Acting Business Boot Camp

So, this week, I've received numerous emails from actors who have told me that they feel stuck.

That's why I was like, if they're feeling it, maybe I should do a podcast about feeling stuck.

So we're going to get to that.

Private coaching

Being stuck. I think being stuck has a lot to do, at least for me, about timing.

Generally, it always comes down to timing—not my timing; it's the Universe's timing. And then that sometimes just doesn't work. If I'm not in the greatest place, that frustrates me even more because I'm like, "Why not now?"

"Why not now? What the fuck is going on?"

And then I think I'll go great guns and put a ton of stuff out there, and then it'll be like this. Yeah, you get it. It's silence, right?

Or things just aren't moving as fast as I would like. And ultimately, being stuck has to do with timing.

It's just where you are right now. And if you are in the entertainment industry—which, chances are, if you're listening to this podcast—you know that we are going through one heck of a correction right now.

But this is the truth, and I don't think anyone is really talking about it.

But the truth is, the Universal Truth is this, too, shall pass.

This, too, shall pass.

The trick, and I really believe the difference between working actors and non-working actors, is what you will do with this time when things may not be as fast as you would like.

Things are happening, but they are not happening at the rate that we were expecting.

The other thing that I will say is I really want to fully recognize and validate this feeling because I've certainly been having it.

We had COVID. The world stopped. My career stopped. Then we got all very busy. And then we had the strikes. First, we had the writer's strike. Then we had the actor's strike.

And that went on for months.

And now, that's all over with. Again, my career stopped. Nothing happened.

And then, we had what we're going through in 2024.

These first three months, where we're what the hell is going on. This is just, again, not what we were expecting.

And then we hear rumors of the IATSE strike, and that's the reason: yes, the industry is contracting, but also, there's this threat of the IATSE strike, and, oh, wait a minute, their contract isn't up until July 31st.

It's this feeling of stuck, and I feel like we're all in a collective stuck, and I just want to say, ah, yes, I'm so freaking frustrated by the whole thing.

And when I feel this way. It is because things are out of my control. It's other people, places, things, and situations.

And when it's another person, place, thing, or situation, I can't do anything about it.

What can I do about it? I can change my life, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.

That's where my power is. I can also consider what I can do to take care of myself spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally.

During what has been a very tumultuous four years of the industry since, quite frankly, 2020.

When I say tumultuous, I also mean good because a lot of good happened between 2021 and 2023.

We had two busy years. But let's talk about timing, and let's talk about getting unstuck, and there's this wonderful reading.

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie.

"There are times when we simply do not know what to do."

That's when you're stuck, right? "Or even where to go or what to do next. Sometimes these periods are brief, sometimes lingering."

And what I just have to say, what I feel as an industry, or certainly, yeah, as an industry, is it was like, nothing. Obviously, the world stopped with COVID-19, then it was feast.

And now it's, I don't want to say it's famine, but it certainly isn't abundant right now.

"We can get through these times. We can rely on our disciplines of taking care of ourselves."

We can cope by using our faith in the universe. Other people, good friends, and resources. And the resources are, for example, this book.

And the resources are coaching. Just getting that extra little bit of hope and help. "Accept uncertainty. We do not always have to know what to do or where to go next. We do not always have to be clear. We do not always have to have necessarily a direction, but I certainly will say it helps."

"Refusing to accept the inaction limbo makes things worse."

I also just want to point out what I was talking about earlier, which is not accepting that we cannot do anything about other people, places, things, or situations. When we still don't accept that, things do get worse.

Again, where we can do something, what we can manage is our own lives, our own attitudes, our own thoughts, and our own actions.

It's okay to temporarily be without direction.

In this moment, that is okay.

Say, I don't know, and be comfortable with that. We do not have to try to force wisdom, knowledge, or clarity where there is none.

While waiting for that direction, we do not have to put our life on hold. We can let go of anxiety and enjoy life."

Another big thing I talk about in my private coaching is letting go of anxiety or learning emotional intelligence by becoming emotionally self-sufficient.

"We can enjoy the love and the beauty in our lives.

We can do something fun. We can accomplish small tasks, and this is crucial. They may not have anything to do with solving the problem or even finding direction, but this is what we can do in the interim. Clarity will come. The next step will present itself. Indecision, inactivity, and lack of direction won't last forever.

And like I said, this too shall pass.

But this is the whole thing. We don't have to suffer.

We don't have to suffer.

And if I can help you to get through this stuck, weird period, please let me know.

Work privately with David

About David Cady:

DAVID CADY is currently a professor of commercial and musical theatre performance at AMDA, NYU, and Pace University.

Prior, he was a casting director for Donna DeSeta Casting for close to 30 years.

In addition to countless commercials, his casting credits include the original Dirty Dancing, Disney's Enchanted, Michael John LaChiusa's The Petrified Prince for the Public Theater, and the world premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman's Whistle Down the Wind, directed by Harold Prince.

He was an original cast member of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's Merrily We Roll Along, and can be seen in Lonny Price's film about the experience, The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened.

In an enlightening discussion filled with actionable advice and heartfelt stories, David Cady, a veteran of musical theatre, shares his extensive knowledge and passion for the art. This episode is a treasure trove for aspiring and established performers alike, offering guidance on auditions, the importance of self-awareness, and the intrinsic value of kindness and professionalism in the theatre world.

Key Takeaways:

• Mastering Auditions: David discusses the crucial approach to auditions, emphasizing the importance of viewing oneself as a collaborator rather than just a hopeful applicant. The mindset should be about showcasing how you are the answer to a casting call, equipped with meticulously selected material that plays to your current strengths.

• The Right Material: The selection of audition pieces is paramount. David advises against reaching for material that's beyond one's current range, instead advocating for focusing on pieces that showcase one's abilities best. This includes having self-taped auditions with tracks designed in your key and reflecting your unique voice.

• Technical Savvy: The conversation turns to the technical aspects of modern auditions, highlighting the need for performers to become adept at using software like GarageBand and iMovie for editing self-tapes. This technical skill set is becoming increasingly crucial in a digital-first auditioning world.

• Confidence and Growth: Drawing from his own experiences, David talks about the evolution of confidence through the repeated cycle of auditioning, failing, and learning. He stresses that a failure is not a setback but an opportunity for growth.

• Building and Maintaining Relationships: One of the episode's most poignant messages is the importance of kindness, professionalism, and building lasting relationships in the industry. David shares personal anecdotes to underscore how your behavior and interaction with everyone, from the casting director to the monitor, can significantly impact your career.

• A Career for Life: The discussion concludes on a reflective note, with David reminding listeners that a career in musical theatre is a lifelong journey. The importance of cherishing and working with your current capabilities, continually learning, and building a reputation of kindness and professionalism cannot be overstated.

Special Moments:

• David shares inspiring stories from his career, including his auditions and the lessons learned along the way.
• A candid discussion about the mental and emotional aspects of performing, emphasizing self-love and the journey towards finding and owning your voice.

For More Information:

• To explore working with David Cady on your musical theatre auditions, click on the link in the show notes.
• Learn more about Acting Business Bootcamp and how it can advance your career by also checking the show notes.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about musical theatre, offering insights and advice that span the breadth of a performer's journey from auditions to professional growth and personal fulfillment.

The Working Actor Road Map

I don't know about you, 2024 is not exactly what I expected it would be in this industry.

And, I'm after the strikes and, after everything we went through last year, seriously? This is it?

Now, of course, there are reasons for this.

There's the potential IATSE strike and the industry contraction. But the problem is that I don't know about you, but I'm left with feelings.

And I thought that, since we just moved our clocks, I thought I would make this episode about spring and new beginnings.

In fact, I had friends over for dinner the other night, and my dear friend brought me this beautiful plant. It had hyacinths and tulips.

Of course, she knows I'm a Dutch girl. I love tulips. You can't go wrong with tulips and daffodils. And every time I look at it, it just makes me smile and it makes me feel good because spring is a time of renewal.

So today I'm going to be talking about new beginnings and renewal.

And one of those things that I need to renew is the way I look at things and resentments.

Expectations are premeditated resentments.

And I guess that's what I had about the industry.

I thought we'd all be running back to it in January, and it seems to be, just a simmer, hopefully into a boil later this year.

So here we go.

The Language of Letting Go

"Resentments are the blocks that hold us back from loving ourselves and others. Resentments do not punish the other person, they punish us. They become barriers to feeling good and enjoying life. They prevent us from being in harmony with the world. Resentments. are hardened chunks of anger. They loosen and dissolve with forgiveness and letting go."

So there's a lot to unpack there. But this is the thing. It's like when I have a resentment against something else or the business at large, people, places, things, situations.

What happens for me is it's I'm taking poison and I'm expecting something else to be affected by that.

I'm taking the poison and expecting someone else to die or to suffer.

When ultimately with resentments, what's really happening is I am the person who's suffering.

And a lot of the time, and this is something I was talking about with a client the other day, is that really, the person I'm resenting and angry at is me.

And that's the whole thing.

I love this thing of resentments are hardened chunks of anger. That's not helping me. And it certainly doesn't help me as an artist.

As an artist, I want to be movable, malleable, changeable.

And resentment stops that.

She goes on to say, "letting go of resentments does not mean we allow the other person to do anything to us that he or she or they want.

It means we accept what happened in the past and we set boundaries for the future. We can let go of resentments and still have boundaries."

Forgiving is not forgetting. It's letting go of the hurt because the only person that the hurt is hurting is me.

And we can have boundaries and we can forgive.

And a lot of times, like I said a little bit earlier is that the person I need to forgive most is me.

For allowing myself to be treated like that, or for actions I may have done that may have not been in my own best interest.

Because I find a lot of the times I get angry at myself, it's because I did not advocate for me.

I abandoned myself.

Sadly, in that moment, I wasn't emotionally intelligent enough to know how to take care of myself and to be emotionally self sufficient.

"We try to see the good in the person or the good that ultimately evolved from whatever incident we feel resentful about.

We try and see our part. Then we put the incident to rest."

So there's this fabulous phrase, trace it, face it, erase it.

I need to trace it. Then I need to face it and then I can let it go. It's also awareness. I need to become aware of the situation, accept that the situation is going on, and then I can take action.

It's another couple other really important, fabulous tools.

Praying for those or sending someone good thoughts for those people that we resent helps to asking the universe to take our resentments from us.

A very powerful prayer that I use a lot is thank you for taking away, if it's like an anger feeling, a resentment feeling, a fear feeling, thank you for taking this away from me, whatever that feeling is, and showing me where I can be of service.

Show me what you would have me do, rather than wallow in anger.

"What better way to begin this new time of year than by cleaning the slate of the past and entering this new season free of resentments."

I just I just love that because again, I feel expression fumbled the ball, I feel like 2024 in this industry, it's like we fumbled the ball somewhere and everybody's still looking around, like, where is it?

And I think, again, another thing to remember is, and I'm going to give you another one of my slogans, is take care of yourself first and the rest will follow.

There is work to be done. There's always work to be done. This business and being an actor is a marathon. Not a sprint. It is a marathon, not a sprint.

8 Tips to Not Get Ripped off as an Actor Masterclass

So today, I'm going to be going back to the fabulous Melody Beattie in her wonderful book, The Language of Letting Go, and I'm going to be talking about setting your own course.

And it seems like the world is so turbulent.

I know it sounds like we're always saying that, but it does feel like the world is so turbulent. And I think when it is very important for us to keep the focus on ourselves and how we do that is by setting our own course. I'm going to read a little bit.

"We are powerless over other people's expectations of us. We cannot control what others want, what they expect, or what they want us to do and be. We can control how we respond to other people's expectations."

Now, I did a podcast on when your buttons get pushed and if this is already starting to vibrate with you, resonate with you, I beg of you, listen to that podcast if you haven't already.

So again, we are powerless over others, other people's expectations of us.

We cannot control what others want, what they expect or what they want us to do and be.

But we can control how we respond to other people's expectations.

One thing for me to keep in mind about expectations is that expectations are premeditated resentments.

But what happens when it's coming at you?

One of my favorite tips and tools, I should say, about what other people think of me as none of my business is the following, which is 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."

So let's just talk about that for one second.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. I cannot change other people, places, things, or situations.

I can't, and when I say people, that includes their expectations.

So grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. I cannot change people, places, things, or situations.

Courage to change the things I can. I can change myself, my attitudes, and my actions. And that can be my attitude to their expectation.

And wisdom, my favorite word. Wisdom.

Wisdom to know the difference. That crucial difference between what I cannot control, which is other people, places, things, situations, or people's expectations, and what I can control, which is myself, my attitudes, my actions, and including my attitudes towards other people's expectations of me.

Melody Beattie goes on to say, "During the course of any day, people may make demands on our time, talents, energy, money, and emotions."

But here's the thing, we do not have to say yes to every request. As I always say, no is a complete sentence. And another thing about when no comes at me, no is survivable.

We do not have to be feel guilty if we say no, and we do not have to allow the barrage of demands to control the course of our life, it's our life.

And we have the right to live it the way we want to. We can set our own course. We do not have to spend our life reacting to others and the course they would prefer if we took in our life.

Again, I beg of you, listen to When Your Buttons Get Pushed, that podcast episode.

We can set boundaries.

We can firm up limits on how far we shall go with others. We can, and this is so true, we can trust and listen to ourselves.

It's so important because you learn how to be emotionally intelligent.

And how do you do that by learning how to be emotionally self sufficient so that, when you make a decision, you're making the right decision for who for you, we can trust and listen to ourselves, we can set goals and direction for our life and we can place value on ourselves.

If you want self-esteem, do self-esteemable acts.

Buy some time. Think about what you want.

Consider how responding to another's needs will affect the course of your life.

"We live our own life by not letting other people, their expectations and their demands control the course of our life."

Remember, no is a complete sentence.

People can have their demands and their expectations, and we can allow them to have their feelings.

They can absolutely have that, but we can own our power by choosing the path that is right for us.

And this is something, I help actors with this all the time, because sometimes family members aren't that supportive about our dream to become a working actor.

I'm always here if you need help.

8 Tips to Not Get Ripped Off as an Actor and the Three Pillars to a Successful Acting Career

Let's start talking about those buttons being pushed, right?

And I want to talk especially about how to help yourself.

There's a little phrase that I love. It's one of my absolute favorites, which is "if you're hysterical, it's historical."

I find that when my buttons get pushed, if I'm upset about whatever it is for longer than five minutes, it's not about that thing.

It's about something from my past.

The other really helpful thing to note about buttons, because it's generally family members who push your buttons, is that your family knows how to push your buttons because, hello, they installed them.

Your family knows how to push your buttons because they installed them.

So I want To help you so that when you have that moment, when your buttons get pushed, you can start to practice this particular formula.

Now I need to also say this, when my buttons get pushed, I find it's better that I go by this saying, which is "when in doubt, leave it out."

out. I also find it's best for me to remove myself from the situation so I can do that very valuable thing, which is stop and take a step back.

But I want to describe the full process of what happens when our buttons get pushed.

Something will be said to us and we will immediately react.

Now this is important because remember our reactions are fine, but it's our second reaction that we really need to be paying attention to.

There's this phrase, and I love this because I think this is so true, "we are not responsible for our first thought, but we are responsible for our second."

So again, if you can split your paper into two sides, make two columns.

On the left column, I want you to write, Something happens. Then, right underneath that, I want you to write, React.

And then, underneath that, a couple lines down, I want you to say to yourself, "I am not responsible for my first thought, but I am responsible for my second."

Therefore, we have the second column.

That second column is that something happens.

Now, that could be your mother saying to you, "Oh, you're going to wear that?"

Or, "Oh, you're growing a mustache now."

It's that, okay?

Could be your father, too, or your brother, or your sister, or a friend, or an acquaintance, or an agent, or a casting director.

So again, on this second side of the piece of paper, the same thing, something happens. And guess what?

You are going to react.

Especially in the beginning.

You may not be totally reprogrammed yet, but after that reaction happens, you want to tell yourself this, "stop."

And sometimes I literally say to myself, "stop it right now. Stop. Just for goodness sake, stop."

And then I literally say to myself, "take a step back," and sometimes, while that person might be continuing to put their opinion of me on me, I literally will take a step back.

Literally, a physical step back.

And I always use this example, and if you've listened to this podcast a lot, you've heard me say this, is if you put your hand on your face, and you literally attach that hand onto your face, that's how it feels when somebody comes at you and they push that button right in your gut. It's like your hand is glued to your face.

But this is the truth. No, it's not. And you can't remove their finger from your button.

And that, again, requires you to take a step back.

So if you keep your hand where it is, but you move your body back, that's what I'm talking about. Because now you can look at your hand.

See, when it's right up against your face, while they have your finger in your button, as it were, you can't see anything.

You just see potentially red, or hurt, or weeping. So it's important to get it out. If you are, God forbid, shot, what do they do first? They remove the bullet. That's what taking a step back means.

You remove the bullet.

And when you've removed the bullet, then you can observe.

You have taken a step back. And you can observe what was said, and you can ask yourself if what you are about to do is healthy for you or unhealthy for you, and then you can respond.

And that response is a reaction with a pause and a thought behind it.

And then we have triage. We need to ask ourselves the following questions.

Afterwards, later that night, the next day.

I always encourage it to be within 24 hours of when the situation happened.

We sit down with pen and paper and our journals and we ask ourselves

how emotionally reactive was I to this situation?

What was my button? Which is your interpretation of what got you so damn upset.

And then ask yourself, what is really going on here?

Let's be honest with ourselves. Practice rigorous honesty with yourselves so you can get better.

So that you can heal this button.

And then If this situation comes up again, or this comment comes up again, how will I handle it?

How will I handle it?

Always remembering we are never given more than we can handle but we are given more than we can control.

Also remembering that what people say or do is about them, but what you hear or see is about you.

Know this, and disconnect yourself from the button.

So I need to make that separation.

I had someone once say to me that my life was like a bowl of spaghetti and I needed to take my strands out of all of my family members, my friends, everyone around me.

I had to take out my strands because I would look at my life and not know what was mine and what wasn't.

It was a very valuable image for me.

And then I decided to make my own sauce. And it's delicious. Because now I'm keeping the focus more on my own life.

Certainly don't do it perfectly.

But it's a lot easier to manage and handle my life than try and control what other people think of me.

Another valuable thing about my buttons getting pushed, remember, is that no one can push a button that didn't already exist.

Nobody can push a button that didn't already exist.

Remember, button pushing is about me. And my doing the surgery to remove it.

It is a very personal and emotional thing.

And it is so wonderful for me to become aware of my buttons, accept that they exist, and then take that Valuable action to start healing and repairing them.

Thursday, February 29th, Live NYC Seminar

Planting seeds for success.

I call this a Foundation skill, and this is a skill I believe that you can use not only for yourself but also for other friends who need support.

Who needs to be planting some seeds for success for themselves as well the idea is when you "plant a seed," you are setting out an expectation that you can do it or that your friend can do it.

And more often than not, when you plant that seed of success, and you say, "Hey, you can do it. Hey, no, I can do this." You actually do it.

That's why it's so important and why this is such a brilliant and useful foundation skill.

You can think of it as almost the germination of an affirmation.

So in other words, you plant that seed starts to germinate, and as you feed it with positive affirmations, it begins to grow.

Then, as you add those action steps that support those thoughts and, of course, that ultimate goal, that's when the success happens.

When you plant a seed with yourself or with someone else, you are expressing your confidence in yourself or for that other person to come up with something.

And that can be either a thought or an action that will then linger and percolate in their mind, in their consciousness.

The idea of what if I could run that marathon? All of a sudden, your mind starts to percolate and build up thoughts that make you think, oh, wait a minute, maybe you could.

And with that could become the possibility of you can.

So could becomes can.

Now, whether you or that other person are consciously thinking about it or not, a part of you, like I just said, will be working on a solution.

That's why planting the seed, allowing it to germinate, and then again, letting it grow into an affirmation, which then hopefully will grow into actions, those two things will support that goal.

Now, this foundation skill of planting a seed can be used in many situations.

I'm going to give you an example. Remember, or someone asks you a question, and you say I don't know. I don't know.

This is when you plant the seed of "what would it be like if you did know?"

That already is planting a seed of maybe you do know.

So you're saying you don't, but maybe you do. What would it be like if you did?

It also is an incredible way of empowering yourself.

It empowers yourself or your friend to come up with their solutions alone.

In other words, by planting that seed, we are empowering ourselves and our friends to fix it for ourselves or themselves.

Planting a seed can sound something like this. "I'm gonna ask you in a little while because I have complete faith that you'll come up with something."

Now, if you're saying this to yourself, you can write down those exact words.

Say, you know what, I'm putting down my pen and my paper right now, and I'm gonna journal about it in 24 hours because I have faith that I will be able to come up with that solution.

I will be able to come up with that.

Another wonderful planting the seed question or empowering question is "when you figure that out, what would be different for you?"

I love to ask my private clients this question. If you didn't have fear, what would your life be like?

How would [00:07:00] you operate if you didn't have fear?

And it's always so interesting to hear their answers.

And if they say they don't know, I go, "okay I'll ask you in a few minutes because I know you're going to be able to come up with something."

See, that is how I, as a coach, plant in you, the client, the potential solution.

Also, ask yourself this or your friend, "if I figured this out, what would be different for me?"

Or "if you figured this out, what would be different for you?"

And this is what is so incredible about this tool.

It is really saying to ourselves we know what we want.

We know what to do.

We just need to ask ourselves the right questions.

It is so incredibly empowering. It is self-empowering. It's like what I talk about in life coaching. I call myself a chiropractor for the mind is I teach you to become emotionally intelligent.

And while listening to this podcast, you are becoming more emotionally intelligent.

Why? Because I am teaching you to be emotionally self-sufficient.

You learn emotional intelligence by learning how to become emotionally self-sufficient and teaching yourself how to plant a seed for success.

It's a big step in the right direction.

Because planting a seed for success helps bring out a positive result or change.

It helps bring out a positive result or change.

And again, it empowers you or your friend or another person to figure it out on their own.

Instead of looking outside of yourself to find the answer.

Because the answers are always right within.

Private Coaching

Today, I want to talk about self-love because it's Valentine's Day.

And the thing about self-love that I have found in doing this work for almost 30 years is that self-love takes on a lot of different forms. Yes, it is ensuring that I bathe, brush my teeth, get adequate sleep, eat well, and exercise.

But it's also about taking care of the things I think and the things I do.

A big thing that has come up for me, mainly in the past couple of years, is that self-love is about working for myself instead of working against myself.

And how often I would be like, "I love myself, and I approve of myself," I would say that wonderful affirmation, but then when a sticky or uncomfortable situation would come up, I'd be so eager to just give my power away.

Ah, giving your power away. Yeah, that is not self-love.

And that is why the core work, which is that work on yourself, is so incredibly important.

It's about learning that you are your own best advocate. That you are there for you, no matter the situation.

That is true self-love.

Another way I practice self-love is my relationship with the Universe, God, Yahweh, Bob, Joe, or whatever you want to call your higher power, or a lot of people like to call it your higher coach or your higher intelligence.

I like to establish that I am a part of the universe, which is a part of me.

And I also like to acknowledge that the universe is the pilot. And I am the co-pilot.

There's that wonderful prayer, 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 that's grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, which are other people, places, situations, and issues. I can't control it. That's the Universe's job.

Courage to change the things I can. I can change my own thoughts, my own attitudes, and my own actions.

And wisdom to know the difference. The difference between what I can do something about, Which is my thoughts, my attitudes, my actions, and what I can't do anything about, which is other people, places, things, and situations.

That is also practicing self-love.

When I am worried about things, when I am tied up in knots about a situation or somebody or what other people think of me, that isn't practicing self-love.

And this Valentine's Day, I encourage you, and I encourage myself to love myself as much as I possibly can by doing those deep things, like taking actions that work for me and thoughts that work for me as well.

I understand this is not an easy thing, but it is actually quite simple.

And it also is the best way to live our lives.

Because the fact of the matter is no matter where I go, I take myself with me.

If I please myself, chances are other people will be more pleased.

One of the things I was thinking about as an actor was if I'm worried about pleasing the director or the producer or the writer or anybody else, all of my attention is outward, but chances are, if I work on that performance, excuse me, being as good as I can possibly make it focus on the work, do it so I know I did my best.

Guess what? I pleased the only person I have any control over or manageability over.

Chances are, other people will be pleased as well.

It's all about practicing self-love. It's all about caring for you. It's all about you making sure that you work for you and not against you.

You've done it long enough; it's time to let go.

The Voiceover Actor Road Map

About Emma:

Emma O'Neill is a multi-award-winning voice actor specializing in radio and TV commercials, TV narration, TV promo, and corporate training videos. Outside the booth, she's a fitness and wellness enthusiast, and has been a certified yoga instructor for more than 25 years.

About Mike:

Mike Tobin is an accomplished, Montreal-born, award-nominated voice actor, MC, and event announcer who has made his ultra-fluent bilingualism the cornerstone of his brand for more than 20 years. He also loves technology and is an avid Mac enthusiast.

What it's like to be a voiceover actor in Canada.

And it can be very isolating and very lonely.

So when you have people that understand the business, they understand the hustle. They understand the self-doubt that can come with things during slow times, or, you know, I was talking to somebody yesterday, and it was, you know, why them and not me that you can get into these spins in your head.

And when you have someone who understands all of the levels of that, it's just; it makes you feel less crazy, it makes you feel less alone, it makes you feel like, you know what, I can reach out to Mike today, I have a little bit, and with Mike and I, it's great because we work so closely together, we've kind of gotten to this place where if I'm losing my mind, he's calm, and if he's losing his mind, I'm calm, so it's like, oh, this works, this is great, thank you.

The universe's wind blows at different times.

Part of this comes from our leaning on using accountability groups, which is a big part of our experience.

So we do have our accountability groups that we lean on, but sometimes you just need one person.

Weekly accountability group: At the beginning of every session, I say, okay, what did you do from this last week to this week? And in the end, what are you going to do? And we get into that and how important that is. So, I love that you guys are talking about weekly accountability.

There are the things that are there regularly.

There are, of course, auditions. Audition has to play a big part in every voice actor's life. There's only a few things you're going to get. Unless you're getting direct clients, which is another part of it, which is marketing and following up and keeping on top of all the business aspects of it, it's so huge.

Many people who are creative, artistic, and talented get into this industry and this business—all the things that put a voice to a microphone, but then everything else.

It can be very scary and intimidating for them because, after all, it's the voiceover business.

You can have clients around the world. It doesn't matter, especially now with the connectivity that we have with Source Connect and other technologies.

So it comes from all over the place.

I love that you said that voiceover is a global industry.

I love that. It's just because there's so much possibility.

What do you think is the most important thing starting in Voiceover?

Coaching. I always say coaching is the most important thing.

There's voiceover, and there's voice acting.

And there are people who don't do commercials. They don't do video games. They don't do audiobooks. They don't do character-based work. They do e-learning and corporate and stuff like that, which is still character-based, but it's much more accessible to the average person.

You're not necessarily fully fleshing out a character.

There's a commercial promo TV narration, things like that; you are fully fleshing out a character, but you still need to understand the nuance.

Acting is acting. Period. End of sentence. It's got nothing to do with the sound of your voice but everything to do with the connection to the story.

So, you need to understand the story you are telling. Once you understand the story you're telling and who you are in that story, whether you're just the storyteller or actually participating in the story, you can do whatever aspect of voice.

So I think that with that, with getting it telling the story, this is the difference between voice acting and voiceover, is that I think that with AI coming in, and it's not going to go away. We need to work with it and understand it that as a voice actor, to be able to connect with the story, that part of voice isn't going to be taken over by AI.

Because a computer can't yet do that.

Acting is key. Learning the craft is key. I will say that people need to have some foundations in business in general.

So they need to educate themselves and train themselves on basic things. I was listening to a show on the radio recently. They were talking about how many people now entering the workforce force don't have what we call many of the soft skills that are just expected of people in business, how to write a good email, how to handle yourself on a telephone call, how to, handle yourself in a meeting, either face to face with a real person or over video conferencing.

So, many of the soft skills required to have a successful business need to be there to support your craft.

The craft is great. You need it. You need to train to differentiate yourself, but if you can't deal with people, sell yourself, and market yourself, you'll be a great actor but won't make any money.

Talk to me about AI. What are your thoughts about AI?

AI, synthetic voice, generative voice, anything that is learning. It's not going to go away.

And it's something that we need to be on top of, and I watch other actors who are much more advanced in their career than I am.

When this became a thing, they jumped on it immediately, created their own avatar voice, and are using it for all sorts of things.

I think with any new technology; there's always the fear, right?

And because, yes, anything new, especially in technology, can be used for not the greater good as we're seeing already, there are also fantastic things that can come from this.

It's just like a voice actor putting, creating your own synthetic voice. You can use that for pickups and long-form narration. You can use that; you're getting on a plane on vacation, and your agent's I need this audition now. And you're like, I am sitting on the plane.

You've already got your different voices put into whatever version you're using, whatever platform you're using. So, the 11 labs. For example, you can put feed corporate, your corporate voice in your radio voice in all of your different voices and create like voice one through 10.

And so this particular copy, you just feed the text into the AI and it spits it back out in your voice.

And you just like. Let them know this is my AI voice. It's not actually me, but at least they get their copy in my voice. They can hear the basics of how this would sound and I can do and there's been so many stories of people doing that and getting off the plane, they've booked the job.

Let me ask you, because devil's advocate here, my question is aren't you afraid that they will then take your voice and then just use it and not pay you?

I am a cautious skeptic when it comes to the state of AI in voiceover right now.

And part of that I think stems from looking at past disruptions of industry. If we take, for example the music industry. The music industry was disrupted in a big way when file sharing started.

And to, to what Emma was saying nefarious characters, even though people didn't think they were doing any harm by, sending 500 files over the internet, over Napster in the middle of the night that led to some big changes in the music industry.

I would say, you don't need to look very far and headlines and things like that is that the artists still haven't really recovered.

I would think I think that there's ripple effects that even go beyond You know the fact that a stream only pays zero point zero zero, whatever how many cents?

And I could you know one could argue this is what possibly led to the craze of crazy concert ticket prices and things like that because artists want to make their money and that's where they can do it.

To bring it back to voiceover. I think what Emma said that it's not going away, it's there. We need to make ourselves aware. We need to find a way that we can. Leverage this into our own business model.

I really praise people like Nava who are doing great things for the industry and who really have our backs and are trying.

But like any technological thing the industry, and the technology itself moves forward very quickly, and the legislation and all the protections and the ethics of the whole thing tends to have to catch up.

And that's the concern. I agree with what you say that's the concern is there.

Is someone going to take our voice and use it without our consent? That is a big worry. But What I'm hearing is that there are technologies that are coming into play that will hopefully protect us. Are we there yet?

Doesn't sound like it, but it's coming. So things are moving at light speed. So definitely a finger on the pulse.

Let's keep our head up and eyes open and we'll see what happens.

It's the importance of having a contract going back. This is a business. You have to have a contract with all of your clients and a contract can be as simple as an email exchange. Once it's writing, it's a contract, but AI specifically working with companies to create synthetic voice to create your own synthetic voice and allowing them to then use said voice to create content.

The contract has to be rock solid and there are loads of people in this industry who are really well versed in contract that are willing to review contracts for you.

So it's talking about contracts, understanding contracts, what needs to be in the contract, so that it's, this is for this job or for this series of jobs. It's not for anything else. If it changes, you must come back to me with the change. And like I was saying, there's a lot of different technologies that are coming in that it's like, you can water stamp your audio that is not audible to the human ear, no one would ever hear it, but it's, you can track it.

I really hope that those technologies that are going to help protect our voice prints and things like that really come to fruition in a very robust way.

You go on YouTube, for example, and you search I was watching a video on how to use this AI technology that's built into some of the photo and video editing software.

And the person, the content creator says, I'm going to show you how to do this. And this is the tool that you use. And then he says look, when you do this, you'll see that it.

It puts a stamp, like a watermark down at the bottom that it says it was created with this technology. Now, let me show you how to remove that watermark.

Hopefully we don't experience that kind of thing.

What's one business skill that you think is super, super important?

I think one of the skills that needs to be honed for many people is the ability to search for information and to vet that information on your own to decide is this good, valid information or is it not.

Because we live in an age you can learn to do anything. YouTube University, let me tell you, if your washing machine is stuck and won't turn on, there's a YouTube video that's going to tell you how to fix it.

I'm saying the skill to be able to find information that you need. And decide, is this from a source that I trust, is vetted, and then to take that information and take action upon it.

I think that's a really critical skill, not just in voiceover but in anything.

Networking. Learning how to network and understanding that networking is about relationships.

It's not about shoving your business card down someone's throat.

It's not about dumping your demos into someone's inbox.

It's about getting to know who you're speaking to as a person. Because people are people, at the end of the day, yeah, as a casting director, as a coach, it's a producer, it's a roster, whatever.

It's an agent.

It's a person. It's a person who has interests outside of the acting world, outside of voiceover. Yeah. Get to know people as people.

Build your network and make it into your community. Connect with people as humans, become friends with them. And that's how you're going to build your business is by having people as friends.

Private Coaching

Changing your career direction by asking Empowering Questions.

I'm going to start with a quote from Anthony Robbins, "quality questions create a quality life."

Successful people ask better questions. And as a result, they get better answers.

And this is how I work as a coach. I ask you quality questions so that you can create a quality career.

Because I do believe that successful actors are asking better questions of themselves. And, as a result, are getting better roles.

So, let's unpack this a bit.

What are Empowering Questions?

They are questions. We all know what a question is, but these are a little bit different. These are powerful.

These are open-ended.

Now, what that means is it's not a yes or a no.

How do you feel about going to the store? Why do you want to go to the store? Those would be open ended questions.

Also, Empowering Questions are clarity seeking. They are clarity seeking, so they're looking for clarity. The other thing is that they are probing. They are probing questions. In other words, they're really trying to get in there.

And this is a lot of the core work I do because this is the thing, I want to know what your motives are. And if you have some sort of a thing that you constantly do, put yourself down or something like that or have anxiety.

My question is what is the payoff? So, see, if I ask you what is the payoff for your anxiety, or what is your motive for becoming a successful actor, those are very much Empowering Questions that are seeking clarity.

They also are, I think you'll find, challenging.

They're challenging. They're not easy questions necessarily. But that's what we unpack. That's what we figure out. And think of it when, you know that phrase, you've heard it so many times, you've heard me say it a lot of times, unpack. I want you to think of a duffel bag.

Okay, think of a duffel bag with a bunch of stuff in it, but you don't necessarily remember or you don't necessarily know what's in that duffel bag. So, what we need to do is let's take out every item in that duffel bag and look at it, examine it and ask it Empowering Questions.

The other thing is, and this is what I think to be one of the most valuable parts of Empowering Questions, is that it's thought provoking.

In other words, it makes you think. Because one of the things that I have found around actors who are stuck, or just, quite frankly, people who are stuck, is they're stuck in that same cycle of thinking, and they're not getting out, and the problem is it's almost impossible for them to get out of it because they're stuck in their own head because they're not letting anybody in to say, "Hey, what if you thought of it this way?"

The other thing is that they are future directed.

In other words, we're always looking to improve upon where we are at now, looking at where we are at now, but more so where we are going.

And I love this about Empowering Questions. They are solution oriented.

Why am I not getting auditions?

Why am I not booking?

In other words, they're looking for the answers to those questions so that we can get some real movement going here. They cause you to search for answers.

Because this is the thing, if you keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result, that's the definition of insanity.

So, what we do with Empowering Questions is that we help you to search for new possibilities so we can get new answers and new results.

And this, I love this, and as an actor, we all would love this, is that they spark your imagination.

Now, this is a really neat little thing about Empowering Questions.

Once you start to learn how to ask yourself Empowering Questions as a human, you can start to ask them of your characters, which will spark your imagination. To open up a whole new world to your character. How exciting is that? How exciting is it that you can use the things that make your life better?

Make your characters better, your acting better, your skill set better.

And again, they get you to think. And in terms of an actor and asking Empowering Questions of your character, they get you to think like your character, which is one of the things, they talk about when you really understand a language, you start to dream in that language.

You start to think in that foreign language.

So that's what I'm talking about.

So, if you think of a character almost in terms of a foreign language, imagine thinking like the character, like you would think if you were learning, I don't know, Japanese. So, you start to think in Japanese, but not think in English.

How cool is that?

The right questions at the right time for the right reason, in the right format to get the right response.

This is what Empowering Questions are all about. Imagine having the right questions asked at the right time, asked for the right reason, asked in the right format.

So, in other words, that your brain understands how to get the most out of them to get the right response.

And you can think of response as being result. You can think of response as being reaction. But reaction as in the good way, because I always am talking about how I rather have a response than a reaction, but this way, I mean like a reaction of how people are reacting to you and your career.

They are value seeking questions. Yes. Empowering Questions are value seeking questions.

I'm going to give you just a few examples to sum up this empowering question segment.

What can I do about that?

You have a situation, and you ask yourself, this could be any situation in life What can I do about that?

And I do, I'm a big one about starting this kind of stuff off with really simple things.

Like finding a parking space. I can't find a parking space. And I have an audition in 15 minutes. Okay. What can I do about that? What are my options?

What about that makes it work?

So, once you have some kind of an idea what about that would make it work? What about it? would make it work.

What other choices could I make? I was talking to a friend about finances and I said, this is an exercise. She's going to give you this exercise.

And I love this exercise because it starts to get really silly, which also opens your brain up, which is write down a hundred ways that you could make money.

It can be like the most ridiculous thing that you would never do, but write it down. Because what starts to happen is you see the possibilities.

So, what other choices could I make?

What's another way to look at that? Now, that's a kind of question that it's really helpful to have someone with you going back and forth on that. But what's another way to look at that?

How could you reframe that? And you can think about it as refocus.

How can you reframe that to help you move on? I just went to the optometrist and they were testing me out for new contact lenses and new glasses. And, they give you the, what's better? A, B, 1, 2, and you go through that and what they were doing was reframing the way I saw the, I don't know, A, C, Q, R, 7 on the board, and that's, that was it because this is the thing, it's just like blurry vision Empowering Questions are just putting different glasses in front of my eyes so I can see things differently.

Just like Dr. Wayne Dyer says, "change the way you look at things and the things you look at change."

And this is what's so exciting about Empowering Questions.

Again, not only as a human being, but I think you take it even further into acting. And I think that is just so exciting.

What is your next step? What is your next step? Let's explore that. What is your next step?

And what have you accomplished in the past? And how were you able to accomplish that task?

In other words, I talk about that as being a strength story.

If you go to my second episode of this podcast, episode 102, what is your strength story?

I tell a story about getting over my anxiety and really learning about my anxiety and sometimes looking in the past and asking what is a situation that was similar to this one, and how did I get myself out of it?

And sometimes it's not even the how; it's showing yourself that, oh, you actually got yourself out of it. So, if you got yourself out of that, you can get yourself out of this.

On-Camera Class

Costar Class

I'm going to talk about illusion and illusion in your acting career in two different ways. The first way is I'm going to talk about how we have the idea that an acting career will go one way, but actually, that's just an illusion, and that's just me trying to control the outcome.

So when I'm doing that, it is an illusion.

And I remember this actually in terms of money. I always thought if I made X amount of money a year, I would be free.

Oh, I'm going to be so happy. Oh, my life will be cupcakes and bubblegum. I will have no worries.

Only to find out when I made that amount of money and much more. You don't get cupcakes and bubblegum.

You get more decisions, and it becomes even more stressful.

And really, the only thing money buys is convenience. And if you're not making much money right now, that might be difficult to hear.

But money does not buy happiness. That was an illusion that I had.

Another thing that I find as a coach in the industry, and to be quite frank, even more so as a casting director, is this illusion idea that actors have about what it takes to be an actor and what it takes to be a working actor.

And it's difficult to explain, but I want you to think of something you have done in your life that was difficult. Okay, you're going to do this with me right now. Think of something in your life that you did that was difficult.

And then I want you to imagine someone who has never done that before coming up to you and either telling you how that experience would be for them or how they would go about doing it.

And you, having known how difficult that was and how that actually gets done, is listening, quite frankly, to this bunch of bullshit.

And that's sometimes what makes it difficult to be a coach, a casting director, and meeting new actors, and having to break it to them and explain it's not that way.

What is incredibly joyful for me, though, is the actor who goes, "Tell me more."

"Tell me more because I want to make that illusion a reality. I want to make that illusion a reality more than anything else in the world. Say jump, and I'll ask you how high."

That's exciting. That lights me up. So that is the first way I'm talking to you about illusion.

"We do not see the world as it is. We see it as we are."

This goes into that example I just gave you previously about the actor and the coach or the casting director.

I want to remind you of the definition of consciousness.

Now, the definition of consciousness is your awareness of who you are, as opposed to the you that you believe you are or are taught that you are.

So, I think of it as my consciousness is how the Universe sees me.

Because the Universe sees me as it sees itself, which is Infinite.

I, on my own, in my ego world, is finite.

So I can choose to believe the me that I believe I am or was taught that I am, or I can believe the consciousness and have an awareness of who I truly am so that I see the world more clearly with more reality.

Now let's also talk about, because I think this has really come up for me a lot in the past couple of weeks, how this core work helps you to be a better actor.

If I can see things and understand things more truthfully, with more reality, oh boy, that will help me when I start working on character.

Because I'm tapping into Infinite Truth, Infinite reality, as opposed to my own finite truth, my own finite reality.

Because when you're Infinite, people are attracted to that.

Quantum physics proves that the world is a creation of our perceptions.

So I want my perception to be as much in line with the awareness of who I truly am, as opposed to the awareness of who I think I am or how I was taught that I was.

I want to see the world Infinitely.

And I want my perception to be Infinite.

We simply attract and then see what it is we expect to see and can actually create what we expect to happen. So that can work for us, or that can work against us.

So, I want you to take a moment now just to write down this question:

How do I see the world, and do I see the world in a way that works for me or against me?

And then I want you to journal about that.

We create our world. Through the interpretations we make.

So, if we want to create a more enjoyable life experience, we can focus on finding peace, joy, and abundance.

And that focus produces a more desirable perception of the world and those in it.

So now we're talking, this second part, we're talking about how to create a world that is happier for us, that is more desirable for us, that makes us feel good.

Dr. Wayne Dyer has this great quote, and I say this as an affirmation quite a bit: "I want to feel good. I want to feel good. I want to feel good."

Dr. Wayne Dyer also has another quote that I love, which is all about illusion: "Change the way you look at things. And the things you look at change."

And that is, again, why I want my perceptions to be as aligned with my consciousness of the awareness of who I really am.

Meaning in line with the Universe. In line with Infinite thought. Remember, like energy attracts like energy.

So the more positiveness I create in my life, the more positive energy I self-generate, the more I'm going to see that in my perception, in my beautifully created illusions.

Our goal is to see the world through the inner eyes of Universal Truth and inspire others to do the same.

Remember, capital T truth is Universal Truth.

It's plants, it's nature, it's in alignment with that Truth, it's the wind.

And little t truth is ego's truth. An acronym for ego is easing God out.

And remember, I consider this to be the God of your understanding. God can also, a wonderful acronym for God is good orderly direction.

Oh, wouldn't I love some more of that in my life, wisdom and some good, orderly direction.

And again, I remind you of the definition of consciousness, which is the awareness of who you really are, as opposed to the you that you believe you are or were taught that you are.

So that capital T Truth is who you really are. And that little t truth is who you think you are.

So there I've given you two ideas on illusion.

Illusion in your career and illusion in your life. And how you create a more beautiful in both.