. 

Try. Oh my God. How many times have I said try?

What about saying the anabolic word choice of I intend to or I aim to? 

And this one, this is such an improv actor one, which is the catabolic word choices, “but.” How about “and?” And is your anabolic word choice. 

Maybe is catabolic, yes I will or no I won't is anabolic. For goodness sakes, make a decision.

And finally, I think. Oh, catabolic right there. 

How about I know, or I don't know. Be decisive with your words. 

Again, remember these words, whether you choose anabolic words or catabolic words have an effect on you, but also on other people, and that means agents, managers, casting directors, writers, directors, producers.

I want to be someone who an agent, a casting director, a director, a producer wants to have in a room, wants to have on set, because I give off that positive energy. 

Finally, I want you to remember that catabolic energy is disempowering. It is taking away my power. It is me giving away my power. And ultimately, it tears me down.

It tears me down. 

But anabolic energy is powerful. Anabolic language is centered. It is grounded. It is responsible. It is powerful. It is healthy. And I love this word. It is empowering. It builds us up. It heals us. And it helps us to believe in ourselves and in our power. 

Remember, the only constant is change.

And I want to make sure that we are changing towards anabolic energy.