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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.

BOOK A CALL WITH PETER

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.

BOOK A CALL WITH PETER

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.

Weekly Accountability Group

Creating effective change as an actor.

I'm going to be talking about real coaching principles.

Change can be scary and many people see a benefit in it. In not making change because the payoff is that they don't have to take action and they don't need to face the unknown.

And that is a concept that I'm really going to be drilling into in this podcast, which is what is the payoff?

What I want you to do is I want you to write down

What am I not doing in my acting career right now?

So what should you be doing that you're not doing?

Now usually I don't want you to should, but for this exercise I want you to because I want you to then write it out for me.

And then ask yourself, what is the payoff?

What's the payoff for you not doing it?

And a lot of the time, the payoff is then I don't have to do anything.

Meaning you don't have to take responsibility.

And also, you don't have to face the unknown. You don't have to face the rejection.

You don't have to feel like an imposter.

The fact is, you're never an imposter. You're just a human being.

You're just as, you're just as entitled to be on this earth as all the rest of us.

I also think that by not taking action, you keep yourself in that cage.

Catabolic energy of victim, and when we are in victim, we are stating that we are helpless, hopeless, and I don't know what to do next.

I want you to ask yourself, what is the payoff for you not taking action?

Your acting career, what is the payoff?

Because what we're trying to do here is we're journaling this little bit of work here to make real effective transformational change in our careers.

What is the payoff for staying just where I am right now?

Because this is the truth. The truth is that not taking action is actually taking an action.

Not taking action in your acting career is actually taking an action.

Just as not making a decision is actually deciding not to choose. Yeah. I know. If you feel like you want to vomit in your mouth just a little bit, I am sure you are not alone.

When I was asked the question, what is the payoff for your anxiety attacks?

I wanted to smash that answer. I wanted to take my fist and insert it into the left cheek of my life coach because I was like, how dare you ask me that question? But oh my goodness, am I glad she did.

This is the thing, actors say they want to change.

They say they want to have a working career.

They say that is what they really want in their lives, but yet they still stay stuck.

The whole thing here is, how do we get you unstuck?

The only way to make effective change, the only way to make effective change, is to focus on the benefits of the change, not on the challenge of making the change.

So now I want you to think about all those things that you put in the beginning there about, I really should be doing this and I really should be doing that.

And I want you to ask yourself this question: how will I feel once I've done those things? How will I feel?

And then I want you to add the emotion to it.

The emotion, because emotion is the fuel.

We can lay those logs on the fire, but when we put that kerosene on it and we light the match, kaboom.

I want you to focus on how you feel when you get that done.

Again, the only way to make effective change is to focus on the benefits of what you will feel, of what you will feel you have accomplished, of the self esteem you will have gained by doing what you said you were going to do, not on the challenge of actually, ugh, doing it.

The best way to do this is to tie your values into your desired outcomes, to show you that this is what you really want and why you really want it.

Let's talk about values for a second and how they can help us to create effective change.

alues are the principles that people live by. The things that make them tick and drive them.

And there are two types of values. There are fear based values.

If I don't earn some money, I'm not going to be able to make my rent. If I don't make my rent, I'm not going to have a place to live. That's a fear based value.

And then there's a conscious based value. This is what I want my life to look like.

This is what I want my acting career to look like.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to align my thoughts and my actions to that goal.

Because I know I can, if I do that, then I will achieve it.

And gosh darn it, I know that's what I really want.

Now fear based values are the ones that cause you to take action or not take action to avoid something.

I call them the have to's. I have to do this. All right, yeah, I have to, the have tos.

But conscious based values, they allow you to take action because they are want tos. I'm doing this because I want to. I want to feel good so I exercise. I want to. I want to do that. I want to go to acting class because I want to become a better actor.

Because I want to be a working actor.

You can choose from passion, or you can choose from fear.

And you, the thing is that sometimes we do that consciously and we don't and sometimes we do it unconsciously.

So therefore, we want to be aware.

One of the things I actually just talked about in my weekly coaching group is this idea of awareness, acceptance, and action.

First we need to become aware.

So I give exercises to become aware.

I give exercises to accept where we are at and then I give exercises to take action.

So here I'm going to give you some empowering questions for helping you to find your values. And then we're gonna again bring it back to that effective change.

I want you to think about a time when life or your acting career was really good, and what was the value that was being expressed or honored?

What was in sync with you?

What did you feel you were doing well?

And how does that express who you are?

How does that express who you are?

So again, think of a time when your acting career was really good. What value was being expressed or honored?

Also, think about a time in your acting career when you were really upset.

What was being challenged? What didn't you like about that? How did it feel? What was going on?

Then I want you to ask yourself, when do you compromise your values?

And why do you compromise your values?

I'll tell you a time when I compromise my values. When I get a case of the I don't want to's. When I get a case of the I don't want to's, then I'm not so strong,

I'm not so funny, I'm not so sweet, and I'm not so elegant. I'm just lazy. And if it's really not in a good place, I'm feeling really helpless.

And that's never a good place.

In fact, feeling helpless is dangerous. This is the thing, when you do the core work, when you do this work on yourself as an actor, if you visit that place called helpless, called a victim, you can get yourself out real quick.

And then finally, I'm going to ask you a question that is probably the best question anybody can ever ask someone: think about what you must experience in life. What must you experience in your one grand life that you have? What must you experience and why is that so important for you?

Again, change can be scary and many people see a benefit in not making change.

But what is the payoff and what is the cost for not doing the things that you need to be doing, the thoughts that you need to be thinking, to do that thing that you must experience?

I encourage you listen to this podcast again, really write out my questions, really journal on them and get to know yourself better.

Try out The Weekly Accountability Group for FREE!

Last week I talked about accountability and discipline.

Today, I want to talk about hard days.

I did not have a good night last night.

I didn't sleep well. I'm going through some physical discomfort. Nothing serious, but just physical discomfort. And I just got down. And one of the things I've learned is hungry, angry, lonely, tired, halt.

If you get too hungry or you get too angry or you get too lonely or you get too tired , and I also will add hormonal in there, I find that is when my negativity, my catabolic energy comes up.

And the thing is I woke up and I was like, "okay, I didn't have a great night's sleep. I'm not feeling that great about me at the moment. And I'm just having one of those days. I'm having a hard day."

So every morning I make a cup of tea. And I go out to our garden, and I sit, and I talk with the Universe, and this morning, I was resenting the Universe.

I was like, "I'm not feeling so great, Universe, and for some reason I want to blame it on you."

I just didn't feel great.

And then a little voice came to my head that said, do what you always do.

Don't treat this day any differently than any other day. And so slowly I started to say my mantras that I say and I opened up my little journal and I read some of my affirmations and I got myself present by naming the birds that I was hearing and the sounds that I was hearing.

And I said, "okay, look, even though you don't feel so great today. I'm still going to suit up. I'm still going to show up and I'm still going to be Peter Pamela Rose reporting for duty today."

And had my breakfast, took a shower, put some makeup on, had my first meeting. I've already done four meetings today and it's not even 10:30 in the morning and here we go, and now I'm doing a podcast.

And it was while I was in the shower that I said I should do a podcast about when things aren't so great, when you're not feeling so wonderful.

The Language of Letting Go

This reading is about getting through the hard times.

This is about getting through the hard times, and as always, I'm going to be using her words for inspiration, and I'll be talking a little bit about it.

"Hard times. Stressful times. Are not all there is to life, but they are a part of life. They are a part of growth, and they are a part of moving forward."

I was working with a client privately recently, and we got to this bit where I said, you work, you grind, you get to the next level. Repeat. You work, you grind, you get to the next level. Repeat. You work, you grind, you get to the next level.

And the thing is that days like I'm having today, guess what?

That is part of growth. It is part of life. It is part of moving forward.

This is the key, even though it doesn't feel like it.

"We can use the energy of hard times to work out and work through our issues."

Why would you treat this day differently than any other day?

No, you keep to the routine. Because the routine is on the path to growth.

So again, we use the energy of the hard times to work out, work through our issues.

And we can use it to fine tune our skills and our spirituality.

In other words, even though I don't feel like I had faith in that moment, I practiced and acted as if I did.

"Or we can go through these times suffering, storing up bitterness, and refusing to grow or change."

I'm sorry that's just not my bag anymore. Just don't want to do it.

I only want to be moving forward. I only want to be growing.

A friend of mine said to me recently, she's you know what? We can do hard things. We can do hard things, and sometimes doing the hard thing is doing what you've always done to keep you on track, even when you most don't feel like it.

Hard times can motivate and mold us to bring out our best. Why? Because it instills desire and discipline in us.

"We can use these times to move forward and upward to higher levels of learning, loving and growth. The choice is ours. Will we let ourselves feel? Will we take a spiritual approach, including gratitude toward the event? Will we question life and our higher power by asking what we're supposed to be learning and doing? Or will we use the incident to prove old negative beliefs?"

Oh, hell no, we're not doing that.

Hell no.

Where we say things like, nothing good ever happens to me. I'm just a victim, people can't be trusted, life isn't worth living. Hell no! No, we are not going to do that.

And this is the thing, As I've shared on this podcast, I'm very much into working out and fitness because it really works against that trigger word of mine, which is weak because working out makes me feel strong.

And one of the things that I've noticed is particularly with abdominal exercises is that when I find an abdominal exercise that I really don't like, that is the one I drill into, that is the one I practice. Why? Because that's where I'm weak and I want to get strong.

And it's the same thing when I'm doing, let's say, an abdominal exercise.

And it's the same thing. It starts to burn and it starts to feel uncomfortable and I want to quit. That's when the strength is building.

That's when the strength is building.

So when this morning I said to myself, that little quiet voice said, do what you always do. Do your morning routine. That was me continuing on even though it was uncomfortable.

That was me getting stronger.

"We do not always require hard energy or stress, to motivate, to grow or change. We do not have to create stress, seek it, or attract it. But if it's there, we can learn to channel it into growth and using it for achieving what is good in life. We can use the hard times to get better. We can use the hard times to get better."

Also, if you would like to be held more accountable in your acting career and you would like more of this. core work in your life. Please, I beg of you, take a chance and try out one of our classes for free.

They are life changing.

And if you can't make the class, we tape it.

Sign up for the free class

I'm going to talk about something that has truly changed my life. There are two things. One is discipline and the second one is accountability.

So the first one is accountability. When I started this work nearly 30 years ago, I can't even believe it's been that long.

I really cannot believe it. It sometimes feels like it's so much longer than that, and sometimes it feels like it's, I don't know, like yesterday.

But when I started this work out, I had to be accountable. And I was accountable to my coach and I was accountable to a group.

And this group I was accountable to them every week. So I worked with my coach privately, and I worked with my coach in a group setting.

And it taught me a lot. And basically what it taught me was, is the number one person who I needed to be accountable to was me.

That if I said that I wanted to be a working actor, that I had to put my money where my mouth was, where I had to put my energy where my mouth was, that if I said I was going to do something, I really needed to do it because I did not want to show up to that group and say, I didn't do it this week.

Because of that I decided to make a difficult decision. But I think a very important decision, which was to open up my Weekly Accountability Group. To all actors.

So what I'm offering is a free class.

The class is on Fridays at 12 p. m. EST.

Not only do you get that class, but you also get my core work class, which is the weekly adjustment after that, because I want to teach you to be accountable to you, to be accountable. And a lot of people have been asking me about this and saying, would you open it up to the public?

And finally I decided yes.

One of the things that you need in order to be accountable is discipline.

Now, the funny thing is that I did not used to be very disciplined. As a kid, I would always look for the easy way out.

The funny thing is, though, if I think of some of the two most disciplined people I know on the planet, they're my parents.

So how did these two incredibly disciplined people bring up this kid who is not that disciplined?

One thing is they made life very easy for me, which I would manipulate out of them.

I was an only child and yeah, I was brutal.

When I wanted something from my daddy, I would open my blue eyes wide open and I'd go, "Dadsky" and he'd melt. Anything I wanted, he'd give me.

And my mom, the mummiest of the mummies, I call her. She also would, give in to my let's just put it this way, adorableness.

And I'm saying all of this with a big smile on my face.

But when I got older, I started to realize that they really were quite the example for me.

My father is now a retired corporate pilot. And I remember that man could pack a suitcase and he would have everything packed and everything ready.

And this is when you flew with maps, okay, not with GPS.

He was so organized. and so disciplined.

And if my father said he was going to do something, he would do it.

And if my father said he would meet you at six o'clock, he was there at 5:45.

Not only that, he was physically very disciplined.

When he retired, he started walking 10 miles a day, and that was in his sixties. My dad is 84.5 years old. and walks four miles a day.

My 84 and a half year old father is still physically disciplined.

Now let's talk about my mom. My mom is 85 now. She wrote her 10th cookbook. on her 80th birthday. She finished her 10th cookbook on her 80th birthday.

This past week, she told me that one television series and one film reached out to her, both documentaries. My mom is a food historian and they want to interview her about Dutch historical food because she's a Dutch food historian.

My mom, I would watch her sit down at the computer and for hours work at writing her books.

The mental discipline that my mother has, is mind boggling to me. I don't have it.

My mom is also an avid reader and has been known to read a book a night. Again, I don't know how she does it. I wish I'd gotten that gene. That one I didn't.

The point is that these two people were phenomenal role models to me.

And even though I didn't learn it as a child, ultimately, I taught myself and used them as examples to become quite disciplined myself.

I'm going to give you even a further example, one that applies right now. I realized I didn't have a podcast this week. And then I texted Rose Marie, my right hand woman, I said, we don't have a podcast this week, do we?

And she went nope, and I went, she said, can you get me one tonight? And I went, yep.

But here's the thing. I didn't want to do this podcast, but yet that quiet voice inside of me said I've done like a hundred and ninety weeks in a row. A hundred and ninety weeks. There's no reason I couldn't jump in the booth and do this podcast.

And that is discipline.

Discipline is doing something when you don't want to, yeah, and discipline is what you need to be held accountable to the most important person in the world that you need to be held accountable to.

So look, here's the deal. Free class. It's the Weekly Accountability Group.

You've got nothing to lose. Try me for one class. That's all I'm asking. One class. Totally free. No obligation whatsoever to continue. And if you want to continue, We keep it affordable for you.

Are you going to be disciplined and sign up? I hope so.

And as I get older, I learn, the more I work for myself, the more I have regrets that it took me so long to do it.

So if I can convince one of you out there to show up for yourself just even one day earlier, trust me, it's gonna be worth it.

Planning Out Your Day the Night Before

Today I'm going to be talking about boundaries.

The Language of Letting Go

One of the things that comes up for actors quite often is setting boundaries with the representation, with a director of a play or a student film or a feature film, or even, what happened to me on a commercial set, where I was almost physically abused.

So boundaries are something that is very valuable for us to know in our work as an actor, but also, of course, in our personal life.

"Sometimes life and people seem to push and push.Because we sometimes may have been so used to pain, we may tell ourselves that it doesn't hurt. Because we are so used to people controlling and manipulating us, we may tell ourselves that there is something wrong with us."

So the first part of that is something that I used to do is go "it's just me, so it doesn't matter."

The second part is, we may tell ourselves that there is something wrong with us.

Now, the word shame, and this is not really a subject that I talk about too much, because if you have shame issues, that is truly something that I need to work on with you in a private one on one session.

Because it is such an emotional issue, but shame is believing that there is something defective about you.

So a lot of times when we're not setting boundaries, people always just take advantage of me. There must be something wrong with me.

But when I'm doing that, I'm putting myself in that catabolic energy of victim.

When I put myself in the catabolic energy of victim, oof, I'm in trouble.

I need to move into the anabolic energy of responsibility.

And that is definitely what setting boundaries is all about.

Now, how can we tell if we are being controlled and manipulated? So one of the things I talk about is taking a step back.

And if you put your hand on your face, what you'll notice is that when you look at your hand, you can't really see it. But when you remove it about six to eight inches, you've taken a step back from it, you can, and when that happens, you are in a place to observe.

But when somebody you feel like you're being manipulated, it's that hand just magically finds its way onto your face.

But again, you do have the power to take a step back and observe and ask yourself if this is healthy for you.

Another thing that I find very helpful is when I'm feeling someone may be manipulating me. I just listen, force myself not to say anything, but just listen and allow myself to take the opportunity to really hear what it is they are asking of me.

The other thing that I find very helpful is to never answer yes right away.

Say that sounds like a very interesting opportunity, let me get back to you. Let me think about it and let me get back to you tomorrow and then really get back to them tomorrow.

So that again, you're giving yourself that space to take a step back and observe to see if what they're asking you to do is, are you being manipulated, or is this potentially a really great opportunity for you?

In family situations, little thing that I find to be very helpful, and it's taking your power back in a very particular way, is that, again, I spend more time listening and less time talking.

And one of the ways I've trained myself to do that in very specific situations is I only speak when I am spoken to.

So that again, I can stay with me, not abandon myself, not give my power away in any way, but really observe what everybody is saying and doing.

So I can decide what I want to be a part of and what I do not.

This allows for a period of observation, a period of observation in the relationship you are in question about, or in the relationships you are in question about.

There is nothing wrong with us. We are not defective. But life pushes and hurts sometimes to get our attention. Sometimes the pain and the pushing are pointing us towards a lesson that we need to learn to welcome more good, more abundance and a better chance for success to happen to us.

One of the things that I always say is that I think that we are always being taught lessons.

Again, that quieter period of observation is so important so that we can observe what is going on in ourselves and asking the universe and asking ourselves, what is the lesson that I need to be learning here?

See, all of a sudden, when you're doing these things that I'm talking about now, you are taking yourself out of the victim role and putting yourself into taking real responsibility for your life.

Because sometimes the lesson may be that we've become too controlling.

Take a step back. What are the words that I am saying? What is my motivation in the relationship?

And I just gave you a great journal exercise right there. Why am I saying the words that I am saying? And what is my motivation in the relationship?

Because a lot of the time what I have found is that I am really being pushed to stick by me so that when I [ set a boundary, I don't abandon myself and also to take care of myself on a deeper level.

A couple little phrases to remind you of, "taking care of ourselves pays enormous dividends."

"Whatever I put before taking care of myself, I am going to lose."

If something or somebody is pushing us to our limits, that is exactly what may be happening.

We may be pushed to our limits and we can be grateful that this experience is here to help us to explore this area of boundaries.

And I know you're like, Oh God, puke! That is not something I'm excited about learning about. If it's not, guess what? You need to learn it.

It's like ab work at the gym. It's like the most important thing you can do is get strong in your core.

The most important thing you can do is to set boundaries and stick by yourself when you do it.

Give yourself permission to set the limits that you want and need to set in your life and in your acting career.

Again, another really great empowering question and journal questions that I'm giving you in this podcast is "What are my needs?"

Write down, what are your needs? How can you get them met? Who can I, listen to this word, appropriately get them met by?

Don't go to the hardware store for lemons.

There are certain friends that I have that I can pour my heart out to. There's other friends that pouring my heart out to may not necessarily be in my best interest because they're not available to me in that sort of emotional and kind way.

Not that they aren't kind and not that they aren't wonderful, but they may be somebody great to go to if I'm having a business issue or having a mathematical issue. They may be the better friends for that.

A lack of boundaries invites a lack of respect.

There's another phrase that says you get what you tolerate.

Be careful in setting boundaries. Write them out. Pause, think, pray, talk it over with someone else if you need to.

One of the most valuable things I learned about boundary setting is you tell someone what you need, and leave the word you out.

You tell someone how you feel and what you need, but you leave the word you out.

"I feel frustrated when a call is set up and there is no answer. I need for us to stick to our appointments."

That would be setting a boundary where I'm keeping it on me.

It's about my frustration and what I need.

Not saying, "I feel frustrated when I call you and you're not there. I need for you to be there when I want you to be."

You get it? Because that second example puts someone on the defense.

Think about that. Think about all the ways that you can take care of yourself and stick by yourself when setting boundaries in your personal life and also in your acting career.

Voiceover classes

Today, I'm going to be talking about letting go of the fantasy and moving into reality.

And this was something that I worked on with a client.

It's not going to be a long podcast, but we were going over this reading and it just, it just hit me on a different level. And I really wanted to share it with you again.

This comes out of The Language of Letting Go

And this reading is about taking care of ourselves, but I think you're going to see how I'm talking about it in terms of letting go of the fantasy and really taking the reins of reality.

"We do not have to wait for others to come to our aid. We are not victims. We are not helpless."

And one of the things I talk about in my coaching is these two energy levels. There's catabolic energy, which is negative, destructive energy. And then there's anabolic energy, which is healing, growing, constructive energy, with a very strong energy of success.

Your chances and your potential for success when you are in anabolic energy is very strong. And of course, when you are in that catabolic thinking is very low.

When you are a victim, you are in that lowest form of catabolic energy.

And so what is important here Is again, making that transition from the fantasy that you can't do anything to the reality of yes, you can.

"Letting go of faulty thinking means we realize there are no nights on white horses, no magical grandmothers in the sky watching, waiting to rescue us. Teachers may come our way, but they will not rescue. They will teach. People who care will come, but they will not rescue. They will care. Help will come, but help is not rescuing We are our own rescuers."

And the thing that I find about fear, and the thing that I find about anxiety, and not knowing what to do next, all has to do with this one thing of me trying to control outcomes instead of trying to manage and handle the real work that I need to do, the reality, which is to do the work on myself and to take care of myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.

My trying to control outcomes is a fantasy.

My trying to manage, take care of myself, handle my thoughts, my actions, my attitudes, and myself. That is reality, and that's where the power is, and that's where the potential for success lives.

"Our relationships will improve dramatically when we stop rescuing others. And stop expecting them to rescue us."

And also, our power begins when we put it rightly on where we can actually do something. Not with trying to control outcomes, but managing and taking care and handling ourselves. Again, that would be ourselves, our attitudes, our thoughts, and our actions.

Free Month of my Weekly Coaching Group

So today I'm gonna talk about that green emotion called jealousy. Oh, we've all had it, we've all experienced it, and we've all been the subject of it. But with actors, it can get so tricky.

I wanted to do a podcast, really putting this emotion into perspective.

"A flower never thinks of competing with the flower next to it, it just blooms."

Buddha said, "Do not envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind."

"Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners."

I think my own personal journey with jealousy.

If I am having jealousy over someone else, it's because I am not keeping the focus on myself.

Keep the focus on yourself. Keep the focus on yourself.

Whatever I put before taking care of myself, I am going to lose.

Also, whatever you put before taking care of yourself, you are going to lose.

Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners.

And I think it's so important to understand we have one journey in this life.

Just one. And it's the one you're on.

Let's make it the damn best one we possibly can.

Amy Cuddy says, "Focus less on the impression you're making on others and more on the impression you're making on yourself."

The greatest thing about getting older is really starting to understand that the person who I most want to be impressing, the person that I most want to be challenging, the person who I most want to show that I can do it, is me.

That also helps so much with anxiety. It also helps so much with me wanting to be on my team.

Because you know what? My team is fucking great.

So many years I abandoned myself looking to be on somebody else's team.

Wanting to be with the quote unquote popular kids in the second grade.

What a waste of time.

I want to be with my people. Meaning me. Meaning me, myself, and I.

Someone else's success does not rob you of anything. That's the Truth.

In fact, I have found that when I support people in their success, they're more than happy to help me and support me in achieving my own success.

The other thing is that when I focus on another person or another person's success and why they have it and I don't have it, the only thing I'm doing is weakening me.

And I'm sick and tired of weakening me.

I want to be working for myself, not against myself.

And jealousy is an emotion where we work against ourselves.

When you indulge in the emotion of jealousy, you are letting yourself off the hook for taking responsibility for what you need to do to take care of yourself and advance your goals, your acting career.

Jealousy is really a completely useless emotion and it is a catabolic energy.

Meaning it is a self defeating energy.

And when you're in catabolic energy, you have a very low chance of success.

I want a high chance for success. I want to live in anabolic energy.

When you find yourself being jealous, you need to reframe it.

Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.

When you find yourself being jealous, you need to reframe it and pivot the energy from working against you to working for you, from being catabolic to being anabolic, which is healing, growing energy with a high chance for success.

Ask yourself these questions: by this person having success, what are they really taking from me? The answer is nothing. They are just living their life.

And instead of focusing and putting energy towards what this person has, ask yourself, "where do I need to put energy and effort so I can create the life and career that I wanna create for my life?"

Two very important questions.

The first one being, by this person having the success, what are they taking from me?

Nothing.

And instead of focusing and putting energy towards what this person has, where do I need to put my energy and effort so that I can create the life and career that I want to create?

Again, keep the focus on yourself. Keep the focus on yourself.

How can I take care of myself in this moment? Create a plan. Organize yourself. Take an action to put yourself closer to where you want to be in your life.

Do a vision board. Do a gratitude list. Get yourself out of the catabolic energy of jealousy and get yourself into the anabolic energy of taking responsibility for your life.

Jealousy is all about putting energy in the wrong place. That's all it is.

Energy that is being put in the wrong place. So how about putting all that energy on taking care of you and your life?

Free Month of The Weekly Adjustment

I'm going to be talking about a real coaching tool called getting a buy in.

And that buy in is about really getting a buy in from yourself, something that you need in order to commit to yourself and motivate yourself.

So I'm going to be giving you some strategies to achieve buy-in from yourself and then tell you why I'm teaching this very valuable lesson.

The first thing when you're trying to get a buy-in from yourself, you're trying to get yourself motivated, you're trying to get yourself committed to this thing of becoming an actor, is you want to clarify your visions and your goal.

What that means is that you want to define clear objectives.

Meaning, and if you've ever done any method acting, you want to find out, what do you want?

What does that character want, but what do you want?

You want to ensure that you have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve, and this is the biggie, and why it matters.

Why it matters.

Jen Sincero talks a lot about doing something because your life depends on it.

But this is the thing, as she says, Your life does depend on it.

This is what you want. Let's get clear on it.

I also encourage you, after you have written down what your vision and your goals are, or your goal is that I want you to visualize that success.

Even if you just write it down in a paragraph form, you're already a step closer to what you want to buy into.

Picture what success looks like, and this is the biggie, and how it will feel.

How it will feel. How will it feel when you achieve that award? How will it feel when you get what you want?

Visualize what that would look like.

The second thing I want you to do is I want you to assess the benefits, but also the challenges.

I want you to list your benefits and all of this you can do by just writing down.

You can listen to this podcast all the way through.

Then you can pause and then listen. Listen to it again, but this time with pen and paper and pause when you want to write stuff down. Assess the benefits and the challenges.

So you're going to list the benefits. Write down the positive outcomes that you expect if you buy in, if you say, "Hey, I am 1000 percent into this pursuit of becoming an actor," what would the positive outcomes be?

And then I want you to identify the potential challenges. And that means you're acknowledging the obstacles and you're going to start considering how you're going to overcome them and where you may need to get help to overcome them.

The third thing is I want you to align with your values and your interests.

Now, what does that mean? Your values are what means a lot to you. Is it the arts? Is it self expression? One of my values is always showing myself I can do it.

It's not about showing other people, it's for me. My biggest value is proving to myself that I can do it.

So you want to align your values and your interests. interests. So you want to take a moment to really reflect on your personal values, meaning you want to ensure that the goal that you want to be doing aligns with who you are and the interests you have.

So if I'm challenging myself as a coach which I actually did when I started this podcast 180 episodes ago. Actually, I think it might even be 190 by this point. I challenged myself to do something every week that I may or may not feel like I'm doing.

It was in the interest that I obviously have in coaching, but it also was the value of not proving to all of you that I could do it, but proving to myself that I could do it.

The other thing that you want to do around aligning your values and interests is finding personal value.

Connecting your goal to something that is personally meaningful to you.

I talk about how my trigger words a lot in my coaching and that weekly coaching group I was just telling you about.

And my old trigger words are weak, stupid, incapable.

So when I am aligning with my personal meaning, or I'm trying to find a personal meaning, that personal meaning will always be something that goes against those words. That practices contrary action to the words of weak, stupid, and incapable.

It makes me strong, smart, intelligent, and, as I always like to tell myself, I am the most capable person I know.

Number four, educate yourself. Educate yourself. Gather information, research, and learn more about the goal to build confidence. Now here I can help you.

If you are trying to figure out the business of becoming an actor, please let me know. Shoot me an email, [email protected] so that you can get in touch with me.

And we can talk about this because the business does not have to be complicated.

Also, and I love this, seek inspiration, look for case studies, success stories or mentors that have achieved similar goals.

Another thing that I think is really important is if you are a movie buff, watch favorite movies, watch movies that inspire you, performances that inspire you. Inspire you to become the best actor that you can be the best business person for your acting career that you can be.

And find those inspirational stories that I talk about in the core work to pick you up and help inspire you when you most don't feel like doing what needs to be done.

Number five, set achievable milestones, which means set achievable goals, mini goals. Break it down. I'm a big one on baby stepping.

Love the baby stepping and love the phrase anyone can eat an elephant one bite at a time.

So you want to break it down.

You want to divide the project into smaller manageable tasks. Because the fact of the matter is that if you don't know what the next step is, the next right step or the next manageable step or the next bite of the elephant is, you're probably not going to get it done.

Also, celebrate progress, recognize and reward yourself for completing the milestones.

Whenever I do a good workout, I really praise myself for the effort that I put into it.

That's so much better than beating yourself up.

Again, the core work and everything I talk about is about getting you to work for you instead of against you.

So number six is developing a support system. So important.

We need people who are trying to recover their selves, what they really were meant to be on this earth and really saying enough is enough of the fear and going for it.

You need other people like that in your life who encourage you instead of discourage you, because you want to be seeking encouragement.

You want to share your goals with supportive friends, or supportive family, or supportive colleagues.

Find whether someone is supportive for you or not. And that's in good times and in bad.

Also, find accountability. One of the things I do with Acting Business Boot Camp is we have a weekly accountability group.

What have you done the week before and what are you going to do the week going forth?

In those three pillars of a successful acting career, which are acting training, business steps, and accountability. And core work. So what did you do to become better at your craft this past week? And what did you, are you going to do this next coming week?

Number seven, reflect on past successes.

In episode 102 of this podcast, I talk about what is your strength story, and I share one of my own.

If you want to understand what really finding your strength story is all about, listen to that podcast episode, and we'll put a link in the show notes so you can just click on it.

It's one of my favorite episodes, and also you get a real good idea of where I was at how far I've come.

You want to recall achievements, reflect on past successes to build confidence in your ability to succeed again.

You also want to analyze strategies. You want to consider what strategies worked in the past.

What has worked for your acting career in the past and how can you apply them now.

Number eight, you want to create a positive mindset.

And that is why at the beginning of this podcast, I offered you that free month of coaching for the weekly adjustment, because that is It's all about creating a positive mindset.

We do talk about practicing self affirmations and using affirmations to boost your confidence.

I talk about how you can act your way into right thinking and think your way into right acting.

You also want to be learning, and we talk about this in that weekly class, about managing negative thoughts, address and reframe any self doubt, or negative thinking.

Number nine, oh boy, if you're a working actor, you know this one. Plan for flexibility. Be adaptable. Another one I love is to remain teachable.

Be prepared to adjust your plans as needed. Remember when you're about to go out to dinner and maybe a movie or a show with a friend and then that audition comes in?

Oh yeah, you gotta learn how to pivot.

Always stay open to learning. View challenges and opportunities to learn and grow.

It's not that bad things happen. It's that lessons come up for us to learn and grow. So that we can truly do what we are capable of doing and have the skills to do that when called upon.

Again, remember, remain teachable intellectually and emotionally.

And finally, our last action to get a buy in from ourself is to commit to action. Set a start date. Decide when you will begin and commit to it.

And I always love when I'm able to do it the moment I set the plan or the goal in motion.

Take that first step. Start with a small action. To bring about momentum, start with something small, a tiny sampling, a little bonbon of the elephant.

Now, this is the thing, by systematically going through each of these 10 steps in this very special podcast lesson, you really can cultivate a strong internal commitment to your goals and ensure sustained motivation and effort.

And if you need help with this, please, I beg of you, I am totally willing to help. Let me see how I can help you.

And I can do that. I can start to do that with you in that free month, an entire free month. That's four hours of coaching, four hours of coaching in the wonderful weekly adjustment class.