Acting Business Boot Camp

Negotiating conflict in your career and in your life.

Get the free PDF Guide- Owning Your Power as an Actor

Melodie Betty's Beyond Codependency

"Core work is about more than walking away. Sometimes it means learning to stay and deal. It's about building and maintaining relationships that work."

Core work is about more than walking away.

And there's a great quote from Richard Bok that says, "The best way out is always through."

We're not responsible for our first thought, but we are responsible for our second.

My first thought in this conflict situation was, "I'm out of here." But my second thought, which is the one I was responsible for, was a very healthy thought. And it was, "the best way out is always through."

It's about building and maintaining relationships that work.

Not everybody's going to like you, and not every work relationship is going to be perfect and brilliant.

It is important to cultivate relationships with those people who you do gel with, who you do want to work with, who you do have that synchronicity with, and have those people be a part of your tribe.

"Problems and conflicts are a part of life and relationships with friends, family, loved ones, and at work. Problem-solving and conflict negotiation are skills we can acquire and improve with time."

And the words there that I really want you to pay attention to are and improve with time.

Because another one of my favorite slogans is "progress, not perfection."

Progress, not perfection. Sometimes when I'm dealing with a conflict that I find particularly uncomfortable, just the fact that I pick up the phone and tell the person or meet the person and say, "this is uncomfortable," is half the battle.

The best part is, is if I can state how I felt or how I feel and what I need with leaving the word "you" out.

You express how you feel and what you need, but you leave that critical word "you" out so that you keep your needs and your feelings with you and not put them on the other person.

"Not being willing to tackle and solve problems in relationships leads to unresolved feelings of anger and victimization, terminated relationships, unresolved problems, and power plays that intensify the problem and waste time and energy."

I don't really have that much time, nor do I have that much energy to waste. So I need to make sure that my time and my energy are spent as efficiently as possible.

Those conflicts that I need to negotiate need to be dealt with sooner rather than later.

Imagine a computer, and imagine programs running on the computer, and you minimize the programs so that they're just sitting on your toolbar at the bottom. The fact of the matter is, is that those programs are still using energy battery from the computer.

When you don't negotiate conflict or some challenge or some issue in your life. That little program just keeps burning your battery. It just keeps burning your bandwidth.

It's taking away from the energy that you need to be focusing on the things that you really want to be doing. Because we need that energy to manage our time and to do those difficult tasks.

"Not being willing to face and solves problem solve problems means we may run into that problem again."

If you don't take responsibility for the conflicts in your life, how the hell do you expect to have success at a higher level where you're going to be negotiating far bigger conflicts?

"Some problems with people cannot be worked out in mutually satisfactory ways. Sometimes the problem is a boundary issue we have and there is no room to negotiate."

When working on a conflict, look for a win-win situation.

"In that case, we need to clearly understand what we want and need and what our bottom line is.

How you figure out what you want and what you need:

• Get out paper. Get out a pen.
• magic happens when a pen gets in the hand and you put it on the paper.
• I want you to write your "fuck you letter" to this person
  • saying everything that you wanted,
  • everything that they disappointed you with
  • everything you ever wanted to say to this person.
• And then I want you to go for a walk or run or, you know, go exercise or go clean your house or just do something.
• And then I want you to come back to it.
• And maybe that's after a night's sleep.
• And I want you to read what you wrote.
• I want you to read your fucking letter, okay?
• And I want you to really write down the facts of what you wanted, what you needed, and what your bottom line is.
• And then look for a way to healthfully communicate that to that person so that you're taking the hurt or the sting or the heat out of the wound.

Because it's so important that when we are dealing with conflict, we are responding and not reacting.

"A response is a reaction with a pause and a thought behind it."

"Some problems with people, though, can be worked out, worked through, and satisfactorily negotiated. Often there are workable options for solving problems that we will not even see until we become open to the concept of working through problems in relationships rather than running from the problems."

Remember: they're looking for a win-win as well. And so they are willing to meet me halfway. And when that happens, it's fucking awesome.

"To negotiate problems, we must be willing to identify the problem. Let go of blame and shame and focus on possible creative solutions. To successfully negotiate and solve problems in relationships, we must have a sense of our bottom line and our boundary issues so we don't waste time negotiating non-negotiable issues."

Those non-negotiable issues are what you have distilled from your "fuck you letter."

Because you have written down how you feel and what you need and what your bottom line is. So you already know that going into your conversation.

"We need to learn to identify what both people really want and need and the different possibilities for working that out. We can learn to be flexible without being too flexible. Committed, intimate relationships mean people are learning to work together through their problems and conflicts in ways that work in both people's interests."

And in order for you to uplevel, those areas of your life that you most don't want to face, need to be faced.

What is holding you back?

Anger towards the Industry.

When you have felt like:

• Well, maybe this isn't for me
• It seems to be a club that I can't get into.
• Or it feels like everybody who has any power hates me.
• And how can I want something so badly but not be accepted into that club?
• What is wrong with me?
• Am I defective?
• Am I not good enough?

And all of that can sometimes lead to a tremendous amount of anger. And there's nothing wrong with anger. Anger is just an emotion.

I'll let you in on a secret: It doesn't kill you. It's survivable. Anger, confrontation, all of it is survivable.

From the book Courage to Change.

"It seems to me that many of us deal with our anger in inappropriate ways, denying it, we stuff it, or we go off in a fury directing the feelings outward. I, for one, opt for avoidance of any conflict, and then I turn into a doormat."

Learning how to deal with anger.

• Learning how to set a boundary.
• Write down your feelings.
• It's taking the heat out of the emotion when you do that journaling.
• Then look over it and then say, "this is how I feel, and this is what I need."
• Now you can do this directed at the industry as a whole.
• How do you feel?
• What are your angry feelings towards the industry, and what do you need from the industry?

So the exercise is writing a letter, note, or email, if you'd like to, the industry as a whole.

"It says denying it meaning, denying anger or denying our feelings. We stuff it, or we go off into a fury."

So it's again, it's that pendulum. We're either doing nothing, or we're going way off, you know, way off our rocker. And the other thing that it says is "opt for avoidance or conflict or turn into a doormat."

Neither one of these are helpful.

What is helpful is transcending our feelings.

There's that wonderful quote from Richard Bock. "The best way out is always through."

"The 12-step programs encourage us to acknowledge our feelings and to be responsible for how we express them. The problem is not that I get angry, but I do not know how to direct my anger appropriately."

And again, feelings aren't facts, but it is important that we feel them.

That tool of journaling and writing out the answers to these two questions how do I feel and what do I need?

We are responsible for how we react or respond to our feelings.

"A response is a reaction with a pause and a thought behind it."

Ask: What is an appropriate way for me to express this either to the industry as a whole or to another human being?

I want to work with an actor who is excited about the industry.

"Lately, when I feel like hitting somebody, I take my pillow and beat the daylights out of my bed. When I want to wipe someone out, I attack a dirty oven. I try to release my anger as soon as I can so that I won't build resentments that will be harder to get rid of later."

When you have anger, I can do a couple of things.

• One, you take a pillow if you have workout gloves, that's great because again, you want to love yourself through the process of getting the anger out and you attack your mattress with your pillow.
• Two, when you do that have your pen and journal right there so that you can then even get out the mental emotion.

Writing how you feel and what you need.

And then again, taking that step back and looking at it and saying, okay, how can I say this in a healthy way?

He says, "I'm learning to communicate my anger to I may not do it gracefully, and my words may not be well received."

Progress, not perfection.

"It means facing the awful discomfort called conflict. But I can't run away anymore."

We don't want to go through that discomfort of our anger at the industry because it's something that we so want to be a part of.

But I do think what is so important is that we deal with that anger, that we transcend that anger, that we walk through that anger.

Feelings are learning how to be with you.

It's important to learn about your anger as well and look at your anger in terms of what you want so desperately: to be a working actor and be in the industry.

So looking at that and your resentment is such an incredible gift to the artist and performer you are.

Email [email protected] for Katie's FREE Class July 19th.

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beatty.

"How sick and tired we may have become of people telling us to be patient or learn patience.

How frustrating it can be to want to finally have something or to move forward and then not have that happen. How irritating to have someone tell us to wait while our needs have not been met. And we're in the midst of anxiety, frustration, and inaction."

Anxiety is always about fear of the future. And in terms of patience, it's, of course, that we're afraid it will never happen.

Working actors take the action and let go of the result. And our patient.

"Well, maybe it'll never happen. Maybe. It won't happen for me."

If we can turn that energy of frustration into action as opposed to inaction

The lowest form of energy is victim. It's where we feel we can't do anything. We're totally powerless.

You can use your patience and feel the patience.

We want to move from inaction to being in action and to take responsibility.

"Don't confuse the suggestion to be patient with the old rule of not having feelings. It is essential to feel our feelings."

The three A's are awareness, acceptance and action.

Now, what does feeling the feelings look like?

• Making yourself a cup of tea and journal
• It doesn't matter what you write.
• Write crap.
• It doesn't have to be good.
• Do a brain dump. Write it down.

"Being patient does not mean we go through the sometimes grueling process of life and recovering ourselves without having the feelings. Feel the frustration, feel the impatience, get as angry as you need to about not having your needs met, feel your fear."

And that fear again that we're not going to get what we want.

Your goals, your thoughts, and your actions.

So if your goal is to be a working actor, your thoughts all need to be aligned with that goal.

All those action steps also need to be aligned with those thoughts, with your goal of to be a working actor.

"Controlling are feelings will not control the process. You cannot control the process. But what you can do is handle it."

You can't control the process, but you can handle it. How do you handle it? By using your mind to govern your brain through your thoughts, and also taking the actions that are required in order to achieve your goals.

You take those actions, you let go of the results.

We find patience by surrendering to our feelings again. That's that process of acceptance.

"Patience cannot be forced. It is a gift. One that closely follows acceptance and gratitude."

When we work through our feelings to fully accept who we are and what we have. We will be ready to be and have more.

Because the universe is infinite and your success can be infinite.

You just need to practice patience, awareness, acceptance, and action. And taking the action and letting go of the result.

Katie Flahive's Free Demo Class

I just don't have time to get sick!

How I deal with overwhelm.

• Get grateful
• Ask, is that something that I actually want in my life?
• Remember, "No is a complete sentence."
• Another way I deal with overwhelm is excellent time management.

So the first thing about overwhelm is this. Again, if you're overwhelmed, look at what you're overwhelmed with.

So I've got two choices. One, I can choose to eliminate something I really want to, or I can fucking deal.

Take your emotions out of your to-do list.

Overwhelm is about avoiding doing the things that, if I did them, I wouldn't be overwhelmed.

I get overwhelmed because I'm spending so much emotional energy and emotional time not doing the thing that if I just did it, it would help me to feel less overwhelmed.

"Feeling overwhelmed isn't surprising. Being surprised about it is."

The feelings of overwhelm go hand-in-hand with anxiety.

The fact of the matter is, is that we will never be given more than we can handle. But we will be given more than we can control.

And that is the thing about overwhelm; you are the one who determines whether you are overwhelmed or not.

Maybe you're not feeling as optimistic as I am about overwhelm. Maybe it's getting you down. If that is the case, I want you to take 15 minutes.

• Get a cup of tea or coffee or something that soothes you.
• And just sit down and think about your priorities and what it is you really want in your life.
• And what really needs to get done?
• Think of your days in terms of 24 hours.
• What do you need to do today that really needs to get done
• And what can wait for tomorrow, the next day, next week, or next month?
• Be good to yourself. Be gentle with yourself. Love yourself.
• And know that no matter what, you can handle it.

About David:

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.

Actors don't think like the rest of us. They have a very, very particular way of doing things, and that can lead to actors getting stuck.

You need accountability.

It's important for actors to engage with that other part of their brain and realize that it is a business.

It's important that you do something for your career that makes you want to vomit in your mouth just a little bit every day.

In order to be successful, you need to do things that push you out of your comfort zone. You need to do things that get you to that next bit, to that next level of success.

It's such a competitive business, and every single actor is competing, and you are competing with yourself.

It isn't just about your talent.

Your agent is probably not going to do much more than submit you for work.

The misconception is that agents are going to mold your career.

Actors are sensitive people, but, in David's experience, agents, managers, and casting directors are not sensitive people.

The first job is being the best actor that you can be and continuing to study and be in class and get better at what people are ultimately going to hire you to do.

And then the second job is to learn how the business works.

Understanding yourself is going to make you just a better craftsman, but it's also going to help you as a person get out of your way.

If you don't understand what's holding you back, then it's just going to keep holding you back.

I think the people who are going to get furthest are the people who love it, love the work, who love writing letters, sending out pictures and resumes, and doing the mailings. They're jazzed by it. They're excited by it.

It's about having the confidence to meet yourself before anybody else tells you that you're good.

The first tool when dealing with procrastination-- awareness.

Using your mind to govern your brain.

And I'm going to put a challenge to you. Whatever day you're listening to this podcast, I want you to see if you can separate yourself just a little bit from your procrastination.

Put your hand directly on your face. You can't see; you cannot be aware. But then, when you remove your hand from your face about a foot, well, you're in a place to observe your hand. You can see the lines. You can see the veins. And that is the place of power when starting to look at changing something.

Becoming aware of when you procrastinate and how you procrastinate.

Take your emotions out of your to-do list.

The second part of change is acceptance. Accept how you procrastinate.

Then we move to action.

This is when you need to start asking yourself, how bad do you want it?

"Do something today that you'll thank yourself for a year from now."

One of the things that I started to look at was the difference between how I was spending my time and how I wanted to spend my time.

What are the real goals that you want to be looking and want to be achieving?

Time management course that I am teaching on June 21st and June 28th.

Empowering questions:

• What do you want to be spending your time on?
• What do you actually want to be spending your time on?

And I think one of the biggest parts of procrastination for me is that my next steps are vague. So if my next steps are vague, I'm not going to do it.

How do you create a goal?

If your actions are vague and your goals are vague, guess what? The universe is going to give you a whole buttload of vague.

Deciding what you want, why you want it, and how, and then how to make that specific.

You need an ego-proof way of making sure that stuff got done.

The huge thing about "shoulding" all over yourself is that it takes up your energy. And that energy is the energy you need to get your goals done.

Get life to work for you instead of against you.

Don't procrastinate.

Procrastination is really understanding why. What makes you tick?

And I think the more we understand how we tick and how we operate, the better. We understand ourselves as actors and how we act.

About Don: Don Fullilove is an American screen live-action and animated voice-over actor who has had roles in numerous projects over the course of his fifty-year-plus career in both films and television.

He portrayed Hill Valley Mayor Goldie Wilson in the first Back to the Future film, as well as Goldie's grandson, hovermobile salesman Goldie Wilson III in Back to the Future II.

Donald, who graduated from Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles in 1976, currently resides in Burbank, California.

"Maintain the cockiness. Don't be an asshole because the cockiness is your strength against what the business is going to throw against you." "At one point in my career, I wasn't working, and I said, well, maybe your ass needs to go to school." Putting the ego aside and learning to love the work.

Sign up for Time Management Workshop

Melody Beattie and her book, Language of Letting Go.

Spokes on a wheel metaphor

When you want to up your game, everybody else around you wants to keep the status quo.

Often, the people you love most and are the closest to you are the ones who are the least supportive and accepting of you wanting to achieve a whole new level.

The Bubble Suit:

• going into difficult work situations
• friendship situations
• situations when it's not totally comfortable saying, but you need to speak your Truth.

In your bubble suit, you are loving and protecting yourself.

"And what is most important for me and what is most true for me."

When you want to up your game and achieve something that maybe you just haven't yet, but know in your gut and your heart you can do and you're working so hard, yet those people aren't supporting you.

And Melody Beattie says, "many of us have anger towards certain members of her family. Some of us have much anger and rage, anger that seems to go on year after year, day after day, month after month. For many of us, anger was the only way to break the unhealthy bondage or connection between a family member and ourselves."

And I call this, and many other people call this detaching with an ax. And sometimes, when it becomes abusive, verbally abusive. Sometimes that's what you need to do. That is a choice.

The number one thing you must do is protect yourself.

She goes on to say that "it was the force that kept us from being held captive, being held captive mentally, emotionally and sometimes spiritually from certain family members."

And the fact of the matter is that sometimes I would go along with things that friends would say or something that a family member would say because I could go along with them and then not take responsibility for my talent, dreams, or goals.

Ultimately, what happens is that those dreams do not get achieved. Those goals do not get done.

The importance of putting your feet to the fire every single day to get those things that you want to do to up your game.

They do not do it without your cooperation.

It is essential to allow ourselves to feel. To accept.

Awareness, Anger, and Action.

Our anger or feelings towards family members without casting guilt or shame on ourselves. And it's also important to examine our guilty feelings concerning family members, as anger and guilt are often intertwined.

Shame is believing that there is something defective about yourself. And my sweet darling honey bears. There is absolutely nothing defective about you.

Melody Beatty says, "We can accept. We can even thank our anger for protecting us. We can also set another goal which is taking on our freedom. And the thing is this is that understand that freedom has a price and that price is this, that we are responsible for freeing ourselves and then maintaining our freedom in everything we do. Once we take back our freedom or our own power, we will not need our anger."

We want to think healing and loving thoughts.

The point of power is in the present moment.

Thank the universe for your feelings. Feel them. Release them.

Ask the universe to bless and care for your families and for yourself.

Time Management for Actors

May 21st and 28th

7-10 pm EST

Learn more HERE

Two Day TV Script Analysis Workshop w/ Katie Flahive

Saturday & Sunday

June 4 & 5

3-6PM

$199

8-10 students

Sign up HERE

This class will be a 2 day intensive that helps the actor develop the understanding of how to break down acts/character/plot points/tone/tempo in a network and streaming platform pilot.

Day 1: Elements will include: the table read, the breakdowns from casting

Day 2: Implementation of script analysis with a mock audition. Actors will choose from the script/breakdowns which role they want to read for- adjustments for camera/audition will be given and feedback with the room will be offered.

Katie Flahive TV Class - MONDAYS or WEDNESDAYS

MONDAYS

6-9PM EST

June 13, 20, 27, July 11 (skipping 4th of July)

SIGN UP HERE

WEDNESDAYS

7-10 PM EST

June 15, 22, 29, July 6

SIGN UP HERE

In this class, we will look at how to break down scripts for episodic, streaming platforms, pilots, and network hour and half-hour drama/comedy.

Sides will be sent to each person, specifically addressing type and where they are in the industry.

Audition style setting will be the main focus in the class (students will be working with materials each week under the timeline and expectations of what they would be in the real-world scenario of the audition).

About Katie:

Katie Flahive is Ted Sluberski's right-hand woman and is an accomplished actor and singer working in theatre, film, TV, animation, audiobooks, and commercials.

Katie is also a company member of The Actors Center in NYC. She recurs on the Hulu Series The Looming Towering and the seventh season of Venture Brothers on Adult Swim.

Her other recurring and guest role appearances include Law and Order: SVU, Chicago PD, Glow, The Affair, Nurse Jackie, Feed the Beast, and Blue Bloods. She has worked as an on-set coach in both LA and NYC.

Katie is THE person to train with if you're looking to break into film and TV or if you're looking to deepen your on-camera performance.

Why acting training is so important

How to get the job!

The difference between the audition, the callback, and the job.

How you behave in the world is how you're going to be as an actor.

Your job is to be available, flexible, and willing to play.

Maturity is knowing what you can actually get done in a day.

Take your emotions out of your to-do list.

How bad do I want it?

How to change limiting beliefs to thoughts that work for you.

The need for a communal approach.

Vulnerability is an actor's greatest asset in their work, but it's also the greatest liability outside of their work and in their business.

My own journey with vulnerability.

I felt that as an actor, I wore my heart on my sleeve. And although that really helped me in my work, I found it to be a real problem was when wasn't getting a callback or I wasn't getting the job, and that it made it very, very difficult for me to live my own life.

The emotions must live in the work, and you have your own life.

CORE WORK:

• Go to the core work episodes, listen once, then go to a coffee shop, listen, pause and journal.
• You must feel safe going to those emotional places, then leave it in the work.

Understand that the work is not yours. Once you do it, it is the world's.

From The Language of Letting Go:

"So being vulnerable and quoting kind of little bits from melody, body and language of letting go is about learning to share ourselves with other people and learning to admit our mistakes and expose our imperfections, not so that others can fix us or rescue us or feel sorry for us, but so that we can love and accept ourselves. So that we can love and accept ourselves."

When we are auditioning, we are putting forth our imperfections.

And then when we're putting that into work and then passed over, that can hurt.

But again, I ask you to give it that separation, and if you have a hard time giving it separation from work to who you are.

"Many of us are fearful of sharing our imperfections or our vulnerability because it makes us feel so vulnerable, overvulnerable. Some of us have tried being vulnerable in the past, past, and people have tried to control, manipulate or exploit us or they made us feel ashamed."

If that is true for you, think about how difficult that would be for you as an actor.

The importance of understanding how you tick and who you are.

Feelings aren't facts. They are energy, not facts.

It's only a thought, and a thought can be changed.

"Some people have been hurt by being vulnerable. They have shared things with people who didn't respect our confidence or may have told someone something at the wrong time. And that scared them away."

Some of the best actors have had immense pain in their life. And they know to use that pain in their work, but not indulge in it in their life.