Acting Business Boot Camp: Recent Episodes

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Let me ask you something.

When an audition lands in your inbox, what is your first reaction? Is it excitement? Or is it, oh no. Not another self-tape.

If it is the second one, we need to talk about that. Because that reaction means your nervous system has started associating auditions with danger instead of play. With burden instead of opportunity. And any time we get the chance to act, it should feel like a yes moment. If it does not, it might be time to pause and look at what is actually happening.

It Is Not Just Tiredness So many actors feel ashamed admitting how exhausting self-tapes are. And I get it. But here is what I want you to hear. It is okay that you find them exhausting. What it means is that we need to take really good emotional care of ourselves so they do not feel so depleting every single time.

My mom used to say, you cannot give from a dry well. I have no idea if that is a Dutch expression or just a her thing, but she was right. And I have watched actors cry after their self-tapes because they did 27 takes, or obsessed over tiny moments, or felt physically sick when the audition notification came in. That is not a performance problem. That is a nervous system problem.

Self-tapes are not just acting challenges. They are nervous system events.

What Perfectionism Actually Does Watching yourself on repeat trains your brain to search for flaws instead of truth. Instead of those moments of magic that actually make people stop and pay attention.

Here is what I notice. The earlier takes usually have the life in them. The later ones get more controlled, more manipulated, more fearful, because you are trying to get it right. And trying to get it right kills the thing that made you interesting to begin with. Perfectionism disconnects you from spontaneity. And spontaneity is what is so brilliant about acting.

I never allow myself to do more than four takes. Absolute maximum. I really try to cut it off at three. Because endless takes teach your nervous system that you cannot trust yourself. And the one thing I need to know, the one thing I keep coming back to, is that I can trust me.

Before You Hit Record Avoid doom scrolling before auditions. Regulate your nervous system first. Meditation, breathwork, movement, music, prayer, laughter, more interaction with people you love. Whatever grounds you. Because you cannot create freely from a dysregulated body. The most creative I can ever be is when my nervous system feels settled.

And here is the thing I had to learn the hard way. One audition or callback or screen test does not decide your destiny. It is one audition in a lifetime of auditions. Careers are built through consistency, resilience, relationship, and repetition. Not through the perfect take.

The Bottom Line Self-tapes do not have to become emotional punishment. But there is a real tendency for them to go that way if you have a habit of emotionally punishing yourself.

You are allowed to protect your nervous system. You are allowed to enjoy acting again. You are allowed to be you in the most organic form you can be. That is where the connection lives. That is what casting directors are actually looking for. Not the controlled version of you. The present one.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? If you are not on the mailing list, please get on it. There are so many things coming up over the summer, acting classes, voiceover classes, weekly classes, some as low as five dollars.

And as I always say, stay safe, treat yourself real well, and give your nervous system a hug.

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I'm going to say something a little unpopular.

Most SMART goals don't work. Not because the framework is bad. Not because I don't believe in it. I make SMART goals every quarter for myself. But what I actually see with the voice actors I coach is that they use them to create the appearance of a plan, not an actual plan. They check all the boxes, put it in a document, and never look at it again. And then at the end of the year they feel like they failed.

And that is awful.

What Goes Wrong Here is a real example, completely anonymized. A student submitted this goal to me. By the end of September I will post once a week on LinkedIn, send five follow-up emails daily, and reach out to one voiceover buyer weekly. My goal is to book at least two new clients and generate $5,000 in new revenue within 12 months.

On paper that looks great. There is a date, there are numbers, there is a revenue target. But here is what is actually happening.

The timeline is a mess. The activity goal says by the end of September. The revenue goal says within 12 months. Those are two totally different timelines bolted onto the same goal. So which one runs the show? What happens in October?

Five follow-up emails a day is 150 emails a month. To who? If you do not have a large existing prospect list you will run out of people to follow up with within three weeks. The goal becomes impossible on its own terms before you hit month two.

And the goal contradicts itself. One section says one LinkedIn post per month. The main goal says once a week. If your goal contradicts itself it is not written yet. It is just a draft.

These are fixable problems. But they are the kind of thing that quietly kills your momentum before you have even started.

How to Know If Your Goal Is Actually Written Read it out loud to someone who will ask questions. Not someone who will be supportive. Someone who will push back. See if they can tell you from that goal alone what exactly you are going to do on a Tuesday in month seven.

If they cannot, you do not have a goal. You have an intention. Intentions are fine starting points. They are terrible execution plans.

How to Do This Correctly Start with the real outcome. What do you actually want? Be honest. Five thousand dollars in new revenue from direct marketing is a real outcome. Get more clients is not. Name the number.

Then work backwards. If your average booking is $500 and you need 10 bookings and your close rate from outreach is roughly one in 20, you need to contact 200 people over the course of the year. That is about four contacts a week. That is a real activity target.

Then check it against your actual capacity. Four targeted contacts a week is doable for most people. 150 follow-up emails a month is probably not. I know because I used to send three to four hundred emails a month and I was burnt out and hated my life. If your targets require more time than you actually have, you either need to scale down the activity or scale down the revenue goal. Both are honest choices. The worst choice is setting an activity level you cannot sustain and then feeling like a failure at month three.

Build quarterly checkpoints. At the end of Q1 ask yourself, am I hitting my activity pace? Is that activity generating early indicators? What do I need to shift? You are allowed to adjust. A goal is not a contract you signed with the universe. It is a plan, and plans get refined.

Where Is the Goal Coming From This does not come up enough in the goal-setting conversation. A lot of voice actors set goals from a place of I should be doing this instead of I have decided I am doing this.

I should be sending outreach emails is a guilt goal. It lives in the same category as I should be going to the gym. You know you should. You don't. You feel bad. You repeat it forever.

I am a voice actor who runs a direct marketing operation and three days a week I do outreach for an hour. That is an identity-based commitment. You are not motivating yourself every morning. You have decided who you are. And people who have decided who they are do not negotiate with themselves about whether to show up.

The Bottom Line Name the real outcome. Work backwards to the activity that produces it. Check that activity against your actual capacity. Build quarterly checkpoints. And decide before you start that you are the kind of person who will follow through because this means something to you.

The SMART goal framework is a tool. If you use it well it builds a real plan you can follow. If you use it as a checkbox exercise it builds something that looks like a plan and functions like a wish list.

You deserve a real plan. Build it that way.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? Pull up whatever goal doc you have right now. Run it through the test. Can someone else read this and tell you what you are doing on a Tuesday in month seven? If the answer is no, tighten the timeline, reconcile the contradictions, replace aspirational math with real math. It might take you 20 minutes. Those 20 minutes are the difference between a goal that gets executed and a goal that just makes you feel bad every time you remember it exists.

Reach out at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com. I am here to look at your goals and tell you whether you have an actual goal or whether you need to go back to the drawing board a little.

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The Career Stages Every Actor Goes Through

There is a coaching phrase I keep coming back to.

It gets better, it gets worse, it gets different, it gets real. And then it starts again. Better, worse, different, real. Over and over, sometimes all at once, sometimes so fast you can barely tell which one you are in.

That is an acting career. And honestly, that is most creative careers.

So today I want to talk about the stages, because here is what I find is true for so many actors I work with. They are not failing. They are just in a different stage than they think they are in, and that changes everything.

Everyone Else Is Moving Forward and I Am Stuck This is the quiet belief that a lot of actors carry around. And whenever we compare ourselves to other people what we are really doing is telling the universe we are in the wrong place. But you are not in the wrong place. John over there is just in a different phase. That is it.

Compare and despair. It is one of my favorite little sayings because it is so true. Comparison creates panic, and panic is absolutely useless unless it is your character who is panicking. Leave the drama on the stage.

When you understand the stage you are actually in, the path forward gets a lot clearer.

The Training Stage This is where you are focused on skill and craft. Studying technique, learning how to audition, learning how to work on camera, building those very first relationships in the industry.

And so many actors want to skip this stage, which I genuinely do not understand. Improv classes and acting classes are fun. That is why we want to do this in the first place. It is joyful. So why would we rush past it?

The desire to get representation immediately, to land big auditions right away, I get it. But I so strongly believe that opportunities come into our lives when we are ready for them. Without that training foundation, the opportunities that do arrive are very hard to sustain.

The Positioning Stage This is where a lot of actors get confused. You can already be a strong actor, but casting still does not know where to place you. And sometimes that is because you do not know where to place yourself.

The practical questions here are simple but important. What roles can you actually walk in and play right now? Do your headshots reflect that? Does your resume? Can agents and casting directors easily understand where you fit?

Casting directors are solving a puzzle. The actor who clearly fits a piece of that puzzle gets called in first. Clarity in your own mind about what you want and what you offer, that clarity matters more than most actors realize.

And I will throw this in because I talk about it a lot. If you are a voiceover actor, doing on-camera work supports your voiceover. If you are an on-camera actor, doing voiceover supports that. They feed each other. Work begets work.

The Relationship Stage Your craft is strong, your positioning is clear, and now something else becomes really important. Your relationships with people in the industry. Casting directors, agents, producers, directors. You want them to recognize your name. You want them to trust your work. You want them to think, Josh is a great actor and Josh knows he is a great actor, and I know he is going to deliver.

Because that is what makes us bring you back again and again.

Acting careers do not explode overnight. They are built from little decisions over time, little actions and thoughts, working on relationships and craft and positioning a little bit every single day. Consistently. That is the whole thing.

The Bottom Line If you are vague about where you are, you get vague results. You choose the wrong goals, you compare yourself unfairly, and eventually you burn out.

But if you know exactly where you are at, you can focus strategically. Whether that is training, positioning, or relationships, every working actor you admire has moved through these stages. No one skips them entirely. Each stage prepares you for the next.

Careers in acting are rarely built in giant leaps. They are built in stages.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? I have a class called Co-Creating Your Future. It is a three-hour taped class, so you can watch it whenever you want. Right now it's 33% off.

And if you need some extra guidance, there are still some free consults available. Email me at peter@actingbusinessbootcamp.com

As I always say, stay safe and treat yourself real well.

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"Make Your Own Content" Is Incomplete Advice. Here Is What It Actually Means.

I was scrolling TikTok, as one does, and I came across an actor who was fired up. She said the advice to make your own content is terrible. Her take was basically, I'm an actor, not a writer, not a producer, not a director. I don't have a crew or a budget. So what are you actually asking me to do here? Pull a short film out of thin air between my day job and my auditions?

And I watched that video and thought, you know what, there's a point there that's fair. But I also think the advice is incomplete. Not wrong. Incomplete. And incomplete advice is dangerous because it sounds reasonable enough that people try it, fail, and then blame themselves.

So today I want to unpack what make your own content actually means, who it's for, and how it means something completely different if you're a voice actor.

The Advice Is Missing a Map As it's typically delivered, in workshops, masterclasses, panels, the advice sounds like this. Don't wait to be cast. Create your own opportunities. Write something. Film something. Put it out there.

For a certain type of actor with a certain set of skills and resources, that advice is genuinely transformative. I've seen it work.

But here is what it quietly assumes. It assumes you can write, or that writing is easy to pick up on top of everything else you're already doing. It assumes you have access to equipment and someone who knows how to use it. It assumes you have time. Not just time, but the kind of uninterrupted, energized creative time that doesn't happen at 10pm after a full day of survival jobbing and self-taping. It assumes you have money for space, editing, sound, and the seventeen other things that go into putting something on screen. And it assumes that the part of you that loves acting also loves producing. Those are not the same skill set. They are often not even the same personality type.

So yes. As a blanket statement handed to every actor in every room, make your own content is incomplete at best and demoralizing at worst.

What Nobody Tells You Recently I got together with some creative friends and we all said the same thing. We want to make something. We have ideas and we're tired of waiting.

And here is what happened next, and this is the part that never gets said. We divided it up. I like to write, so I wrote some scenes. I don't want to be on camera, so I'm not going to be. A friend wants to film, so she's behind the camera. She needs reel content, so we're building it so she gets that. Other people are acting in it. The only money we're spending is on the space to film. That's it.

Nobody is doing everything. Nobody is wearing every hat. Nobody is burned out before we even start. We collaborated.

I know that sounds obvious when I say it out loud. But I don't think it's what people picture when someone says make your own content. They picture one exhausted person alone in their apartment trying to write, film, light, direct, act, edit, and distribute a short film by themselves. And that version is a nightmare. The collaboration version is actually fun. It's sustainable. It gets finished.

So if you've been sitting on this advice and feeling like you can't do it because you're not a filmmaker, I want you to recalibrate the question. The question isn't can I make this content alone. The question is who do I know who wants to make something. Those are very different questions, and the second one is a lot more answerable.

For Voice Actors, This Conversation Is Better Here is what making your own content looks like in voiceover. You need something to read. Then you record yourself reading it. You don't need a location, a camera, lighting rigs. You need your booth, your mic, your interface, and something worth recording.

That something still needs to be good. You can't grab any text off the internet and call it content. It needs to be written well and serve a purpose. But here's what the on-camera version of this advice doesn't have access to that you do.

There are artists everywhere who want their work heard. Poets who have never had their work read aloud by a professional voice actor. Playwrights with monologues sitting in a drawer. Short story writers who would lose their minds if they found someone with a real studio setup who wanted to record their work. Indie game developers who need narration. Indie comic writers who want audio versions of their stories.

People are writing things right now who don't know you exist. And you can be the person who brings their words to life. In exchange, you get professional material to record, a real sample, and a collaboration that means something. That's not just making content. That's building a creative network. That's two artists making each other's work better.

What to Actually Do This Week If you're an on-camera actor, stop trying to do this alone. Make a list of five creative people in your life. Actors, writers, directors, photographers. Send them a voice memo. Say something like, hey, I've been wanting to make something. Are you in? You will be surprised how fast a team assembles when someone actually initiates.

Start smaller than you think. A two-person scene. A monologue filmed in a living room. A table read on Zoom. Something you can actually finish is worth infinitely more than a grand vision that never gets started.

If you're a voice actor, find a writer this week. Go to an open mic. Post in a local Facebook group or Discord. Reach out to someone whose Substack you love and tell them you'd love to record something they've written as a creative project. Most writers have never been asked this. Most of them will say yes.

The Bottom Line Make your own content is not wrong. It's just been delivered without a map. Figure out what you actually bring. Find people who bring the rest. Start smaller than your ego wants you to. And do not try to be a one-person production company unless that is genuinely who you are.

If you're a voice actor, your version of this is more accessible than almost anyone's. You have the setup. You have the skill. And there are artists out there right now who want exactly what you can offer.

Go find them.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? If something landed for you today, share it with an actor friend who needs to hear it. And reach out to Mandy at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com for questions, content, whatever it is. Find her Substack, The Actor's Index, for more.

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One of the hardest parts of an acting career is actually not the rejection.

I know. That surprises people. But as a young actor, the hardest part for me was the emotional roller coaster. One day I'd feel so hopeful. I'd be in class, auditioning, getting callbacks, feeling momentum. And then suddenly, crickets. No auditions, no callbacks, nothing. Nobody's buying what Peter Pamela Rose is selling.

And you start asking yourself two very painful questions. Why am I doing this? And am I wasting my time?

It Usually Isn't About Talent Burnout doesn't usually come from lack of talent. It comes from two things. Lack of money management, because this business is just costing you too much financially. And lack of time management, because you're not using your time in the wisest way.

But here's the real ingredient. It comes from carrying too much emotional pressure for too long.

Have you been carrying too much emotional pressure around this industry for too long? Seriously. Ask yourself that.

Compare and Despair One of the fastest ways to end up there is comparison. Social media makes it so tough sometimes. You're seeing people's bookings, their premieres, their guest stars, their new representation. And it creates this illusion that everyone else is moving so much faster than you.

But that's not the full picture. That person had auditions that didn't book. They had long quiet stretches. They just didn't post about those.

Keep the focus on your career. That is the only one you can do something about. Comparison is the fastest way to forget your own magic. And when we drain that energy comparing timelines, we lose the very thing we need to stay in those high vibrations where good things happen.

The Emotional Weight of Rejection A lot of the time rejection gets pulled into old feelings of shame. And shame, at its core, is the belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with you. But really all it was is that you just weren't the one they needed for that role. You weren't that piece of the puzzle.

Actors experience something very unusual compared to most professions. They are evaluated personally, or at least it feels that way, over and over again. Even when a casting director loves your audition you might not book it. They might give the role to someone taller, younger, older, more well-known, better matched with another actor. That is not a rejection of you as a person.

The Invisible Deadlines We Create As a young actor I thought I had to make it before I was 30. That was the biggest bunch of bullshit I ever fed myself.

We create invisible deadlines. I should be further along by now. I should have an agent already. I should be booking more. And those expectations create enormous pressure. Life and acting careers do not unfold in neat little timelines.

Gabrielle Bernstein says something I just love. When you surrender the outcome, you create space for miracles.

Don't quit five minutes before the miracle.

Actors Who Last I have been a professional actor making a living since 1988. And the thing I have always tried to do is stay connected to why I love acting and this business. I loved the training. I loved creating. I loved collaborating. And even now, in my middle age, I'm enjoying it more than I ever have.

Remain curious. Remain teachable. Your job as an actor is not to control the outcome. Your job is to keep showing up with curiosity and courage.

There are going to be quiet seasons and there are going to be active seasons. The actors who eventually break through are the ones who stay in the game long enough. Acting career life is about resilience, perspective, and the willingness to keep showing up.

Don't quit five minutes before the miracle.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? If you are having issues with money management, please check out the Money Mastery for Actors class. We walk you through budgeting, answer questions, and hold your hand through the whole thing.

And as I always say, stay safe and treat yourself real well.

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Let me walk you through a scenario.

A voice actor gets an offer. Major food delivery brand. Session fee is $500. Buyout is $10,000. Usage is worldwide, all media, in perpetuity. Broadcast TV, streaming, social media, paid and organic, radio, in stores, stadium, cinema, email marketing, every platform, every country, forever.

Is that a good deal?

Not even close.

Today I'm going to give you the math, the framework, and the language you need to have the buyout conversation without feeling like you're making up numbers or asking too much or too little.

Session Fee vs Usage Fee These two things are important to distinguish because a lot of voice actors, especially newer ones, bundle them incorrectly.

The session fee is what you get paid for your time in the booth. It compensates you for the recording session itself, your preparation, your studio, your performance. For a typical commercial session, session fees range from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand depending on the scope. For a major national brand, being at the low end of that range is usually a red flag.

The usage fee, the buyout in a flat fee situation, is something completely different. This is not paying for your time. It's paying for access to your voice, your identity, your performance across platforms and time. It's the price of a license. And the value of that license scales with how broadly and for how long the client intends to use it.

When a client asks for perpetual worldwide all media rights, they are not just buying the recording. They are locking your voice into their brand identity indefinitely. You can't relicense that usage. You can't adjust the price if they want to run it on the Super Bowl. You cannot renegotiate when the campaign runs for three years instead of six months. So the buyout price has to account for all that upside they're capturing.

$10,000 for a Fortune 500 brand running a perpetual worldwide all media campaign is not accounting for it.

How to Actually Value Usage Here is a framework that will give you a defensible starting point. It's not a substitute for a rate sheet or scale calculator, but it will get you in the right conversation.

Step one is identify the scope. What media, what geography, what duration. Each of those variables multiplies the value. Local, three months, one platform is very different from global, perpetual, all platforms.

Step two is consider the brand scale. A Fortune 500 company running a perpetual campaign is not the same as a small regional business running something for six months on local radio. The larger the brand and the broader the reach, the higher the floor.

Step three is use the session fee as your anchor and multiply for usage. For local, limited use, maybe one to two times the session fee. For regional, one year, limited platforms, three to five times. For national, multi-platform, one year, eight to fifteen times. For global, all media, perpetual, you are in the twenty to sixty times range minimum for a major brand.

So in the scenario I opened with, a $500 session fee for worldwide perpetual all media rights for a major brand, the usage fee should be somewhere in the $50,000 to $85,000 range. Not $10,000.

They'll Just Go Hire Someone Else I know that's what's happening in your head right now. And yeah, sometimes they will. But when a major brand is running a perpetual worldwide campaign, they have a budget. They have an agency. The agency has rate cards. The $10,000 buyout they offered you is almost certainly not their max. It is their opening number. It's what they offer when they think they can get away with it.

When you counter calmly and professionally with a number that reflects actual market value, one of a few things happens. They come up. Or they negotiate to limit the scope, maybe it's two years instead of perpetual. Or yes, in some cases they walk. And if they walk because you asked to be paid appropriately for a perpetual worldwide all media license, they were never a client you could build a sustainable business on.

The voice actors who have long healthy careers are the ones who train themselves early to understand what their work is worth and how to ask for it. Not aggressive, not apologetic. Matter of fact, the way any other professional would quote a rate.

The Language to Use Knowing the number is only half the battle. Here is what to say when you get an offer that doesn't match the scope of usage.

Not "that's way too low." Not "whatever works for you." Something like: thank you so much for sending this over. I want to make sure we're aligned on the usage scope. For worldwide all media in perpetuity rights, my rate is X. If the scope is more limited I'm happy to adjust the quote accordingly. What flexibility is there on either the budget or the usage terms?

That does three things. It treats the rate as a natural consequence of the scope, not a personal ask. It opens the door to negotiating the scope if the budget is fixed. And it invites a conversation instead of creating a standoff.

You can also offer tiered options. For a two-year term with an option to renew I can come down to Y. For perpetual rights it's X. Giving them choices makes it easier to say yes to something.

And if they say this is our standard rate, that is a negotiating position, not a fact. Standard rates are what gets offered. They're not what gets paid when the talent knows the market.

The Bottom Line The buyout conversation is not confrontation. It's calibration. You're not asking for more than you deserve. You're asking for what a license of this scope is actually worth based on the market.

Perpetuity. Worldwide. All media. Those are not boilerplate. Those are the most expensive words in the industry. Price them accordingly.

You worked really hard to build a voice people want to use. Make sure you're getting paid for how much they want to use it.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? If you have questions about rates, contracts, negotiation, or your marketing strategy, reach out at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com. I can't wait to hear what you're working on.

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I want to reframe something for you.

Because if auditioning feels heavy, like a test, like a judgment, like a moment that could determine your entire future, I get it. I have been there. I remember walking into audition rooms feeling like I was literally going to my death, like I should smoke a cigarette first. That is how loaded it felt.

But here is the thing. That is not actually how the industry works.

Auditions Are an Interview Process The job is being hired to work on the set, the stage, or in the studio. Auditions are how you get there. They are an interview process, not a verdict.

And so many things that determine whether you book are completely outside your control. Chemistry with other actors. Network preferences. An age range that shifted overnight without anyone updating the breakdown. I once had a scene with Warren Beatty in a major feature film and the night before I was supposed to shoot, they rewrote me out of the script entirely. That scene was just gone. And that had nothing to do with my audition.

Sometimes you give a fantastic audition and you are still not the right piece of the puzzle. That is just the reality of this business.

What Working Actors Think Differently Actors who book consistently walk into auditions with a completely different mindset. Instead of pick me, it is more like let me see if we are a match. Let's see if this works.

That one little shift removes the desperation. It creates collaboration. Bryan Cranston talks about this so beautifully in his autobiography A Life in Parts, which I will link in the show notes because you have to read it. He talks about dropping off the gift of his talent. Just dropping it off. No attachment to the outcome.

One of the most effective tools I have ever used in auditioning is asking myself how can I serve this project? Forget whether I get it or not. How can I serve it in this moment? What ideas can I give them? When you stop seeing auditions as judgment you can relax, and relaxed actors give better performances. Lee Strasberg talked about this all the time.

The Real Purpose of an Audition Casting directors are not looking for perfection. We are trying to answer one question. Is this the right person for the role? Or are they in the ballpark?

But auditions also serve another purpose. They introduce you to casting directors. They reinforce relationships you already have. The audition is not just about this job. It is about building something longer term. Casting directors bring actors back again and again once they trust their work. Because if you give great auditions, you make us look good to our clients.

Energy Matters More Than You Think Humans feel energy immediately. I think casting directors feel it even faster. If you are tense and fearful it comes off like you are just trying to survive the audition, not enjoy it.

Actors who come in grounded and curious look like collaborators. Because that is what they are doing. They are coming into the room to collaborate. And that energy, it matters more than most actors realize.

The Bottom Line Auditions are not the job. They are opportunities to show your work and build relationships. Treat them like a creative collaboration instead of a life or death moment.

When you start doing that something shifts. You start enjoying the process. And when we are in a state of joy, people want to work with us. Joy is a high vibration. It is contagious.

The goal is not to book the job. The goal is to become someone that casting wants to bring back over and over again. And also to have fun doing it. It is going to be okay. It really is.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? I have a free acting business audit for you. It is a questionnaire you answer on your own to see where you are at with the business side of your acting career.

And as I always say, stay safe and treat yourself real well.

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Quick question. What's the voice you hear describing what's happening on screen during a movie or a TV show for blind and low vision viewers?

That's audio description. And somebody has to record it for every show, every movie, every piece of streaming content, every educational video on every major platform. Every single one.

That is an enormous amount of work. And most voice actors have no idea how to get it.

What Audio Description Actually Is AD is narration inserted into the natural pauses in a piece of video content, like dialogue, music, and sound effects, that describes what's happening visually. Character movements, facial expressions, scene changes, text on screen, important visual information that a viewer would otherwise miss if they can't see the picture.

The narration is written in the present tense. It's delivered neutrally. The AD narrator describes. They don't editorialize. They are giving information logically but not characterizing it. And it has to fit precisely within the gaps in the existing audio, which means pacing is really important. The scripts are timed to the millisecond. The narrator has to hit very specific durations, sometimes very short ones, while still conveying the information clearly and in a warm, accessible way.

It's a skill. It is a very highly sought after skill. It's in demand across every streaming platform. Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Disney, Amazon, Apple, HBO. As well as broadcast, educational content, corporate video, and more. Accessibility compliance requirements mean this market is not shrinking. It is growing.

Why Aren't More Voice Actors Pursuing It Part of it is visibility. AD narration doesn't usually get a credit in the traditional sense. It's not the kind of booking you post about on social media. The narrator is heard, not seen, and the whole point is that the narration blends seamlessly into the viewing experience.

Part of it is that the scripts look really intimidating the first time you see them. They're formatted differently from any standard voiceover script. There are time codes and pacing notes and flagged lines with very tight windows to hit. It feels very technical in a way that commercial or corporate work doesn't.

And part of it is there isn't a clear how do I get in path that gets talked about the way commercial or gaming or e-learning does.

But here's the thing. The opacity is an opportunity. The barrier isn't talent. It's knowledge. Voice actors who understand how AD works, who have trained for the specific demands of the format, and who have appropriate samples in their portfolio are rare. And the buyers in this space know that.

The Actual Craft Audio description narration isn't just a neutral read. It has a specific warmth and accessibility to it. You're a guide. You're not a reporter. You're helping someone experience a piece of content, and that requires a quality of presence and care that is specific but also learnable.

The pacing demands are unique. AD scripts use notations like brisk or very brisk. The gap between two lines of dialogue might be four seconds and you have to convey meaningful visual information in that space clearly without rushing in a way that loses the listener. You need to deliver every line as if it counts while also being flexible about what gets used.

It's a different muscle than commercial or video game or narration work. But it's absolutely buildable. And the voice actors who invest in training for it are walking into a niche with very little competition and pretty steady work.

How to Position Yourself for AD Work First, get familiar with the format. Watch content with audio description turned on. Netflix, Amazon, YouTube all have accessibility settings. Turn it on for a show you're already watching and listen to the pacing, listen to the tone, notice how the narration sits in the audio environment. This is your market research and it costs you nothing.

Second, build a sample. You cannot pitch AD work with a standard narration demo. You need a sample that demonstrates you understand the format, ideally built from fictional content. The sample should show tight pacing, appropriate tone, and ideally a mix of slower and brisk paced lines.

Third, identify the buyers. AD is produced by post-production companies and accessibility service providers, not usually directly by studios or streaming platforms. Researching and building a contact list, just like you would for any other vertical, is important to do.

And then frame it in your marketing. If you have an AD sample, say it. Put it on your website. Mention it in outreach. Most voice actor websites don't have AD sections. Having one immediately signals that you're someone who has done the work to understand the work.

Why This Niche Matters Beyond the Bookings It's not a glamorous vertical. But it is so meaningful. Audio description exists because people deserve to experience art and storytelling and information fully, just as anyone else. The voice actor doing AD work is genuinely contributing to accessibility, to children and adults alike, and that work has human stakes to it.

The commercial reality is strong, consistent, and growing. There aren't enough trained narrators to fill the demand. And the personal reality is strong because it's interesting work that requires real craft and you get paid for that craft.

The door is open. Most people just haven't knocked on it yet.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? If you're interested in learning more about this, reach out. Mandy offers performance and business coaching and would love to help you get this part of your business going. Reach out at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com.

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What Casting Directors Notice in the First 10 Seconds

Most actors believe the audition starts when they begin the scene.

It doesn't.

The audition starts the moment casting sees you. And casting directors often know within the first 10 seconds whether someone feels like they belong in the room or belong in the self-tape. Whether they feel they deserve to be there and are really showing up to drop off the gift of their talent.

Presence Before Performance It's not that casting directors are judging your soul. It's the energy. Are you giving off the energy of clarity, of worthiness, of confidence that you believe you deserve to be there?

I work on this with so many actors. The thoughts that creep in. I hope they like me. I'm probably not right for this. Everyone else is probably better than me. Before COVID I would always ask, are you the actor who goes into the audition waiting room and gives away the role to someone else sitting there? You want to be giving the role to you.

And here's what happens when you don't. That energy shows up in you physically. Your posture changes, your voice tightens, your eyes drop.

Confidence in acting doesn't come from booking the job. It comes from deciding that you belong in the room before anyone else decides that for you.

Clarity of Type When casting directors are casting a role they are solving a problem. Who is the clearest version of this role? Does this actor understand their casting type? Does their headshot and their presence match? Does their wardrobe support the role?

Clarity beats versatility in auditions. Listen to that again. Clarity beats versatility in auditions.

Comfort With the Camera Casting is always looking for someone who feels natural on camera. I think about NBA players and how comfortable they are with a basketball. That is what we need to be with a camera. That comfortable.

And it's not about who is the most dramatic or the loudest. It's who is the most real in the role. Who fits like a glove. The calm presence often comes from something much deeper than acting technique.

I have what may be a controversial belief. Once you know how to act, once you have a real good basis for it, I think it is truly all about your relationship with yourself. How you tick, how you get yourself to certain places. The most valuable relationship you can have is the relationship with yourself, because that is your instrument.

Also, always look at auditions as opportunities. Not as a test. Are you looking at your auditions like a test you took in high school? Because that is setting you up for a lot of stress.

Emotional Energy Casting notices this. But you know what, it's really just people. Directors, producers, just people. You could say the same thing about being on a date. Is this person grounded? Are they open? Do they feel collaborative?

Because the room is not just about evaluating talent. It's about all of you collaborating together. What would it be like to work with this actor for 12 hours a day on set? I want to put out an energy of calm, professional, clear, welcoming, generous, warmth, happiness, joy, freedom. That's what people like to work with. And that wonderful ingredient some of the best actors I know have: the ability to be curious.

Professional Signals We notice the practical details very quickly. If an actor doesn't follow the basic directions, unless I have a long-standing relationship with them, I delete it. I'm sorry, I don't have time.

Did the actor follow the directions for slating or for delivery? If I said send it in this format, did they send it in that format or in the format they just felt like sending it to me? What that gives off to me is that you value your time more than you value my time. And in a professional situation, when you're hoping I'm going to consider you for a job, you need to be thinking about the person giving you that opportunity.

Within a millisecond I can tell if you speak my language or not. It's so obvious to me. And that's what's so important to have together before you put yourself out.

A Little Shift Instead of asking do they like me, ask yourself how can I show up as the most grounded version of this character and how can I serve this project in this moment.

Actors who work consistently treat auditions differently. They walk in thinking, whether consciously or subconsciously, I belong here. I'm here to collaborate. Let's see what happens.

The Bottom Line Casting directors are not looking for perfection. We are looking for someone who feels authentic, grounded, and clear. And that begins before the first line.

We attract who we are. So if I am grounded and clear and professional in all areas of my life, that is what I bring into the audition. That is what I aim for as an actor. And that is what I look for as a casting director.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? For those who have not yet taken advantage of this, I am offering free Zoom consults for a limited time. Email me at peter@actingbusinessbootcamp.com

As I always say, stay safe and treat yourself real well.

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I want to tell you about a little experiment I ran.

I was helping a director find and cast actors for some ADR for a film. I reached out to my network and posted in a very popular voiceover group. It was not a complicated audition. Narration piece, sides were provided, instructions were very clear. Basic.

I got 208 submissions.

And when I sat down to go through them, I am not exaggerating, over half had at least one avoidable error. Not the wrong voice for the role. Not didn't nail the read. Errors that had nothing to do with talent. Errors that happened before the person even opened their mouth.

Today I'm going to tell you exactly what those errors were, why they matter more than you think, and what you can do right now to make sure you're not in the half that gets filtered out before anyone hits play.

The Breakdown I actually tracked this because data, to me, is everything.

25% of submissions didn't follow directions. Mislabeled files, wrong file formats, ignored tone and approach guidance. Just wrong.

16% asked for information that was already in the email. I sent detailed sides, character notes, tech specs, and one in six people replied to ask me things that were answered in the first two paragraphs of the casting notice.

6% didn't read the provided script. I sent the sides and these people recorded something entirely different. Their own interpretation of what the spot might be, or a section of audio that felt close enough. Not what I asked for.

3% sent demos instead of the requested lines. I said please record these specific lines and they sent me a 90-second reel of things I didn't ask for.

Add all of that up and you get 50%. Half of submissions had at least one error that was completely preventable.

Why This Matters More Than Talent Here's what I want you to understand about sitting on the other side of that inbox.

Most casting directors get hundreds if not thousands of submissions. And when you're casting you're not primarily in the business of finding talent. You're in the business of finding someone you can work with. Talent is table stakes. If you're in the pool you can probably do the job. What differentiates people at that stage is reliability and trustworthiness. Can this person follow instructions? Are they going to make this job harder or easier? Are they going to be a professional when we get into session?

A mislabeled file tells me this person doesn't sweat the details. Asking a question that's answered in the brief tells me this person didn't read carefully or doesn't think my time is worth protecting. Sending a demo when I asked for specific lines tells me this person thinks their preferences override mine. And on a session, that is a problem.

None of this is about the quality of your voice. It's about the signal you're sending before anyone hears you. Casting directors are reading those signals because it's the fastest way to narrow a pool of 200 down to 20.

Fix One: Read the Brief Like It's a Script This is so simple but it requires a genuine habit shift.

When you get a script you don't skim it. You read every word. You notice the tone marks, the character notes, the tech specs. You treat it like it matters because it does. The brief is telling you exactly what the casting director needs, in what format, by when. Your job is to do exactly that. Not approximately that. Not mostly that. Exactly that.

Read the brief once for the big picture. Read it again before you record. Pay attention to any tone or character direction they've given. Then before you submit read it one more time and compare it to what you're about to send. That's maybe 35 extra seconds. And that's the difference between being in the top half and being in the bottom half of any audition pool.

Fix Two: Never Ask a Question That's in the Brief If the answer is in the brief, do not ask the question.

I know sometimes it feels safer to double-check, to make sure you're on the right track. But here's what happens in a casting director's inbox when they get a reply to the audition email with a question that was answered in paragraph three. They sigh, they answer it, and they note that you didn't read carefully.

If something genuinely isn't clear after two full reads, then ask. Ask a specific, concise question and lead with I want to make sure I have this right, and reference where in the brief the ambiguity is. That shows you read it and found a real gap, not that you skipped it.

Fix Three: Do What You're Asked This is the one that requires the most ego management.

When they ask for specific lines, record the specific lines. I understand the instinct to send your full demo. Your demo is great. Your demo represents your best work and is designed to show range. But they didn't ask for your demo. They asked for something specific. And the moment you substitute your judgment for theirs you have told them something about how you collaborate.

Save the range showcase for when they ask for it. Do the thing they asked you to do, do it well, and let that be your audition. Want to add a small note at the end of the submission? Great. Something like happy to send a demo if useful. That's one sentence. It respects their time and keeps the door open without overriding their instructions.

The Bottom Line The voice actors who book consistently, not occasionally but consistently, are not necessarily the most talented people in every room. They're the most professional people in every room. They read the brief, they show up on time, they do what's asked, and they make the casting director's job easy.

Talent is abundant. Professionalism is not.

In a pool of 200, the person who follows every instruction perfectly has already separated themselves from half the competition before a single note of audio has been heard.

You worked so hard to build your voice. You invested in a studio, paid for coaching and demos and all of it. Don't let a mislabeled file be the reason someone never found out how good you are.

The brief is the first audition. Pass it.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? Let me know if this resonated. Let me know if you have questions. I would love to chat about your process. Keep me posted on how I can help at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com.

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Somebody books a big role and everybody says the same thing. They got lucky. They just got lucky.

And yes. Of course luck plays a role in this industry. It can be the luck of being in the right place, right time, right project. You're just the right actor. But if you look closely at actors who work consistently, not flash in the pan, but those who have a consistent career, something else becomes very clear.

What looks like luck from the outside is usually preparation meeting opportunity.

What Actors Think Luck Looks Like There's this idea that a career unfolds like this. One audition, one big booking, and everything changes overnight. I remember thinking that as a young, and I'm going to add this word in, foolish actor.

That makes a great story. But the reality is that most overnight success stories look very different. Usually it involves years of training. Usually it involves hundreds of auditions. One of the things I used to say to myself was this is one audition in a lifetime of auditions. You're going to be auditioning and auditioning and auditioning. It's just one audition.

It also involves building relationships over time with casting directors, directors, writers, producers. And so many roles that didn't lead anywhere. I have one particular story where I got into the orbit of one of the biggest television producers out there. They really liked me. I had a recurring role on their show. And then it got canceled after one season. That wasn't bad luck. That was just a role that looked like it was really going to go somewhere, but because I wasn't savvy enough about the business back then, it eventually dried up.

Success Doesn't Happen to You The amazing Jen Sincero says success doesn't happen to you. It happens because of you. When you see success as luck you are accidentally handing over your power. Just giving it over.

Preparation is something people don't see. Just like an Olympic figure skater. You don't see the hours of preparation. You see one performance. Working actors tend to have one thing in common. They are ready when the opportunity appears.

And that readiness includes strong audition skills, strong self-tape skills, professional materials, a clear understanding of their casting type, and comfort being themselves on camera. When the right audition arrives they are able to deliver. And as a casting director that is the biggest thing I am begging actors to do. I want them to deliver the goods.

Instead of seeing opportunities as a rare miracle, working actors see them as moments to be prepared for. Preparation creates confidence and confidence creates opportunity. That's an energetic thing. That's a mindset thing.

Relationships Look Like Luck Too Casting directors remember actors. Agents and managers submit the actors they trust to deliver. Directors bring people back who are great to work with.

From the outside that might look like someone suddenly got a break. But very often that opportunity is the result of years of consistent professionalism.

Luck Favors Momentum Luck favors movement. Momentum. Good things, good energy comes out of momentum.

The idea of just waiting to be noticed doesn't work. Opportunity usually appears when you are already working. Work begets work. And it doesn't even have to be something big. It can be something small. Work begets work.

Working actors train, they create projects, they audition. They meet collaborators at film festivals, meet and greets, industry events. The universe can only respond to the energy you are putting into motion. Actors who stay active tend to encounter more opportunities. It just makes logistical sense. But from the outside, yeah, that can sometimes look like luck.

The Bottom Line Yes, there is an element of unpredictability in this business. But luck alone will not sustain a career. What sustains a career is preparation, relationships, consistency, and confidence. Being good at your job, but knowing you are good at your job.

Luck may open the door. But preparation is always what will allow you to walk through it.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? Mandy and I do a free Ask Us Anything session pretty much every month. It is an hour just for you to ask any question you want. Two coaches for the price of free. Click the link HERE

And as I always say, stay safe and treat yourself real well.

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Let me start with a number. 400.

That's approximately how many cold emails I used to send per month at one point in my career. 400 a month. Roughly 13 emails a day, every day, to production companies, creative agencies, brand managers, you name it.

Want to guess what my booking rate was?

Zero. For months it was actual zero.

And here's the thing. My list was good. I did my research. These were real companies, real decision-makers, real email addresses. My audio was solid. My website wasn't embarrassing. On paper I was doing everything right. And I had nothing to show for it.

So today we're going to talk about what was actually wrong. Because I promise you, it wasn't my list.

What Most Voice Actors Do When Outreach Isn't Working They diagnose the problem as one of three things.

The list. I need more contacts, better contacts, contacts in a different vertical. So they buy a bigger list, scrape LinkedIn harder, join another directory, and then do the same thing to a different set of people.

The email. My subject line isn't catchy enough. I'm too formal. I'm not formal enough. So they A/B test subject lines, rewrite the opener 12 different times, and maybe get a slightly better open rate but still no bookings.

The demo. Maybe my demo isn't good enough yet. And then they disappear into a six-month loop of demo anxiety and never send another email.

None of these things are the root cause. The root cause is a model mismatch.

What Model Mismatch Actually Means The tool most voice actors are using for cold outreach, the email sequence, the automated drip, the I'll contact 500 people and some percentage will respond approach, that tool was built for a completely different kind of business. It was built for SaaS sales, for B2B software, for industries where you are selling a product that can be evaluated on a spec sheet.

Voiceover is not that.

When a creative director or a producer opens an email from a voice actor they're not evaluating a feature set. They're forming an impression of a human being. They're deciding, consciously or not, is this someone I want to work with? Is this someone I can trust with my project? Is this someone whose voice I want attached to my brand?

That is a relationship decision. And you cannot automate a relationship.

The sequence blast approach treats everyone on your list the exact same way. Same email, same order, same timing, regardless of who the person is or whether they've interacted with you before. That is the definition of treating people like they're interchangeable. And creative buyers are not interchangeable. They know when they're being mass emailed. They can feel it in the first sentence. And the moment they feel it, you've lost them.

Here's the kind of opener these tools generate. Something like: "Hi first name. My name is name and I'm a professional voice actor with experience in commercials, corporate narration, and e-learning. I'd love to discuss how I can support your audio needs. Please find my demo at here."

Nothing is inherently wrong with that. But that email could have been sent by literally any voice actor. There is nothing in it that is about the person receiving it. Nothing specific. Nothing curious. Nothing human. It's a form letter with your name in the subject line. And producers get hundreds of those and can spot them three words in.

What Actually Works Here are three things I changed when I finally started getting traction from direct outreach.

The first thing is I stopped treating the first email as the pitch and started treating it as the introduction with no strings attached. The goal of a cold email to a creative buyer is not to get a booking. I know that sounds counterintuitive but stick with me. It's not a realistic ask on first contact. The goal is to get a second interaction. You want them to click your link. You want them to hit reply. You want them to think, huh, I'll keep this person in mind. When you reorient toward that goal your entire email changes. You're no longer trying to close. You're trying to open the door.

The second thing is I started doing exactly one piece of research per email. Not a deep dive, not a 30-minute rabbit hole. One thing. Maybe I noticed they just released a new product line and I mentioned it. Or I listened to the most recent audio content on their site and referenced it specifically. Whatever. It doesn't matter. One thing. That's all it takes to make an email feel like a letter instead of a flyer.

The third thing, and this is the one most people skip, is I built my follow-up sequence before I sent the first email. Not after. Before. Because most bookings from direct marketing do not come from the first contact. They come from the third or the fourth. The person who opens your email on a Tuesday when their current voice actor just raised their rates and suddenly you're top of mind. That's the booking. But it only happens if you've been consistently, non-annoyingly showing up in their inbox over the previous few months.

Follow-up is not pestering. Follow-up done right is just staying in the conversation.

And the last thing, I include a custom piece of content with no strings attached. An MP3, a video, a PDF. Something that is actually useful to them.

The Follow-Up Framework Here's the simplest follow-up framework I use and you can steal this directly.

Email one is the intro. Short, specific, one ask, a link, custom content.

Email two is when you have something new to say. A value add. A recent relevant credit, a class you took, an update you have. No ask. Just here's something that might be interesting to you.

Email three is another value add but with a light ask. Hey, what do you have going on right now that I can help you with? I'm happy to send over a custom sample if that would be helpful. Light touch, no pressure.

After that you move them to a low frequency long-term nurture, maybe once a quarter, and you keep going. Because the booking you get nine months from now from someone who barely noticed your first email is still a booking.

The Bottom Line The problem wasn't my effort. I had plenty of effort. The problem was I was doing the right thing with the wrong model. I was treating a creative business like a volume game when it's actually a relationship game.

The compounding effect of real outreach, specific, human, followed up, is completely different from the compounding effect of mass blasting. One builds a list. The other builds a client base. And that's the difference worth working for.

The humanity in this industry is our biggest superpower. Capitalize on it wherever you possibly can.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? I have three marketing courses available and this month they are all 20% off. There's a course for marketing to agents, one for emailing entertainment clients, and one dedicated to people outside the entertainment industry. You can take them separately or bundle them. Send me a note at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com and I'll pass you the coupon.

Find me on TikTok at AstoriaRedHead or on Substack at The Actor's Index. I'll see you next time.

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After 30 years of coaching, I can tell you the number one thing that determines whether you're going to work in this industry or not work in this industry.

It's not talent. It's not training. It's not who you know.

It's your time management.

Because time is something we all have. The question is are you going to take advantage of the time you have, or are you going to be like 95% of the other actors out there and not take advantage of it?

What "Working On Your Career" Actually Looks Like Some actors tell me they're working on their career every day. And when I actually look at what they're doing it's totally scattered. It's all over the place. They're scrolling casting sites. They're worrying about an agent or a manager or a casting director or a producer. Worrying is not working on your acting career.

They're thinking about auditions that haven't even happened yet. One of my favorite quotes is from Michael Jordan, who said why would I worry about a shot I haven't even taken yet? Why would you worry about an audition you haven't done yet? Why would you worry about a moment you haven't even lived yet?

And the other thing I see a lot is actors watching other people's careers online. Watching what their friends are booking, what their acquaintances are doing. Which is really great for your self-esteem. All of this stuff feels busy. But it is not the same thing as moving your career forward.

Acting careers are not built on random bursts of effort. They are built on consistent, focused action. Those tiny little steps and tiny little decisions you make every day. That is what a career is built on.

The Waiting Trap One of the biggest traps I see is what I call waiting energy. You're waiting for an audition. Waiting for an agent to call. Waiting for a callback. Waiting for the big break. Or you're telling yourself, well once I'm done with this audition or this show, then I'll get to it.

That is one of the biggest traps ever.

Acting careers don't move forward because you wait well. They move forward because you keep building. Gabrielle Bernstein says the universe responds to the energy you bring to it. If you are bringing waiting energy, guess what you're going to get back? A lot more waiting.

But when you operate from creative action, opportunities tend to increase. Not overnight. But they do, steadily.

The Three Parts of a Successful Acting Career I talk about this in the weekly classes, in the Working Actor Roadmap, on this podcast, and to anyone who will listen.

The first part is the craft. Acting training, scene work, voiceover classes, voice and movement training, rehearsing material. Meditation, yoga, working out. All of it. Because that is the foundation. And it's not about thinking about rehearsing that monologue. It's about actually rehearsing the monologue.

The second part is the business. Are you submitting? Are you networking? Are your materials up to date? Are you keeping your business on a schedule? Are you reaching out to agents, managers, casting directors, producers, writers? And are you staying consistent with it? It's about the baby steps every day.

The third part is the core energy work. Rest, exercise, relationships, finances, meditation. Taking care of yourself and making sure your mindset is sharp. That all of your thoughts are working for you. I think of it like this. I am a cell phone and the universe is a cell phone tower. How I communicate to that tower is not through my thoughts and not even so much through my actions. It's through my feelings. Feelings are your currency. If you're not feeling good, you're telling the universe you want more of that.

Why Structure Creates Freedom So many actors resist structure. I was one of them. I worried that structure would make me feel rigid. But that is just a thought I kept thinking and a story I kept telling myself that was false.

The truth is that structure creates freedom. Freedom because I know where my energy is going each week. I stop spinning in circles. Instead of wondering what to do next, I already know.

Certain days for training. Certain days for career work. Certain days for creative work. That rhythm gives you so much freedom and removes a tremendous amount of anxiety.

Momentum comes from movement. Careers rarely change because of one big moment. They change through consistent focused effort over time. The actors who last in this industry are not always the busiest. One of my favorite mantras is I can do less and attract more. But you only get there by staying consistent, showing up, and managing your time efficiently and with accountability.

The Bottom Line If you want to do different things in your life you need to become a different person. Working actors are intentional with their energy. They treat their acting life like a profession, not a hobby. They create rhythms and they start to love that rhythm.

All I need you to do is sign up and show up.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? I have a weekly class and I want you to try it. The first one is free, and if you like it you can continue to join us.

And as I always say, stay safe and treat yourself real well.

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div]:bg-bg-000/50 [&_pre>div]:border-0.5 [&_pre>div]:border-border-400 [&_.ignore-pre-bg>div]:bg-transparent [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8"> _*]:min-w-0 gap-3 standard-markdown"> The Business Tools That Actually Keep Your VO Career Running

One of the biggest misconceptions in voiceover is that success comes from talent plus a good booth.

And yes, performance matters. Audio quality matters. But what actually creates consistency in this career is operational support. It's the systems you build that allow you to track opportunities, manage relationships, understand your income, organize your marketing, and reduce decision fatigue. Because decision fatigue is real, and it will stop you in your tracks and you will end up doing nothing.

So today I want to walk you through some simple, accessible tools that you can use right now. Even if you don't have a team. Even if you don't have fancy software. Even if you feel completely disorganized.

These are the tools that turn creative chaos into professional clarity.

Excel or Google Sheets I know. A spreadsheet is not anyone's favorite thing. Nobody got into acting because they love spreadsheets. But spreadsheets give you something emotional actors often lack, which is objective data.

If you don't have data, how will you know what's working and what isn't? How will you know how much time to keep spending on something or when to let it go or if you're underpricing yourself in a certain category?

You can track auditions, bookings, client names, rates, follow-ups, usage conflicts, marketing outreach. When you track patterns you stop guessing. And we cannot have a successful career if we are constantly guessing.

A spreadsheet is not restrictive. It's clarifying.

Canva Canva is essentially the modern actor's design department. I know nothing about design and luckily Canva is there for social media graphics, pitch decks, rate sheets, lead magnets, ebooks, presentations.

Actors often think marketing has to look DIY. It doesn't. Clean visual communication builds trust before you ever speak.

I send cold leads lead magnets all the time. Sometimes it's an ebook like how to hire a voiceover actor or a checklist of what to expect when you've hired one. When you are the authority and expert in the room that's when you have true leadership within the role. Canva helps you look like a business with structure instead of a freelancer who's improvising.

I use Canva Pro. You don't have to. There is plenty on the free version that makes it worth having in your arsenal.

A Lightweight CRM When I say CRM a lot of actors panic. Customer relationship management systems can feel very corporate. But you can create a lightweight version with Airtable or Notion or even a spreadsheet. I have one I can send you the link to.

The things you want to track are simple. Who you contacted, when, what their response was, what your email subject line was. Without those few things you can end up re-pitching the same person too soon or forgetting a warm lead entirely.

Consistency beats charisma in client development. I promise you.

A Calendar System Your calendar is not just for appointments. It's for marketing blocks, financial review days, audition batching, content creation, relationship maintenance.

Actors live in reactive mode. A structured calendar helps you move into intentional career design. Time becomes something you allocate strategically instead of something that constantly feels like it's slipping away.

When I transitioned into my block calendar system it changed my life. I know that sounds dramatic but I was constantly chasing minutes and feeling like I never had enough. Now I have control. I can actually plan things out and I'm never just too busy or not busy enough. It really did change my life.

File Organization I know this sounds tiny. It is not.

Clear folder systems on your desktop. Client name, project, scripts, finals. Demos organized by vertical and year. Invoices separated into paid and unpaid. Contracts sorted by active versus expired.

When your files are organized you move faster. Speed is a competitive advantage in this industry, especially if you are working with agents or pay to plays. Disorganization creates friction that drains your creative energy. Spend twenty minutes on this. I promise you will feel so much better and more in control.

A Password Manager This one is very adult and very real. My information was recently hacked and someone stole a significant amount of money from me and spent it all on DoorDash. I was very upset.

Actors juggle casting sites, payment portals, editing software, social platforms. A password manager like LastPass or 1Password protects your business infrastructure. Security is professionalism. Nothing screams professional like having your shit together.

A Capture System for Ideas Your brain is a constant working creative machine. But ideas disappear. How many times have you had a great idea and then completely lost it two minutes later?

Use your notes app, voice memos, Notion boards, Trello. Capture content ideas, client leads, script concepts, branding language. Marketing consistency comes from capturing inspiration before it evaporates.

I create a note, title it something like TikTok ideas, make a checkbox list, and add ideas as they come. When I've done it I check the box. I don't delete it because I might come back to it someday. I wish I had been doing this years ago.

The Bottom Line Tools make you more sustainably creative. They don't make you less creative. They reduce chaos and they reduce the emotional decision-making spiral that actors can get wrapped up in.

The actors who last in this business are not always the most naturally gifted. They're just the most together.

Your homework this week is simple. Choose one tool and implement it imperfectly. It doesn't have to be beautiful or complete. Just begin. Because actors are not built in grand gestures. They are built in small systems that compound over time.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? Send me an email at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com about the tools you're using or maybe a tool I haven't mentioned that's been a game changer for you. I love to hear from you. Find me on TikTok or on Substack at The Actor's Index.

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There are so many incredibly talented actors out there. And so many of them do not get seen.

Meanwhile there are actors with less training booking roles more regularly. And if you are one of those highly trained actors, that is so freaking frustrating. It brings up all the not so helpful questions. Am I not good enough? Why am I not getting these opportunities? Insert your favorite self-doubt here.

But here's the truth. Talent alone does not guarantee visibility. I know this as a casting director. I also know this as an actor.

Talent Is Only One Piece of the Puzzle Acting is an art. Just like painting, just like dancing, just like writing. But the industry that hires actors is a business. And casting directors, I can certainly say this for myself, are not only looking for great performances. We're also asking very practical questions.

Does this actor fit this role? Do they understand the tone, the energy of the project? Do I feel they are professional and prepared? And then my personal favorite: does this actor know they are a good actor?

What tends to happen is actors focus entirely on craft while overlooking the business side. And if you want to make a living as an actor you need to understand that both parts matter. Actually I'd say there's a third part. One of my favorite casting directors of all time, David Katy, talks about this. It's a three part job. The art, the business, and the work on yourself.

Clarity Around Your Positioning One of the reasons talented actors stay invisible is that casting directors don't know where to place them. Or they try to present themselves as everything, and that just doesn't work.

Confusion makes me delete. It really does. It makes me discard and move on.

Go for the low hanging fruit. If you've ever seen pictures of me I am very blonde, blue-eyed, very east coast. I look like I went to preparatory school in Connecticut. And you know why? Because that's exactly what I am. I am the boss. I am the lawyer. That's my low hanging fruit.

I'll tell you an embarrassing story. When I was 16 I went to a summer course at the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York and I wanted to do Runaways. A show about kids on the street, in foster care, drug addicted. I would love to go back to my 16 year old self and say honey, that ain't you. Any John Hughes monologue would have been so much more appropriate. But hey, I was 16. And I met a really cute boy there so that was awesome.

The point is, be where you're at. Go for what you really are. Casting works insanely quickly and we need to understand in seconds where you fit.

Visibility Requires Consistent Action Another reason talented actors remain invisible is that they are not consistently putting themselves out into the industry ecosystem. Most careers grow through steady participation in the professional community. Steady participation.

A lot of actors wait for the industry to discover them. They wait for the phone to ring. That is just not how it works anymore. What I call putting your business on a schedule means knowing exactly what to do and when to do it throughout the year. Auditions, networking, social media, industry relationships, creating your own work, staying engaged with casting directors and collaborators.

Gabrielle Bernstein says the energy you put out is the energy you attract. That steady participation energy is so important.

Confidence and Presence This is the secret sauce. This is the thing I cannot state strongly enough.

I was talking to my teacher Ken Ray from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, who has taught Michelle Dockery, Damien Lewis, Joseph Fiennes, Orlando Bloom, Hayley Atwell, Lily James, Ewan McGregor. I asked him what is the thing they all have. And he talked about presence. That energy. That is what I am always looking to cultivate with my clients.

Two actors can have equal talent. The one who walks in with grounded confidence is the one who makes the stronger impression and books the job. It's the actor who is good at their job and knows they're good at their job.

Confidence doesn't mean arrogance. It means believing you belong in the room. Confidence isn't something that casting gives you. It's something you decide before you go in the door, before you push record on that self tape.

The only person I ever have to convince is me. And that just happens to be the hardest person on the planet. But that's the only person I have to convince.

The Bottom Line Talent matters. But visibility in this industry comes from a combination of things. Craft, clarity, consistency, and confidence. It's a three part job. The art, the business, and the work on yourself.

Talent can open the possibility of an incredible acting career. But clarity and consistency and confidence is what allows the industry to really see you.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? For a limited time I am opening up my calendar for free 15 minute Zoom consults. Email me at peter@actingbusinessbootcamp.com for a time slot.

And as I always say, stay safe and treat yourself real well.

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The Stuff Nobody Puts in Their Instagram Carousel

Everybody wants to talk about the big wins in voiceover. The national spot. The animation series. The dream agent. The viral audition story. But there are operational realities that actually determine whether you stay in this business long term, and those don't make it into anyone's Instagram carousel.

These are the things that quietly make or break your career. Because voiceover is not just a performance career. It is a business, a micro business, and it runs on detail.

Your EIN. Get One. Today. Most actors I talk to don't even know what this is until someone asks them for a W9 and suddenly they're panic googling at midnight. An EIN is basically a business social security number. It's free from the IRS. Do not get scammed into paying for one by a third party provider. Some will charge $75, $150, $200. Go directly to the IRS website.

Getting one doesn't mean you're suddenly a corporation. But psychologically there's a shift. Once you have an EIN you start thinking like a service provider, a vendor, a contracted professional, and not just an artist hoping someone likes you. It also protects your personal information, helps with banking, helps you track income streams, and helps you build structure before you feel ready.

If you have multiple income streams under one voiceover umbrella, I'd suggest creating a separate EIN for each. Keep things clean.

Agents Are Not Marriages They're business relationships. And sometimes you outgrow them, sometimes they outgrow you, sometimes nothing is wrong but alignment shifts.

Breaking up with an agent can feel scary and dramatic and career ending and disloyal. But often it's just a recalibration. You're not going to ghost them. You're not going to give them passive aggressive silence. Be clear and direct. Agents respect clarity, even if they're none too pleased about it. Give it time to cool off and keep that door open. You're closing a chapter, not the whole relationship.

And remember, they've had this conversation numerous times even if you haven't.

The Numbers Are Not the Enemy Invoices, royalty statements, late payments, rate negotiations, quarterly taxes. Not glamorous. But stabilizing. When I see actors avoid the numbers they stay in a constant state of fog and anxiety and magical thinking. Professional creatives learn to sit with the data without letting it define their self worth.

Just because you made $3,000 this year or $300,000 or $3 million, it doesn't change your worth or your ability to be in this business. The money isn't a direct reflection of your talent. But it could be a direct reflection of how you manage it.

Reach out about Rosemarie's money management course at hello@actingbusinessbootcamp.com and ask about the replay. It might really help you break through some of that awkwardness or anxiety you have surrounding your finances.

On Professional Awkwardness Following up on an unpaid invoice can feel confrontational. I promise you it's not. You don't have to make it emotional. Something like: hey there, reaching out because I have an unpaid invoice from this date, here is the copy for your records, I appreciate your attention to this. That's it.

Asking for contract clarification doesn't have to be emotional either. Hey there, I have a quick question surrounding this, can you please provide more insight into what this means? Thank you. Done.

These moments feel socially uncomfortable because most of the time we've only ever met these people over the internet. But confidence in voiceover is not just vocal. It is logistical.

The Bottom Line I think the biggest secret is that this career is built on quiet endurance. Not constant hype. Not daily wins. Not viral validation. It's consistency and small administrative decisions made with clarity and confidence and learning how to tolerate uncertainty, because this industry is uncertain.

The actors who last are not necessarily the most talented. They're the most operationally resilient.

If you are in a season where you are setting up an EIN or negotiating an agent relationship or organizing your workflow or learning contracts or just trying to feel more legit, you're not behind. You're stepping into the part of the career that creates longevity.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? Drop me a line at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com. Find me on TikTok at @astoriaredhead or on Substack at The Actor's Index. I'm always happy to help you get your business together.

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There's a version of an acting career that looks like a highlight reel. Big auditions. Exciting callbacks. The moment everything clicks.

Most working actors don't live there.

They live in the Tuesday morning version. The one where nobody's calling, there's no audition on the calendar, and showing up anyway is the whole job.

That's where I want to talk to you today.

It doesn't start with a booking

After 30 years as a working actor, I can tell you with real certainty: the career didn't come from the bookings.

It came from who I decided to be on the days when absolutely nobody was watching.

No callback waiting. No agent checking in. Just me, sitting down with my craft, saying okay. Let's go again.

That's it. Not exactly a glamorous origin story. But consistency is like that. It's not cinematic. It's steady.

And steady, it turns out, is exactly what a long career looks like. I've been a working actor for over three decades. Qualifying for health insurance. Making a living, some years better than others. That's freelance life. But it has been consistent, and I don't think I say that out loud enough. So I'm doing it publicly, right now.

Why "waiting to feel motivated" is a trap

Here's something worth sitting with: motivation is fickle. It comes and goes based on your mood, your last rejection, what you had for lunch.

Systems, though? Systems show up whether you feel like it or not.

Training goes in the calendar. Outreach goes in the calendar. Those tasks get a home so your brain doesn't have space to negotiate with you. Because if you let your brain negotiate, you might lose.

Think about training the way you think about brushing your teeth. You don't wait to feel inspired for that. You do it because you're a person who brushes their teeth. Same energy. You do the work because you're an actor, not because every single session lights you on fire.

And when those habits become automatic, you free up emotional bandwidth. More bandwidth means you show up to the work with more of yourself. Which is kind of the whole point.

Quiet periods are not a verdict

Three decades in, I can look back at the stretches that felt empty and see something different now.

Most of them were setting up what came next.

When the industry goes quiet, consistency still shows up. In the emails you send anyway. The relationships you tend. The self-tape you prep before anyone asks for it. The career is moving even when it doesn't feel like it.

Quiet is not failure. Quiet is incubation.

When you stop rushing to prove something, you can actually see where you're growing.

Borrow from your future self

Picture the version of you who works steadily. Who earns from this craft. What does that actor do today, when they don't feel like it?

They train anyway. They follow up. They send the tape. They don't wait to feel ready because readiness isn't a feeling, it's a practice.

That future self becomes your compass. Not the booking. Not the callback. The daily decision to keep going.

That's the art of consistency.

Grab my free PDF, Planning Out Your Day the Night Before

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Here's a myth that floats around the voiceover world. Once you have a demo, a decent mic, and a couple bookings, you can kind of coast.

I want to dismantle that right now.

Voice acting is a motor skill, an interpretive skill, and a business skill. And all three degrade without repetition. Athletes don't stop training after a good game. Musicians don't stop running scales after a sold out show. Your instrument works the same way. Without regular contact, reads become stiff, choices become generic, tension creeps into your jaw and neck, and your instincts start to feel shaky.

That's not a slump. That's what happens when you stop practicing.

What Practice Actually Is On the surface voiceover looks like you just talk. But under the hood you're coordinating breath support, articulation, emotional authenticity, pacing, timing, mic technique, and script analysis all at once. That's a lot of simultaneous processing.

Practice isn't punishment. It's lubrication. It keeps the system fluid and limber. You want to be able to move your elbow without it popping and cracking. Same thing with your instrument.

The Warmup (Five to Ten Minutes, That's It) Start with your body. Roll your shoulders. Stretch your neck. Shake out your arms. Do some exaggerated yawns. The voice lives in the body, and this signals safety to the nervous system and reduces vocal constriction.

Then activate your breath. Inhale for four and exhale on a steady S or ZZZ for as long as possible. This builds the controlled airflow that's essential for conversational reads. Add some short burst exhales too, because your internal clock matters, especially in commercial work where you need to know instinctively what a 15 feels like versus a 30 or a 60.

From there, do some articulation work. Over enunciate a short paragraph. Chew the words slowly. Feel where your tongue is, where your voice naturally sits. Then gradually return to natural speech, keeping the clarity without the stiffness.

Finish with some gentle humming. Slide your pitch up and down like a siren, then speak a line of copy with the resonance in your chest. Feel the tonal flexibility you have. That range is crucial for casting.

What to Actually Practice Practice is not just reading scripts out loud. Real practice has objectives. Here's what I recommend rotating through during the week.

Conversational realism. Take a piece of commercial copy and intentionally underplay it. Record a natural take and then one slightly more energized. Listen back. Where does authenticity drop into performance?

Timing. Work with 15 second copy and challenge yourself to hit clarity, emotional arc, and brand tone without rushing or dying in that window.

Emotional specificity. Pick one subtle emotion per session. Amused. Intrigued. Conspiratorial. Practice letting your tone shift without changing your volume. We often assume volume is doing one thing when it's actually doing something else entirely.

Mic technique. Record the same line very close, at mid distance, and slightly off axis. Hear how intimacy and presence change depending on where you are in relation to the mic.

And then the one that tends to frustrate people. Listening back. I say this a lot: actors practice speaking. Professionals practice listening back. Where did tension enter? Where did you believe yourself? Was that laugh forced? Did pacing drag? You're training your internal director, and that matters because a lot of this business is self-directed.

The Power of Micro Practice The biggest misconception I hear is that practice requires an hour. It doesn't. Three minutes of intentional reps is more powerful than one chaotic hour once a week.

Micro practice can look like reading one piece of copy before your coffee. Recording one exploratory take before bed. Running articulation drills in the car. Practicing brand tone shifts while you cook. It doesn't all have to happen in the booth. You're building familiarity with your instrument wherever you are.

That familiarity reduces audition anxiety because your voice feels available. It feels like you. And that freedom builds trust.

The Cool Down (Yes, This Is Real) Vocal fatigue is very real, and almost nobody talks about the cool down. After heavy sessions, and sometimes mine run four to six hours, gentle humming, light lip drills, and soft descending pitch slides help tell your body that the performance demand is over. This prevents strain accumulation over time.

Also, hydrate. And avoid jumping immediately into loud conversation or whispering.

The Bottom Line If you've been waiting for motivation to practice, I want you to replace motivation with structure. Pick one focus. Five minutes. Today.

Careers in this space aren't built in bursts of inspiration. They're built in quiet repetitions that no one else sees. Opportunities in voiceover don't give you a warning. They give you a script and a deadline. The actors who book consistently aren't the ones who feel inspired every day. They're the ones who stayed in the relationship with their instrument even when it got messy and no one was watching.

Five intentional minutes a day compounds into a completely different level of confidence over time. Give yourself that advantage.

Want to Keep the Conversation Going? Drop me a line at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com. Tell me what you're working on, what you're struggling with, what your wins are. I want to hear it.

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I came across a Ted Talk by cognitive neuroscientist Tali Sharot about how to motivate yourself to change your behavior. And then I did what I always do. I took it, ran with it, and made it into something actors can actually use.

And here's something I want you to think about before we dive in. This core work applies directly to character building too. How would your character motivate themselves to change their behavior? How do you motivate yourself to hit the behavior of the character you're portraying? While you're working on making a better life for yourself, you're also making yourself a better actor.

1. Lead With What You Want, Not With Your Fear Fear might get your attention. Mine can be quite loud and annoying. But it rarely keeps you moving. What you want to do is focus on the version of you that feels lighter, calmer, more capable. Your brain is actually wired to move toward desire. So paint the picture so clearly that you can almost walk right into it.

2. Make the Reward Immediate, Even If the Goal Is Long Term Your brain loves instant wins. So give yourself one. A tiny celebration after you train, take a class, do a warmup, send an outreach email. Just let yourself feel good. Put a gold star in your planner. Small rewards trick your nervous system into believing the change is actually paying off. This comes straight from neuroscience, by the way. Reward yourself. Don't punish yourself.

3. Break the Habit Into Something So Small You Can't Talk Yourself Out of It When I decided to re-up my workout routine, I started with 10 minutes. I said, I can do anything for 10 minutes. Something that felt almost torturous at first became easy. Four and a half years later I'm still doing that same exercise.

The principle is simple. How can you talk yourself out of one page of script work? Five minutes of meditation? One outreach email? Tiny steps create momentum because you stop negotiating with yourself. You're just doing the next doable thing.

And on that note, stop negotiating with yourself entirely. Make a decision and stick to it.

1. Surround Yourself With People Who Reflect Your Highest Self Back to You Inspiration is contagious. Support is contagious. Courage is contagious. Spend time with people who remind you who you are becoming, not who you have been. Let their belief in you rub off on you until it feels like your own.

I see this every week in my classes. I'm teaching them, but they remind me what courage looks like. What consistency looks like. What it looks like to schedule your week so it reflects your dreams, not your fear.

Let that one sit with you.

1. Borrow Energy From Your Future Self And here's the thing that stopped me cold. This cognitive neuroscientist is saying the exact same thing I talk about in my future self work. Picture the version of you who lives this change effortlessly. The one who feels grounded, consistent, confident. Ask what that version of you would choose in this moment. Let them lead.

When you act from your future instead of your fear, the behavior shift sticks.

A Small Favor This is an unsponsored podcast. Mandy and I record these on our own time because we love it. If you've gotten something out of this episode, please leave a five star review wherever you listen. It means so much to us.

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There's a scene in You've Got Mail where Tom Hanks tells Meg Ryan not to take something personally. It's just business. And she stops him cold. The business is her life. Of course it's personal.

I think about that scene a lot. Because she's right. And also, she's stuck.

Here's the shift I want you to make.

Stop taking things personally. Start taking them professionally. Those sound similar. They are not.

Why Actors Take Everything Personally Our instrument is us. That's the whole thing. A graphic designer can move a logo and it's fine. But when someone tells an actor to be warmer, edgier, younger, more authoritative, our nervous system doesn't hear direction. It hears: you're wrong. You're not enough. Go home.

That's not what's actually happening. What's happening is market alignment. Casting is almost never about worth. It's about fit. Specification match. And actors who build long careers learn to separate identity from utility. You are a human being with inherent worth. You are also a specific service provider with a specific skillset. Those are not the same conversation.

What "Taking It Personally" Actually Sounds Like They didn't like me. I embarrassed myself. Everyone else is better. I'll never book. Why do I even do this.

That's emotionally fueled, identity based, and global. It turns one moment into a life narrative. I had someone say something to me in seventh grade about my glasses and I haven't put them on a single day without thinking about it. I need to let that go. And so do you, wherever yours is.

Compare that to taking something professionally: interesting, that read didn't align with their brand direction. My tone might have been too strong for that buyer. Let me track this pattern. That processing is specific, curious, and contained. It asks what's useful here, not what does this mean about me.

Rejection Is Not a Verdict It's feedback from a small sample size in a specific moment in time. It can mean the wrong vocal age for that campaign, a timing issue, an energy mismatch, budget politics, an internal brand shift, or just randomness. None of that equals not talented.

When you take it personally, you collapse all that nuance into shame. When you take it professionally, you extract patterns that help you grow.

Professional working actors are pattern analysts. They ask where they get traction most often, where they consistently stall, what adjectives keep showing up in feedback, and whether their casting lane is tightening or expanding. That mindset turns rejection into career intelligence.

Criticism vs. Direction A lot of actors hear criticism when what's actually being offered is direction. And those are different things.

Direction means someone is investing attention in your performance. They see potential. They believe you can pivot. They're trying to get you to the finish line. Personal thinking hears I'm failing. Professional thinking hears we're collaborating.

Calibration is not humiliation. It's collaboration.

Emotional Regulation Is a Career Skill You cannot eliminate emotional reactions. You're an artist and a human. But you can shorten the recovery time. That's the real work.

You feel it. You name it. You move through it. You extract the lesson. You return to action. You don't feel it, become it, build an identity around it, and quit marketing for three weeks.

There's actually some neuroscience behind this. Your brain doesn't distinguish well between a social threat and a physical threat. When casting says not this time, your amygdala activates the same alarm system designed to keep you from getting eaten by a bear. Your prefrontal cortex, the strategic thinking part, partially goes offline. That's why you catastrophize. That's why you spiral. That's not weakness. That's biology.

But professionals train themselves to reengage the thinking brain faster. They create cognitive bridges. This is one data point. This is market feedback. There is no bear. That language literally helps regulate your nervous system.

A Story About a Booking I Didn't Get Early in my career I had an audition I was really proud of. Multiple callbacks. Real connection with the casting team. And then silence. Weeks and weeks. Another callback. More silence. And then I found out who booked it and I spiraled.

Not because that person wasn't good. They were. But because I had made it mean something about my personal trajectory. I sat in my apartment thinking maybe I'm just not castable. Maybe I missed my window. That's not professional processing. That's identity panic.

Fast forward a few years. I ended up working with that same creative team on a completely different campaign. Nothing changed about my worth. My fit changed. The project changed. And that was one of the first times I understood: the industry isn't rejecting you. It's sorting for specificity. It's one giant Tetris game trying to fit everyone where they belong.

If you don't understand that, you will burn through emotional fuel you cannot afford.

Your Homework After your next rejection or piece of feedback, grab a notebook and draw a line down the middle. Label one side personal story. Label the other side professional data.

On the personal side, write everything your brain is saying. They hated me. I sounded stupid. I'll never book. Get it out. Don't censor it.

Then on the professional side, translate. The spec may have skewed younger. My pacing was too deliberate. This buyer prefers conversational. Whatever it is.

That exercise moves you from emotional fusion to observational distance. And that distance is where strategy lives. Do it consistently and I promise your recovery time shortens, your auditions feel lighter, and your business thinking sharpens.

What I Want You to Remember You are not fragile for feeling things deeply. That sensitivity is part of what makes you a compelling performer. But you are responsible for what you do with those feelings.

A sustainable acting career is not built on constant validation. It's built on emotional regulation, pattern recognition, positioning, and the willingness to keep showing up.

When you stop confusing your identity with your casting, you free up enormous creative and professional energy.

The next time rejection or criticism hits, pause and ask one question: what's useful here?

That's what builds longevity.

Want to Talk Through This? Drop me a line at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com, find me on Substack at The Actors Index, or on TikTok at Astoria Red.

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Close your eyes for a second.

It's December 2026. The year is almost over. And there's a version of you standing there, the actor you've been working toward all year. How are they carrying themselves? How do they walk into a room? How do they talk about their career?

That version of you is not a fantasy. They're a compass.

Why Vague Futures Lead to Vague Choices Here's the thing I keep coming back to. If your future is fuzzy, your decisions are going to be fuzzy too. You'll take the class when it "fits." You'll do the outreach when you feel like it. You'll set the boundary when it's convenient.

But December you doesn't operate that way.

The clearer you get about who that person is, the easier it becomes to act in alignment with them right now. Every choice you make today is either a vote for that version of you or it isn't. That's it. That's really the whole framework.

Let Your Future Self Design Your Schedule This is something I go deep on in my weekly accountability and time management class for actors. Your calendar will tell the truth long before your excuses do.

Look at your week through December's eyes. Would that version of you have prioritized training? Outreach? Rest? Boundaries? Start building your days around what your future self considers non-negotiable, not what your current self finds convenient.

That's how you move from wishing into actual structural change.

Train Like the Actor You Are Becoming The old version of you took class when it fit. The December version shows up even when it's inconvenient.

Think of it in terms of reps. Every class you take, every self-tape you submit, every email you send with intention, those are reps. And your reps today are your bookings tomorrow. You are literally building that future actor one choice at a time.

Ask yourself: what would the actor I want to be be working on right now? That question will recalibrate you faster than almost anything else.

Let Future You Choose Your Boundaries Too December you is not saying yes to every draining request. She knows what supports the work and what depletes it.

When you feel torn about a boundary, when you're deciding whether to say yes or no to something, ask yourself: what would December me choose here? That question cuts through a lot of noise. And a lot of people pleasing.

If a boundary protects your craft, it is not selfish. It's necessary.

Celebrate Every Aligned Choice This part matters more than people think. Every time you behave like your future self, even in a small way, acknowledge it. Celebrate it. Good job. That was me acting from my future, not my fear.

That's how you wire yourself for a new identity. You're training your brain to recognize, oh, this is who we are now. Every aligned choice is a vote for the actor you want to become.

Also in This Episode: Healing Your Money Story I recorded a three-part class called Healing Your Money Story: From Survival Mode to Abundance, and I want to be clear about what it is and what it isn't.

It's not about budgeting. It's not about discipline. It's about understanding where your money patterns actually came from and why they live in your body, not just in your head. Inherited beliefs. Nervous system fear. Shame. Identity. And what it actually takes to feel safe around money.

If money has ever made you tense, avoidant, or stuck in survival mode, this class was made for you.

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Stop Letting the Industry Define Your Success (Before It's Too Late) I was 16 years old. I walked out of an audition without a callback. And I cried.

Not because the audition went badly. Not because I wasn't prepared. Just because the answer was no. I had already handed my peace over to the outcome, and I didn't even know I was doing it.

I think about that girl a lot. I wish I could go back and tell her: it's one audition. One. In a lifetime of auditions. You are going to be fine.

The Problem with Letting the Industry Define Your Success

Here's what nobody says out loud: if you wait for a booking to feel successful, you will spend most of your career feeling like a failure.

Not because you're not talented. Not because you're not working hard enough. Because the odds of this business mean that even working, thriving actors hear "no" far more than "yes." The casting grid doesn't care about your growth. It doesn't see how far you've come.

So if that's where your sense of worth lives, you're giving away your power every single day.

Stop outsourcing your worth to your bookings.

Let Success Be a Feeling Before It Is an Event

Wayne Dyer said it well: change the way you look at things and the things you look at change. That's not just a nice quote. It's a real shift in how you experience your career every single day.

When success is a distant event, like landing a series regular by a certain age, you spend most of your life waiting. And not-yet always feels a lot like failure.

But when you redefine success as how you live the day? That's something you actually control.

Did you train today? Did you take one step in your business? Did you care for your nervous system? That's success. Measurable, real, and fully yours.

I worked out this morning and I wanted to quit about six times. But I didn't. And when I was done, I was genuinely moved. Good job. You did it even when you didn't want to. Nobody handed me that feeling. It was mine.

Goals, Habits, and Identity Are Three Different Things

Most actors blur these together. They matter separately.

• Goals are results you want. Booking a co-star. Getting new footage. Landing a manager.
• Habits are what you do consistently. Self-taping weekly. Taking class. Staying in touch with your network.
• Identity is who you decide you are. Not who you'll become if everything works out. Who you are right now.

You can hold all three at once. Goal: book a co-star. Habit: self-tape every week. Identity: I am a working actor in progress. That combination is what actually works.

When you stop tying your identity to your outcomes, you become more resilient. And in this business, resilience is everything. Consistency, persistence, tenacity. Those might be the three most important words in this industry.

Your Habits Are the Bridge

Something I wrote down recently that I keep coming back to:

Your habits are the bridge between your identity and your goals.

Not your bookings. Not your callbacks. Your daily habits. The quiet, unglamorous work nobody sees. That's the bridge.

The industry will always be chaotic. Platforms change. Trends shift. But training, the real core craft work, that's where you go to remember who you are. When your craft is solid, you can ride out the storms without losing yourself.

Check In With Yourself. Regularly.

Update your definition of success on a regular basis. You grow. Your definition should grow with you.

Ask yourself: what does success look like for me today? Maybe it's rebuilding your confidence. Maybe it's getting new footage. Maybe it's strengthening one relationship in the industry.

If your definition of success hasn't changed in a while, you haven't let yourself evolve.

One More Thing: Your Money Story Matters Too

Everything we just talked about, identity, worth, fear, what safety feels like, it doesn't only show up in your career. It shows up in your relationship with money too.

I created a 3-part class called Healing Your Money Story: From Survival Mode to Abundance. This is not about budgeting. It's not about forcing a positive attitude or shaming yourself into discipline.

It's about understanding where your money patterns came from and why they live in your body, not just your thoughts. Inherited beliefs, the nervous system, shame, money identity, and what it actually takes to feel safe with money.

Can you imagine that? Feeling genuinely safe around money.

If money has ever made you tense, avoidant, ashamed, or stuck in paycheck-to-paycheck survival mode, this class was made for you. Click here to learn more.

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You walk into a networking event. You hover. You don't want to bother anyone.

Or you send a follow-up email that says "just checking in." Or you audition without really framing who you are or why you're there. And then nothing happens, and you think, I'm doing everything right. Why isn't this working?

Here's what I think is actually going on.

It's not effort. It's orientation.

What "Subtle Intrusion" Actually Means I want to unpack a phrase that sounds edgy but isn't what you think. Subtle intrusion is not manipulation. It's not loud. It's not ego. It's the art of placing yourself where opportunities happen, strategically, intentionally, and with respect for the room you're entering.

Influence doesn't come from volume. It comes from clarity.

As actors, we're trained to pour out, to express, to expand. But nobody really teaches you how to be seen in business spaces. So most of us figure it out by trial and fire, usually after a few cringe-worthy networking moments and a string of emails that went nowhere.

The Two Traps Most Actors Fall Into Trap one: thinking that being loud and flashy gets you noticed.

Trap two: thinking that staying quiet keeps you safe.

Neither works. The people who build real careers are the ones who enter with intention, speak with awareness, and follow through with respect. That's not a personality type. It's a learnable skill.

What Intentional Presence Actually Looks Like Before you step into any room, physical or digital, I want you to notice the rhythm first. Observe. Orient. Then insert.

Your first sentence is not your line. It's your offer of value.

And your follow-up? Never "just checking in" or "bubbling this back up." Instead: here's where we left off, here's what I suggest next. That's it. Clean, clear, useful.

Be predictable in how reliable you are. Be unpredictable in your value. People remember consistency and clarity, not chaos.

The Email Problem (Yes, This Applies There Too) I'll call it out directly. Most actors write emails that ask too much, ask too little, lack structure, or feel emotionally loaded. A subtle intrusion email is clear. It gives a reason. It gives an action. It makes responding easy without forcing a response.

If your emails run three times longer than they need to, that doesn't read as thorough. It reads as anxious. And anxiety is not confidence.

I have three email courses for exactly this reason. One for agents, one for cold leads, and one for casting directors and other entertainment industry contacts, because each of those relationships requires something different from you.

The Real Reason It Feels Uncomfortable If subtle intrusion sounds hard, I think I know why.

You don't fully trust that you're enough without all the effort.

So you overcompensate. You flood the space. You over-explain, over-perform, overshare. And it doesn't land the way you want it to.

Professional energy is steadiness. It means you don't emotionally offload onto strangers. You don't need immediate validation. You show up anchored, and anchored reads as competent.

Your Homework Pick one area. Auditions, emails, meetings, content, conversations. Ask yourself: where am I adding noise instead of clarity?

Then remove one thing. One extra sentence. One unnecessary explanation. One emotional hedge.

See what happens.

You don't need permission to take up space. You need awareness of how you take it.

Want to Talk Through This? Set up a free consult with me. Reach out at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com and grab a spot on my calendar. Let's talk clarity and systems.

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The Thing Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud I get ghosted. A lot.

Free consults, strategy calls, portfolio reviews. People who asked, people who booked, people who confirmed. And then? Nothing. No email. No reschedule. No apology. Just a no-show.

This episode isn't about shame. It's about an honest question: if you're skipping the low-stakes stuff, what happens when the stakes are actually high?

What Ghosting a Free Call Really Costs You It's easy to tell yourself a missed consult doesn't matter. It's free. It's casual. It's not an audition.

But here's the thing. It kind of is.

Every commitment you make, even a small one, is a chance to practice being the kind of professional people want to work with. Casting directors don't see your intentions. Agents don't feel your potential. Clients don't care how overwhelmed you are. They experience your behavior. And if your behavior says "unreliable," that's what sticks.

Missed calls. Unsubmitted emails. Deadlines that slipped. Relationships that quietly went cold. None of these feel like a big break moment. But they add up. And six months later, when things feel slow, this is often why.

Disorganization Is Not a Personality Type Being bad at time management is not a creative badge. Being bad at email is not a quirk. These are systems problems. And systems can be fixed.

You don't need a $40 productivity app. You need a calendar, a reminder system, and one place where all your commitments live. That's it. I have ADHD. I know firsthand how hard this can be. And I also know it can be done.

Memory is unreliable. Systems aren't.

The Homework (Yes, There Is Homework) Here's a practical reset you can start today.

Audit your commitments. Write down everything you've said yes to this month. Every single thing. Then cancel what you genuinely can't honor, and cancel it cleanly. Don't ghost it.

Pick one system and actually use it. Google Calendar, iCal, a paper notebook. One place. Set reminders like you don't trust yourself, because right now, maybe you shouldn't.

Practice showing up early. Early is calm. Early is professional. Early is power. I grew up hearing: if you're 15 minutes early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late. If you're late, you're fired. That habit has saved my career more times than I can count.

The Real Question Can you be trusted to do your job?

Not talent. Not range. Not training or demos or headshots. Can people trust you to show up, follow through, and be where you said you'd be?

If the answer is no right now, that's okay. Give yourself some grace. But start today. Because no one is coming to rescue your career.

You don't need rescuing. You need structure.

Talent opens doors. Reliability keeps them open.

Work With Me Want a free 15-minute consult? Reach out at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com and yes, show up for it.

Browse current classes and coaching at actingbusinessbootcamp.com

Join the Discord and follow me on Substack at Astoria Redhead

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There's a version of career advice that's all hustle. Post more. Submit more. Network harder. And look, that stuff matters. But there's something most acting coaches don't talk about, and it might be the thing that's actually keeping you stuck.

Your inner world runs your outer results.

In this episode, Peter Pamela Rose goes deep on the spiritual side of building an acting career, not in a woo-woo, burn-a-candle way, but in a real, practical, what-do-you-do-on-a-Tuesday-morning way. Five points to cover. Let's get started.

Start the Year with Intention, Not Panic A lot of actors kick off a new year in a quiet state of dread. Will I book anything? Will I get reps? Is it going to be like last year? Intention sounds different. It sounds like: this year I choose grounded confidence. I choose courage. I choose to show up.

Intention sets the emotional weather of your year. You still do the practical work. But now it sits inside something that actually supports you. And if you don't claim the energy of your year, your fear will do it for you.

Strengthen Your Muscle of Choice When you practice making conscious choices, small ones, daily ones, you start building real faith. Not just faith in the universe, but faith in yourself. Maryanne Williamson says every thought creates form on some level. That's not abstract. That's a daily practice.

Ask for Guidance Like It's Part of Your Training You wouldn't skip a vocal warmup. So why treat spiritual support like an afterthought? Spend a few moments each day asking: show me the next right step. Help me see what I am not seeing. Over time the static quiets. Ideas start arriving. Trust the quiet nudges that don't make sense yet. That's usually where the next opening lives.

Choose Courage Over Comparison Comparison drains your spiritual battery faster than almost anything else. When you scroll and compare, you forget you are on your own curriculum. Courage sounds like: I bless their journey and I stay on mine. The industry responds differently when you are not silently begging it to prove your worth. You cannot build your career and obsess about someone else's at the same time.

Show Up with Grounded Energy Casting directors, directors, producers, they feel your energy long before they assess your resume. Meditation, journaling, prayer, whatever your practice is. It is not the extra. It is the continued practice. A steady inner life makes you harder to shake in the room and on tape. A grounded actor is an unforgettable actor.

Enjoyed This Episode? Acting Business Bootcamp is an unsponsored podcast. Peter and Mandy do it because they love it. If this episode resonated with you, please leave a five star review wherever you listen. It means the world and helps other actors find the show.

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div]:bg-bg-000/50 [&_pre>div]:border-0.5 [&_pre>div]:border-border-400 [&_.ignore-pre-bg>div]:bg-transparent [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8"> _*]:min-w-0 gap-3 standard-markdown"> If you've been telling yourself you're unmotivated or burnt out or lazy or somehow broken, I want you to pause for a second. Because there's a good chance that none of that is true.

There's a good chance you're not lacking drive. You're avoiding grief.

The Grief Creative Entrepreneurs Don't Name Before you check out, this isn't about tragedy or loss in the obvious sense. This is about the kind of grief that creative entrepreneurs rarely name.

It's grief for expectations that didn't pan out.

The grief of versions of yourself you thought you'd be by now.

The grief of timelines that expired.

Most people don't talk about this because it feels dramatic. But it's not dramatic. It's subtle and it's quiet, and it shows up as I just can't get myself to do the thing.

What Grief Actually Looks Like Creative entrepreneurs are really good at mislabeling this. We call it burnout or lack of motivation or discipline. But what's actually happening is something inside of you is unfinished.

And for people like us, that's hard to deal with. It's not a task. It's a feeling.

Grief doesn't always look like crying. Sometimes it looks like:

Doom scrolling

Procrastinating

Getting yourself ready to do the thing, and then just sitting there

Rearranging your workspace for the fifth time instead of starting

Productivity with no direction

You're doing things. You're just not doing that thing. The one that matters. The one that could move you forward. Because moving forward would mean acknowledging what didn't happen, and that's the part we avoid.

Why We Skip Grief (And What Happens When We Do) We're taught to stay positive, right? How many times have you been told that? Just stay positive. Reframe. Pivot. Look for the lesson.

And yes, okay, that's useful eventually. But grief doesn't like being bypassed. If you skip it, it doesn't just disappear. It shows up as fatigue or lack of desire that you can't really explain.

And you might tell yourself, I should be more grateful.

Other people have it worse.

And that could be true. But gratitude doesn't cancel grief. They can coexist. You can be grateful for what you have and still mourn what you lost or what you never got.

A lot of creative entrepreneurs are carrying grief for things that never had a funeral.

What You Might Be Grieving The career that didn't take off the way you imagined. When I was a child, I knew with my whole heart I was going to be doing Shakespeare in the park. That didn't turn out for me. Maybe it will someday, but that's something I've had to grieve.

A version of yourself that you believed would be easier to have by now.

No one really tells you how to grieve those things, so you don't. You just kind of push harder, or you stop pushing altogether, and then you judge yourself for it.

Here's something important: Motivation is an output. It is not a moral quality.

It tends to disappear when you're carrying unresolved emotional weight. Grief is heavy. And when you start to notice it, you realize your body isn't resisting the work. It's protecting you from feeling something that you haven't given yourself permission to feel.

Grief Doesn't Resolve with Time, It Resolves with Attention Avoiding grief looks like waiting for clarity or inspiration or to feel like yourself. But grief doesn't resolve on its own with time. It resolves with attention.

I'm not saying you need to fall apart or wallow or stop working and take a break. I'm just saying you might need to acknowledge what you've been pretending didn't matter.

Because I say that to myself all the time when something doesn't pan out for me. I'm like, oh, well it didn't matter. It did matter.

Ask yourself this, very gently:

What version of my life am I quietly disappointed didn't happen?

What did I believe would be true by now that isn't?

What am I still trying to outrun by staying busy, or by doing nothing?

These questions aren't meant to derail you. They're meant to unstick you. Because grief that goes unnamed will keep hijacking your energy.

Grief Isn't the Opposite of Ambition This is the part most people miss. Grief isn't the opposite of ambition. It's often the doorway back to it.

Because once you stop pretending you're fine with something you're not fine with, your energy starts to return. As this steady willingness to engage again.

You don't have to fix the grief. You just have to stop avoiding it.

Sometimes that looks like saying out loud: I thought I'd be further along by now.

Sometimes it looks like letting yourself feel sad without immediately turning it into a lesson.

Sometimes it looks like saying: This didn't go the way that I hoped.

And that honesty doesn't weaken you. It frees up space. And from that space, guess what comes back? Motivation. Not forced or frantic, but grounded.

What Happens After You Acknowledge Grief Things don't suddenly feel amazing. But they do feel clearer.

And clarity can feel uncomfortable. Because grief, when you acknowledge it, has a way of reorganizing things. You might realize you don't want what you used to want anymore. You might notice certain goals feel hollow now. That chapter is really done.

That can be destabilizing, especially for creative entrepreneurs, because so much of our identity is wrapped up in our projects. We're so used to asking, What's next? What's the plan? What am I building toward?

And grief doesn't answer those questions. It asks a different one:

What matters now?

And sometimes that answer is smaller than you expected. Sometimes it's rest, or simplifying, or choosing depth over growth.

The Fear of Slowing Down This is where people start to panic. An actor actually said this to me a couple days ago:

If I slow down, I'll lose everything. If I stop pushing, I will fall behind. I can't let myself feel this because I won't come back from it.

But avoiding grief doesn't keep you in motion. It keeps you stuck in cycles. Push, crash, recover, repeat. Push, crash, recover, repeat.

Acknowledging grief is often what interrupts that loop.

Grief Recalibrates Your Tolerance Grief inconveniently recalibrates your tolerance for bullshit. Things you used to tolerate now suddenly feel unbearable.

Projects that once felt exciting now feel draining.

Obligations you said yes to out of fear start to feel misaligned.

This isn't you becoming difficult. It's you becoming honest with yourself.

And honesty has consequences. You might disappoint people. You might change your mind. You might need to renegotiate your relationships. That's part of it. Grow up.

Grief strips away the versions of ourselves that we've built to survive, not necessarily to thrive. And yeah, that can feel scary because survival strategies are familiar, even when they're exhausting.

The Reframe That Matters You're shedding urgency that no longer makes sense. You're letting goals go that were fueled by pressure instead of your actual desire.

That space is more sustainable for you because that's where you can really grow. Not in panic. Rooted in choice.

Grief clears the noise so you can hear that steady place again.

What to Do Next Don't ask what's wrong with you. Nothing's wrong with you.

Ask yourself:

What am I asking myself to ignore?

What disappointments haven't I named?

What ending haven't I acknowledged?

What hope am I still holding onto that might need to be released?

This isn't about giving up. It's about letting go of what's already gone so you can show up fully to what is here now.

Sometimes you're going to feel fine. Sometimes it's going to hit you sideways in the middle of a workday. Sometimes it's just going to make you tired. All of that is normal.

What matters is that you stop treating those moments like obstacles to productivity. They're information. Your system saying, Hey, pay attention to this.

And if you let yourself listen, even just for a second, you might find that motivation starts to come back in small ways. This willingness to engage again. This okay, yeah, I can do the next thing. And the next thing.

Work With Me If you want to chat about anything or set up a free consult with me to talk about your voiceover career, please reach out to me at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com.

I'll see you next time.

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Things are heating up in the Weekly Accountability Time Management Class, and this episode is all about one of the most important topics for any working actor: how to refresh your toolkit for 2026.

I have five essential points to cover that will help you align your tools with the actor you are becoming. Let's get started.

Align Your Tools with the Actor You Are Becoming Every piece of your toolkit should answer one question: What are the roles that I am calling in with my tools?

Your headshots, your reels, your clips, your website, your resume—they aren't random. They are signals to casting directors. They are signals to producers. They are signals to writers and directors.

If your tools reflect who you were five years ago, they can't sell who you are now and who you want to become.

Think about 2026 by asking yourself: Does this material tell the story of the actor I want to be booked as today and in the future?

As Marianne Williamson says, we are powerful beyond measure when we act with intention.

And here's a PPR quote for you: Your tools are not decoration. They are direction.

Audit Your Materials Without Drama This can be challenging, so I'm just going to warn you ahead of time.

Most actors avoid looking at their tools because they attach their entire self-worth to a headshot or a clip. But you cannot update what you refuse to see.

Do a calm, natural review:

What's working here?

What feels outdated?

What is missing?

Look at your materials like a business owner, not a wounded teenager.

Jen Sincero, author of the Badass books, says: What you choose to focus on expands.

So I don't want you focusing on that wounded teenager or that wounded child. I want you to be focusing on who you are today and who you want to become—the actor you are today and the actor you want to become.

Update Your Target Lists with Precision We talk about this in the weekly accountability and time management class all the time, so listen up.

Your career is not the industry as a whole. Your career is a specific group of casting directors, agents, managers, and creatives who are a fit for you. Just for you.

Once a month, I want you to be cleaning up your list. Remove people who no longer make sense to you anymore. Add the new shows, offices, and companies that are a match of where you want to be heading.

Precision makes your outreach more effective and less emotional.

Again, Jen Sincero: You're going to have to push past your comfort zone if you want to change.

You can't have the career you want being the person that you are. You need to change. A vague career plan creates vague results. We don't want to be vague.

Simplify Your Marketing So You Can Actually Do It Hello? If you can't actually do it, it's not good time management.

An overcomplicated system will die by February. Your marketing needs to be simple enough that you can maintain it on a busy week.

A basic outreach schedule. A template email. A simple tracking sheet or a simple tracking system. These things are enough.

The question is not how fancy is my system and how impressive is it. The question is: Will I be able to use this when I'm tired?

Gabrielle Bernstein says: When you relax, you receive.

And my quote is: If your system is exhausting, it's not a system, it's a stall tactic.

Ooh, ouch. Did you just go, oof? Did you just go, oh, PPR, how could you? Yeah, that's a bit of a stab in the gut.

And here's a bonus: Perfectionism leads to procrastination, leads to paralysis.

Commit to One Improvement Each Month Instead of trying to overhaul everything all at once, pick one upgrade per month.

Maybe in one month you update headshots and you choose the best ones. Or in February or March or April or May you clean up your reel. Or in another month you're refining your resume or a website.

This is one of the things I talked about in my class—putting your business on a schedule for 2026. So important to do that. So important to do that.

These focused upgrades in a year will move you much further than one frantic burst that burns you out.

Remember that your career is built in layers.

Join the Weekly Accountability & Time Management Class If you want help with any of this, I'd love to see you in the weekly accountability and time management class. It's super affordable. It's super fun. And guess what? You get a class for free.

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Self-Perception and the Stories We Call "Logic" Most actors don't think they're afraid.

They think they're being responsible.

They say things like:

• It's not the right time
• I need to be more prepared
• I don't want to do it halfway
• I'll reach out once things settle down

Those sentences sound calm. Thoughtful. Adult.

They also quietly keep you from moving.

Fear doesn't usually sound dramatic. It sounds reasonable.

And that's why it's so effective.

Why This Matters So Much Creative entrepreneurs live in nuance.

Actors are trained to consider context, timing, readiness, alignment, branding, positioning. All real things. All useful skills.

They also make it very easy to hide.

Most of the actors I work with aren't lazy. They're functional. Busy. Productive enough to feel justified.

But they're also circling the thing they actually want and never quite landing on it.

That's not being stuck.

That's mislabeling fear as logic.

How Fear Disguises Itself Fear rarely says "don't do it."

It says:

• Not yet
• Be smart
• Wait until you're more confident

It wears a blazer. It uses full sentences. It sounds exactly like you.

This isn't self-sabotage.

It's self-protection.

The problem isn't that you're protecting yourself. The problem is when protection quietly turns into a lifestyle.

Something I Want You to Try Identify one agent, director, or producer you've labeled as "out of your league."

Then ask yourself what actual evidence proves that.

Most of the time, there is none.

And if there's no evidence, you're not protecting yourself.

You're stalling your life.

Actors who move forward act before they feel ready.

Ready is a choice.

You belong in the room. But you still have to walk through the door.

The Other Extreme The pendulum can swing the other way.

Overestimation sounds like:

• I don't need more training
• My demo is fine
• I'll just wing it
• I already know what I'm doing

That's just as dangerous.

Overestimation blinds you to growth. And growth is essential in this industry.

One extreme keeps you small. The other makes you sloppy.

Both keep you stuck.

What We're Aiming For The middle ground is grounded confidence.

Confidence that says:

• I belong here
• And I'm still sharpening my craft

That's where momentum lives.

Why Reaching Out Feels So Hard When actors don't reach out, it's usually not logic.

It's fear.

Fear of rejection. Fear of being seen. Fear of success.

But self-abandonment hurts more than rejection.

When you don't give yourself a chance, you reject your future before it has a chance to recognize you.

You say no to rooms that haven't even had the opportunity to say yes.

A Better Question to Ask Instead of asking, "Am I good enough for that agent?"

Ask: "Do my materials and brand match what that agent represents?"

This isn't about worth.

It's about alignment.

You might not be ready for a specific agent yet, and that's okay.

That doesn't mean you're not talented.

It usually means your materials, brand clarity, or positioning need work.

That's strategy.

And strategy is learnable.

The Five-Day Reset (Brief) This episode introduces a simple five-day process:

1. Name the sentence that keeps you safe but stuck
2. Identify where it came from
3. Look at what it's costing you right now
4. Take one small action that contradicts it
5. Rewrite the sentence with honesty instead of polish

Not affirmations. Not hype.

Accuracy.

Because honesty is more powerful than optimism.

Where Confidence Actually Comes From Confidence usually shows up after action.

Not before it.

It's not a feeling. It's a byproduct.

You don't need universal approval to move forward.

You need data.

Waiting until something feels perfect is a way to avoid collecting real information.

And information, even uncomfortable information, is how you grow.

If This Brought Something Up If this episode surfaced something for you and you want to share it, you can email me at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com .

I genuinely love hearing where things clicked and where they still feel sticky.

And if you want to know when the next class or training is coming up, keep an eye on your inbox.

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In this episode of the Acting Business Bootcamp Podcast, I sit down with James Robbins to talk about listening to your inner voice, building resilience, and what happens when you stop ignoring the signals that something needs to change.

James shares stories from his life as a climber and leadership coach, including what he's learned from climbing mountains, facing fear, and doing hard things repeatedly. We talk about burnout, discernment, anxiety, and how these lessons apply directly to actors navigating uncertainty in their careers.

This episode is about courage, self-trust, and staying engaged in your acting career even when the path forward feels uncomfortable or unclear.

About James James Robbins is an international keynote speaker, leadership advisor, and author of Nine Minutes on Monday and The Call to Climb. He helps people uncover purpose, build resilience, and lead with clarity and heart. His work has inspired leaders and teams around the world, blending storytelling with practical strategies for growth.

Don't Ignore Your Appointment With Your Soul James shared a phrase in this conversation that stayed with me: most of us ignore our appointment with our soul.

He talked about how this often shows up when everything looks fine on the outside, but internally something feels off. You might have stability, validation, or a life that makes sense to other people, yet still feel restless or disengaged.

Ignoring that inner voice does not make it disappear. Over time, it usually leads to exhaustion or burnout. That deadness is often the signal, not the problem.

Doing Hard Things Repeatedly Makes You Wiser A major theme of this episode is the value of doing hard things on purpose.

James described climbing at high altitude and how mountains wear you down mentally before they wear you down physically. Your mind wants to quit long before your body actually needs to.

The more experience you have doing hard things, the better your judgment becomes. You develop discernment. You learn when to keep going and when turning back is actually the wiser choice.

This applies directly to acting. Staying in the work long enough builds perspective. You stop reacting to fear and start responding from experience.

The Mind Quits Before the Body One of the most powerful lessons James shared is that the mind gives up before the body does.

On the mountain, this is obvious. In acting careers, it's quieter. It shows up as procrastination, self-doubt, or the story that nothing is happening.

Learning to recognize when fear is mental rather than physical allows you to keep moving forward without forcing yourself into burnout.

Creating Your Own Weather James talked about the idea of creating your own weather, choosing an elevated emotional state instead of reacting to circumstances.

Rather than letting fear, stress, or frustration dictate your day, you learn to orient toward peace, purpose, confidence, and clarity. That internal state changes how you make decisions and how you show up to your work.

For actors, this means grounding yourself internally before auditions, self-tapes, and long stretches of waiting.

Facing What You Really Want A recurring theme in this episode is how difficult it is for people to answer the question, what do you really want?

Often, it's not confusion. It's fear. Wanting something fully means risking judgment, failure, or change.

Ignoring that question keeps you stuck in noise. Slowing down enough to listen gives you direction.

James Robbins and Call to Climb James's experiences inspired his book Call to Climb, a fable about answering the deeper call in your life when you've been avoiding it.

We've included links in the show notes if you want to learn more about his work or pick up a copy of the book.

Time Management and Alignment This episode connects closely with the work I do in my time management workshop.

We talk about how burnout often comes from misalignment. When your days don't reflect what you actually want, frustration builds.

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Self-Perception and Where We Decide We Belong I want to talk about something we reference a lot in acting, but usually only vaguely.

Self-perception.

It sits at the center of almost every actor's journey. It shapes how you talk about yourself, who you reach out to, what rooms you think you belong in, and how far you let yourself go.

Most of the time, we don't even notice it happening.

Why This Matters So Much I was thinking about 10 Things I Hate About You and that line about being overwhelmed and underwhelmed, and asking if you can ever just be whelmed.

It made me think about actors.

We know we can underestimate ourselves. We know we can overestimate ourselves.

Both are a problem.

But what about just estimating ourselves accurately?

Because everything depends on how we see ourselves.

How Underestimating Yourself Shows Up This is one of the most common patterns I see.

It sounds like:

• I'll wait until I'm better
• I just need one more class
• I'll reach out when I've booked something bigger
• Agents like that would never sign someone like me

I recently spoke with an actor who told me they wouldn't reach out to a top agent because they didn't think someone "like them" could ever be with an agent like that.

That belief is a cage.

When you underestimate yourself, you pre-reject yourself. You become your own no. Your own locked door.

You cannot build a career while actively shrinking inside of it.

Agents don't sign the perfectly ready actor. They sign the clear actor. The specific actor who understands what they bring to the table and how they fit a roster.

Most of the time, the only person who believes you don't belong is you.

The Other Extreme The pendulum can swing the other way.

Overestimation sounds like:

• I don't need more training
• My demo is fine
• I'll just wing it
• I already know what I'm doing

That's just as dangerous.

Overestimation blinds you to growth. And growth is essential in this industry.

One extreme keeps you small. The other makes you sloppy.

Both keep you stuck.

What We're Aiming For The middle ground is grounded confidence.

Confidence that says:

• I belong here
• And I'm still sharpening my craft

That's where momentum lives.

Why Reaching Out Feels So Hard When actors don't reach out, it's usually not logic.

It's fear.

Fear of rejection. Fear of being seen. Fear of success.

But self-abandonment hurts more than rejection.

When you don't give yourself a chance, you reject your future before it has a chance to recognize you.

You say no to rooms that haven't even had the opportunity to say yes.

A Better Question to Ask Instead of asking, am I good enough for that agent,

Ask, do my materials and brand match what that agent represents?

This isn't about worth. It's about alignment.

You might not be ready for a specific agent yet, and that's okay.

That doesn't mean you're not talented. It usually means your materials, brand clarity, or positioning need work.

That's strategy. And strategy is learnable.

Something I Want You to Try Identify one agent, director, or producer you've labeled as "out of your league."

Then ask yourself what actual evidence proves that.

Most of the time, there is none.

And if there's no evidence, you're not protecting yourself.

You're stalling your life.

Actors who move forward act before they feel ready.

Ready is a choice.

You belong in the room. But you still have to walk through the door.

If this episode brought something up for you and you want to share it, you can always email me at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com. I love hearing where things clicked and where things still feel sticky.

And if you want to know when the next class or training is coming up, keep an eye on your inbox. There's more support on the way.

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I hear actors say this phrase all the time: "There's nothing going on in my career." And I want to be very clear, that idea is almost never true.

In this episode of the Acting Business Bootcamp Podcast, I talk about why that belief shows up, how it distorts your perception, and what you should be measuring instead when things feel quiet. I also share why I reshaped my Weekly Accountability Group to focus just as much on time management as accountability.

This episode is about structure, consistency, and staying engaged in your acting career even when results aren't obvious yet.

Accountability Requires Time Management I realized that in order to be accountable, actors actually need to manage their time. That's why I turned my Weekly Accountability Group into a time management group as well.

At the start of every class, I have actors pull out their planners. Phones, digital calendars, or a physical calendar. We plan the week from Friday to Friday. Doctor appointments. Acting class. Warm-ups. Self-tapes. Reels. Life stuff. Everything goes on the calendar.

When you see it laid out, it becomes much harder to tell yourself that nothing is happening.

"Nothing Is Happening" Is a Story, Not a Fact When actors say nothing is happening, I ask a few simple questions.

Are you training? Are you submitting? Are you improving your craft? Are you living a life that feeds your work?

If you're doing those things, something is happening. Progress often happens quietly. Just because you can't see the seed breaking through the soil doesn't mean nothing is growing.

Track Your Actions Like a Professional One of the biggest shifts I see in my accountability group is when actors stop tracking outcomes and start tracking actions.

Classes taken. Self-tapes submitted. Outreach sent. Study time logged. Preparation done.

When you see it on paper, the narrative starts to fall apart. Engagement becomes visible when you actually look at what you're doing.

Waiting Is Part of the Job Booking is not the job. Booking is the byproduct.

Waiting is part of the job. I've waited twelve hours on set before shooting a scene. That didn't mean nothing was happening. It meant I was doing the work.

Your career is the process. The auditions you prepare for. The confidence you build. The work you do when no one is watching.

Take One Small Action When your brain says nothing is happening, do one tangible thing.

Record a monologue. Refine your tools. Update your materials. Send a warm reach-out.

Even one small action is a vote for the actor you want to become. I always ask myself, what would my future self do today? Then I do that.

Borrow Belief From Your Future Self The version of you who has worked steadily for years is not saying nothing is happening. They're saying, I stayed in the game even when it was quiet.

Quiet seasons are not empty. They're preparation.

Try Two Weeks Free If this episode resonates and you want support staying consistent, I invite you to try two free weeks of my Weekly Accountability Group, which also functions as a time management group for actors.

Every class is recorded, so you can attend live or watch the replay at any time. You can email me your questions, your schedule, and your accountability, and I personally respond. You'll also get access to my Weekly Adjustment core energy work.

To get started, click the link HERE.

Stay safe, treat yourself real well in 2026, and keep going.

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The Part of the Business We Avoid I don't know many actors who got into this work because they love paperwork.

Money. Invoices. Contracts. Admin.

I avoid this side of the business not because I think it's beneath me, but because it makes me uncomfortable. It forces me to look closely. At numbers. At patterns. At choices I've postponed.

And lately, I've been reminded how common that is.

Why Admin Creates So Much Anxiety I've had several conversations recently with actors who are genuinely scared of the financial side of their career.

Taxes coming up. Receipts scattered. Invoices unpaid. Contracts sitting unread in inboxes.

Avoiding it feels easier than facing it. It feels responsible. I'll deal with it later. When I have more energy. When I feel more prepared.

But avoidance doesn't stay neutral.

It compounds.

What Avoidance Actually Costs The longer we don't look, the bigger it feels.

Money becomes emotional. Following up feels confrontational. Rates feel uncertain. Admin starts to feel like proof that we're "bad at business."

None of that is about talent.

It's about fear.

Clarity, even when it's uncomfortable, is kinder than avoidance.

What Being Professional Really Means This episode isn't about becoming an accountant or loving spreadsheets.

It's about becoming available.

Available to book work without panic. Available to follow up without guilt. Available to understand where your money is coming from and where it's going.

Being organized doesn't make you less creative. It gives your nervous system a break.

What I'm Practicing Right Now Smaller steps.

Looking at the last few months instead of everything at once. Canceling subscriptions I forgot about. Sending invoice reminders before they're overdue so they don't turn emotional.

Treating admin like maintenance, not a personal failure.

It's quieter this way.

A Question I'm Sitting With If my business were actually supporting me instead of stressing me out, how would my work feel different?

That question changes how I approach this part of the job.

You don't need to fix everything at once. You just need to stop pretending this part doesn't matter.

If this episode brought something up for you and you want to share it, you can always email me at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com . I love hearing where things clicked and where they still feel sticky.

And if you want to know when the next class or training is coming up, keep an eye on your inbox. There's more support on the way.

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Actors often think a new year will change things. New calendar, new energy, new motivation. But real change doesn't come from dates. It comes from how you structure your choices, your habits, and your expectations.

In this episode of the Acting Business Boot Camp Podcast, Peter Pamela Rose breaks down the five shifts that actually help actors change their year, not in a dramatic, overnight way, but in a grounded, sustainable way that builds real momentum.

This conversation is about business, nervous system regulation, consistency, and self leadership. It's about how actors move out of panic and into direction, and why that matters more than setting another list of goals.

Why Most New Year Goals Don't Work for Actors Many actors walk into a new year with goals that sound productive but feel heavy. That pressure often leads to overwhelm, inconsistency, and self judgment.

Instead of fixing everything at once, this episode reframes the work. It asks actors to focus on direction over pressure, and to build their careers in ways that calm the nervous system rather than spike anxiety.

The Five Shifts That Change an Actor's Year 1. Choose Direction, Not Pressure Choosing one clear direction creates clarity and focus. Direction helps actors say no to noise and yes to actions that actually support their growth.

1. Build Tiny Reps Instead of Dramatic Resolutions Big resolutions fade quickly. Small daily actions build momentum. Consistency comes from repetition, not intensity.

2. Let Consistency Be Your Identity, Not Your Mood Actors who wait to feel inspired tend to stall. Actors who identify as consistent keep moving even when motivation dips.

3. Expect Discomfort and Move Anyway Discomfort is not a sign you're doing something wrong. It's often a sign you're doing something new. Growth requires moving through resistance, not avoiding it.

4. Celebrate Tiny Wins to Build Momentum Acknowledging progress trains the brain to repeat positive behavior. Momentum grows when actors recognize what they're already doing well.

Momentum Builds Careers, Not Motivation This episode also connects to a past conversation on momentum and why it matters more than talent or timing. When actors learn how to stay in motion, even imperfectly, they create careers that last.

Take the Free Acting Business Audit Actors can take the 30 Question Acting Business Audit, a free self assessment designed to show what's working in your acting business and what needs attention. It helps clarify next steps without guesswork.

The link to the audit is in the show notes.

Want Support or Guidance? If you're looking for support with your acting business, confidence, materials, or next steps, you can reach out directly to learn more about coaching and classes.

Links are available in the show notes.

As always, stay safe. And treat yourself real well.

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The Art of Keeping Things Separate This topic comes up more than people admit.

Usually in a whisper. Or an email that starts with, "This might be a weird question…" It's not weird. It's just complicated.

A lot of actors are working in NSFW or spicy spaces. Erotica audiobooks. Adult games. ASMR. OnlyFans. Patreon. Sensual storytelling. And at the same time, they're booking e-learning, commercials, family-friendly narration, children's content.

The work itself isn't the problem. The overlap is.

So I want to talk about how to keep those worlds separate in a way that's professional, grounded, and sane.

Not from a morality angle. From a business one.

Why This Feels So Loaded Most of the discomfort doesn't come from the work. It comes from fear.

Fear of being judged. Fear of being misunderstood. Fear that one client will see something they weren't meant to see and make a snap decision about you.

And honestly? That fear isn't irrational. Algorithms don't understand nuance. Brand managers don't scroll thoughtfully. Google definitely doesn't care about context.

So when people ask, "Should I be hiding this?" what they're really asking is, "How do I protect my career without betraying myself?"

That's the real question.

What Separation Actually Is Separating your spicy work is not about shame. It's about clarity.

You're not hiding your art. You're organizing it.

Just like authors use different names for different genres, actors can use separate identities for separate audiences. A pseudonym. A distinct brand. A different website, email, and social presence.

Both are real. Both are you. They just serve different people.

When everything lives in one place, clients get confused. And confused clients don't book.

Clear clients do.

The Practical Line in the Sand A few things matter more than people realize.

Separate branding. Different headshots, colors, fonts, tone. If one side of your work says PBS and the other says sultry midnight headphones, they should not look related.

Separate metadata. File names, tags, credits. This is where people accidentally connect dots they never meant to connect.

Separate systems. Emails. Phone numbers. Invoicing if you can. Boundaries get easier when logistics support them.

None of this makes you secretive. It makes you intentional.

When the Worlds Almost Touch This is the moment that spikes everyone's nervous system.

Someone recognizes your voice. A link gets shared accidentally. A client stumbles across something unexpected.

Here's the rule. Don't panic.

If you're comfortable acknowledging it, a simple line works: "I work in multiple genres under different names to keep my projects organized."

That's it. No explanation tour. No justification. You're allowed to run your business like a business.

And if you're not comfortable bridging those worlds, quiet consistency does the work for you. No cross-linking. No wink-wink posts. No mixing lanes just this once.

Something We Don't Talk About Enough Adult performance work can take real emotional energy.

Just like screaming in video games. Just like intense drama. Just like anything that asks your nervous system to open.

So recovery matters. Boundaries matter. Choice matters.

Doing one kind of spicy work does not obligate you to do all of it. Your comfort line is allowed to move, but it's also allowed to exist.

Take care of the system holding all of this. One artist. One body. One brain.

A Thought I'm Sitting With People assume separation means being two different people.

I don't see it that way.

I see one whole artist with range and boundaries. Different lighting. Different outfits. Same integrity.

The goal isn't secrecy. It's sovereignty.

You decide who sees what, where, and when. That's not avoidance. That's professionalism.

If you want to train your voiceover craft in a grounded, professional space, Voiceover Gyms is where we do that. Learn more about the classes here: https://www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com/actor-training-program

You can always reach me at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com , and if Voiceover Gyms feels like the next right step, keep an eye on your inbox. I'll let you know when doors are open.

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Listening to Invisible Guidance I've been thinking a lot about how guidance shows up. Not in big dramatic flashes, but in the tiny whispers. The quiet nudges you feel before anything becomes a full blown lesson. And honestly, the more I look back on my own life, the more I see how often I missed the first whisper.

When the Whisper Becomes a Shove I cannot tell you how many times I've thought, oh, I already learned this. Except I didn't. Because the message comes back. And when I still don't listen, it comes back again, a little louder each time.

It's not punishment. It's just the universe repeating the message until I stop running past it.

The whisper is always the first gift. The shove only shows up when we ignore it.

Asking for Support Clearly One thing I've learned is that guidance doesn't bulldoze its way in. You have to invite it.

A simple phrase helps me so much. Show me the next right step.

Not the whole plan. Not perfection. Just the next right step. It shifts you out of panic and into partnership with your soul and the universe. It's amazing how much calmer things feel when you're not trying to get ahead of yourself.

When Doubt Gets Loud Doubt is very dramatic. It loves to tell you stories. It loves to feel urgent.

Truth is quieter. Steadier. Consistent.

I think of it like tuning an old radio. At first, all you hear is static. Then, when you slow down and adjust, the signal comes through. Your inner guidance works the same way. Faith is the muscle you use to believe in what you cannot see yet.

Following the Breadcrumbs Guidance doesn't always arrive through mystical lightning bolts. Most of the time it comes through everyday things. A person who shows up at the right moment. A line you read that hits differently. A coincidence that nudges you to pay attention.

Life leaves you breadcrumbs. But you have to stay awake enough to follow them.

Growth Isn't Designed to Be Comfortable Guidance is here to grow you, not to keep you cozy. Growth feels stretchy. Sometimes it even hurts a little. That doesn't mean you're on the wrong path.

Often, the parts of your life that feel like they're falling apart are actually clearing the way for what you're asking for. I've seen that again and again in my own work.

A Thought I'm Sitting With When something feels uncomfortable, I'm trying to pause and ask myself:

What is this trying to grow in me? Where am I being nudged? What am I resisting because it feels unfamiliar?

That pause alone usually brings the whisper back into focus.

Go Deeper with This Work If this episode resonated with you, I created a one hour class called Listening to Invisible Guidance. You'll learn how to recognize the nudges, ask for clarity, work with synchronicity, and strengthen your ability to hear your own inner signals. It also includes journal prompts to help you integrate the work.

Purchase the class here

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The Word That Changes Everything I've been rereading Larry Moss's The Intent to Live, and there's a line that stopped me. He calls "yes" the most important word in acting. It sounds simple, but the more I sat with it, the more true it felt.

Why We Default to No I notice how quickly I say no in my own mind.

No, I'm not ready. No, someone else deserves that more. No, they'd never want me.

It feels responsible. Really, it's fear. Fear of being seen trying. Fear of messing up. Fear of stepping into something bigger than I'm used to.

What "Yes" Actually Means I'm not talking about saying yes to everything or ignoring my limits. I'm talking about saying yes to myself again. Yes to opportunity. Yes to being visible. Yes to letting myself grow, even when it's uncomfortable.

A grounded yes stretches me. A people-pleasing yes drains me. There's a difference.

Questions I'm Asking Now When something scares me a little, I pause and ask:

• Does this move me toward the work I want to be doing?
• Does this challenge me in a healthy way?
• Does this fit the career I'm choosing to build?

If the answer is yes, even if I feel unready, I try to follow it.

The Micro-Yes Big shifts usually start with one small yes. So I'm practicing micro-yeses:

One audition I felt unsure about. One email I'd been avoiding. One creative idea I kept shelving.

Each one reminds me that confidence grows from showing up, not from waiting to feel perfect.

A Thought I'm Sitting With When I hear myself think, "I'm not ready" or "I should wait," I'm slowing down and asking whether that's ability or fear talking. Ability can grow. Fear just repeats itself until I interrupt it.

Sometimes the only thing between where you are and where you want to go is one small, honest yes.

If you try one of these micro-yeses and want to share it, you can always email me at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com . I love hearing what opened up for you and where you're getting stuck. And if you want to know when the next class or training is coming up, keep an eye on your inbox. There's more support on the way.

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Family gatherings can be beautiful. They can also feel like emotional landmines, especially when you're an actor. One minute you're passing the mashed potatoes. The next you're answering a pointed question about your career from someone who hasn't watched a show since 1998.

In this week's episode of the Acting Business Bootcamp Podcast, I talk about how to stay calm, centered, and grounded as you navigate family dynamics. These tools help you protect your energy so you can enjoy the holiday instead of getting swept up in other people's anxieties.

The Question Doesn't Require a Monologue A lot of actors feel pressured to explain themselves. To defend their choices. To prove they're on the right track.

But you don't owe anyone an emotional TED Talk over stuffing.

A simple, steady answer is enough.

"It's going well. Thank you."

That one sentence keeps you out of conversations you don't need to be in. You get to keep your peace. You get to protect your space.

If someone pushes, you can set a gentle boundary. "I have a few things moving, I'll share when I'm ready."

Short. Clear. Done.

Their Anxiety Doesn't Belong to You So often the loudest questions are really about someone else's fears. Their need for certainty. Their discomfort with ambiguity.

You don't have to take that on.

Let their energy stay with them. You return to your own center. Your own path. Your own truth.

Anchor Yourself Before You Walk In A holiday gathering is like an unexpected audition. A little preparation goes a long way.

Take a few quiet minutes in the car before going inside. Ground your breath. Remember the work you've done. Remember what you're building. Even the smallest wins matter.

This simple pause strengthens you more than you think.

Use The Bathroom as Your Backstage If you feel yourself getting wobbly, step away. Close the door. Breathe.

One minute is enough to reset your nervous system.

Here's an affirmation I love for holiday gatherings:

"I am my own authority. I love and approve of myself. Life is good."

Say it until your shoulders drop.

Movement Clears Emotional Static Sometimes the easiest way to break emotional noise is to move your body.

A short walk around the block. A quick step outside. Offering to run to the store. Even a loop around the backyard.

Think of it as an intermission in the middle of the holiday play.

Grace Beats Defensiveness If someone brings up the state of the industry or questions your path, gently redirect.

"Things are moving. I'm focused on the work. How are you doing?"

It shifts the spotlight off you. It softens the moment. It keeps the energy human.

Curiosity Transforms the Room People want to be seen. When you become curious about them, the dynamic changes.

Ask how their year has been. Ask a follow-up. Then another.

When you listen deeply, conversations soften. Walls come down. You return to connection, not conflict.

A Final Reminder Your career is not defined by anyone's holiday opinion. You get to be your own authority. You get to choose peace.

And if family stress gets loud this year, you're not alone.

Join the "Listening to Invisible Guidance" Class If you've been feeling lost, stuck, or unsure of your next step, I created a one hour class called Listening to Invisible Guidance.

It teaches you how to notice the quiet nudges, how to ask for support, and how to actually hear the signs that are already showing up for you. You'll learn why doubt doesn't block guidance and why disruption can be a sign that you're being redirected, not punished.

It's simple. It's powerful. And it's only $20.

You can watch it as many times as you want.

👉 Get the class. It's one hour, twenty dollars, and it will help you find clarity.

If you need support this holiday season, send me a quiet message. I'm here.

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Actors often wait for motivation. We hope a burst of inspiration will get us moving, keep us consistent, or push us to the next level. But real growth rarely starts with motivation. It starts with one small choice.

In this episode of the Acting Business Bootcamp Podcast, I talk about the simple cycle that has changed my life many times over. Choice. Habit. Love. It's a framework you can use in your acting career, your training, and your personal development to build strength and momentum in a way that actually lasts.

The Moment I Realized Something Needed to Change A few years ago, I was sitting on my balcony, looking out at the marina, and I caught a glimpse of myself that didn't feel like me. It wasn't about weight or appearance. It was the feeling that I wasn't living up to my potential.

It was a quiet wake up call that led to one small choice.

The First Step Is Always Choice A friend gave me a ten minute workout. The first time I tried it, I had to stop three times. It felt impossible. But I chose to do it again the next day. And the next. Choice doesn't feel glamorous. It's rarely comfortable. But it's the doorway to every breakthrough.

How Choice Becomes Habit After weeks of choosing that workout, something shifted. It became a habit. I added more exercise. I felt stronger, even through perimenopause and menopause. Habit grows out of showing up, not out of feeling ready.

When Habit Turns Into Love What once felt uncomfortable became something I enjoyed. That's the surprising part. Love is the result of consistency. Love grows from seeing your own progress.

Starting Over After a Setback Recently I got very sick and couldn't exercise for almost three weeks. When I came back, I realized I had to start again at choice. Not habit. Not love. Choice. That reminder has been grounding. Setbacks simply restart the cycle.

How Actors Can Use Choice, Habit, Love This structure applies to your acting technique, your mindset, your self tapes, and your business systems. Ask yourself the small but powerful question: What could I choose today that would help me reach my potential?

Get Your Acting Business Audit You can take the 30 question Acting Business Audit. It shows you what's working in your acting business and what needs attention so you know where to focus next.

Want Help One on One? If you want guidance or support, you can schedule a consultation. I'm here to help you strengthen your confidence, materials, and next steps.

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Why Slow Is the New Secret Weapon for Actors The entertainment industry glorifies hustle. Fast auditions, faster turnarounds, constant pressure to keep up. But what if slowing down is the real secret to booking more roles and building a lasting career?

In this episode of the Acting Business Bootcamp Podcast, I talk about the power of slow and why being intentional, grounded, and patient can make you not only a stronger performer but also a more fulfilled human being.

The Myth of Hustle: Why Speed Doesn't Equal Success We've been conditioned to think that "busy" means "productive." But when we're rushing, we're not really seeing. We miss red flags, subtle opportunities, and the emotional details that make our performances alive and specific.

Slow isn't lazy. Slow is strategic. When I slow down, I make choices instead of reacting. I create work that's clearer, more specific, and more emotionally grounded. That's what casting directors respond to.

The Muscle of Choice: Choosing What's Uncomfortable but Effective I often talk about building your "muscle of choice." It's the ability to choose what's right for your growth, even when it doesn't feel comfortable.

For actors, that might mean saying no to an overbooked schedule or pausing before hitting record on a self-tape. It's in those small, quiet moments of choice that confidence and intuition start to strengthen.

Presence Books Acting Jobs One of the things I say all the time is, "Presence books acting jobs."

When you slow your breath, your thoughts, and your body, you naturally drop into the moment. That's where truth lives. And that truth is what makes casting directors sit up and go, "Yes, that's it."

Fast energy reads as anxious. Slower energy reads as confident and grounded. The actor who listens, pauses, and responds authentically will always stand out.

From Reaction to Response: A Lesson in Mindful Acting Here's one of my favorite reminders: "A response is a reaction with a pause and a thought behind it."

When you create that pause, your performances become more thoughtful, layered, and real. That same pause helps on the business side too. It gives you control over your energy instead of letting the industry run it for you.

Slow Builds Longevity A fast-paced career burns out fast. A steady one grows stronger over time.

I've been a professional actress since 1988. That's more than three decades of working in this business. What's sustained me isn't the hustle; it's learning how to pace myself, stay present, and take joy in the process. Slow isn't just good for your craft. It's how you create a sustainable, happy career.

Practical Ways to Practice the Power of Slow * Pause before you slate. Ground your breath and remind yourself that you're safe. * Meditate regularly. It keeps your body calm and expressive. * Work with intention. Do fewer things, but do them with care. * Create safe spaces. Set up your self-tape and your mindset to help you feel at ease. * Reflect often. Ask yourself, "Am I working hard, or am I working effectively?"

Join "The Weekly Adjustment" If this episode resonated with you, come join my weekly mindset class, The Weekly Adjustment.

You'll learn how to calm your thoughts, build confidence, and use the power of slow in every part of your acting life.

👉 Join The Weekly Adjustment — your first two weeks are free.

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The Irony of Paid Transparency I saw a post the other day that made me stop mid-scroll.

An actor—let's call him Workshop Guy—was going viral for saying he was "tired of gatekeeping in the industry." He wanted to break down the walls, create transparency, build community… all that good stuff.

And then, at the end of his video, came the link. A $200 workshop.

I laughed out loud. Because, honestly, that's not transparency. That's marketing.

Let's talk about why.

The Anti-Gatekeeping Paywall Here's the thing: if your solution to exclusivity is to sell tickets to your version of inclusion, you've missed the point.

This particular actor is an NYU grad—one of the most expensive, most exclusive programs in the country. That's not shade, it's context. The gate was already built long before graduation.

So now, instead of widening that gate, he's charging admission.

That's not transparency. That's a rebrand.

And look, I have zero issue with people charging for their time. I do it too. I teach workshops, classes, coaching. That's education.

But when you say you're ending gatekeeping while collecting checkout links? That's manipulation dressed as empowerment.

Boundaries Aren't Barriers Here's where people get confused.

When working actors say no to a "pick your brain" chat, that's not gatekeeping. That's energy management.

You don't owe unlimited access to your time or experience.

Protecting your energy isn't selfish—it's smart.

Gatekeeping is exclusion for control. Boundaries are protection for sustainability.

If someone says, "Hey, I can't jump on a call right now, but I teach a class next month," that's not blocking the door. That's structure.

And if you've done any of Peter's Core Work, you already know—energy management is everything.

What Real Transparency Looks Like Transparency isn't a sales tactic. It's a culture choice.

It looks like:

• Sharing what you've learned, within reason.
• Answering a quick question in a Facebook group.
• Being open about your rates and usage terms.
• Talking honestly about rejection, burnout, or bad contracts.

Transparency says, Here's what I know, take what helps.

It's generosity, not a business model.

Why We Still Need Some Gatekeeping Okay, this might sound controversial—but I think some gatekeeping is good.

Without it, anyone can say they're an "agent" or "coach" and start charging people money.

Gates aren't the problem. Who holds the keys—and why—is.

If you're protecting integrity, professionalism, and ethics, that's structure. If you're protecting ego or profit, that's manipulation.

The goal isn't to eliminate the gates. It's to make sure they're in the right hands.

The Real Takeaway If you're frustrated by gatekeeping, start with generosity. If you're burnt out from giving too much, start with boundaries. And if you're tempted to monetize "transparency," ask what you're really selling.

Because $200 to "end gatekeeping"? That's not transparency. That's just good marketing.

Take Your Core Work Deeper If this conversation hits close to home, it might be time to focus on your energy management. Join Peter Pamela Rose's Weekly Adjustment Class and learn how to set boundaries that protect your creativity instead of draining it.

You can start with two free weeks.

Upcoming Voiceover Workshops * All in the Timing – master the 15-second commercial read * Radio Imaging – November 17 * E-Learning – November 20 * Performance Roulette – November 24

Check out all upcoming classes at ActingBusinessBootCamp.com

Connect with Me Got thoughts on this episode? Want to chat about workshops or voiceover life? Reach me anytime at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com or find me on Substack at The Actor's Index.

Stay curious, stay grounded, and keep your boundaries strong.

You've got this.

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The Heart Behind a Great Self-Tape I'll be honest—I couldn't even remember how I start my podcast today. "Hello, I hope you had a great week?" That sounds right. Anyway, welcome back to Self-Tapes That Book, Part Two.

Last week we talked about tech and mindset, about creating a space that supports your confidence instead of draining it. The kind of space that makes you feel like you just slipped into your favorite outfit—the one that makes you feel unstoppable.

That's exactly how I want your self-tape setup to feel: effortless, energizing, and completely you.

Four Keys to Powerful Self-Tape Performances 1. Make Clear, Bold, Story-Driven Choices Don't play it vague. Every beat should be grounded in intention. Commit fully.

Ask yourself: Am I willing to give my life for this moment?

If not, there's probably an energy block—not in your acting ability, but in your connection to yourself. The work of an actor isn't just skill; it's presence, humanity, and openness. That's where true talent lives.

1. Energy and Presence Confidence reads as relaxation, not effort.

Think of an Olympic skater or gymnast. What looks effortless on camera comes from deep preparation—and self-trust.

As Marianne Williamson said, "Your playing small does not serve the world."

Our job as artists is to shine. To align with something bigger than fear. To choose energy that flows with the universe, not against it.

1. Editing and Delivery This one's simple—but it's where many actors slip.

2. Trim dead air.

3. Slate cleanly.
4. Label properly: YourName_Role_Project
5. Submit once. On time.
6. Follow directions exactly.

Casting directors notice when you don't. And often? We move on to the next actor who did.

Keep a record of what you send, what worked, and what you'd improve next time. There's no such thing as a perfect audition—only growth.

1. Professionalism and Presence Don't tape to prove you're good enough. Tape to serve the story.

That shift—from fear to ownership—changes everything. You're not auditioning to be judged. You're collaborating. You're submitting your idea for the role.

The camera knows when you're faking peace. Confidence can't be faked either.

Be you. Be grounded. Be magnetic. The kind of magnetic that makes people go, "What is it about them?"

Common Mistakes That Can Kill a Self-Tape * Overproduced mini-movies. Keep it simple. * Poor lighting or framing. Your face tells the story—let it. * Flat reads or mechanical delivery. Find truth in every beat. * Ignoring file naming or upload instructions. This one's huge. Don't get deleted over a filename.

The Formula That Books the Job Tech gets you seen. Truth gets you remembered. Energy books the job.

Focus on your presence, your clarity, and your connection—not perfection.

Free Self-Tape Setup Guide If you want a checklist and setup walkthrough to make your self-tapes look as good as they feel, grab our Free Self-Tape Setup Guide below.

🎬 Download the Free Self-Tape Setup Guide

Connect with Us Got questions? Want to take your acting confidence and mindset deeper? Join Peter's Weekly Adjustment Class for two free weeks and experience how Core Energy work can transform your craft and your life.

👉 Join The Weekly Adjustment

Stay safe and treat yourself real well. You deserve it.

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In this episode, I'm diving into one of the most important topics for any working actor today: self-tapes.

They're no longer an occasional request or a pandemic workaround. Self-tapes are the audition room now. That means your setup, your mindset, and your energy have to communicate professionalism and confidence before you ever say a line.

After losing my voice for a few weeks (and getting some incredible help from Mandy Fisher, Rose Marie, and Taylor), I wanted to come back with something that felt useful and practical. Because here's the truth: the actors who treat self-taping like an art form are the ones who keep booking.

Why Self-Tapes Matter More Than Ever Casting directors aren't inviting actors into offices the way they used to. Your self-tape is your first impression. It tells us who you are before we even watch the performance.

I've been watching this up close at home. My husband Jason decided to return to on-camera acting after years of working exclusively in voiceover. Within about six weeks, he recorded forty auditions and got seven offers. Seven.

He's talented, yes—but what really made the difference was preparation, clarity, and confidence. Every tape looked professional, felt relaxed, and showed that he knew exactly who he was in the scene.

The Confidence You Can't Fake The camera doesn't lie. It reads your nervous system, your self-belief, your energy. You can't fake confidence.

That's why mindset work is so powerful. It's the foundation for everything I teach in The Weekly Adjustment. When you know you're good—and you trust that knowing—it naturally shows up on camera.

Your Technical Foundation You don't need an expensive setup, but you do need consistency. A self-tape that looks clean and sounds professional instantly tells casting you take the work seriously.

Here's what matters most:

• Lighting: Even, natural, and shadow-free.
• Background: Simple and neutral.
• Sound: Use an external mic and record in a quiet space.
• Framing: Keep your eyeline slightly off-camera.
• Test Everything: Always record a few seconds first to check your lighting and sound.

Think of your setup as part of your craft. When it's dialed in, you can focus on performance instead of worrying about your gear.

If you want to make sure your setup is working for you, grab the free Acting Business Boot Camp Self-Tape Setup Guide. It includes the exact gear, lighting, and mic recommendations I share with my students.

The Reader That Makes or Breaks You A good reader is calm, grounded, and patient. Their job is to support you, not steal the moment.

If you're working alone, reader apps or pre-recorded lines can work, but you still need to feel connected. Acting is about relationship, and that connection needs to be alive—even when you're the only one in the room.

One of the great things about the Acting Business Boot Camp community is that members can find readers in our private Facebook group. Having a reliable reader on call changes everything.

And if you're a strong sight reader, a teleprompter app can help you stay present without losing time to memorization stress.

Presence Over Perfection Stop chasing "perfect." The camera rewards presence.

When I saw Art on Broadway recently, James Corden's performance stood out because he fully committed. It wasn't polished—it was alive. That kind of truth and energy is what makes casting directors pay attention.

Commitment always beats precision. Be real. Be fully in it. That's what books.

Key Takeaways * Self-tapes are your new audition room. * Confidence and presence matter as much as acting skill. * A clean, consistent setup is your professional edge. * A supportive reader elevates your work. * Presence and commitment are more powerful than perfection.

Resources Mentioned * Free Self-Tape Setup Guide: Get Peter's list of recommended lighting, sound, and gear to make your tapes stand out. * The Weekly Adjustment: Ongoing mindset coaching for actors who want to build confidence, consistency, and energy that books.

Next week, in Part Two: Self-Tapes That Book – The Performance, Peter dives into choices, energy, and the details that make casting directors say, "That's the one."

Stay safe and treat yourself real well.

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Voiceover is a beautiful and rewarding field. But if you're not protecting your energy, creativity, and finances, it will eat you alive before you ever find your footing.

I've seen too many talented actors get burned out because they thought VO was just about having a "great voice." It isn't. It's a craft and a business rolled into one. And if any of those three pillars is running on empty, your career won't last.

Energy: Your True Currency Behind every polished 30-second spot is hours of research, auditions, editing, outreach, marketing, and more. Without systems to replenish your energy, you'll be running on fumes—and microphones always reveal fatigue. Protecting your bandwidth isn't optional, it's part of the job.

Creativity: More Than Output Turning your art into your business can drain your creativity if you're not careful. Output without input leads to burnout. I share ways to keep your "creative bank" full so your performances stay fresh, inspired, and bookable.

Finances: The Backbone of Longevity Voiceover isn't fast money. It's steady, long-term, startup-style growth. Without a financial foundation, the costs of training, equipment, and subscriptions will strangle your joy. In this episode, I break down what to budget for, what to avoid, and how to treat your VO career like a real business.

Why This Matters Voiceover rewards consistency and joy, not burnout and desperation. If you want to last in this industry, you need to protect your energy, feed your creativity, and respect your finances. Those three areas are the difference between quitting early and building a career you love.

✨ If this episode resonates with you:

• Subscribe to my Substack, The Actor's Index, for weekly tools to grow your creative career without losing your mind.
• Reach out to me directly at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com to schedule a free 15-minute consult.

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In this episode, I talk about mottos. Those little slogans or mantras that can actually keep you going in a business that is often messy, unpredictable, and overwhelming.

A motto is not just decoration. It’s a tool. It helps you:

• Stay grounded when the industry feels chaotic.
• Filter choices and make better decisions.
• Communicate your identity and values quickly.
• Build momentum through small daily actions.

I’ll share a quick history of mottos, what makes a good one, and a few of my favorites like:

• Grow through every no
• Truth over performance
• Consistent action, creative life
• Bring light to every role

But here’s the most important part. A motto has to fuel action. It should connect to something small you can do each day. Even five minutes counts. That could be:

• Sending one outreach email
• Researching a casting director
• Tracking your auditions
• Posting or reposting content
• Reviewing your goals

When you tie your motto to action, five minutes turns into seven, then ten, and before you know it, you’ve built momentum.

So, here’s my challenge for you:

1. Pick a motto tonight. Don’t overthink it.
2. Write it down where you’ll see it.
3. Tomorrow, spend five minutes on one business task that matches your motto.
4. Repeat. Momentum comes from consistency, not perfection.

Your motto isn’t just a phrase. It’s a compass. Find the one that makes your chest expand a little when you say it out loud, and let it guide your next step.

I’d love to hear what motto you come up with. You can always reach me at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com, or say hi on TikTok @AstoriaRed.

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Why Learning the “Language” Matters Actors spend years honing their craft, but many miss one critical piece: learning how to communicate in the Language of the Agents and the Casting Directors. This isn’t just about vocabulary. It’s about aligning your training, business practices, and mindset so the industry sees you as the solution—not the problem.

As a casting director, I see it firsthand. Actors who know how to speak this language get representation, book roles, and build sustainable careers. Those who don’t? They’re quickly overlooked.

The Three Pillars of a Successful Acting Career A thriving career rests on three equally important pillars:

1. Training – Building your instrument as an actor so you know you’re good at your craft.
2. Business – Getting your materials, schedule, and communication in order.
3. Core Energy Work – Tackling mindset blocks like procrastination, perfectionism, and fear so you actually do what you know you need to do.

Neglect any one of these, and your career wobbles. Balance them, and everything starts to flow.

What Agents and Casting Directors Really Want Casting directors are solution-oriented. They need actors who are:

• Prepared, confident, and easy to direct
• Clear and concise communicators (no long-winded emails)
• Professional and drama-free
• Confident in their abilities without needing validation

Agents and managers, on the other hand, prioritize placement and revenue. They want clients who understand their product (themselves as actors) and know where they fit in the market. They love actors who are:

• Low-maintenance (professional, proactive, not needy)
• Consistent with follow-ups (every 2 weeks if signed, every 3–4 weeks if freelancing)
• Quick to respond (within 15 minutes when possible)

If you can show up as a reliable, confident professional who respects their time, you’ll stand out.

Bridging Art and Business The “language” isn’t just about using terms like clips, reels, avail, or first refusal correctly. It’s about mirroring the way agents and casting directors think. Shift from actor-centric to project-centric. Instead of saying, I felt this choice worked for me, reframe to, I believe this choice serves the director’s vision.

That shift alone can make you the actor they trust.

A Weekly Practice That Works In my Weekly Accountability Group for actors, we focus on all three pillars:

• Training: What did you do to become a better actor this week?
• Business: What actions did you take to move your career forward?
• Core Energy Work: What mindset challenges came up, and how did you respond?

By setting intentions and following through week after week, actors create real momentum—and book more work.

Final Thoughts The industry is full of talented actors. The ones who book consistently aren’t always the most gifted. They’re the ones who communicate well, respect the process, and show they’re confident, reliable professionals.

That’s the power of learning the Language of the Agents and the Casting Directors.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode * 🎯 Book a Free Consultation * 🎬 The Working Actor Road Map * 🗓️ Weekly Accountability Group for Actors * ⏰ Time Management for Actors Course

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Hey there, it’s Mandy Fisher. Welcome back to the Acting Business Boot Camp Podcast. I’ve been in the voiceover world for over 20 years, and if there’s one thing I repeat over and over, it’s this: all voiceover is character work.

Yes, even that five-second toothpaste ad. Even the audiobook that goes on for twelve hours. Even the one-liner in a loop group session. If I don’t believe in the character I’m creating, the audience won’t either—and you’d be surprised how quickly people can tell when something feels fake.

Why Character Work Matters in VO Voiceover isn’t just about funny voices or nailing impressions. It’s about embodying choices. A toothpaste spot is still persuasion. An audiobook requires sustaining multiple characters. A video game audition? They always want grounded realism now.

The throughline is the same: I’m acting. I’m building a character.

My Six Quick Character Lenses When I create characters—whether for a 30-second commercial or a video game villain—I run through six categories that keep me grounded and specific:

1. Environmental: Where am I? A bar? A dungeon? A grocery store?
2. Emotional: How do I feel right now?
3. Contextual: What just happened before this line?
4. Physical: What am I wearing? Am I tired? Am I strong?
5. Psychological: What’s on my mind? Do I have a secret? A conflict?
6. Social: How do I interact with others in this world?

Answering even two or three of these quickly can transform a flat read into something alive.

The Power of Substitution Sometimes I get copy for something I couldn’t care less about—say, an oil change. In those moments, I swap it out in my imagination for something I do care about, something that actually excites me. My body, my breath, even my voice instantly shift. Suddenly, I’m connected, and the listener feels that.

Grounded Realism Wins Every spec I see these days calls for “grounded” performances. Realism, emotional core, choices that feel intentional. Bold doesn’t mean fake—it means clear. It means believable.

When you make that one strong emotional choice and commit to it, you create something that lasts beyond the audition.

Try This in Your Next Audition Next time you step into the booth, hit record right away. Play with one big emotional choice. Answer a couple of my six category questions. Even in a short spot, let yourself lean into the invisible audience, into the story you’re telling.

You’ll feel the difference—and so will the people listening.

Want My Checklist? I put together a 45 Character Question Checklist to help you build characters fast. It’s a quick reference to keep you grounded and connected no matter the script.

📩 Want it? Email me at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com and I’ll send it to you.

If you’re looking for coaching in voiceover or creative entrepreneurialism, that’s my wheelhouse. And if you’re focused on on-camera, legit, or core work, my co-host Peter Pamela Rose is your person—email her at peter@actingbusinessbootcamp.com .

Helping actors tell stories and follow their dreams is one of my favorite things to do. So go kick some ass this week, and remember: all voiceover work is character work.

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This week’s episode is all about documentary narration. Voiceover actor Paula Tiso joins me to share her journey from sketch comedy in Los Angeles to working steadily in promos, radio imaging, true crime, and documentary series.

We talk about training, the shift from “perky” reads to grounded storytelling, and what it really takes to support a story with your voice.

About Paula:

Paula Tiso is a veteran voiceover actor whose work spans documentary narration, true crime, television affiliates, video games, and more. She’s voiced Smithsonian Channel documentaries, Oxygen and ID series like Living with a Serial Killer and The Devil Speaks, and brought characters to life in games including Final Fantasy X, No More Heroes, and Fallout 76.

Whether narrating history, guiding audiences through true crime, or connecting viewers to their local TV stations, Paula’s voice combines warmth, authority, and authenticity.

From Comedy to Narration Paula started out in sketch comedy and found her way into voiceover through commercial training. She explains how those early skills built the foundation for narration work across genres.

True Crime and Empathy Narrating true crime requires neutrality and steadiness. At the same time, it calls for empathy when addressing victims and families. Paula shares how she prepares for heavy scripts and keeps her delivery both clear and compassionate.

Core Skills for Narrators * Commercial training as a base for timing and clarity * Adaptability when scripts change mid-session * Authenticity in the read, not a “performance” * Curiosity to keep learning and exploring new material * Preparation that marks cues and supports clean delivery

Types of Documentary Narration * Nature: slow pacing, voice supports the picture * History: sometimes includes character inserts, with age shifts in voice * In-show and lifestyle: friendly and helpful * Promos and affiliates: concise and reliable

Building a Career Paula describes narration as building a career vine by vine, one connection leading to the next. She emphasizes curiosity, preparation, and adaptability as the keys to staying relevant.

AI and the Future Paula also discusses how AI is impacting voiceover, and the work organizations like NAVA are doing to protect performers through transparency and consent.

Episode Takeaways * Let the voice support the picture * Documentary reads today are grounded and authentic * Empathy without bias is essential in true crime * Preparation and adaptability make sessions run smoothly * Careers grow step by step, connection by connection

Resources and Mentions * National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA) * Living with a Serial Killer on Peacock * Paula Tiso’s narration shorts and blog

Support the Podcast If you’re enjoying the Acting Business Boot Camp podcast, please leave us a 5-star review wherever you listen. We’re close to reaching 100 reviews, and your support makes a real difference.

Stay Connected Email: peter@actingbusinessbootcamp.com Coaching and classes: Acting Business Boot Camp

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Today’s episode is called “Your Audition Superpower.” We’re talking about what really makes an audition competitive, not just good. Because in a crowded industry, good auditions disappear. Competitive ones get remembered.

Whether you’re stepping into the booth, walking into the room, or recording a self-tape at home, these five elements can transform how casting directors see you.

Why “Audition Superpowers” Matter Every actor has talent. What separates the hobbyists from the professionals is how you show up under pressure. Casting directors don’t just want a great read. They want someone they can rely on, someone who takes risks, and someone who knows how to communicate humanity through their choices.

That’s why these five aspects aren’t just skills. They’re your audition superpowers.

The 5 Audition Superpowers 1. Confidence Not the fake-it-till-you-make-it kind. Real confidence is clarity and control, the ability to deliver without obsessing about what the casting director wants. It’s trusting your instincts, playing with choices, and knowing every version is still you.

1. Preparedness Prepared actors sound professional. Unprepared ones sound like hobbyists. From knowing your character’s secrets and desires to understanding the platform you’re working in, preparedness eliminates scrambling and allows you to deliver with authority.

2. Professionalism The least glamorous but most powerful superpower. Label your files correctly. Follow directions exactly. Show up early and ready. Charm gets you in the room once. Professionalism is what builds long-term trust.

3. Boldness Safe auditions are wallpaper. Bold choices make casting directors look up from their coffee and say, “Who is that?” Boldness isn’t about volume. It’s about commitment. Commit to your weird, specific humanity. That’s what makes you unforgettable.

4. Range Range isn’t about pitch or speed. It’s emotional truth and control, the ability to flip from playful to grounded, warm to terrifying, sweet to cruel, without losing authenticity. Range shows casting directors you can carry an entire character’s humanity in your voice.

Putting Your Superpowers to Work Confidence. Preparedness. Professionalism. Boldness. Range. Together, they make you unstoppable.

It’s not about perfection. It’s about being consistent, being human, and being willing to risk a little weirdness. Some of the strangest choices I’ve made in auditions are the ones casting directors still remember.

So ask yourself: which of these audition superpowers do you need to level up right now?

Stay Connected * TikTok: @AstoriaRedhead * Substack: The Actors Index * Email: mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com * Coaching & Classes: Acting Business Boot Camp

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This week’s episode is all about doing the damn thing. Inspired by Jen Sincero’s You Are a Badass, we explore how to move from wishful thinking into real, consistent action.

Because let’s face it:

• Epiphanies are useless without execution.
• Self-help without follow-through is shelf-help.
• Trying to be an actor isn’t the same as being one.

From Passive Habits to Active Action Many actors fall into the trap of passive self-help habits. That looks like reading books, journaling, or attending seminars but never actually taking the uncomfortable, messy steps that move your career forward.

Here’s the three-part shift:

1. Awareness – Notice your thoughts, excuses, and passive habits.
2. Acceptance – Own them without judgment.
3. Action – Act your way into right thinking and build your courage muscle.

Every day, ask yourself: Am I going to the gym… or am I really going to the gym?

Be in the 5% Here’s a sobering stat: only 5% of SAG-AFTRA members qualify for health insurance. And of all the people who take courses (in any field), only 5% ever implement what they learn.

We want you in that 5%. The ones who suit up, show up, and keep going. The ones who build resilience, embrace discomfort, and grow stronger by being brave.

Stop Waiting. Start Acting. Waiting is the perfect recipe for self-sabotage. If you want a career, start now. Start messy. Start imperfect. But start.

At Acting Business Boot Camp, that’s why we’ve built:

• The Weekly Accountability Group – so you don’t just learn, you follow through.
• Monthly Classes with Mandy – so you keep sharpening your tools and confidence.
• The Weekly Adjustment Group – to help you build bravery into your daily life.

Because knowledge without action won’t book you jobs. Action will.

Episode Takeaways * Epiphanies without execution don’t create change. * Awareness + Acceptance + Action = Transformation. * Success is about getting comfortable being uncomfortable. * Build your courage muscle daily. * Don’t “try” to be an actor. Be an actor.

Resources and Links * Book mentioned: You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero * Join us in the Weekly Accountability Group or the Weekly Adjustment Group to put this into practice.

Support the Podcast If you’re enjoying the Acting Business Boot Camp podcast, please leave us a 5-star review wherever you listen. It helps us reach more actors around the world who are ready to stop waiting and start doing the damn thing.

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Okay actors, here it is—your end-of-summer pep talk. I don’t know how we got here so fast, but summer’s basically over and it’s time to stop stalling. Time to get your act together.

In this episode, I’m giving it to you straight. Yes, I even drop a few swear words, because honestly, sometimes that’s what it takes to shake things up. I’ll share the story of Bowie the cat (our very cautious little housemate) and how it perfectly connects to where so many of you are stuck in your careers. The question is: are you going to stay scared Bowie… or step up and be brave Bowie?

And I’m not just talking theory here. I’m breaking down the exact things that matter most right now: your resume, your headshots, your reels, your website, and the way you correspond with agents and casting directors. These are the details that decide whether we keep looking at you—or hit delete in under three seconds.

What You’ll Take Away * Why being “brave Bowie” matters more than you think * The three pillars of Acting Business Boot Camp: training, business skills, and mindset work * How to make your resume speak the “Language of Agents and Casting Directors” * What your headshots and reels are really saying about you * Why your emails to agents and CDs often get ignored (and how to fix it) * The one website mistake that can literally cost you a job * Why being 98% committed isn’t enough—and how going all in changes everything

My Challenge to You If you’re serious about becoming a working actor, you don’t have to do this alone. That’s what I built Acting Business Boot Camp for: to give you structure, tools, and support from someone who knows this industry inside and out.

So here’s my offer: book a free 15-minute consultation with me. Let’s see where you’re stuck, what’s holding you back, and how to get your act together once and for all.

If you’ve worked with me before and feel like you need a reset, click the link in the show notes and let’s reconnect. If this is your first step, perfect. Let’s get started.

Ready? Let’s Do This Click the link in the show notes to grab your free consultation.

Because you don’t want to spend the next season of your career like scared Bowie, hiding in the corner. You want to be the one who finally steps out, explores the whole house, and discovers just how good it feels to be brave.

About Me I’m Peter Pamela Rose, a casting director and certified life and career coach. Through Acting Business Boot Camp, I help actors cut through the noise, build confidence, and create careers that actually work. Every week, I share real tools, mindset coaching, and industry insights to get you from feeling stuck to becoming a working actor.

👉 Click here to schedule your free 15-minute session.

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When I Froze on “Three Takes” I’ll be honest, the first time a casting director asked me for three takes in the same vibe, my brain short-circuited. The first one felt okay. The second? I made it louder. The third? I whispered and hoped for divine intervention.

Sound familiar? If you’ve been there, you’re not alone. No one really teaches us how to do this. We just… guess.

But over the years, I’ve learned that “three takes” doesn’t have to be torture. It’s actually an opportunity to show range, subtlety, and intention — if you know where to focus.

My Five Go-To Tools for Variety Here’s what I rely on:

1. Change the environment. Close your eyes and imagine where you are. A noisy coffee shop shifts your energy in a completely different way than a quiet office.
2. Add human sounds. We don’t speak like robots. A breath, a chuckle, a little “mm-hmm” makes your read feel alive.
3. Play with pauses. I love a pause. It can create tension, warmth, or surprise. Same words, totally different rhythm.
4. Change your listener. Who am I talking to? A best friend feels different than a five-year-old. A stranger feels different than a coworker.
5. Shift your motivation. This one’s huge. Maybe I’m trying to inspire. Maybe I’m trying to tease. Same emotion, new motivation — and suddenly the take has layers.

These adjustments keep me from falling into the “loud-soft-whisper” trap. Instead, each take feels intentional.

Why I Lean on Improv Here’s the secret I wish someone had told me sooner: improv isn’t about being funny. It’s about being present.

When a casting director says, “Make it feel more natural,” what they really mean is, “Stop performing and start reacting.” Improv trains me to do that. It helps me:

• Make stronger choices quickly
• Stay grounded when I mess up
• React honestly instead of overthinking
• Give multiple takes that feel genuinely different

As Kristen Wiig said, “Improv is about listening and not trying to be funny. It’s about being honest.” I’ve found that to be absolutely true.

What Fear Taught Me I know improv scares people. It used to terrify me. My brain would scream, “Don’t mess this up. Don’t look stupid.”

But here’s what shifted everything: fear means I care. Fear tells me I’m right at the edge of something interesting. If I can use it, not run from it, that’s where the magic happens.

Now, I remind myself: I don’t have to be clever. I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to be available. And ironically, that’s when my best work happens.

Why This Matters for You If you’ve been frustrated by the 1-2-3 take request, know this: it’s not about pleasing the casting gods. It’s about showing them you can be flexible, creative, and real.

With these five tools and an improv mindset, you’ll stop guessing. You’ll start delivering takes that feel grounded and alive — and most importantly, like you.

If you want help practicing this, I’d love to work with you. I offer free 15-minute consults, and I’m always excited to help actors build confidence in the booth and on the mic.

👉 Book your free consult here

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Most actors treat their careers like a guessing game. Send a few emails. Hope someone notices. Post on Instagram. Cross your fingers.

But what if you could know what’s working? What if you had the exact information to make better choices, save time, and book more work?

That is what tracking data does for you, and yes, it is way less boring than it sounds.

Why Most Actors Avoid Tracking (and Why That Hurts Them) A lot of actors shy away from anything that feels “too business.” They think tracking numbers will suck the artistry out of what they do.

But here is the thing: you are your own product. If you are selling anything, you need to know what is resonating and what is falling flat.

Data is not about turning you into a robot. It is more like a script you did not know you needed. It tells you what is landing, what is missing the mark, and where to put your energy next.

How to Start Small Without Overcomplicating It You do not need fancy software to start. A simple spreadsheet can change the game. Write down who you contacted and when, the subject line you used, whether they opened it, clicked, replied, or ignored it.

Tools like MailTrack, Boomerang, or Yesware will do the tracking for you. Open rates tell you if your subject line was compelling. Click-through rates tell you if your reel or website got attention.

The Power of Testing What Works Want to level it up? Try sending two slightly different versions of the same email, maybe just the subject line changes, and see which one gets better results. That is A/B testing. It is not complicated, and it tells you exactly what works.

What Your Website Metrics Can Reveal Installing Google Analytics (it is free) can show you how many people visit, where they came from, how long they stay, and what they click. You might even notice patterns, like everyone skipping your résumé PDF but clicking on your behind-the-scenes video. That is information you can use.

Heatmap tools like Hotjar take it further by showing where people actually click. If your most-visited link is your dog’s Instagram, maybe rethink what you are putting front and center.

Social Media: Looking Beyond Likes Social media works the same way. It is not about likes, it is about patterns. Which posts get saved the most? Which videos are watched to the end? Does posting at 9 a.m. get more engagement than 9 p.m.? Use those answers to repeat what is working and retire what is not.

Your Weekly Career Check-In Once a week, set aside time to check:

• Emails sent, opened, clicked, and replied to
• Social media reach, saves, and comments
• Website traffic and bounce rate
• Auditions requested and booked
• Optional but useful: moments you felt completely burned out

It does not have to take long, but it will change the way you approach your career. Data without action is just a sad spreadsheet.

The Takeaway Tracking does not make you less creative, it makes you more strategic. It gives you the freedom to spend your energy where it matters most.

Start small. Track your emails, your socials, your auditions. Let the numbers guide your next move instead of just hoping you are on the right path.

And if you want one-on-one coaching to help you track, strategize, and grow your acting career, reach out to hello@actingbusinessbootcamp.com. Let us build your career with purpose, not guesswork.

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If you’ve ever gotten an email offering $850 for 45 minutes of voice work and thought, huh, that sounds… generous—you’re not alone.

Today I’m walking you through one of the most common and dangerous traps voice actors fall into: the voiceover scam.

Let’s talk about how to recognize one, why we fall for them, and how to protect yourself.

These Scams Are Getting Smarter I’ve seen so many of these land in my inbox or get forwarded from friends and students. And honestly, they’re getting better. Better design. Better phrasing. More personal.

But when you know what to look for, the patterns start to repeat.

Here’s the kind of language I often see:

• “We came across your demo…”
• “We’re excited to offer $850 for a quick project…”
• “A studio will be rented near your location…”

They sound legit. But when you look closer, there’s no company name, no usage terms, no specifics—and that’s your first red flag.

Why It’s Easy to Fall For Let me be clear: falling for one of these doesn’t make you gullible. It makes you human.

We’re trained to get excited when someone wants to hire us. So when you get a message that sounds like your SEO efforts are working or your voice finally got discovered, your brain lights up.

But scammers know that. They prey on that excitement, that desire to get booked, and that dream of breaking through.

And because so many actors are navigating financial stress, looking for validation, or craving that first big break, the offer feels like a miracle. That’s by design.

Real vs. Scam: What to Look For Let me give you a side-by-side.

Here’s a real email I received:

“Hi Mandy, we’re currently casting a series of short-form e-learning modules for a corporate client in the healthcare space. We heard your narration demo and would love to invite you to audition. If selected, the rate is $450 per finished hour for internal usage. Remote recording is preferred.”

Notice the difference?

• There’s a category (e-learning).
• A rate and usage clause.
• A clear, grounded tone.

Now contrast that with a scam version that said:

“We have a voice-over assignment with a copyrighted script to be recorded at a studio near your location. Your emotional readiness is crucial.”

Um… what?

Common Red Flags I See Over and Over I’ve seen these pop up again and again. Here are the top ones:

• Too much money too fast. Real jobs involve negotiation. Not just a flat $850 for 45 minutes with no questions asked.
• No company name. Or they use a real one but spoof the email (like "creta.net" instead of "creta.com").
• No contract or NDA. No paper trail. Nothing to protect you.
• Weird language. “Emotional readiness”? “Check your email frequently”? No legitimate producer talks like that.
• Fake check scam. They’ll send a “check” to pay a studio, ask you to forward the money, and when it bounces—you’re the one out the cash.

And sadly, they’ve even impersonated real companies like TransPerfect or Creta. They pull real employee names from LinkedIn to make it look legit.

What I Recommend You Do Instead Here’s how I keep myself (and my students) scam-free:

1. Google the sender. If they’re real, they’ll have some kind of digital footprint.
2. Ask questions. Who’s the client? What’s the usage? Where will this air?
3. Book your own studio. Or ask to record from home. If they refuse, walk away.
4. Never deposit a check from a stranger. Ever.
5. Reach out to SAG-AFTRA. Even if you’re not union, they have resources and will help.
6. Keep good records. Save your emails, contracts, and create a CRM to track inquiries.
7. Join VO red flag groups. There’s strength in community.

And above all—trust your gut.

Final Thought I love this industry. Voiceover has changed my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined. But it also comes with risks. If something feels weird… pause. Screenshot it. DM a friend. Or send it to me.

You’re not alone in this.

If you want to talk more about your VO goals, I’d love to help. You can always reach me at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com or schedule a free 15-minute session here.

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In this solo episode, Peter gets deeply personal about a challenging week—and the powerful mindset shift that came from it.

After getting emotionally “twisted,” Peter turned to her most trusted tools: journaling, meditation, and coaching. What started as a spiral led to a breakthrough realization:

Your mind is your world. And your world is your mind.

When you’re in your fear-based thought system, everything feels like a problem. But when you shift into a more loving, conscious mindset, you begin to see challenges as opportunities.

Peter shares how unconscious thinking patterns can create unnecessary suffering, and how awareness, honesty, and a willingness to feel your feelings can shift your entire experience.

Whether you’ve had a tough week yourself or you’re just ready for a new perspective, this episode offers a grounded, compassionate reminder of how much power lives in your mindset.

In this episode, you’ll learn: * The difference between fear thoughts and love-based thoughts * What Peter does when she feels overwhelmed or triggered * How to use stream-of-consciousness journaling to uncover what’s really going on * Why it’s okay to “suffer a little” before you’re ready to shift * A practical way to reset your emotions when you’re feeling stuck

Resources mentioned: * Free Time Management Workshop – Click here for details * Book a free consultation with Peter Pamela Rose * Stephen Ridley episode – Listen here

Want more support? If this episode resonated with you and you’re ready to take the next step, whether that’s with time management, mindset, or your acting career, I invite you to book a free consultation.

Click here to schedule your session.

And as always… stay safe and treat yourself real well. You don’t have to be perfect.

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If you're a creative who rolls their eyes every time someone says, “You should be on TikTok,” I get it.

I did too.

But I’ve also seen firsthand how a free platform with a low barrier to entry can quietly change your entire business.

Not overnight. But steadily. Strategically. Without becoming someone you’re not.

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on how I use TikTok to stay visible, book clients, and build trust—without filters, dances, or pretending to be an influencer.

So, why TikTok? I never expected to like it. I don’t love being on camera. I don’t enjoy over-polishing or oversharing.

But I do love showing up for my community. I love talking shop. And I really love when a new client says, “I found you on TikTok… I just felt like you got it.”

They didn’t care about my résumé. They didn’t go through my website. They watched a few videos, got curious, and reached out.

That’s the power of visibility.

Why Visibility Matters More Than Ever I set a personal goal of 30,000 followers. Not for vanity. Because I’ve seen how perception changes with scale.

At that number, people stop wondering if you're legit. They start assuming you are.

It’s wild, but true: I’ve had actors tell me they didn’t book the job because they “didn’t have a big enough following.”

So while I don’t love the rule... I’m learning to play the game.

What I Post (and How I Keep It Manageable) I post just once a day, Monday through Friday. No weekends. That’s it.

My content rotates through three categories:

1. Trend-Based Posts Not dancing. Not chasing virality. Just using trending audio or formats to talk about life as a voice actor. Red flags. Weird specs. Behind-the-scenes stress. Stuff people relate to.

2. Original Content This is where I share warmups, workflow tips, gear recs, or things I wish I knew when I started out. The more specific, the better.

3. Personal Stories No life-overhauls or tearful confessions. Just honest stories from inside the booth: bombing auditions, almost quitting, learning the hard way. Those posts? They connect deeply.

A Weekly Posting Roadmap If you want to try it out, here’s a simple structure:

• Monday – A trend or audio reworked for your niche
• Tuesday – Respond to a question or comment
• Wednesday – Share a personal or client story
• Thursday – A POV sketch or observation
• Friday – Tips or encouragement for beginners

Repeat. Tweak. Evolve based on what’s resonating.

Use Your Analytics TikTok gives you free data. Look at what people are watching all the way through, saving, or sharing—and lean into that.

Kill what’s not working. Keep what is. Don’t overthink it.

This isn’t about being viral. It’s about being valuable.

Profile Tips to Help You Get Hired You don’t need a perfect feed. But your profile should make sense to someone new:

• Clean, recognizable photo (not necessarily a headshot)
• Bio that says what you do and what kind of content you make
• Link to your site or lead magnet
• Keep your vibe real. Show up as yourself.

Don’t hide your mic. Don’t over-filter. You’re not selling a brand. You’re being a person.

What If You’re Not Using TikTok? That’s totally fine.

But then ask yourself: Where are your future clients going to find you?

Instagram? YouTube? Discord? Email? Wherever you plan to show up, you need a strategy.

And if you’re not going to show up at all? Then you need a different kind of strategy.

Need Help? I’ve Got You. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or stuck about how to grow your VO presence online—let’s talk.

You can always reach me through mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com, or DM me on TikTok at @astoriaredhead.

I’d love to see what you’re creating.

Because we’re not just growing followers. We’re growing careers.

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How to Change Your Momentum When You’re Stuck as a Creative If you’re an artist or creative who feels stalled—like you’ve hit a wall in your motivation, progress, or passion—you’re not alone.

Whether it’s burnout, fear, comparison, or just plain fatigue, creative momentum can vanish without warning. And getting it back? That can feel impossible.

But here’s the good news: momentum is a choice. Not something that magically returns when the conditions are perfect—but something you can actively create, even in the mess of real life.

In this week’s Acting Business Boot Camp podcast episode, I spoke with Stephen Ridley, musician, speaker, and founder of Ridley Academy, about exactly that.

What unfolded was a deeply personal and practical roadmap for any artist who wants to stop stalling and start moving forward again.

What Does It Mean to “Change Your Momentum”? Momentum isn’t about working harder. It’s about shifting the energy underneath your decisions. According to Stephen, the way we talk to ourselves—our internal attitude—shapes what happens next.

He calls it the self-fulfilling nature of mindset.

“Both negativity and positivity become self-fulfilling prophecies,” he says. “And both are equally available.”

In other words, what you expect tends to be what you get. So if you’re expecting things to be hard, slow, or pointless… they probably will be.

But here’s where this conversation gets interesting. Stephen doesn’t suggest “faking” positivity. He actually recommends the opposite.

Step 1: Stop Resisting Your Mood When you’re stuck in a low state—feeling anxious, apathetic, overwhelmed—the worst thing you can do is pretend you’re not. Instead, lean in.

“I’ll play piano in apathy,” Stephen says. “I’ll let myself feel lazy. I’ll turn up the volume on the feeling until I get bored of it. That’s when the momentum shifts.”

When you stop resisting how you feel and start actively creating it, you take back control. It’s no longer happening to you. You’re the one creating it.

That awareness is where movement begins.

Step 2: Ask the Question That Changes Everything Once you’ve moved through the feeling—not skipped over it—there’s a simple question Stephen recommends to create forward momentum:

“What can I do for you?”

Not just you, the person in front of you. But you in the broadest sense: the audience, the community, the world.

This question flips your attention from inward to outward. It connects you to purpose. It anchors you in service.

And for artists, that’s everything.

Because the role of the artist, as Stephen beautifully puts it, is not to collapse into the emptiness of life—but to provide the antidote.

The Trap of Creative Victimhood So many creatives are unconsciously stuck in a victim mindset. Waiting for permission. Hoping to be chosen. Scared to make the wrong move.

But as Stephen says, the longer you wait, the more you stall. And stalling, while it may feel passive, often comes with a payoff: you don’t have to take responsibility.

That’s the truth most people don’t want to hear.

But the moment you reclaim that responsibility—without shame or blame—you begin to unlock the creative momentum you’ve been craving.

Final Thought: You Don’t Have to Wait The most successful creatives aren’t necessarily the most talented. They’re the ones who know how to take action even when things aren’t perfect. They’ve learned to choose positivity without needing to feel it first. They know how to get out of their heads and back into service.

Stephen’s message is simple, but profound:

“You don’t have to find momentum. You can create it. And it starts with one decision.”

Want to Practice This Work? If you’re ready to rebuild your creative momentum in a grounded, supportive space, I invite you to try a free class of The Weekly Adjustment—my coaching group for actors and artists working on confidence, mindset, and meaningful progress.

🔗 Click here to join us for free

And if you’ve ever dreamed of learning piano—or reconnecting to passion through creative play—check out RidleyAcademy.com. Stephen’s method is changing lives.

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Let’s talk about something most coaches won’t say out loud: Just because you love something doesn’t mean you’re great at it.

I know. It stings. But it’s important.

In this episode, I’m digging into the uncomfortable (but necessary) gap between interest and aptitude—especially in voiceover. Because if you're frustrated that you're not booking in your dream genre, you might be ignoring the thing you're actually great at.

What I Talk About in This Episode: * Why passion doesn’t always equal potential * How to spot the areas where you naturally shine * Why ignoring your strengths can slow your career * What to do when your “boring” voice actually books * How to balance income work with creative fulfillment * The difference between fantasy reels and real-world needs

The Harsh Truth I’ve Learned (and Lived) Interest is loud. It’s shiny. It gets excited. But aptitude? Aptitude is quiet. It’s efficient. It gets the job done with less effort.

That’s your edge.

If you're constantly trying to “break into” animation but clients keep calling you back for corporate narration... maybe it's time to listen.

I Like to Think of VO as a Buffet You don’t have to love every dish at the buffet. But you do need to eat. Some genres feed your wallet. Others feed your soul. Both matter. But the key is building a career that includes both—without starving either.

A Little Homework for You Ask yourself:

1. What do I love to do in VO?
2. What do I actually book?
3. Where do I get the most consistent positive feedback?

If those answers aren’t lining up, that’s your cue to rework your business plan. Not to quit. To recalibrate.

This Isn’t About Giving Up on the Dream You can still create that weird fantasy assassin rabbit character (I mean, please do). Just don’t expect it to pay your rent. Yet.

Instead, learn how to work your income genres well. Use them to build your skills, connections, and freedom. Let them support your creativity instead of crush it.

Need Help Strategizing? If you’re feeling stuck between what you want and what’s working, let’s talk. Seriously.

• On-camera actor? Peter’s your person: peter@actingbusinessbootcamp.com
• Voiceover artist? That’s me: mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com

We love helping actors figure this stuff out. It’s what we do.

Thanks for being here, and if this episode hit home, share it with a fellow actor who needs to hear it too.

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In this episode, I dive deep into one of the most important and misunderstood parts of an actor's journey: confidence.

Without confidence, you're benched. Without humility, you're a liability. Confidence is essential in the entertainment industry, but it has to be real—not performative, not overblown, and definitely not hubris.

I break down how to build real, grounded confidence that will keep you moving forward in your voiceover or acting career, using neuroscience-backed tools and personal experience from over two decades in the industry.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why confidence is essential, and why too much of it (aka hubris) can end your career
• The underrated power of self-awareness and how to cultivate it
• "Talent blindness" and why some actors can’t see where they’re falling short
• Real talk on imposter syndrome and how it rewires your brain
• The difference between self-trust and self-delusion

Three Neuroscience-Backed Tips to Build Confidence:

1. Focus on Small Wins

   • Create a "brag file" with positive feedback, wins, compliments, and proud moments
   • Celebrate progress, not perfection, and let your brain build new confidence loops

   • Use Visualization

   • Imagine your future success in vivid detail to activate the same brain networks as real achievement

   • Rehearse emotionally grounded wins before you step up to the mic or camera

   • Interrupt the Cortisol Cycle

   • Practice intentional breathing to calm your nervous system and stay present

   • Use 4-4-6 breath work to reset stress levels before auditions or sessions

7-Day Confidence Challenge (Free Prompt Series):

• Day 1: Write down 5 wins or moments you felt proud as an actor
• Day 2: Visualize a successful performance, using all five senses
• Day 3: Record and review a short piece of work
• Day 4: Practice calming breath work for 2 minutes
• Day 5: Take a risk with your craft (bold choice, new tone, character)
• Day 6: Write and say 3 affirmations aloud
• Day 7: Journal your growth and what you noticed about trusting yourself

Final Takeaway: Confidence is not just mindset. It's a habit. A neurological pattern. A cycle of self-trust, built one decision at a time.

If you're struggling with imposter syndrome or feel like your confidence disappears when it matters most, you’re not alone—and you’re not broken. Try the challenge. Start small. And keep going.

Mentioned in This Episode:

• My TikTok: @astoryredhead
• Actors Index Substack
• Email: mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com

Want More? Check out our Monthly Gyms and Weekly Classes at Acting Business Boot Camp for ongoing training, coaching, and confidence tools.

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Today I want to talk about something that comes up in almost every coaching session I have with actors.

Fear.

Not just nerves before a big audition. Not just that pit in your stomach when you hit “submit” on a self-tape.

I mean the kind of fear that quietly shapes your entire career. The fear that keeps you playing small, second-guessing yourself, or holding back in moments when you need to be bold. The fear that convinces you maybe this dream isn’t really for you.

If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “What if I’m not good enough?” or “What if I can’t handle it?”—you’re not alone. And that’s exactly what this episode of the Acting Business Boot Camp Podcast is all about.

The Root of Fear in an Actor’s Life Fear is instinctual. It’s wired into us. Back when humans were being chased by saber-toothed tigers, fear served a purpose—it kept us alive. But today? That same adrenaline spike shows up when you’re waiting outside a casting office or uploading a tape for your reps.

And here’s the thing: fear doesn’t know the difference between real danger and perceived danger. That’s why something as simple as a callback can feel like life or death.

But what I’ve learned—both as a working actress and a coach—is that fear isn’t the enemy. The real challenge is how we respond to it.

The Real Reason Fear Holds You Back There’s one core truth I want you to consider:

At the bottom of every fear is the belief that you can’t handle what life throws at you.

That’s it. That’s the root.

Not the audition. Not the agent meeting. Not even the rejection. It’s the belief that if those things happen—or don’t—you won’t be able to cope.

So what do we do? We avoid. We procrastinate. We shrink ourselves.

But I’m here to tell you, you can handle it.

You just haven’t built that muscle yet.

Shifting Your Energy From Fear to Power In my weekly mindset class for actors, The Weekly Adjustment, we work on exactly this. We shift from what I call catabolic energy (draining, fear-based, victim-thinking) to anabolic energy (creative, empowered, growth-oriented).

It’s not magic. It’s mindset work. It’s learning how to interrupt those thought loops and say, “Hey, I see you, fear. But you’re not driving the car today.”

Once you do that—once you raise your energy—you start to attract the opportunities, collaborators, and outcomes that match your new level. Not because the world changes. But because you’ve changed.

What Would You Do If You Knew You Could Handle Anything? That’s the question I leave you with. What would you do differently in your acting career if you had full trust in your ability to handle whatever came your way?

Would you submit more? Would you stop apologizing in the room? Would you finally reach out to that rep?

You don’t need to “get rid” of fear. You need to learn how to work with it. To build your handling muscle. That’s how we grow as actors and as humans.

Ready to Try This Work for Yourself? If this resonates, I’d love to invite you to try two free classes of The Weekly Adjustment. No catch, no obligation—just real tools to help you feel more confident, more connected, and more in control of your career.

This work has changed lives, including my own. It might just change yours too.

👉 Click here to claim your two free classes

And remember—you’ll never be given more than you can handle. But you will be given more than you can control. Let’s build that muscle together.

With love and belief in you, Peter Pamela Rose Certified Life & Career Coach for Actors Host of the Acting Business Boot Camp Podcast

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Episode Summary:

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on something I think we all struggle with at some point—especially if you’re a voice actor, on-camera actor, or creative trying to “make it”: shiny object syndrome. You know the feeling. You see someone post about a fancy new mic, a game-changing workshop, a big booking, and suddenly you're wondering… should I be doing that too?

I’ve been there. I’ve spent the money. I’ve chased the dopamine hits. And I want to talk honestly about how jealousy, comparison, and impulse spending can quietly erode your confidence, your clarity, and your career.

This one’s for the overthinkers, the late-night scrollers, the folks who are constantly trying to prove they belong. You don’t need to spend your way into success. You need a strategy. And maybe a little tough love. That’s what this episode is all about.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Why shiny object syndrome shows up so often in creative careers
• How to tell the difference between real growth and reactive spending
• The not-so-cute side of jealousy (and what it’s actually trying to tell you)
• Why a new mic or class might not be the thing that moves the needle
• What to track so you can make strategic, data-backed decisions
• A practical, free action you can take this week to reconnect with your voice and value

What I Hope You Take Away: Just because someone else is booking doesn’t mean they’re better. Just because you feel stuck doesn’t mean you need to spend. You already have more than you think. The key is learning how to use it intentionally.

Mentioned in this episode: 🎤 Join my Voiceover Gym – Monthly improv-based VO workout sessions with direct feedback 📬 Subscribe to my Substack – Real talk on creative mindset, VO coaching, and the business of being an artist 📱 Follow me on TikTok – For behind-the-scenes, soapbox rants, and the occasional mic drop

Want to support the show? Share this episode with a fellow actor who needs to hear it. Leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It makes a huge difference.

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How to Land Acting Work in Smaller Markets (And Why It’s More Accessible Than You Might Think)

Have you ever thought that real acting work is only found in big cities? Like you have to be in New York or LA to make it? I used to think that too. But my conversation with actor Aaron Marcus on the Acting Business Boot Camp podcast really shifted that perspective.

About Aaron Marcus Aaron Marcus has been a full-time actor for over 40 years, with nearly 1,300 bookings across film, TV, commercials, and more. You might have seen his scene with Tom Hanks in the film A Man Called Otto. Aaron started his acting journey in a small market, with no connections and no clue how to break in. After figuring it out through trial and error, he dedicated himself to helping others avoid those same pitfalls. He’s led over 800 workshops on three continents and offers private virtual coaching sessions to share his hard-earned wisdom.

You can learn more about Aaron’s work, watch his free quick-tip videos, or sign up for his mailing list at howtoactandmodel.com.

The Reality of Smaller Markets It’s easy to forget that acting isn’t only about movies and television. There’s a whole world of paid acting work in smaller markets that most people overlook: training videos, corporate films, industrials, standardized patient work at hospitals, even local commercials and role-playing jobs for law schools and agencies.

Aaron shared how he built up a steady income and impressive résumé by seizing these opportunities. And he’s proof that you don’t have to be in a major city to find consistent, paid work as an actor.

Finding These Hidden Opportunities Aaron offered some practical insights that really stuck with me:

• Reach out to local businesses and small chains. These places need content to promote themselves—commercials, training videos, even social media content.
• Connect with teaching hospitals and medical schools in your area. Standardized patient work is fascinating and pays you to improvise as a patient to help train medical professionals.
• Contact advertising agencies nearby, not just the national ones. Local agencies need real people with authentic voices for regional commercials and corporate videos.

And maybe my favorite point: Aaron still believes in mailing hard copies of your materials. Yes, it’s old-fashioned. But it’s memorable. Most emails get deleted. A real letter can make an impression.

The Importance of Staying Connected Aaron also talked about the value of looping in your agent, even when you book work yourself. It’s not about giving away part of your earnings. It’s about showing your agent that you’re proactive and working. It’s about nurturing relationships and building a sense of partnership.

A Reminder: There’s Work for Everyone What struck me most in talking with Aaron was this simple truth: there’s work out there for everyone. You just have to know where to look and be willing to take action.

If you’re feeling stuck or discouraged by the idea that you have to be in a big city to book work, I hope this encourages you. You don’t. The opportunities are out there. They’re in your community. And often, the first step is just reaching out and asking who’s doing the hiring.

Until next time, remember: there’s work out there for everyone. Stay safe and treat yourself real well.

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It’s Mandy Fisher here, your Voiceover actor and creative coach. Today I want to dive into something that’s been on my mind a lot: how the neuroscience of decision-making can help us as actors and creative professionals. Because we’re not just making choices in auditions or on stage. We’re making decisions every single day that shape our careers, relationships, and—let’s be real—our self-worth.

How the Brain Guides Our Creative Decisions Let’s talk brain science for a sec. The prefrontal cortex? It’s the part of the brain handling complex thoughts and decisions, like our personal command center. Think of it like that alien in Men in Black—the one sitting up front, pulling the strings. Then there’s the hippocampus, which stores memories and helps us imagine what’s next. They’re constantly in conversation, helping us weigh options and see potential outcomes.

Understanding how these parts of the brain work together is powerful. It reminds us that strategic thinking isn’t just some abstract idea. It’s already woven into the way our brains work, whether we realize it or not.

A Simple Challenge to Build Strategic Thinking I want to offer you a challenge. Pick one decision you’ve been dancing around—something big or small, doesn’t matter. Think about the risks, the rewards, and what those future scenarios might look like. Then go ahead and make the decision. After a week, check back in with yourself. How did it feel? What did you learn?

This exercise can help you see that you’re already more strategic than you give yourself credit for. It’s about bringing that awareness to the forefront, so you can start making choices with more clarity and intention.

Limiting Beliefs: The Invisible Blocks to Your Success But here’s the thing: decision-making isn’t just about what’s outside of us. It’s also about what’s going on inside. I’m talking about those limiting beliefs. You know, the ones that say, “I’m not good enough,” or “There’s too much competition.” These thoughts show up for so many of us in the acting world.

These beliefs often come from past experiences, family dynamics, or even well-meaning but misguided advice. And they can really hold us back if we’re not paying attention.

Another Challenge: Reframe Those Old Beliefs So here’s another challenge. Name one limiting belief that’s been lurking in the background. Ask yourself: Is this really true? Where did it come from? Then see if you can reframe it into something more helpful. Like changing “I’m not good at public speaking” to “I can improve my public speaking with practice.”

Write it down. Repeat it to yourself. And take one small action that lines up with that new belief—like volunteering for a presentation or sharing your work with a trusted friend.

Living Authentically in Your Acting Career At the heart of all of this? It’s not just about making smart moves. It’s about making choices that feel authentic to you as an actor, as a creative, as a human. When you understand how your brain works, and when you let go of those old beliefs that no longer serve you, you start to make decisions that feel more like you.

So that’s my invitation: try these challenges. And if you do, I’d love to hear about it. Shoot me an email at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com. I love hearing from actors who are ready to ditch the autopilot and start building careers that actually feel fulfilling.

If you know someone else who might need this gentle nudge, pass it along. Let’s keep this conversation going.

Want to Take This Work Deeper? Join our Weekly Accountability Group for actors and get the kind of support that helps you keep growing, testing new ideas, and showing up for yourself. Two weeks free to see if it’s the right fit.

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When we talk about acting tools, we usually mention headshots, reels, technique, or coaching. But punctuation?

Not so much.

And yet, punctuation—something you probably haven’t questioned since middle school—might be interfering with your most natural, honest performances.

The Problem Most Actors Don’t Know They Have You get a script. Maybe it’s commercial copy, maybe it’s a scene. And without realizing it, your brain starts obeying the punctuation.

Comma. Small pause.

Period. Full stop, drop your pitch.

Exclamation mark. Boost the energy, punch the line.

Your body responds to those tiny marks automatically. But here's the thing: those cues might not match what your character is actually feeling. They might even contradict the emotional truth of the scene.

If you’ve ever given a read that felt stiff, too “correct,” or like something was missing… this might be why.

Why Punctuation Feels Helpful (But Can Hurt) Punctuation is meant to clarify meaning in writing. It’s useful when you're reading silently or trying to follow someone else’s train of thought.

But acting isn’t silent reading. It’s expression. It’s listening and responding. It’s emotional and often messy.

Here’s where things get interesting: studies show that your brain processes punctuation differently depending on the mark. Semicolons and dashes? They activate the left side of the brain. Exclamation points and periods? The right side. Each carries its own emotional weight. Each sends a signal, even if you don’t consciously register it.

Which means your delivery may be less about what you’re feeling… and more about how your brain is reacting to a comma.

How to Break Free (Without Losing the Script) As Mandy Fisher shared in this episode of the Acting Business Boot Camp podcast, one of the most helpful things you can do—especially for commercial reads—is to strip out the punctuation entirely.

Remove the commas. Take out the periods. Uncapitalize everything except brand names.

Why? Because when you stop being told where to pause or emphasize, you start making those choices from instinct. From character. From context.

It might feel strange at first, but that discomfort is exactly where more interesting, more connected performances begin.

A Simple Experiment to Try This Week Take 60 seconds of script. Could be anything—a monologue, a commercial, a scene.

Delete every piece of punctuation.

Then read it out loud.

Notice what your voice does. Notice how your pacing shifts. See what happens when you stop “reading” and start speaking.

You might stumble. You might feel a little out of control. But you’ll also find something new. A more honest rhythm. A stronger point of view. A version of the script that sounds less like a performance and more like a person.

Final Thought: Punctuation or Presence? Punctuation has a place. It can help with rhythm and intention. But if you’re performing with one eye on the commas, you’re probably holding back.

So ask yourself: are you punctuating for performance? Or are you speaking from presence?

You already have a voice that’s worth hearing. You don’t need grammar rules to make it powerful.

Let go. Experiment. Trust that you know how to connect without a period telling you when to stop.

Ready to take your training deeper? Explore our upcoming classes and coaching programs to build confidence in your voice, your instincts, and your career.

Check out what’s coming up →

Prefer to keep learning in your inbox? Subscribe to Mandy’s Substack for more creative insights, voiceover tips, and honest conversations about the business of being an artist.

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Feeling behind in your acting or voiceover career? You’re not alone. But you might be burning through your creative energy in the wrong ways.

In this blog, we’ll unpack something that rarely gets talked about in the entertainment industry: desperate energy. What it looks like, how it sneaks into your process, and why it might be the real reason you feel stuck.

What Is Desperate Energy? Desperate energy is that anxious, frantic feeling that shows up when you think you're falling behind.

• It's applying to projects far below your rate just to stay busy
• Sending emails that sound like begging rather than offering value
• Obsessively checking job boards and refreshing your inbox
• Saying yes to everything, even if it doesn't align with your goals

It feels like progress, but it’s just panic in disguise. And it doesn’t lead to your best work.

Why Talented Actors Burn Out Most actors don’t fail because they aren’t good enough. They fail because they’re exhausted.

The entertainment industry rewards people who are grounded and consistent. Not those who hustle out of fear.

If you’re operating from a place of desperation, your decisions will reflect that. You’ll chase misaligned jobs, sabotage your rates, and create chaos in your outreach.

A prepared actor is a powerful one. A desperate actor is a noisy one.

Desperation vs. Preparation Here’s the difference in how each one shows up:

Desperate Energy Prepared Energy Sends mass emails with no targeting Sends thoughtful outreach to aligned leads Auditions for anything and everything Submits only for strong-fit roles Overthinks every rejection Moves on with focus and perspective Chases opportunities from guilt Follows a repeatable business system Prepared actors don’t rely on luck. They build habits that create consistency.

You’re Not Behind — You’re Building Here’s a truth that might surprise you.

You’re probably not behind. You’re just in a part of the story that no one posts about.

You’re laying track for a train that hasn’t arrived yet. That doesn’t mean you’re late. It means you’re doing the work.

Comparison creates fake urgency. Your timeline isn’t broken. It’s unfolding.

Five Ways to Shift Desperate Energy This Week 1. Create a morning check-in. Set one creative and one business goal to guide your day. 2. Limit job board time. Give yourself 10 focused minutes instead of getting stuck for hours. 3. Track your outreach. Use a CRM or simple spreadsheet to stay organized. 4. Submit and let go. Don’t carry one audition’s result into the next. 5. Post a reminder. Write this on a sticky note: Building does not mean behind.

Put it on your mic. Your mirror. Your computer. Wherever you need to see it.

Your Brain Thinks You’re in Danger When you feel behind, your brain can’t always tell the difference between a real threat and a made-up one.

The nervous system doesn’t distinguish between missing a flight and watching someone else book a dream role. Both can feel like danger if you let them spiral.

This is why structure matters. Habits and systems help ground you in the reality of what you’re actually doing — not what you’re afraid you're not doing.

Final Thought: Keep Building The outreach that goes unanswered. The audition that goes nowhere. The early morning rehearsal no one sees.

That’s building.

You’re not behind. You’re in the part of the journey that creates the part everyone else sees later.

These quiet days matter.

They’re not wasted. They’re foundational.

What’s one habit you’ll try this week? Tag @actingbusinessbootcamp with your sticky note mantra. Mandy wants to see what you’re committing to — and she’ll share hers too. 💛

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Episode Summary: Feeling stuck? You are so not alone. In this episode, I’m diving into one of the biggest roadblocks I see actors (and creatives of all kinds) face: procrastination.

I’m breaking down my signature framework—the 3 P's: Perfectionism, Procrastination, and Paralysis—and showing you how procrastination is often just fear wearing a clever disguise.

I’ll help you reframe your stuck-ness, understand what’s really going on underneath the delay, and—most importantly—take messy, imperfect, courageous action.

And yes, I’m also sharing how the energy behind procrastination doesn’t just slow you down…it actually blocks your creativity, your confidence, and even your opportunities.

Whether you’re stuck in your acting career, your voiceover hustle, or anywhere in life where you’re overthinking and under-doing—this episode is here to help you shift into action mode.

What I cover in this episode: * How perfectionism leads to procrastination…and then straight into paralysis. * Why procrastination is really fear in disguise (and how to spot it). * Fear of failure vs. fear of success—what’s really holding you back. * Why you don’t need to feel ready (you just need to act). * How procrastination sends out the wrong energetic signal to the universe. * The simple truth: Clarity comes from commitment, not contemplation.

My Favorite Quotes from this Episode: "Procrastination is fear in disguise." "Your desire for your dream needs to be bigger than your fear." "You can act your way into right thinking."

Resources I mention: * You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero * The Universe Has Your Back by Gabby Bernstein

🎧 Help Mandy and Me Reach 100 Reviews! Mandy and I have been stuck at the same number of reviews for the Acting Business Boot Camp podcast for a while now...and we would be SO grateful if you could help us cross the finish line to 100 five-star reviews. If this episode resonated with you, it would mean the world to us if you left us that review. You could be that one small but mighty step that gets us there!

Stay Connected: * Website: ActingBusinessBootCamp.com * Instagram: @actingbusinessbootcamp

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Welcome back to the Acting Business Boot Camp podcast! 🎙️

I'm Peter Pamela Rose — casting director and certified life and career coach for actors. My mission? To help you break down the business of acting into clear, actionable steps that move your career forward.

In today’s episode, I dive into a powerful concept from Energy Leadership by Bruce D. Schneider — the idea that we are constantly choosing between two mindsets: the dream and the nightmare.

💭 Are you focused on the dream of your acting career? Or are you unconsciously living in the fear-based nightmare?

You’ll learn:

• The energetic difference between fear and love thought systems
• How most actors get stuck in low-level energy (victimhood, passivity, conflict)
• Journal prompts to help you shift into a dream-focused mindset
• Why your thoughts directly impact the speed and direction of your success
• A practical visualization exercise that will change how you show up

Plus, I’ll share a few personal stories from my coaching journey — including what I’ve learned from over two decades of helping actors tap into the truth of who they really are and what’s possible for them.

🎯 Ready to refocus on your dream? Click below to book a free consult: 👉 Book your Working Actor Road Map consult with Peter

Whether your focus is on commercials, film, television, or theater — I’ll help you clarify the next right step.

Rate & Review If this episode helped raise your energy or shift your mindset, would you take a second to rate and review the show? Your support helps more actors find the guidance they need.

Until next time, stay safe — and treat yourself real well. 💛

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Episode Summary:

In today’s solo episode, Mandy Fisher gets real and raw about something that far too many actors and creatives are experiencing but not talking about enough: burnout.

This isn’t your typical “self-care” pep talk. This is a grounded, honest conversation about the soul-deep exhaustion that can hit even the most passionate, high-achieving creatives. Mandy shares her personal experience with burnout — how it feels, why it happens, and what it actually means — and offers a compassionate, human-first way to start recovering.

You’ll learn:

• Why burnout isn’t a failure — it’s a warning light
• What it actually feels like (and how to spot it early)
• Why pushing through doesn’t work (and what to do instead)
• Small, sustainable ways to start healing — without quitting your career
• How to rebel gently against a system that demands constant output

If you’ve ever felt like your passion is slipping away, your to-do list is a brick wall, or your self-worth is tied to your productivity — this episode is for you.

Resources & Links:

📝 Mandy’s Burnout Recovery Guide: Check out her Substack post on Burnout with a 7-week stretch goal list to help you gently stay engaged with your creative life while recovering.

💛 Need support? Peter Pamela Rose’s Weekly Adjustment coaching group is a safe, nurturing space to reconnect with your creativity and confidence. Learn more & join here.

📬 Got questions or want to share your burnout story? Email us or DM us on Instagram @actingbusinessbootcamp.

Memorable Quotes:

“Burnout isn’t a failure of willpower — it’s your body saying, this isn’t sustainable.” — Mandy Fisher

“You don’t owe the world your exhaustion. You don’t have to become a cautionary tale just to prove you were committed enough.”

“Tiny exits count. Letting yourself be imperfect in public counts. You’re allowed to take the slow way home.”

If this episode resonated with you, please:

• Share it with a fellow actor or artist who might be carrying too much.
• Leave us a rating & review — it really helps other creatives find us.
• Subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Stay connected:

• Instagram: @actingbusinessbootcamp
• Website: www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com
• Substack: Mandy Fisher on Burnout & Creative Life

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🔊 Episode Summary Hey hey! It's Mandy Fisher here, and in this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on something I see way too often in the VO world—over-relying on email templates to do your marketing. Especially the kind that demo producers hand out like candy.

If you’ve ever sent one of those plug-and-play emails and heard crickets, this episode is for you. I’m digging into why that approach might be sabotaging your chances—and what to do instead. Because while templates can save you time, they can also strip away the one thing that books the job: your voice.

So let’s get into how you can show up more authentically in your outreach, stand out in a sea of sameness, and most importantly—build trust.

🧠 What You’ll Learn * Why those “proven” VO templates often fall flat * How sounding like everyone else kills your shot at connection * The real reason you're not getting replies (and it’s not your talent) * Why your unique voice is your superpower in cold outreach * How to get off the perfection treadmill and start building actual trust * The 3 big pillars of your VO career: Trust, Consistency, and Risk

🔥 Key Takeaways “Templates can be a great starting point. But they are not the finish line.”

“Trust isn’t something you get. It’s something you build—with your voice, your choices, and your actions.”

“Being the most talented person in the booth doesn’t matter if clients don’t trust your process or presence.”

“Consistency isn’t sexy, but it is the backbone of a sustainable career.”

🛠️ Tools & Tips You Can Use Right Now * ✏️ Write your cold emails like you're texting a friend—not like you're begging for a job. * 🎯 Don’t just say what you do—say why you’re reaching out and make it personal. * 🤖 Be human. In an AI world, real voice cuts through the noise. * ↻ Don’t ghost your outreach—consistency builds trust (with clients AND yourself). * 📩 Drop the “Dear Sir.” Use contractions. Sound like you.

💬 My Challenge for You Take 10 minutes today to peek at your emails, your reels, or your site. Ask yourself: Does this actually build trust—or am I just trying to sound impressive?

And if it’s the second one, don’t panic. It’s fixable. Just start small, tweak a little, and keep showing up.

📁 Wanna Practice This? 💥 Let’s do this together! Join me in one of our Voiceover Gyms—monthly $35 drop-in classes where we stretch your VO muscles, get feedback, and sharpen your tools. It’s low-pressure, high-impact, and actually fun. Reserve your spot →

👋 Stay Connected Peter Pamela Rose – Instagram | Website Mandy Fisher – Instagram

🎧 Listen Now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Preview Text (for email/newsletter use): Why voiceover templates might be sabotaging your business—and what really builds trust in a crowded, AI-saturated industry.

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In this episode, I’m getting real about something every actor struggles with at some point in their journey: the frustration of not seeing the success you know you’re capable of.

Inspired by a powerful passage from Jen Sincero’s You Are a Badass, I explore how your dream career (yes, including that dream agent, those callbacks, and the big booking) isn’t out there in the future… it’s already here, waiting for you to meet it at the right frequency.

If you’ve ever asked yourself:

• Why isn’t this working?
• Where’s the success I’ve been working so hard for?
• Why do I feel like I’m doing everything right, but nothing’s landing?

…then this episode is for you.

🔥 What You’ll Learn in This Episode: * Why the success you’re looking for is already here (and how to tap into it) * How energy, mindset, and “vibrational frequency” impact your acting career * What You Are a Badass teaches us about staying present and attracting opportunity * How to tell if you’re just on the wrong “level” — and how to shift your energy upward * The real reason self-doubt keeps sabotaging your career momentum * The #1 mindset mistake I see actors make when success feels out of reach

🧭 My Personal Story (Yes, It Involves LAX and the Wrong Terminal!) I share a real-life moment that perfectly illustrates what it feels like to be this close to the career breakthrough you want — but not quite aligned with it. Think you’re just unlucky? Think again. It might be your energy that’s off, not your effort.

💬 My Challenge to You: The life and career you want are not only possible — they’re available right now. But if your thoughts, energy, and daily habits don’t match the level of what you desire, you won’t be able to see the opportunities that are right in front of you.

Let me help you get into alignment.

🎯 Ready to Work Together? If this episode resonated with you and you’re ready to shift your mindset, raise your energy, and finally start seeing the results you deserve…

👉 Click here to book a free consult with me — let’s talk about your goals and how we can bring them into reality.

Or check out my Working Actor Road Map program — a step-by-step career strategy for actors who are ready to stop spinning their wheels and start booking the work they’re meant for.

📚 Resources Mentioned: * Jen Sincero’s book: You Are a Badass (highly recommend!) * My free consultation link: Book here * The Working Actor Roadmap: Learn more

💌 Stay Connected: Loved this episode? Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review! And if you want weekly tools, mindset tips, and business strategies for actors, join my newsletter — I’ll be in your inbox every week with fresh insights to keep you inspired and in action.

Until next time — stay safe and treat yourself really well. xo, Peter Pamela Rose

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Why Your Energy May Be the Missing Link to Booking Work

Have you ever looked at another actor and thought, "They’re not more talented than me... so why are they booking and I’m not?"

If so, you’re not alone — and you're asking the exact right question.

In a recent solo episode of the Acting Business Boot Camp podcast, I (Peter Pamela Rose) dove into what I call the "X Factor" — that invisible yet undeniable energy that seems to magnetize auditions, callbacks, and career opportunities to certain actors... even if they’re not the most trained or technically gifted in the room.

Spoiler: it’s not luck. It’s vibration, energy, and alignment.

And if you’ve been hitting walls despite working hard and doing “all the right things,” this post might be the energetic reset you didn’t know you needed.

What Is the X Factor in Acting? The “X Factor” isn’t about looks, representation, or even talent. It’s about vibrational alignment — the frequency you’re putting out and how it matches (or doesn’t) with the opportunities you want to attract.

Inspired by You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero, I shared how this idea is more than spiritual fluff. It’s rooted in quantum physics: All energy vibrates at a frequency. That includes you, your goals, and yes — your fears.

When you’re vibrating at a lower frequency — feeling stuck, unworthy, or doubtful — you repel the very things you’re working so hard to attract. But when you shift your state to feel good, confident, and connected, you become magnetic.

The Triangle That Changes Everything To make this actionable, I teach a simple model:

🧠 Thought → 💓 Feeling → 🔁 Action → Thought * Your thoughts generate your feelings. * Your feelings create your actions (or inactions). * And your actions either reinforce or shift your original thought.

This loop runs your career — whether you're conscious of it or not. Change your thought, and you change your emotional and energetic output — which changes your results.

Two Simple (But Powerful) Energetic Exercises ✍️ Exercise #1: YOU vs. UNIVERSE Diagram Draw a line down the center of a page.

• On the left: “YOU” — mark 6 inches down.
• On the right: “UNIVERSE” — mark 2 inches down.

This is a visual representation of your current vibration vs. where your desires are. If they don’t match, there’s no energetic “handshake.” It’s time to raise your side of the equation.

✍️ Exercise #2: The Thought-Feeling-Action Triangle Draw a triangle. At the top: “THOUGHT.” Lower corners: “FEELING” and “ACTION.” This tool helps you diagnose where your cycle may be keeping you stuck — and how to shift it in your favor.

Why Feeling Good Isn’t Optional "You can’t fool the universe. But if you can raise your frequency just to feel good — you’ll start attracting things that feel even better."

That quote from Jen Sincero hits home because it’s the foundation of everything I teach: When you feel good for the sake of feeling good, your vibe aligns with your desires — and the universe responds.

In one Weekly Adjustment class, a student practiced this and within minutes received a text from a filmmaker offering her a role — someone she hadn’t spoken to in years. That’s not luck. That’s synchronicity. That’s alignment.

Ready to Raise Your Frequency? If you’re curious about how to work with these concepts in real time — with support, community, and over 100 hours of powerful content — I invite you to check out The Weekly Adjustment, my mindset coaching group for actors.

🎁 Special Offer: 👉 Click here to learn more and claim your listener-exclusive bonus

Love the Podcast? Help Us Out ❤️ This podcast is 100% unsponsored and made with love. If it’s helped you, please take 30 seconds to leave us a 5-star review. It helps more actors find their way to this work — and that means a better, more energetically aligned industry for all of us.

Let’s Stay Connected * Peter Pamela Rose – @actingbusinessbootcamp * Mandy Fisher – @mandyfishervo

🎧 Listen to this episode now — and start attracting the career (and life) you truly want.

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🎧 Episode Summary: In this empowering solo episode, voiceover actor and coach Mandy Fisher poses a bold question that every actor must learn to answer with confidence: “Are you a good actor?”

We’re taught from day one to expect rejection in this industry—but rarely are we taught to say yes to ourselves first. Mandy breaks down why internal validation is the foundation of success and how your energy, mindset, and self-belief shape every audition, job, and opportunity.

💡 Key Takeaways: * Your Confidence Sets the Tone: If you walk into the room unsure if you belong, others will sense it. * Start with a Daily Practice: Ask yourself:

+ Am I a good actor?
+ Am I an expert storyteller?
+ Am I worthy of this career?
+ Am I ready for my next opportunity? Your answer needs to be YES—every single time.

• Don’t Wait for External Feedback: Casting directors and agents often won’t tell you what you did right. Create your own feedback loop by reviewing your past work and tracking your progress.
• Rejection Hits Different When You’ve Already Said Yes to Yourself: A “no” becomes part of the process—not a blow to your self-worth.
• Progress Is Quiet: Celebrate subtle wins—more callbacks, better auditions, stronger connections.

🛠️ Resources & Coaching: * Build unshakable belief in The Weekly Adjustment (mindset + core work) * Stay focused and supported in The Weekly Accountability Group * Book a 1:1 session with Mandy or Peter for coaching tailored to you * Join Mandy’s monthly Voiceover Gym to keep your VO skills sharp and bookable

🧠 Your Homework: For the next 14 days, ask yourself daily:

“Am I a good actor?” “Am I ready for success?” Say it. Mean it. Own it.

📣 Connect with Us: * Coaching & programs: www.actingbusinessbootcamp.com * Instagram: @actingbusinessbootcamp

You are enough. You are ready. The “yes” starts with you. 🎭

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Hey there, it’s Peter Pamela Rose. In this episode, I’m getting real with you.

After what feels like forever since I last recorded (even though I know that might not be true if you’re bingeing episodes!), I’m back to talk about something that’s been coming up a lot in my weekly classes—how to deal with fear, anxiety, and overwhelm when the world feels like too much.

Whether you're feeling the pressure of what's going on globally, or you're just tired of asking yourself, “How the hell did I end up back here again?”—this episode is for you.

Here’s what we get into:

• The Serenity Prayer and how I actually use it in my daily life
• A simple but powerful tool called “Just For Today”
• The difference between your conscious and subconscious mind
• Why it feels so hard to change—and how we actually can
• And how to keep your actor mindset strong when everything feels uncertain

This episode comes straight from the heart—and from what’s been resonating in my Weekly Accountability Group and The Weekly Adjustment class, where we dive into both the business of acting and the emotional and mental work behind it.

🎯 Want to try one of my classes for free? Come join me on Fridays from 12–2 PM Eastern. You’ll get the full live experience and access to over 100 hours of recorded content to watch on your own time.

👉 Click here to try a class free

Also, if you haven’t already listened to the two-part interview with Erik Passoja about AI and the future of acting—please, please go check that out. And if you’ve got questions, send them in! I’m bringing Erik back for a follow-up episode and I want to include your voice in that conversation.

Thanks for listening. Be safe, stay grounded, and treat yourself real well.

With love and gratitude, Peter Pamela Rose 💛

🧠 Quote of the Day: “Just for today, I have food in my belly, a roof over my head, and money in the bank. And that’s all I need.”

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Thinking about attending a voiceover or acting conference? Conferences can be an absolute goldmine for networking, learning, and career growth—but only if you go in with a plan!

In this episode, Mandy Fisher shares her personal experience attending (and now avoiding) conferences, including why she prefers virtual attendance due to being partially deaf. More importantly, she breaks down exactly how to make a conference work for you so you don’t just leave with a pile of swag and a drained bank account.

Learn how to: ✅ Identify your specific goal before attending ✅ Research attendees and speakers in advance ✅ Develop a tight, compelling elevator pitch ✅ Network like a pro without being salesy ✅ Follow up after the conference to build real connections

Whether you're a first-time conference attendee or a seasoned pro, this episode will help you maximize your investment and leave with meaningful industry relationships—not just free pens.

Key Takeaways: 🔹 Know Your Why: Be clear on what you want—clients, agents, casting connections, or coaching.

🔹 Do Your Research: Check out the speaker list, social posts, and attendee rosters.

🔹 Craft a Strong Elevator Pitch:

• Who you are
• What makes you unique
• Why people should care

🔹 Engage, Don’t Just Sell: Instead of forcing your business card on strangers, start conversations with curiosity:

• “I loved what you said about industry trends. What do you think is next?”
• “How did you land that TikTok project? What was that process like?”

🔹 Follow Up Like a Pro:

• Send emails within a week
• Connect on social with a personal message
• Take notes to remember key details

🔹 Mandy’s Conference Checklist: ✅ Research the attendee list & make a target list ✅ Polish your online presence & elevator pitch ✅ Pack your business cards (yes, people still use them!) ✅ Bring a phone charger (you’ll need it!) ✅ Attend the right panels & introduce yourself ✅ Follow up with new contacts within a week

Resources & Contact: 📲 Follow Mandy Fisher:

• TikTok: @AstoriaRedhead
• Substack: Find her content here
• Email: mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com

📢 Let us know what conferences you’re attending! Tag us on social or send us a message—we’d love to hear about your experiences!

🎭 Join the Acting Business Bootcamp Community: Want more industry tips and career guidance? Visit Acting Business Bootcamp for coaching programs, insider insights, and more.

👉 And remember—wear comfy shoes!

🎧 Listen now and get conference-ready!

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In today’s episode of the Acting Business Boot Camp Podcast, Mandy Fisher dives into a crucial topic for actors and entertainment professionals—the balance between authenticity and privacy online. With social media playing a major role in personal branding, many performers feel the pressure to share intimate details to connect with their audience and industry decision-makers.

But where is the line between being real and oversharing? Mandy unpacks the risks and consequences of unchecked openness in the entertainment industry, including how it can impact casting decisions, make audiences uncomfortable, and even invite scrutiny. She also shares practical tips for determining what to post and what to keep private, all while maintaining a strong, engaging online presence.

Plus, she challenges you to be intentional about what you share over the next month—because authenticity is powerful, but so is discretion.

Key Takeaways: 🎭 Why actors instinctively overshare online (and the risks involved) 📣 The difference between advocacy and venting on social media 🎥 How your online presence affects casting directors and producers 🤔 A simple self-check before you post: "Would I say this in a casting meeting?" 📌 Why specificity and intentionality are the keys to a strong brand

Resources Mentioned: 📺 Skamanda on Hulu – A case study on social media and storytelling 📺 An Update on Our Family on HBO – The impact of online sharing in real-time

Connect with Mandy: 📧 Email: Mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com 📲 TikTok: @AstoriaRedhead 📝 Substack: The Actor’s Index

🎬 Go kick some ass today—but don’t show those butt cheeks! 😆

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In last week’s episode, we explored the fascinating yet daunting world of AI in the entertainment industry. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, stop right now and go back! Everything we cover in this episode builds on what we discussed previously.

In this follow-up episode, we continue our conversation with Erik Passoja—an AI expert and industry professional—who provides deeper insight into how AI is reshaping the acting world, especially in voiceover work. If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the rapid advancements in AI, you’re not alone. But don’t worry—Erik offers practical ways to navigate this shifting landscape while empowering actors to embrace their expertise.

You Are the Expert One of the most impactful takeaways from this episode is Erik’s powerful statement: “When you perform, you are the expert.”

As AI continues to evolve, actors must remember that what makes them unique cannot be replicated by machines. AI can generate voices and even expressions, but it cannot create the deep emotional connection that comes from human experience. Your authenticity, presence, and ability to breathe life into a character are irreplaceable.

The Rise of AI in Voiceover and Performance Erik discusses Eleven Labs, a company that has mastered AI-generated voice replication. With just seconds of recorded speech, they can generate a synthetic voice pattern nearly identical to the original. While this technology is exciting, it also raises significant concerns about privacy, copyright, and ethical use.

One shocking example Erik shared was how a deepfake voice of President Joe Biden was used in a robocall scam. This highlights the dangers of AI voice cloning and underscores the importance of protecting actors’ voices and performances.

How to Protect Yourself as an Actor So, how can actors ensure they remain in control of their work in this evolving AI landscape? Here are some key takeaways:

• Read your contracts carefully. If you’re represented, make sure your agent is reviewing all AI-related clauses. If you’re non-union, be extra cautious.
• Look for AI-related language. Contracts should specify that your voice, image, or likeness will not be used beyond what was originally agreed upon.
• Stay informed. The entertainment industry is actively working on protections, such as digital watermarking, which will help track AI-generated performances and ensure fair compensation.
• Advocate for AI ethics. Legislation such as the No Fakes Act is currently being proposed to regulate AI use in entertainment. Call your representatives and voice your support!

AI as an Opportunity, Not Just a Threat While AI presents challenges, it also opens new possibilities. AI could potentially be used to generate passive income for actors by licensing their voices for ethical projects. With proper regulations and safeguards in place, AI could create opportunities rather than replace human talent.

Overcoming Overwhelm Feeling overwhelmed? You’re not alone. The key to staying grounded is focusing on what you can control:

• Stay present. Instead of getting lost in fear of the future, focus on honing your craft.
• Take care of yourself. Avoid getting consumed by the doom-and-gloom AI narratives—spend time in nature, engage in self-care, and nurture your artistry.
• Keep storytelling alive. As Erik eloquently put it, storytelling is what has connected humans for thousands of years. AI may change the industry, but it will never replace the need for powerful human performances.

What’s Next? We want to keep this conversation going! If you have any questions about AI and its impact on acting, click the link in the show notes to submit your questions. We’ll be gathering them and bringing Erik back for another episode where he’ll address your concerns.

Also, if you feel like you need to hit the reset button on your 2025, I’m opening up free consults again! If you want to take charge of your acting career with clarity and confidence, click the link in the show notes to set up a session.

Claim Your Free Consultation! Are you ready to take your acting career to the next level? I’m offering free consultations to help you gain clarity, confidence, and actionable steps to move forward. If you’re feeling stuck or overwhelmed, let’s talk! Click the link in the show notes to book your free consultation today.

As always, stay safe and treat yourself real well.

Until next time!

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AI in Entertainment: Essential Insights for Actors

The world of acting is evolving, and one of the most significant changes affecting performers today is the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). From digital likenesses to synthetic voices, AI is reshaping the entertainment industry at an unprecedented pace. If you're an actor, understanding how AI impacts your career is no longer optional—it's essential.

In a recent episode of the Acting Business Bootcamp Podcast, hosts Peter Pamela Rose and Mandy Fisher sat down with Erik Passoja, a SAG-AFTRA leader and digital identity advocate, to break down everything actors need to know about AI, contracts, and protecting their digital identity.

The Rise of AI in Acting AI technology is advancing rapidly, and its effects on performers are profound. Whether it’s through deepfake technology, voice synthesis, or motion capture, AI is being used in new ways that could impact actors' careers and livelihoods. Without proper regulations, AI could allow companies to use an actor’s likeness, voice, or movements indefinitely—without additional compensation.

Key AI-related concerns for actors:

• Digital likeness rights
• AI-generated voices
• Deepfake manipulation
• Contract loopholes allowing indefinite use
• Residuals and monetization concerns

Actors must stay vigilant and informed about how their image and voice are used in the industry.

Read Your Contract: The #1 Rule for Actors Erik Passoja couldn’t stress this enough: Read your contract! Many performers unknowingly sign agreements that grant companies rights to their voice and likeness in perpetuity. This is particularly concerning for non-union actors, who may have fewer legal protections.

If you’re a performer, here’s what you need to do:

✅ Check for AI clauses in any contract you sign.

✅ Seek legal advice if anything seems unclear.

✅ Understand how your likeness and voice will be used before signing.

✅ If you’re non-union, be extra cautious—you may have little legal recourse.

Even union actors must be aware of the nuances of SAG-AFTRA agreements related to AI. While protections have been put in place, ongoing advocacy is needed to strengthen them further.

Erik Passoja’s Activision Case Study: A Real-Life Example Erik shared his own experience with AI exploitation in the gaming industry. After working on Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, he discovered that his likeness had been repurposed without additional compensation. His digital image was used in ways he never agreed to, and because of the contract he signed, he had no legal recourse.

His story highlights a growing problem: AI technology is advancing faster than legal protections.

Actors must take charge of their own digital identity by being proactive, informed, and careful about what they sign.

AI & Union Protections: What You Need to Know SAG-AFTRA has implemented AI protections in recent contracts, but there’s still work to be done. New legislation is being proposed to further safeguard performers, ensuring that companies cannot exploit their digital identity without consent or compensation.

Some of the latest AI-related regulations include:

• Watermarking AI-generated content to track digital use
• Informed consent laws for AI usage in entertainment
• Stronger residual structures for AI-generated performances

As AI becomes more prevalent, SAG-AFTRA continues to negotiate protections that will benefit all performers. Staying informed about these updates is crucial.

How to Protect Yourself as an Actor in the AI Era 🎭 Stay Informed: Follow SAG-AFTRA updates and AI policy changes. 📄 Read Every Contract Carefully: Look for AI-related clauses and seek legal advice if needed. 🚫 Avoid Unregulated Scanning: If you’re non-union, be extremely cautious about contracts that involve AI ingestion. 🔎 Educate Yourself on AI Rights: Understand how AI-generated performances affect your residuals and future work opportunities.

Need Help Navigating Your Acting Career? Peter Pamela Rose is offering a FREE career consultation to help actors restart their 2025 with clarity and direction. If you’re unsure about how AI and other industry changes affect your career, this is the perfect opportunity to get expert advice.

📌 Book a Free Consultation with Peter 📌 Learn More About SAG-AFTRA AI Policies

Final Thoughts: The Future of AI in Acting AI is here to stay, and its impact on the entertainment industry will only grow. While technology can bring exciting opportunities, it also presents risks. By staying informed, advocating for fair contracts, and protecting digital identities, actors can ensure that their careers remain secure in the age of AI.

📢 If you found this post valuable, please share and leave a comment!

#ActingBusinessBootcamp #AIinActing #DigitalIdentityProtection #SAGAFTRA #ActorsRights #VoiceoverAI #FilmIndustryNews #ActingCareer

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Today we're talking about a phrase that might hit you right in the gut.

“Work harder. Nobody cares.”

And I say it with love because it's a funny phrase and it's also a tough pill to swallow because it's one of the most freeing truths that you can embrace as a person and as an artist.

This episode is inspired again by one of my posts on Substack which you can find at the Actors Index and it's a mantra for anyone chasing a creative career or pursuing a big dream.

It's a mindset shift that could be the key to unlocking your full potential.

So buckle up. We're driving into the gritty, no nonsense reality of what it really takes to succeed and why the nobody cares part might be the most empowering thing you'll hear today.

Let's start with the truth. Nobody cares about your dream as much as you do.

And honestly, that's the way it should be, right?

The creative industry, whether it's voiceover, acting, writing, directing, anything else, it isn't designed to hold your hand. It's competitive. It's challenging. It requires you to show up every day with your A game.

Even when nobody's watching, and this isn't to say that people are indifferent to you as a person, but when it comes to your goals, the responsibility to succeed falls squarely on your shoulders.

And here's the thing, there's no shortcut to success. Talent isn't enough. I'm going to say that again. Talent isn't enough to succeed.

Connections aren't enough. The only thing that will ever matter is the work that you put in.

So, let's flip this narrative. Instead of saying nobody cares, or seeing nobody cares is harsh, let's see it as liberating.

Because once you accept that no one's coming to save you, you get to take full ownership of your entire journey.

You get to be in the driver's seat, which again, is as it should be.

One of the biggest myths I encounter in the creative world is the idea that you need to feel motivated to work hard.

I'm not feeling motivated today. I just don't want to do anything today. I'm not inspired. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And let me tell you something.

Motivation is fucking fleeting.

There's going to be days when you wake up feeling like the most inspired, unstoppable version of yourself.

And then there will be days, probably more often than not, that you can barely drag yourself to the desk or to the studio or in front of the camera.

But the successful people, guess what, buttercup, they show up and do it anyway, and they do it well.

That is discipline.

We are so driven as human beings to follow our wants that are like easy wants. I want a cupcake. I want to nap. I want to do X, Y, Z. But we should be replacing that with, I want to be successful, so in order to do that, I have to do X, Y, Z, because that's discipline.

It's about building habits that keep you moving forward, even when you don't feel like it.

Do you think I feel like sitting behind my computer every day and spending hours researching and creating content for cold leads and direct marketing? No.

But I want the job. So, the good news is discipline is something that you can cultivate.

It's not really about willpower, it's more about creating systems that set you up for success based on your goals.

So for example, if you're a voiceover actor like me, you might have a morning routine that gets your voice warmed up before you even check your email or open your phone. It might mean setting a timer for 25 minutes to focus on your marketing outreach, no matter how unmotivated you feel.

So here's the takeaway for you:

Ask yourself, what's one habit I can build this week, today, that will make it easier to work hard, even on the hard days.

But you gotta start small. If you start small, you can build on top of that. I don't expect you to figure it out right away. It's something that takes time.

But you have to start somewhere.

Success isn't linear. There's going to be days, weeks, maybe even months where it feels like you're running in place, that you're putting in the effort, but the results just aren't showing up.

You'll look at your month and say, well, I didn't book anything. What did I even do?

And that's why you have to track.

All of those wins, you, whatever it is that you're accomplishing for yourself and your business and your goals, you have to mark that down, put a sticker on the day, put a little dot, do something, write a note in your notes app, do something that celebrates those small wins so that at the end of the month when you're like, well, I didn't book anything, I failed, you can say, no, no, no, wait, look at all this shit I did.

Those are accomplishments, that's success, because when you don't see the results that you have mismanaged your expectations to see, that's when most people quit.

They tell themselves it's not working, that they're not cut out for it, that they're not talented enough, that they're not good enough, and that they'll never make it.

The plateaus. That's part of the process. That's part of growth.

Growth happens in those moments when it feels like nothing is happening.

It's like planting the seed. You don't see the roots growing underground, but that doesn't mean that they're not there doing what they're supposed to do.

So how do you keep going?

By measuring your progress in ways that aren't tied to immediate results.

So instead of focusing on how many bookings you've had this month, focus on how many auditions you've submitted, because that's the work.

Instead of obsessing over how many people are following you, track how many meaningful connections you've made.

Small wins, right? Small wins add up.

Celebrate the shit out of them.

And if you're gonna work harder I hate to break it to you, sorry I had to find out this way, but you have to develop thicker skin.

The creative industry is filled with rejection and other people who are going to have opinions about your work, whether it's positive or negative.

And that's not going to change.

But the difference between those who make it and those who don't is how they handle that.

So here's a little reframe for you:

Rejection isn't personal.

It's data. It's feedback.

It's an opportunity to ask yourself, okay, what can I learn from this? What can I change next time?

Because maybe you need to tweak your approach or refine your skills or target a different audience.

And sometimes rejection just means you weren't the right fit for that particular opportunity right now.

But that doesn't mean you're not talented.

It means that there's something. else suited for you out there, but you're not going to find it if you take that rejection and just give up.

So let the rejection be fuel and not a roadblock.

I know we've talked about some harsh realities, but now it's time to talk about why this mindset works harder.

Nobody cares is actually super empowering because when you realize that nobody cares as much as you do, you stop waiting for external validation.

You stop relying on other people to give you permission to go after what you want.

You become the driver of your own journey.

And that's a powerful place to be because again, the people who succeed in this industry aren't necessarily the most talented. You know that you've seen it there, but they're the ones who have kept going when it got hard.

They're the ones who learned to work harder, smarter, and with more resilience.

And the best part is that's something that you can choose to do right now today while you're listening to me on and on and on and on and on.

So before we wrap up, I want to leave you with some practical tips to work smarter and not just harder.

Prioritize.

Focus on the tasks that move the needle the most.

If you're not sure what those are, just ask yourself, what's the one thing I can do today that will have the biggest impact?

Okay, make a list. I'm a big lister. Love lists. Make a list and prioritize. Batch tasks together.

Group similar things together to save time and mental energy because you don't want to burn out doing all of these things.

So, for example, dedicate one day to recording samples and another to marketing.

You can break it up and do it every single day, but if you give yourself some reliable sort of boundaries, okay, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I'm going to do marketing stuff.

There you go. That's batching.

And tracking. Oh my gosh, track your progress.

How else are you going to know what works and what doesn't if you don't collect the data? Keep a journal or spreadsheet.

I have a free accountability spreadsheet that you can email me mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com and I’ll send it to you.

It’s an accountability tracker, where you can track your progress, track how you feel, track your wins, no matter how small, because seeing how far you've come is really motivating, right?

Invest in yourself, take classes, read books, surround yourself with people who challenge and inspire you, join discords, join my voiceover discord, join the Acting Business Boot Camp discord, find places where you can ask questions.

Be involved in the conversation because growth requires that time, money, and energy requires that investment in yourself. Okay?

There's no other way around that rest and recharge.

This might be the most important one that we neglect most of the time because working harder doesn't mean burning yourself out and burning the candle at both ends.

You need to schedule downtime to rest, reset, and come back stronger.

I literally have it. in my calendar to rest, because if I don't put it there, I won't do it.

Okay, here is your challenge for the week.

I'm going to challenge you to do three things because we know I love the power of three, right?

Number one, identify one habit you can build to stay disciplined on the hard days.

Because there will be hard days. I promise you, they're coming for you, okay?

And you need to identify one thing that you can build to stay disciplined even on those days where you are not motivated, where you're having a tough time, because they'll happen.

And it's, yes, I understand sometimes you need down days, but when you are struggling or when you're having a tough day, give yourself permission to do things on that day.

Can be really empowering.

Number two, reframe a recent rejection as a learning opportunity because again, getting that data about what happened is so valuable to you as a person and as a business person.

Those are little gold nuggets that are telling us, they're signals from the universe telling us here's what needs to change, here's what needs to be built upon, here's the opportunity for you to grow.

And number three, write down three small wins at the end of every day, not the week, every single day.

The whole week next week, I want to see three small wins by the end of the day.

I don't care if it's that you drank your daily water amount, because I'm guilty of that too. That's a win, because that goes towards your health. Three small wins every single day, okay?

And if you take on this challenge, I want to know how it goes. Reach out to me. Email me, mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com

Find me on TikTok at AstoriaRedhead. All the things, right? Leave a comment.

Whatever, whatever floats your boat. I'm, I'm here for you.

I just want to say one final thing. Remember that success is in your hands.

Work harder, nobody cares, and that's your superpower.

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I'm excited to explore a concept that has sort of a strange and spooky and undeniable power in our lives, which is the power of three.

This episode is inspired by one of my recent Substack posts that I called three, and if you haven't read it yet, please go check it out.

But don't worry, I'm going to break it all down for you right here.

So, why Three.

Why does this number show up in storytelling, in structure, and even how we sometimes have to make sense of the world?

Well, stick around and let's unpack it together.

Let's start with that very basic, simple question: Why is the number three so universally effective?

If we think about it, we tell jokes in threes. You know, three times funny in improv, a priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar.

Stories are structured in threes, beginning, middle, end, and even in visual design, groups of three feel balanced and complete.

There's something really satisfying about three.

It's just enough to feel substantial without being overwhelming.

Psychologists call this the rule of three, and it's rooted in how our brains process information.

Too much, we lose focus.

Too little, it doesn't feel complete.

So whether you're crafting a story, building a business, or even just making a to do list, Three is a magical number.

Our brains are wired to recognize patterns, and three is the smallest number needed to create a pattern.

Two points form a line, add a third, and suddenly, you got a triangle.

Something complete, balanced, and again, visually satisfying.

That's why we see the rule of three in so many places.

Just do it. I'm loving it. Eat, pray, love.

And once, now that you are acutely aware of this, it's going to start showing up in all kinds of things that you weren't probably paying attention to before.

But number three has this, it really is just like a magical ability to stick in our minds.

But it's not just marketing.

It's not just this gimmicky thing.

It is us.

Past, present, future. Mind, body, spirit. It's universal.

Now nowhere is the power of three more obvious than in storytelling.

Think about what you grew up learning. Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The Three Little Pigs. Each story has three trials, three choices, or three characters.

And why, why does it work so well?

Because three creates a rhythm.

The first is the setup. The second builds tension. The third delivers the punchline or resolution.

And of course, it's not just in fairy tales. Modern stories do this too.

Movies have three act structures.

And in my work as a voiceover actor, I think about the beats of a performance.

The setup, the build, the payoff.

I'm constantly looking at scripts, even short 15 second commercial scripts, to find that structure, that storytelling aspect of it, and I always find it and it always helps me fill in the gaps because we're just given a little bit sometimes.

Fifteen seconds is a blip, it is almost nothing, but it is our job to turn that nothing into something.

So if you're creative, whether you're writing a script, performing the scene, or designing a marketing campaign, think in threes.

It's a simple framework that works literally every time.

We are built to recognize that.

So let's move on from storytelling to something a little bit more personal.

How the power of three can show up in your life and work.

In my Substack post, I shared three words that guide me, clarity, creativity, and connection.

I already shared my word of the year with the specificity, but it all kind of boils down to the fact that these aren't just buzzwords, they're a framework for how I approach everything from my business to my relationships.

So, clarity, creativity, and connection are my three, and I encourage you to find your three.

What are your three core values or principles that define who you are and how you operate? Write them down.

Like, literally, write them down right now.

Say them out loud and let them guide your decisions.

I'm going to give you some time to think about it, obviously, like you can do this on your own time, but if you're struggling and you're just like, I don't know what defines me. I can't figure it out. Thanks a lot, Mandy.

Think about these three questions to find your three:

1. Ask yourself, what matters most to you right now?
2. What do you want to be known for?
3. What principles help you make decisions?

And you're going to write down a bunch of words. Write down a bunch of words.

When I was finding my three, I wrote down a bunch of words that don't even have anything to do with anything.

I just wrote down words that I like. Like, I really love the word elixir, okay?

But that's not going to help me. But it's going to help you just get it out so that you're not distracted by it.

And here's another tip: When you're overwhelmed or stuck, you should break things down into threes. Three goals for the day. Three priorities for the week.

It is such a simple way to focus and move forward.

And then reset every single time you need to move forward. It's just going to give you that balance and structure and boundary that you need.

And just like I told you to ask yourself those three questions, again, it is that type of reliability that is going to give you comfort and confidence.

So I also want to talk about how three applies in business.

If you're running your own creative business, like I do, you have to think about how you communicate your offerings.

Too many options like a fricking cheesecake factory menu can confuse potential clients. Instead, guess what? If you present three clear choices, you are almost guaranteed to get clear answers.

So for example, if you're a voiceover actor, you might offer three tiers of a service.

Quick turnaround time, premium full production package, and a middle of the road option.

Or if you're marketing yourself, you can focus on three key traits that set you apart. And for me, it's professionalism, creativity, and a little bit of sass. Right?

That's my brand in a nutshell, like we talked about in the last episode about branding.

And when you keep things simple and structured, people are more likely to understand and engage with what you're offering, which is your goal as a business owner.

So I want you to look at your website, your social media, your pitch materials, including emails, subject lines.

Are you overloading your audience with too much information?

I know that we all want to be seen as experts. I know that we all have amazing skills that sometimes we gatekeep because we don't think anybody's going to give a shit about them.

Sometimes they will, sometimes they won't. But, you owe it to the person that's landing on your website or listening to your stuff. You owe it to them to show them that you can deliver what you say you're going to deliver.

So if you go on my website, I say that I am an expert in commercials with, along with some like two or three other things, right?

But I am an expert in commercial delivery.

People landing on my website might need me for something else, but they also know that they're going to get expert commercial delivery. I don't hide behind other things. It is right up front, right there. Here's my commercial demos. Here's my commercial reels. Here's some videos. It's all commercial focused.

And then comes the other stuff.

So how I communicate, how I create content, how I connect with people, is as this expert in these things.

So can you simplify your message into three core points? Can you provide that clarity to the people who want to hire you for the things you owe it to them to be able to do that as part of your job as a creative entrepreneur?

Some actionable takeaways from this are how can you start using the power of three in your life today?

You're gonna define your three words, your three core words, three values or principles that represent you and you're gonna use them as your North Star.

Then you're gonna set three goals. I don't care what they are. It can be for the day, for the week, for the month.

You pick three things to focus on and you will be amazed at how much clarity this is going to bring to your life.

And then thirdly, you're going to simplify your message. You're in business, babe. You need to boil down your offerings into three clear points.

The rule of three isn't just a trick or a gimmick. It's a way to bring focus, balance, and impact to everything you do.

So there you have it. The power of three.

Whether you're telling stories, or running a business, or just trying to organize your fucking life, this little number is your secret weapon.

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About Diane:

Diane Strand is a multi-award-winning serial entrepreneur, executive producer, best-selling author, nonprofit founder, and a TEDx and national speaker.

Strand has over 22 years of entrepreneurial experience. She is the majority owner of JDS Video & Media Productions, Inc. and JDS Actors Studio, and the founder of the 501(c)3 nonprofit JDS Creative Academy (JDSCA).

Strand is the creator, executive producer, and co-host of the locally broadcasted and nationally streamed magazine-style news and information television series, Spirit of Innovation: Arts Across America, the first of its kind for Riverside County.

Strand has written two approved curriculums: A Title 17 video production job-training day program for adults with developmental disabilities and a California State Apprenticeship program.

She has helped launch over 100 careers in arts and entertainment. She aspires to make dreams come true by providing H.O.P.E. – Helping One Person Everyday.

Her goal is to spread the Arts Across America and inspire new creative academies across the country. She is deeply involved in the local community as an active Temecula Valley Chamber of Commerce member, serving as the DEI Chair, and on the Women in Business committee.

She served three years as the elected Board President of Southwest Economic Development Coalition and recently completed a 10-year service as an appointed Board Member for Riverside County’s Workforce Development.

Prior to her entrepreneurship, Strand earned an impressive list of Hollywood A-List credits on shows such as: General Hospital, Friends, and Veronica's Closet. She built the high-def control room at Staples Center (now Crypto.com Arena), produced for Barbra Streisand, and worked for Universal Creative and as an in-house producer for Disney Channel, including the launches of Playhouse Disney and Toon Disney.

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I am talking about all things voiceover and creative entrepreneurialism.

Hope you are having a fantastic Wednesday.

Let's jump right into today's topic, which is branding.

And I want to sort of unpack the essence of what branding is because we are drawn in to people who do this for a living.

People who create brands for actors. And I just want to get it out into the open.

That if you don't have a catchy tagline, if you don't have a palette of colors, if you don't have a logo, it's okay.

You don't have to have those things in order to be a successful actor business person.

If you do have those things, that's amazing.

And if you want those things, you can absolutely have them and incorporate them into your business.

However, you don't have to have them in order to be successful.

But let's just talk about the entire branding package, what it is, why it is, and all of those things. Let's get into it.

So if you follow me on my sub stack, thank you by the way you will remember I wrote a post called brand and it's been resonating with so many people.

And if you haven't read it yet, I encourage you to go check it out.

It's packed with insights and things that I'm going to expand upon today.

You can go and find it on the actor's index on a sub stack, but grab a notebook, grab a cup of coffee, whatever helps you focus.

And let's talk about what branding really is and how you can develop yours without all of the bells and whistles that we often get tempted to buy into.

So first things first, when you hear the word branding, most of us automatically do think of logos and colors and catchy taglines.

And yes, those are part of branding, but they're not the whole picture.

Branding is the perception people have of you.

It's the emotional connection you create with your audience, clients, your community, your colleagues.

It's the way people feel when they hear your name, see your work, listen to your work or engage with your content.

So for example, if you think about your favorite brands, whatever they are. Why do you love them? Chances are it's not because they have a cute logo or it's not because they use your favorite color.

It's related to the way that they make you feel or how they impact your life.

That is the magic of branding.

So personal branding is a huge part of my journey as a voiceover actor and coach because when I first started out, I thought branding was just about “looking professional.”

But over time, I really realized that it is so much deeper than that.

It's about communicating who you are, your personality, your values, what makes you unique, what you care about, and how you continue to care about others, and what their problems are and their pain points are and how you can help to solve those issues.

So for me, my brand is all about being sassy, trying to be witty, clever, telling it like it is while delivering professional and polished work.

It's in everything I do from my TikTok series, like the voiceover actor help desk, to the way I write on my sub stack to how I'm talking to you now.

And most importantly, it's authentically me, you know, like nobody else is going to see those things or listen to those things and think that it's coming from something else.

And that is something that I have spent a lot of time crafting. And you can too.

I don't have a logo. I don't have a color palette. I don't have any kind of catchy phrases that people associate with me.

And that's okay. It's okay to not have them, and it's okay to have them.

The key to personal branding is consistency.

So it boils down to what people need to know about what to expect from you, whether it's your tone of voice.

The way you show up online, the day that you show up online, or the kind of work you deliver, consistency continues to build trust.

So what makes a strong brand? There's kind of three parts to this, and I've already sort of talked about the visual identity which includes or could include your logo, color palette, overall design. Aesthetic, whatever it is, even as an individual person in my, you know, internet life, I'm Astoria redhead, I have red hair. I live in Astoria, so that's sometimes part of my visual identity is that name and those things. Right?

But you're sending out emails to potential clients, your visual branding. Could make a statement about who you are.

Second is your tone of voice and how you communicate. It's just as important, you know, as the visual aspect.

Are you formal and polished? Are you casual and conversational? Your tone should align with your audience and your goals.

And then lastly, it's your values and your mission. What are the things you stand for? What's your why?

You know, people connect with brands that have a purpose.

For me, my mission is to help creatives and voiceover actors succeed while staying true to themselves.

That's what drives everything I do on the coaching side of things, right? But of course, branding isn't all sunshine and rainbows.

One of the biggest challenges is staying consistent.

While evolving, your brand has to grow with you.

You don't want to lose the core of what makes you just because you change something or become something in addition to what you already are.

And another challenge is standing out in this very, very, very crowded marketplace.

Every part of the entertainment industry, you're going to hear somebody say, Oh, well, it's oversaturated, saturated. Of course it is.

In the voiceover world, there's so many talented people, but what makes them different isn't just their voice, it's their personality and expertise and all of the other things that make them unique.

And just because there's lots of people who do these things, not everybody gets the same jobs all the time.

There's room at the table.

If you want to do this, there's room for you, but you can't copy someone else's success.

You can't just show up and not have who you are and what you bring to the table together, right, which is another thing that sort of, I think, really gets in people's minds and forces them almost into imposter syndrome if you don't know who you are.

And you don't understand what you bring to the table, you're going to start to spiral in who am I, why do I claim this certain brand identity, why am I this person, why can't I be like that, why am I not doing this, am I not good enough, am I not right enough, you're going to spiral.

We never want to be in that place because the truth is your uniqueness is your superpower, and you need to own that shit, identify it and own it.

Okay, so if you're if you're really ready to start branding or refining your brand, the key kind of things to keep in mind are who are your audience? Who are you trying to connect with?

What do they care about? Authenticity.

I know we're kind of sick of this word, but don't try to copy someone else's brand. It's just not gonna work for you.

Just be authentic to who you are. Whoever that person is, zero in on that and then stay consistent from your social media to your email signature.

Everything should feel cohesive.

Then ask for feedback. Ask for feedback. Sometimes other people see things about a brand that we don't.

Sometimes there's something going on with what you're putting out into the world that may just not be hitting the mark.

And it's because there's a disconnect. Sometimes you need to ask for feedback and then evolve strategically as you grow, let your brand grow with you too.

As you start to develop new skills, put them out into the world. You don't just have to be a niche person, a niche brand. You can develop those things.

Just don't stray too far from your roots.

And remember, branding isn't a one time thing. If you don't like something, you take it down and you add something else.

You can change. It's yours. You get to decide, but be patient.

Don't just throw something up out into the world and then pull it back in automatically because you're scared.

Give it some time.

Okay, let's recap. Branding is about connection, authenticity, consistency.

Whether you're a voiceover actor, a creative entrepreneur, or just somebody who wants to make an impact, your brand is your story.

It's who you are. You cannot separate those two things.

So if you want to talk more about this, if you want more brand insights, definitely check out my sub stack post brand and while you're there, subscribe so you don't miss any of my future posts.

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My co coach over here at Acting Business Bootcamp, VO expert extraordinaire, Mandy Fisher will now be joining the podcast as my co host.

Today for her first episode ever on the Acting Business Bootcamp podcast, she is going to be talking about specificity, being clear about who you are and what you offer.

And also about who you are reaching out to building a business includes growing it and building trust.

I want to dive right into my word of the year for 2025.

And this is a practice that I started doing a couple of years ago because I think it helps you enter the year with intention.

And so this year, my word is specificity.

Why specificity, Mandy? Why are we talking about being specific? Well, because it's the game changer.

It is literally a game changer that's going to help you refine your messaging, your actions, and ultimately your results.

So whether you're a voiceover actor, a creative entrepreneur, or anyone trying to land more opportunities, grow your business, getting specific is the key to cutting through the noise and all of the other shit that's happening and reaching exactly who you want to reach, which are people who are going to hire you for what it is that you do.

So grab a notebook or just take this all in.

Take a deep breath because we're going to talk about how specificity in your content and actions can transform your outreach to agents and casting directors or direct marketing clients and even how it can improve your website and emails to bring in more inbound opportunities.

So, why does specificity matter? Let's start with that.

In this world where everyone is shouting from the rooftops, like everybody, especially people in these positions like agents and casting directors and your direct marketing clients where they get pitched to by actors, and even other vendors.

All the time, all day, every day, probably, vague messages get drowned.

They get drowned out by all of these other people constantly seeking their attention, their money, their value, whatever it is.

Think about the emails that you receive.

How often do you just skim and delete and skim and delete and slide left or right or whatever it is to delete on your device.

Like how often do you do that? Because the sender doesn't grab you with something clear and relevant, right?

Casting directors, agents, and clients are no different.

They need to know exactly who you are, what you do, and why you're the solution to their problem.

Specificity also builds trust.

It tells the recipient that you've done your homework, that you're not just spraying and praying your message, but that you see them and their specific needs.

Here's an example. Let's say you're emailing a potential client about their product launch. Instead of saying, “I'd love to work with you on this project,” get specific, reference the product, point out a gap in their current marketing, explain exactly how your voiceover services or things that you do alongside a voiceover, whether it's editing or SEO or whatever, can help them solve that problem.

Specificity shows confidence.

It makes you an expert. And that gets results.

Now let's talk about your content.

Specificity in your content means creating work that is tailored for the audience you want to reach. On your website, for example, are you speaking to everyone or are you speaking directly to your ideal client?

And I'm not saying that you can't have multiple things that you do.

I do lots of things.

But it's better to be an expert in one thing than to do a lot of things, like, pretty well.

There's lots of actors who do a ton of things really well or moderately well.

How many of them do you see that are experts in what they're doing?

Now, I would say probably not a ton, and that's not a dig at their talent, but people want to work with people who know what they're doing to the degree that they are paying for, right?

So, does your website spell out exactly what you offer in the language that these people landing on it will understand?

Not just casting directors and agents, but direct marketing clients as well?

Because remember, we need to speak the language of the people that we are talking to.

And if you're a voiceover actor, think about your demos and samples and reels.

Are they a general sort of mishmash, or do they speak directly to specific industries?

If you're trying to book more commercial work, your demos and reels and samples should sound like they're frickin ready to go, and that you have the skills and you understand the nuance of commercial work.

And if you're posting on social media, specificity means avoiding generic captions like, another day in the studio.

That's great, but instead, just share what you're working on.

And if I see one more post about “would love to share what I'm working on, but NDA,”… don't share it yet.

Like if you're under NDA for a project, pretty soon you won't be.

So just wait it out until you can tell us what you're working on because those posts are noise.

They don't mean anything.

They don't move the needle for anybody and it can just cause. Some weird toxicity cycle for you or other people in your community or other people that you potentially want to work with.

Be mindful and specific about what you're doing.

And that leads me to being specific in your actions.

It doesn't just stop with your content. It's being specific in your actions is just as important.

And when you're reaching out to agents, casting directors, or direct marketing clients, specificity is key.

If you have something like you speak Japanese, you have studied opera for 10 years, you trained at UCB for 20 years.

Like these are all skills that people have told me that they have that I didn't know.

Until I started coaching with them one on one, and they were like, casually dropping, Oh yeah, I trained at UCB for 20 years, and I was like, wait, what?

I've been working with you for two months, and now you drop that on me?

It's nowhere on your resume, nowhere on your website, but you have this skill and this background, and you're telling me now? That's crazy!

Those are things that are important for people to know, especially people that you want them to hire you.

So when you're reaching out to these people in your emails, don't just introduce yourself and say you'd love to work with them.

I was working with somebody yesterday who showed me her agent pitch and while there's nothing inherently wrong with it, one of the first lines was, I've heard great things about your agency.

And that might be true, but if you don't say specifically what that is, perhaps saying, I've heard great things about your agency, like talking to, someone on your roster, they told me that you book a lot of interactive work for them and I would love to do that too.

That's specific.

Because when you get into that meeting, say you book a meeting with that agent and they're like, Oh, what great things have you heard?

And you haven't actually heard great things. You just said it.

You're going to be like you're great.

And then you're either trying to come up with something on the spot or you're lying about something and that doesn't set a good tone. tone for the future of your relationship.

So get specific or don't say it.

If you're talking to people, I know a lot of people still actually do some cold calling.

Don't just say, I'd love to collaborate with you.

Get specific about what you bring to the table and why they should care. Even in your goals, specificity matters.

Instead of saying, I want more clients this year, say, I want to book five new direct marketing clients in the e-learning industry by June.

That's specific as hell. I love that.

So when you get specific with yourself, you get clear, actionable things. And when you're clear, people take notice.

Because when you embrace specificity, it not only makes your messaging stronger, it makes you more effective overall.

It brings confidence to you overall.

And think about how much time we waste when we're vague when we're living in Vagueville over here.

How many emails go unanswered because we didn't take the time to personalize them.

And I'm not saying like copy and pasting an email and changing out someone's name. Right?

How many emails just slip through the cracks because our demos don't scream, this is the voice you need.

This is the skill you need to complete your thing.

Specificity forces you to slow down and do the work, it requires research, strategy, intention to be a successful voiceover actor.

I didn't build a six figure voiceover business by being vague and being mysterious and gatekeeping my own talents.

Are you kidding me? I know that it's a lot of work.

I know it's hard to research.

I know it's hard to send personalized emails.

And when I direct market to people, I send personalized content.

Doesn't that take a long time, Mandy? Like, what are you doing all day? Yes, it takes a shit ton of time. It takes a lot of time to create custom content for people that I'm pitching to.

But the payoff is huge.

Specificity leads to clarity. Clarity leads to action. And action. Leads to results.

So as you head into 2025, I'm going to challenge you to take a hard look at your messaging and your actions. Where can you get more specific? How can you tailor your outreach, your content, and your mindset to reach the exact people that you want to work with?

So here's your homework:

Number one, you're going to audit your website and portfolio.

You're going to take ten minutes to review your website front to back, like all the Lever 2000 parts. You're going to look at all of it, and you're going to assess, does it clearly communicate who you are? What you do, the types of clients or projects you're looking to do, I want you to write down one specific tweak you can make this week to improve it.

Number two, you're going to send a tailored email to a direct marketing client. Identify one potential client or agent or casting director or somebody you've been meaning to reach out to. And before you hit send, you're going to make sure that your email is specific as shit. Mention something unique about them or their work and clearly explain how you add the value.

If you're struggling, reach out to me, mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com

Number three, you're gonna set one super specific goal for January. Whether it is Bigger, small, medium size. I don't care.

You're going to land a new client, refreshing your demo, creating a new sample, posting consistently on social media, write it down and outline the first step that you're going to do to make it happen.

And remember, the more specific you get, the easier it is to take action.

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I hope you had A safe week. I am actually recording this podcast from New York. However, I do live in Los Angeles and I own a house there.

And, like so many, all of us Angelenos, it's been a terrifying week, and I'm saying it's been a terrifying week, and I haven't even been there.

But I've been watching the fire creep closer to my house, and at the moment I am recording this, thankfully, I am out of immediate danger.

My family is out of immediate danger. My house is out of immediate danger.

I want to talk today. Briefly, this will be a shorter podcast about stress. Because over the past two weeks, I have endured a lot of stress. My mom and dad came out to Los Angeles to celebrate the holidays with us.

And on Christmas night, my mom unfortunately had a stroke.

She spent the night in the hospital. And believe it or not, this is my mom's seventh. That once I got my parents settled, almost like I went upstairs and that's when I heard about the fires in L.A. and it was stressful with my mom because she didn't have all of her doctors around her.

And that was stressful.

And then I got her home and I was like, okay, because I kept saying to myself, okay just wait till Sunday, just get her settled on Sunday.

And then, I got her settled over the next couple of days and then this happened.

So stress has been something that I have personally been dealing with.

I also need to say I fully realized that my stress is my stress but the stress to those people who have lost houses is unimaginable.

What I want to talk about is just one thing, because sometimes when so much is happening, it's the only thing we can do is focus on just one thing.

And that is the tool of journaling.

One of the things that I've picked back up recently, because of the situation with my mom, but also because I've decided to, quite frankly, go deeper with my spiritual practice.

I'm doubling down. I'm raising the level. I am raising the frequency. Of what I am living, of how I am living.

And one of the things that has helped me to do that is stream of consciousness journaling.

I found it before everything happened with my mom, meditating, to be something, I wouldn't call meditation easy, but something that I enjoyed.

But while this has been going on, that has proven to be a bit too challenging for me.

Visions of the news, visions of maps, visions of, all the horrible things that all of us have seen circle in my head.

But what I can do is I can sit down, and I always talk about getting a nice cup of tea because I'm a big tea drinker, sitting down and journaling just stream of consciousness.

And, In situations like where we're in right now, especially for those of you who are so directly affected, I find that really forcing myself to do it for a good 20 minutes.

All this is really necessary as long as you can till your hand starts to hurt.

Now notice I say my hand because again when it comes to journaling I so strongly believe in writing it out.

So that is my tool.

Really, double down, raise the level, raise your frequency around your spiritual practice now.

And stay safe, stay super safe, and take care of yourself this week. I hope this helps.

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Today is a podcast request. Yes! I take requests. So if you have an idea for a podcast, send me an email.

So this is a listener who wanted to talk about the idea of being too nice.

So being too nice. She said, how often have you heard, “You're too nice.”

I have had a few times and while I appreciate the other person's honesty and transparency, it got me thinking about the undertone behind that phrase, especially when it comes to going after what you want as an actor, performer or artist.

In pop culture, actors can get a general reputation for being, dare I say it, self centered or too into themselves.

But you also hear about those mostly established actors who also get the, “Oh, they're so great to work with and are so nice. What rules do you follow? What rules do you fudge a little?”

Especially if you're still trying to establish yourself as an actor.

Does being too nice translate into being too safe?

Is it a balance of being kind with luck? and timing.

When someone says this, what are they communicating?

You're not being fully honest with yourself or would be not being nice mean focusing on others, not on yourself energy.

I decided to take this subject and tackle it this week. And give five kind of points on how to navigate that being too nice, but not being stepped on as an actor and an artist.

Now, some of these things, guess what? I know big surprise. If you listen to my podcast on a regular basis, you will notice they are, some of them sound familiar.

And the first one is just that, set clear boundaries.

Being kind doesn't mean saying yes to everything.

My favorite codependents out there. Are you hearing that?

Being kind doesn't mean saying yes to everything. Clearly define your limits, and that means with yourself, such as your working hours, your ideas on a particular project, and communicate, how you would want to be communicated.

So if somebody keeps emailing you, but you don't see it, tell them, “Hey, it would be better to text me instead.”

Now there's something else I wanted to talk about with this.

I really think that the idea of being too kind and being too, aggressive, which I'm going to get to in a minute.

It also has to do with knowing yourself emotionally, and being emotionally self sufficient, so that your niceness doesn't overcompensate for your lack of belief in yourself.

One of the things I talk about in the weekly adjustment, which is my core work class is that I talk about how important it is to be able to get yourself out of those emotional and mental ruts or spirals so that you don't try and look to your work or to your business to fix you.

How many decades have I done that?

So it's so essential that you set boundaries with yourself.

I'm also going to give you a tip on if you are one of those people who just is yes.

Memorize these words: Let me get back to you.

I just need to check on something.

Let me get back to you.

And then you if you think you want to say yes, you can say that sounds good, but let me get back to you.

And if you can memorize that before saying yes, you're going to help yourself out, especially during the busy season.

Okay. Next one. Be assertive, but not aggressive. In a business meeting recently, someone said “you're very aggressive.”

And I, I literally said, “No, I'm not. I said, I'm actually assertive.”

And then they said to me, they go, “You know what? You're right. You're assertive. You're not aggressive.”

And I could tell that I had really thrown them for a loop because they wanted to put that, aggressive thing on me, but I wasn't being aggressive.

I was just extremely assertive.

Stating how I felt and what I needed and ultimately in the end, they really respected that and I got a very positive result from that meeting in the end.

Being assertive allows you to express your needs and your ideas confidently.

But while respecting other people, I talk about in boundary setting, telling someone how you feel and what you need, but leaving the word you out, meaning you keep it with you.

It also prevents others from mistaking your kindness for weakness, which so often happens.

Again, I want to be assertive, but all of this is tied into this valuable core work that I talk about.

And that is that I'm not going to other people to fill my insecurity. That I am enough in and of myself.

I am able to be assertive and not overcompensate by being aggressive because, all the time through my life, I never got what I wanted, but this time I'm going to.

Again, really using I when you're being assertive. Use the I statement. Keep it with you again. State how you feel and what you need, but leave the word you out and keep it with I.

Okay, tip number three in the balancing the too nice with with, being I don't know not nice. Or, no no asserting yourself. Is align generosity with strategy.

When you offer someone value, what that does is it builds goodwill.

And that also should align with your values and your goals.

It's that idea that Brian Cranston talks about in his book. It's about dropping off the gift of your talent. So I go into an audition with the idea of, “Hey, this is how I would do it. This is how I would solve the problem of the problem, the challenge of this character. So I'm going to do it the way I see it.”

“And then, hey, if you have any adjustments or any other ideas, hey, let's play together and let's do that so that we're working on something together.”

Avoid giving away too much of your time is something that you also want to do.

You want to, again, give, you want to do something that mutually benefits people in this industry.

Win, win.

You need an actor to book, I'm a talented actor who can book. Not only am I good at my job, but I know I'm good at my job.

Being Decisive Podcast

Being decisive and also being solution oriented.

Nice people may hesitate to make tough decisions, and that's because they're worried that they might make a mistake.

If you make a mistake, you will be able to handle the consequences of that mistake.

You will, because we are never given more than we can handle, but we are given more than we can control.

In business, and this is show business, decisiveness earns respect. You want to be empathetic, sorry I'm having trouble speaking today, empathetic.

But you also want to be firm when, stating your boundaries or or stating your opinion. And that sometimes will involve, potential conflict.

If you are one of those people who do not like conflict, make your ears grow bigger and set up a consultation with me. We gotta get that shit sorted. Because the best acting is about conflict.

Finally, is also holding other people accountable.

And this means that you're not so nice that people walk all over you.

I used to be somebody like that. And if you've only known me recently, you would find that hilariously funny. Because I'm not exactly someone who lets people walk all over them.

But OMG! did I used to be.

Somebody would treat me poorly. I'd make an excuse of why either I deserved it or why they treated me so badly.

I would try and justify their unjustifiable behavior.

Don't let kindness excuse unprofessional behavior from others make sure that you know when people say they're going to follow up with you that you follow up with them if they don't do so in a timely manner, you want to respect yourself and respect your timelines and respect yourself on people who you work with.

And what I mean by that is, is that if you find that someone in the business is not saying, not doing what they say they're going to do, it may be time for you to look elsewhere for someone else to fit your needs.

With all of this, the goal is being emotionally self sufficient so that you know you.

So that you know when someone isn't treating you that you don't deserve it, and you know how to defend yourself.

And also, you know yourself to not say that word, yes, immediately, but go back and say, let me get back to you. So that you can take some time out away from the conversation, away from the situation and really see if that thing that you're about to say yes to is right for you.

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Hi, everyone. I hope you had a wonderful holiday week and let me be one of the first to wish you a very happy new year.

Last week it was to close out 2024 and this week it is to welcome 2025.

So allow yourself to find a comfortable position and if that means you need to push pause and get settled that's just fine do that now.

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Today I'm going to be doing a meditation to close out the year.

And you can feel free to do this meditation as many times as you want.

Because you can also think of this meditation as being something to close out your day, or your hour, or your morning, or your month, or your week.

But for our purposes today, it will be to close out 2024.

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Today I'm going to do a podcast on self care.

And the reason why I'm doing it now is that I find that December January time to be in some ways the hardest time.

And I just had this idea. I'm recording this a couple weeks before the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays.

And I'm like, Peter, you're going to need to really listen to this in a couple of weeks.

But yeah, I'm going to be honest. I find December and January to be tough.

December, because there's so much going on.

And January, because even if I'm in California, it's cold. Sometimes it's really rainy. And I feel sometimes overwhelmed by the entire year ahead of me.

And I hope someone out there relates to that.

I do find December and January to be the two trickiest months of the year. All the rest I'll take. But December. December, I particularly find December tough, but January's tough too.

The focus of this podcast is on self care.

What I most need to do when I'm feeling overwhelmed, whether that be because there's so much going on or because there's so much ahead of me.

A couple of phrases:

Whatever you put before taking care of yourself, you're going to lose.

And the thing you're probably gonna lose is your sanity, your peace of mind, your serenity.

Also, I find that taking care of myself pays enormous dividends.

I wish I'd mastered that one so much sooner than I did. But at least I think I've got it now.

Which is taking care of me, loving me, because I'm the person who I'm going to be spending the most amount of time with in my life, and I want to make sure that I have the best relationship with me that I possibly can.

And in order to do that, I need to take good care of myself.

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

There's a phrase in coaching and I believe I did a podcast episode about it called planting a seed.

It's a very powerful tool where you say to yourself, “Yeah, I don't know how I'm going to get everything done, but you know what? I know I'm going to figure it out.”

This first quote is from Language of Letting Go, and Melody says, “I don't precisely know what you need to do to take care of yourself, but I know you can figure it out.

Rest when you're tired. Take a drink of cold water when you're thirsty. Call a friend when you're lonely. Ask the universe to help when you feel overwhelmed.

Many of us have learned, many of us have learned how to deprive and neglect ourselves. Many of us have learned to push ourselves hard.

When The problem is that we've already pushed too hard. Many of us are afraid the work won't get done if we rest when we're tired. The work will get done. It will be done better than work that emerges from tiredness of soul and spirit.”

Seems obvious, but how many times do I just push through?

I think one of the things that I've learned to do is when I get really tired, is I stop for five minutes and meditate. I find that really helpful.

OMG, how many times do I let myself get dehydrated?

Take yourself out to a cafe and journal, if you've got a lot on your mind.

Thank you universe for helping me to change the story of my being overwhelmed. I invite you to support me in changing this and making a shift.

And I think more than anything for me, it's when my soul gets tired. When I literally ache in my solar plexus because I'm so spiritually tired because I've been giving so much. But not giving to myself.

Remember that balance. Find that balance. Give to yourself. It's okay to stop.

It's okay to stop and breathe. It really is.

And you know what? If something falls apart, I know, planting a seed here, you'll be able to handle it. Because we are never given more than we can handle. We are just given more than we can control.

Because guess what? Controlling is not our business.

Managing and handling is.

“Nurtured, nourished people who love themselves and care for themselves are the delight of the universe.”

And I will add to that, that good can come easily. If you're a workaholic, that's a hard one to swallow, but it is a true concept.

And that is a True that good can come easily.

“People who are nourished. and nurture themselves are well timed, efficient, and divinely led. Today, I will practice loving self care, even if it just means taking a breath.”

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Today is going to be a short podcast, but it's going to be a very useful one.

I'm going to talk about morning routines.

I'm going to be using, I haven't used it in a while, the fabulous Melody Beattie.

The Language of Letting Go

And this reading that I'm going to be coaching off of is called Morning Cues. Melody says, “There is an important message for us first thing every day. Often, once we get started with the day, we may not listen as closely to ourselves and life as we do in those still moments when we first awaken.

An ideal time to listen to ourselves is when we are laying quietly, our defenses are down, and we're open and most vulnerable.”

Now, I'm going to stop there because I'm going to tell you what I do for my morning routine and then I'm going to continue to read Melody's reading.

Every morning, when I get up, I make myself a cup of tea.

That's a non negotiable.

And then,while my husband makes me a egg white omelette, as he does pretty much every single morning, He's a master at the egg white omelette. I just have to say. The guy should open up a cafe.

What I do is I go outside and I look at the mountains because I live near mountains.

And I sit and I go through two prayers.

And after I finish those two prayers, I then open up my little notebook and I read out loud the things that I want most.

And in reading those things, I am affirming them. And sometimes I'll be using visualization. Sometimes I'm just saying them. Sometimes I'm just thinking them.

But what it does is it really tunes me into what I want the focus of my life and my day to be.

And when I finish, I always say these words, “Peter Pamela Rose, suiting up, showing up, reporting for duty.”

And that duty is not only to the Universe, God, whatever you want to call it, my God, it's also to me. And it's also to my life and what is important to me, in this one brief shot I have on this earth.

So I hope that inspires you, but I'm going to go on and continue to read what the fabulous Melody Beattie says. She says, “What is the first feeling that floods through us? The feeling that perhaps we are trying to avoid during the business of the day? Are we angry, frustrated, hurt, or confused?

That is what we need to focus on and work through. That is the issue.”

We need to address and I agree that is very helpful and then go on to affirm that you will be able to do that or that you are doing it in that morning routine for me what I am filled with in the morning and this is I'm coming up on my 30th anniversary of doing this work is that I am at peace with who I am now.

And I just want to become a bigger, better, badassier version of Peter Pamela Rose than I already am.

She also asks, “What is the first idea or thought that enters your mind? Do you need to finish a timely project? Are you in need of a fun day, a restful day?”

I also think that is a great question to ask yourself, because that tells you what you most don't want to do, which becomes the number one thing you need to do to build self esteem, to build trust in yourself.

She asks, “do you feel sick and need to nurture yourself? Are you in a negative frame of mind? Do you have an issue that you need to resolve with someone?”

Again, pay attention to those first thoughts so you know where the healing needs to go.

Do you need to tell someone something? Is something bothering you?

Is something feeling particularly good? Does an idea occur to you?

That happens to me all the time while I'm affirming in the morning.

In the morning does an idea occur to you? Something you could get or something that would make you feel good? What are those things?

Embrace the good. Embrace the challenge.

Embrace the learning that you are listening to first thing in the morning.

When you awaken, what is the first issue that presents itself?

You don't have to be fearful. Be brave.

You don't have to rush. Go as slowly as you need to in order to take care of yourself. Lay. Listen. Be still. Accept the message.

And then, affirm the good.

Find that relationship between you and the universe.

And state to yourself that today, I will suit up, show up, and report for duty. Mostly to myself.

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About Matthew:

Matthew Corozine is a multi-hyphenated creative artist. Not only an actor, director, producer, and teacher, Matthew is also the founding artistic director and creator of Matthew Corozine Studio (MCS), which just celebrated its 24th anniversary. He is now one of New York City’s leading Meisner-based acting coaches, teaching and creating opportunities for students to “get outta your head” in order to build a meaningful life with art. Already with an established student base in New York City, Washington DC and internationally (via online coaching), MCS has expanded to Miami .

Over the years, Matthew has coached actors and performers on Broadway, TV, Film, including platinum-selling America’s Got Talent finalist, Jackie Evancho. Matthew directed the original show “Going Through Life With No Direction” at 54 Below (NYC), produced by Alicia Keys.

Matthew recently acted in THE NORMAL HEART benefit at the legendary LGBT Center 40th Anniversary with Broadway for Arts Education playing the iconic role of “Ned Weeks”. Having just returned from teaching two sold out Master Classes in Frankfurt Germany, Matthew is looking forward to his 25th season teaching in NYC, Miami and internationally.

Pick up Matthew’s book IF YOU SURVIVED 7TH GRADE, YOU CAN BE AN ACTOR (Applying the Meisner Technique to Get out of Your Head in Acting and in Life), in paperback, ebook or audio narrated by Matthew.

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Today I'm going to talk to you about the hazard of making excuses as an actor.

And I'm going to start with perhaps something that if you were like me, or you are like how I used to be the idea of it's only me.

So it's only me and therefore it doesn't count or, I'm tough, I can handle it.

One of the things that making excuses as an actor does is it stalls personal growth.

And anything that would affect me in a negative way, I used to be like, “Hey, I'm young. I can take it. Hey, no worries. I can overcome it.”

Until I couldn't.

And so the first thing I'm going to talk about in terms of the hazards of making excuses as an actor is just that. Stalling personal growth.

See, now, as a middle aged woman, I don't want to do anything that stalls me.

I don't want to have any energy that is moving against me.

I want everything moving for me.

Because you know what? I deserve it.

And so do you and this making excuses and stalling my personal growth, what it does is it prevents me from taking responsibility and it also limits opportunities for self improvement and for learning from my mistakes.

I've talked about how when we make mistakes, those can be our great learning opportunities.

The thing is that when I prevent myself from taking responsibility, what happens is that I'm saying I am not part of the problem.

And if I am not part of the problem, there is no solution.

I also have to say that when I stall my personal growth, I limit opportunities, because what I do is I'm so closed off in my thinking, and when I'm so closed off in my thinking, I don't know what to do.

I'm only seeing that little bit.

It's like I'm putting blinders on the side of my face.

I can't see anything except what is in front of me. And I want to be seeing everything.

I want to be looking at my life and moving things to work for me and the creating the potential for a better result. I want all of it. Not just some of it.

It's like when I talk about the two power systems, I have the ego power system, and I have the universal power system.

When I am in my ego power system, I have only finite energy.

Energy that begins and ends with me.

When I am in the universe power system, oh my gosh, it's infinite and what I want to do as a finite human is I want to hook up a a pipeline to the universe to that infinite energy.

The other thing is that making excuses does is it damages credibility.

It doesn't only damage credibility with other people, my credibility with others, but it also damages credibility with me.

One of the biggest things that I have learned in the pandemic and post pandemic is learning trust.

And that trust within myself is when I say I'm going to do something, actually doing it.

Like today I said, I'm going to record two podcasts today. So today I'm going to record two podcasts.

Now would it be a big deal if I only recorded one? No.

But the person who I most need to be building that trust with, she would know. And that is myself.

That getting trust from yourself is in some ways the hardest person to get it from because it's also the easiest per person to skimp it from.

So really, wanting to build credibility with me and not making excuses, even to myself, is so important.

Because if I don't do it, I erode trust.

I erode my own reliability with myself.

And I make others and myself doubt my commitment and my own integrity, building my own integrity with me.

It is of paramount importance.

The other thing that making excuses does, when I talk about, working for you and getting everything to work for you instead of against you, is that making excuses creates a negative mindset.

It creates a negative mindset.

Again, I want to have an anabolic mindset, which is filled with anabolic energy that works for me, that that is growing, is healing energy.

When I am in a negative mindset, I want to I am in catabolic energy, and that is, I just described it to my weekly class I describe that as being like having a really bad virus.

It feels like your body or something in you is working so hard against you and just making you feel so weak.

Also, when I make excuses and I create a negative mindset, I rely on those excuses to create something that I don't want to create, which is a defeatist attitude.

And that making excuses that create, that creates a negative mindset also it reinforces my own limitations and my own limiting beliefs in myself when instead I could be using it as an opportunity to do the thing that I want to make an excuse about to build trust in myself, build the ability to seek solution, and also build the self esteem that comes with it.

And I always talk about how building self esteem, building confidence, what does it do? It improves belief in the self and self esteem.

The other thing that making excuses does is it enables you to miss opportunities, and those excuses, what they do is that they feed into that dirty P word of procrastination.

They also feed into that other dirty word of perfectionism.

Perfectionism leads to procrastination, leads to paralysis.

And what ends up happening when I make an excuse and I have a missed opportunity is that causes inaction.

And it causes me to miss chances for success, or a learning, or an education, or an advancement.

Finally, the thing that making excuses does is it also hinders problem solving.

And it makes me think that I'm not that smart. Ouch.

And when I blame some external factor, like the person I read with in that audition, or the fact that the casting director just doesn't get me, instead of addressing the issues directly, and those issues are, if I'm not part of the problem, there is no solution.

What it does is, again, it erodes my ability to overcome challenges.

When I come to that fork in the road, do I make an excuse or do I find a way?

Finding a way, that increases my ability to solve problems, that increases my ability to let go of wanting to make an excuse and take the “easy way out” and go what may initially look like the harder way, but actually in the long run.

The easy way, because when I don't make excuses, and I take responsibility for my life, and I acknowledge that if I am not part of the problem, there is no solution.

I find ways of finding a way. I build self esteem. I build trust in myself. I build self confidence.

And also, just as a bonus, I diminish, I neutralize, I minimize any anxiety or self doubt I may have.

So today, let's find a way. Let's build self esteem. Let's believe in ourselves, just even for a moment.

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About Tim:

With more than 60,000 coaching sessions and 40+ years in the business, audition coach and premiere acting teacher Tim Phillips knows what works.

Audition For Your Career, Not The Job was written after 30 years of teaching and designed as a practical manual for the working actor. What Phillips is after are moment-by-moment, clear, specific, human truths that make you unavoidable on stage and screen, from character.

Tim Phillips ignited the careers of Emmy award-winning Richard Schiff, Golden Globe nominee Wendy Malick, Nancy Travis, the excellent Robert Wisdom, James DuMont, Bruce Nozick (...) and many others. He's also helped catapult countless actors into more satisfying, long-term, confident careers.

Today, based out of Atlanta, he brings decades of NYC and LA-based experience to artists of every caliber across the country and now, thanks to Zoom, the globe. He coaches privately over the phone, via Zoom, and through Facetime.

Phillips' ethic and his teaching is human, individual, specific, and immediately applicable.

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Today I'm going to talk about what I find a sad subject, and it is about unsupportive friends and unsupportive family members.

And I'm gonna give you a few points and things to think about. So that you can have the support, at least from me, and I'll talk about getting more support in a moment, that helps you when you're dealing with this.

Now, the first thing, and I know because, man, I hated this word when I first learned it, was boundaries.

Learning to set boundaries, clearly communicate your goals and values to others, and establish boundaries when necessary.

This helps you to protect your energy and stay focused on what matters most to you without having that negativity affect you.

Now, I think that's really important, and I'm going to say something about boundaries in a moment, but I also need to teach you this little phrase.

Don't go to the hardware store for lemons.

If you know that a family member or a particular friend is not supportive of your acting career, here's an idea stop talking to them about it.

Stop talking to them about it. You have a choice. Here's another idea. They call, you find them difficult to deal with this particular person. Don't pick up the phone. Let it go to voicemail. And call them back when you feel strong.

When you feel strong.

There's another great phrase. I just thought of it. I learned this in a 12 step program, which is Don't dial pain. Or don't text pain.

If that person, if you know that person, is not going to give you the empathy, the love, the support that you need, go to someone else, and if you don't know who to go to, oh, for goodness sakes, please shoot me an email.

Email me

The other thing here and it goes right into it, is you want to limit negative interactions.

When I go to places where I don't feel that I'm really going to be supportive, I remind myself that all I need to do is be civil and polite.

And sometimes if it's like a party, I can ask questions. And just listen to other people. I don't have to be giving everything of myself. It's not required.

It's not my duty to entertain people.

I can ask them how their lives are doing. And I am going to walk away feeling, one, good that I was there for another person, but two, also that I have protected myself.

Limit negative interactions.

If there are certain people consistently undermining your efforts, consider reducing the time you spend with them.

I always say there's another phrase that is arrive late and leave early, arrive late and leave early.

And also, the restroom can be a wonderful place to just reconnect yourself, to gather your thoughts, to gather your resolve.

If you're in situations that you can't get out of your family.

For example, I, by the way my parents are the most supportive people in the whole world, so I can't imagine not having supportive family members.

But I have had unsupportive friends, so I can relate.

You want to support yourself with positivity whenever possible to keep your motivation strong. That's one of the things that is so freaking wonderful about that weekly adjustment class. We are All supporting each other. It's such a wonderful class on that line.

Seek external support. We cannot do this on our own. It takes a village. We want to find like minded individuals who can uplift and encourage you and whether that is through an online community or getting a mentor or having supportive friends.

Those are the people you want to be support surrounding you yourself with as much as possible because their reinforcement can balance out any negativity from other people.

I think it does so much more than balance it out. I think it tips the scale.

Also, Remember to stay focused on your vision. Remind yourself of why you are pursuing your goals.

And remind yourself that you are worth it.

And that you were put on this planet for a reason.

And it is worth you standing up for.

Focus on your vision. on your long term vision.

When you do that, it helps you to remain steadfast, even when those around you may not.

Support your choices. Don't abandon yourself, and don't abandon your dreams. You are worth it. You are worth it.

Finally, respond with compassion. Oof, this is a toughie.

Sometimes, unsupportive friends or families, family, may be acting out because of their own fears or their own misunderstandings.

Try to respond with empathy, but don't let their worries derail your progress.

Focus on your path, knowing that their opinions do not define your self worth.

If someone is saying that I'm worried that you're in a risky job, with your goal of being an actor.

Tell them that you can handle it.

Tell them how much you love and appreciate that they're concern, but that you've got this and that all you ask is that they love you.

They don't even have to support you, but just that they love you.

Just that they're your friend. And then you can make the mental note of whether they heard that or not, and of whether you go to them again.

Whatever you don't quit five minutes before the miracle. Don't do it. Keep going. Consistence. Persistence. Tenacity.

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About Risa:

For the past 4 decades Risa has worked consistently as a director, producer, casting director, writer, and teacher.

She’s had the great fortune to have collaborated with some of the most talented, passionate, and groundbreaking artists in the world. She’s continued to move successfully from one arena to another – from theatre to film to television and back.

With two feature films in her directorial body of work – the cult classic, 200 CIGARETTES, and more recently, THE CON ARTIST, made in Canada, Risa’s also directed in television, including multiple episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE for the WB, and several shows for HBO, Lifetime, and Comedy Central.

Risa’s directed dozens of plays in New York (The Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Second Stage, Manhattan Theatre Club) and in Los Angeles.

She calls The Ensemble Studio Theatre her original artistic home, where she’s been a member in NY for over 40 years, producing and directing several years of the flagship festival MARATHON OF ONE-ACT PLAYS. And she founded EST-LA, a thriving Los Angeles theatre company. Some of her favorite director-playwright collaborations have been with Edward Allan Baker, John Shanley, Richard Greenberg, Bill Bozzone, Alan Zweibel, and Neil Cuthbert.

In L.A. Risa founded and produced ACT ONE, a successful two-year festival of one-acts, in conjunction with Showtime Networks. As a founding Artistic Director of EST-LA, Risa worked with HBO, producing and directing a series of acclaimed one-acts for The Aspen Comedy Arts Festival.

In her long association with HBO, starting in the early 80’s as a talent scout for comedians, Risa co-produced two years of THE YOUNG COMEDIANS SHOW for the network. She was also a TV producer with The Carsey Werner Company.

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A subject that has come up with private clients of mine and in my weekly group class has been the subject of discussion of quitting.

And the phrase that I have been coaching on, is don't quit five minutes before the miracle.

Don't quit five minutes before the miracle.

And I get it. Especially for those of us in the U. S. who have been struggling with the industry this year. Let's just be blunt. It's a bitch, okay? It's just been awful. I have a friend of mine who's a producer and he says the word he keeps using is brutal.

It's been a brutal year.

But here's the thing. We're not gonna quit. There is no plan B.

So let's talk about the things that we need to do to motivate ourselves to not quit five minutes before the miracle.

So I'm going to have five points that I want to make and I'll coach a little bit around each one.

So the first one is, and this is really true for someone who has been in this business for 36 years.

Progress happens over time.

And often it's that level of you work, you grind, and then you get to the next level. And then you work, you grind and you get to the next level.

Now, something I've noticed with me is right when I'm about to get to that next level, whatever level that may be, that is when all my limiting beliefs come up.

My self-doubt comes up, all like my demons as it work come up.

But here's the thing, through coaching the principles and through this core work, I can go, oh, it's you again. Look at that. Oh, there you go.

You may feel like you want to give up.

But if you could just persevere for just a little bit longer. What you may discover is that you may discover you're having a breakthrough moment.

And then you get to that next level.

But understand that, it's darkest before the dawn.

It's the same thing with not quitting five minutes before the miracle.

It's when, it's those moments when you are just about I cannot do it another second. Those are the moments. When you need to keep going, those are the moments when you need to keep going.

I know something is about to happen when I start getting really squirrely, or my thinking starts to get really stinky, that means I'm on the verge of something.

It's so funny that we actually think it's negative. But what if it was positive.

Again, I go back to one of my favorite quotes, “change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”

So remember that progress happens over time. And again, you work, you grind, you get to the next level.

And right as you're about to get to that next level, don't forget to keep on going.

Don't forget to keep on going. Even though every cell in your body may be going, What the fuck? I wanna quit. Keep going.

Keep going. No matter what.

Okay, next one. Patience. Patience pays off.

I just have to say, Peter Pamela says, patience pays off.

Success requires consistent effort.

One of the things I talk about with my clients is consistence and persistence and tenacity. Quitting too soon could mean abandoning all the work that you've already invested.

And I'm sorry, no, no effing way, okay? No fucking way am I quitting after I've put in this much work.

And that next step might be the one that creates the shift you need.

Again, don't quit five minutes before the miracle.

Continue to wake up, suit up, show up, and report for duty. And report for duty to what you are meant to do on this earth, whatever your dream may be.

The next one is that keep in mind that challenges build resist resilience.

Challenges build resilience.

When things get tough, it's easy to want to quit. It's what I was talking about in that first point. All that stuff comes up right as something is about to break.

However, pushing through strengthens your ability to handle future obstacles, making you more resilient and prepared for greater opportunities.

See, one of the things I talk about is that fear of success.

And when the thing about the fear of success is that at some point, what happens is that we have that fear of success because we realize that fear of success will mean that we will have more responsibility and more And that freaks us out just a little bit.

And what happens, our negative thoughts come up, because it tries to protect us.

It tries to keep us the same. It tries to keep us stagnant. Not because it doesn't like us, but because it wants us to stay the same.

Remember, handling obstacles makes you more resilient and prepares you for greater opportunities.

Number four, success is not linear.

OMG, can I tell you about that one? I find that this business is cyclical.

You'll go through the biggest drought and then you'll be so damn busy you won't know what to do with yourself. This business is cyclical. So is life.

Progress can feel slow. And sometimes freaking invisible, or as I like to say, go is at a glacial pace and staying the course, even when you can't see the immediate results ensures that you are still moving forward toward your goal.

Something that was brought up in my group class. This week that I thought was so interesting that they were saying that they're doing baby steps in so many areas that it doesn't feel like they're moving forward.

But the thing Is that of course they are, because they're even taking those baby steps.

Even by taking those baby steps, they are moving forward. That's the key.

Keep moving. I have this mountain, I went running yesterday, and I call this this mountain Killer Mountain. And this mountain is, it's awful.

I'm just gonna say, it is freaking awful. And I do it at the beginning of my runs so I get it over with. And I must run. I don't even know if I'm running at one mile an hour up this thing, but I keep jogging. I don't walk. I keep jogging. And as I'm going up it, I say to myself, while I'm totally miserable, I just say to myself, this is how you succeed.

You just do it. Keep moving. You keep going forward. You keep persevering.

Now, I'm not in physical pain while I'm going up this mountain, but I am working hard. Cause it is steep, okay? But the thing is that every time I go up it, I'm saying, okay, not only are my legs and my body and my heart and my lungs and everything getting stronger, the other thing that's going on is I am learning that spiritual lesson of putting one foot in front of the other.

I'm learning that spiritual lesson of consistence, persistence, resilience, tenacity gets you there.

It moves me forward towards my goal, which is to get to the top of the mountain, even though it may not be at the pace I would like it to be.

I love this last point. Self belief drives momentum.

Ooh, baby, there is nothing I like better than self esteem.

There is nothing that I like better than learning how to not abandon yourself.

Learning the importance of emotional self sufficiency. I love that.

That's what I'm teaching every week in my weekly class. It's so freaking good. If you quit now, you're only going to reinforce doubt and limit your potential.

All of my coaching is about creating the potential to get a better result.

Creating the potential to get a better result. Trusting your ability to endure tough moments fuels confidence and keeps you going. Until the miracle happens.

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So today's podcast is going to be about making a pivot in your acting career.

The first thing you want to do when you are making a pivot is you want to clarify your new career goal.

I understand that the goal may be to be a working actor, but what exactly does that mean to you?

And when you've made a goal, asking yourself that follow up question, that empowering question, what does that mean to you? What does that look like? How will it feel when you achieve it?

You want to take time to identify exactly where you want to pivot, and I think those questions can really, truly help you.

Now, whether that is in a new area of the industry, or maybe with a new renewed energy towards a different area or a renewed energy towards an old goal? That is fine. The big thing I want you to think about is being specific.

Really setting a clear goal for yourself of what you are looking to do.

Now one of the things that I always talk about with my clients is, and if you can put this on a piece of paper, make three columns.

In column one, I want you to put goal. In column two, I want you to put thought and in column three, I want you to put action.

So whatever in life your goal is, you need to keep in mind that your thoughts must be aligned with that goal, your thoughts, and that means what you think and what you say, your vocabulary.

I've been talking a lot in my weekly coaching group about vocabulary lately. So what your vocabulary is around that goal and also what your actions are around that goal, making sure that those actions are alignable actions.

The other thing you want to do is really look at, and I'm all about the training.

You really want to make sure that your training as an actor is where it needs to be.

Now, that again, click on the link in the show notes, that again, I am willing to help you with. Send me your picture, send me your resume, tell me what kind of class or what kind of skill you are really looking for.

Looking to work on with your new pivot with that. Let me help you.

I'm offering this to you for free. So let me help you because this business is so tough.

It is so important that you stay on top of your skills that you stay on top of them.

Don't ever underestimate how good you need to be as a casting director, I need you to be good at your job.

Now that may involve you taking new classes or gaining experience in some other way.

But this is the thing we want you to be competitive. And therefore we need your skills to be at the level that other working actors are at.

The next thing I want you to think about is leveraging your existing network. In my signature course, The Working Actor Road Map, and in my weekly class, which is the Weekly Accountability Group, I talk all the time about a follow up list and staying on top of your follow up list.

Because you really want to be reaching out to those connections.

Now the thing is, you may not even realize that you have valuable connections. Again, I can guide you with this, networking and making relationships with casting directors, with writers, directors, film festivals at film festivals, these are all things that you can do.

Again, this business is a lot about letting go of the things you cannot change or control.

And really embracing and handling and managing and changing the things you can. So I want to help you to get really clear. And in this step, I want you to look at what are the things in this business that are out of my control and what are the things that I want to change that are in my control.

And I want you to put that here when you're talking about your networking.

How can I network more? How can I get myself out there more? Again, if you need help, click on the link in the show notes and we will talk about it.

The other thing is as I want you to look at, and this is again where I get very woogie about putting this in a podcast just for general consumption, because I have a theory about your materials.

You want to be going over your materials. That's the next step here. But this is the thing. The biggest mistake that I feel actors make is that their materials don't speak the language of the agents and the casting directors.

And I want to put it to you this way. If let's say you have a day job. Okay, I want you to think of certain jargon that is spoken in your day job, or maybe your hometown, or maybe at your college, or your acting school. A jargon.

And I want you to think of three words, like three big words, that if somebody brand new came into your university or your day job and they didn't speak those three words, what would you know about them?

One, that they're new. Two, that they're not really in the know.

And three, if you're gonna be in charge of them, you're gonna have to explain it all to them.

That's how it is for casting directors and agents and managers.

We want to be working with people who are, who already know the jargon, who are already speaking our language, because we don't have time to teach you.

But I do. And that's the thing that I really want to stress. It is that you need your materials. If you're going to be revamping them, if you're looking for an exfoliation of your acting career, we gotta talk. And the reason is because you will be deleted or discarded if your materials don't speak the language of the agents and the casting directors.

So again, another tip here is to really go over your materials.

Next bit is, and this is a big one. Start with small steps. And I talk about this a lot. Anyone can eat an elephant one bite at a time. Anyone can eat an elephant one bite at a time. Big steps, giving yourself big steps in your acting career is just going to lead to nothing getting done.

Why? Because our perfectionism kicks up. Perfectionism leads to procrastination, which leads to paralysis.

So that is why we want to make it baby steps. When we do baby steps, one, we're more likely to get it done.

And two, when we get it done, we build that incredible thing that money can't buy, which is self esteem and self worth and the confidence to go on to the next step.

So baby step it.

The next one I want to tell you about is seeking mentorship. And again, that is why I started off this podcast saying, hey, if you need someone to guide you through this, I'm here.

Schedule a free consult with me. Let's work it out.

Because you do need those outside eyes to guide you. And you want it to be someone who is qualified in this industry.

Okay, last one. And this is a core work one. Oh baby, you know it because it's me, which is to be prepared for setbacks and stay resilient.

Making a shift, making a pivot, can take time and may involve setbacks. And I know that freaking sucks to say, because already you're making a pivot because you've had a setback. And let's be honest, 2024 has been a rough time for the industry.

The thing is that you want to embrace the lessons that you're learning.

You want to stay patient. You want to focus on small wins, and you want to progress.

The fact of the matter is this is your dream. And you've only got one life to live. So let's freaking go for it.

Remember, being resilient is key in staying alive. motivated.

And of course, all of my podcasts are here to help you. And so am I.

So if you want, if you would like to be brave, or you want to get that mentorship, click on the link in the show notes, and I'll be happy to help.

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Today I'm going to talk about reframing disappointment.

One of my favorite quotes. It's from Dr. Wayne Dyer, he says “Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.”

And in reframing disappointment, we need to look at it in a different way.

So I'm going to give you a few tips.

I'm going to give you some Action steps to do when you face disappointment and hopefully that will help you to move through it because again, another one of my favorite quotes, again, a top five is Robert Frost, which is the “best way out is always through.”

So this podcast is about moving you through disappointment.

Number one, acknowledge the disappointment. And this is so important. One of my phrases that I teach is awareness, acceptance, and action. Obviously, you are aware of the disappointment, but you really need to accept it. And acknowledge it so that you can then move on through the rest of this podcast to take action to reframe it and also learn from it and move on from it.

So it's important to first allow yourself to feel disappointment, rather than suppressing it. Another one of my little phrases is, feelings aren't facts.

And also, feelings aren't going to kill you.

And also, this is survivable.

Whatever happened that's disappointing you, it is survivable.

But it is important to feel your feelings.

One of my favorite ways to feel my feelings, especially when they're a bit confused or jumbled, is to make a cup of tea and to start writing it out.

And I just literally do stream of consciousness. And it can be even, I don't know what the hell to write, I don't know what to do this is what happened and then I describe the whole thing and as I'm describing it, the feelings come out and hopefully some tears come out or some anger or I do a run or something like that.

But it helps me to feel those feelings because suppressing it is not going to help.

Recognizing your emotions helps you to process them in a healthy way.

Everything I just talked about is processing your emotions in a healthy way, which is the first step towards reframing the situation and moving forward.

So our first step is to acknowledge the disappointment. Again, awareness, acceptance, action, journal, those feelings out. Exercise those feelings out, but feel those feelings so they don't get suppressed.

The second one, a personal favorite of mine, although it's not very pleasant while you're going through it, is to identify the lessons learned.

I have said so many times that my biggest mistakes have been my greatest teachers.

Every setback is a learning opportunity and has a learning opportunity, take the time to analyze what went wrong and what you can gain from the experience.

You could've done that audition, did it to the absolute best of your ability, and still not have gotten the part. And you're like, you know what? I left it all on the floor. I did everything I could, and yet I still didn't get the role.

Maybe what you learned is, that's the level you need to be performing at because you know you can perform at that rate.

One of the things I think is so painful is living with the knowledge that you could be doing so much better, that you could be doing so much better.

Trust me, that feeling is so much worse than walking through your fears to reach your full potential.

That's so much more painful than being brave and best way out is always through walking through your biggest fears, because once you've conquered those biggest fears, then there is absolutely no limit to what you can achieve.

So that is why it is so important to take the time to analyze what happened and what you can gain from the experience, understand how you can grow from this disappointment or this setback really helps you to shift your focus from this being a failure, to actually an incredible growth experience.

And I know that's distasteful and makes you have just a little bit of bile in your mouth. But it's the truth. It's the truth.

Your biggest mistakes are your best teachers. But take the time to learn the lesson. So you don't have to go through it again.

Focus on what you can control.

Now big thing I talk about is the serenity prayer. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. I cannot change other people, places, things, or situations. Courage to change the things I can. I can only change myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions, and wisdom to know the difference between what I cannot change and control, which is other people, places, things, and situations, and what I can manage and handle, which is myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.

Disappointment often stems from outcomes outside of your control.

That first part that grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

Other people, places, things, or situations I can't change or control them.

What I want to do is to refocus my energy on what is within my power, which is courage to change things.

The things I can, which is courage to change, manage, handle my thoughts, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.

And by doing that, by looking at what is within my power, again, my thoughts, my actions, my attitudes, those things, those decisions, that mindset, by shifting my attention to the things that I can do something about, what happens is that I regain a sense of agency and purpose.

Also another tip is to reframe the failure as feedback.

Instead of viewing a career disappointment as a personal failure, reframe it as constructive feedback.

Again, what you can learn, and what you can gain, and what you can change.

Really get this disappointment as constructive feedback. How can you make it work for you instead of against you?

Ask yourself, what insights this experience offers and how can it guide you to further actions?

The next time I intend to fill in the blank, fill in the blank.

This perspective turns a negative event into a tool for, yes, you guessed it, Improvement.

Next one. Practice gratitude for your progress.

Often disappointment makes us overlook the progress that we've made so far.

I always talk about progress, not perfection.

Look back at your entire career journey and appreciate the milestones you have achieved. Adopt an attitude of gratitude. This will help you to keep a balanced perspective, reminding you that one setback does not define your overall success, or define you as a human being.

I am what I am. Embrace that.

And again, don't let this one thing define who you are.

Next one, we're getting to the last couple here, is set new goals.

Maybe you need to baby step it a little bit more.

Remember anyone can eat an elephant one bite at a time.

Break those larger objectives into smaller, actionable steps allows you to rebuild your momentum and focus on progress rather than dwelling on past outcomes rather than dwelling on past outcomes.

You want to rebuild that momentum. You want to get yourself going again.

And sometimes by breaking it down into those bite sized pieces that you know you can swallow, those smaller action steps that you know you can take, you will achieve a little more self esteem to help you to gain confidence.

The ability to achieve those bigger goals in the long run.

It's like slowing down in order to speed up.

Next one, talking to mentors, peers, or friends can help provide a fresh perspective on disappointment.

They can offer advice.

They can share their own experience, strength, and hope, and remind you of the Truth with a capital T, that setbacks are common, are a common part of life, and also career development.

And also, support from friends and your mentors can help you to build your career resilience.

Last one. Embrace the long term view. A single disappointment is rarely the end of your career path.

OMG, when I was an actress starting out, I wouldn't get a call back and I would cry for days.

And then at some point I realized that if that was going to be my approach to my career, I wasn't going to make it to 20.

I was wrecked. I just would beat myself up terribly. Beating ourselves up. Stop. End beating ourselves to a pulp so that we feel we are such a horrible person is not the way to go.

We need to, again, take those little baby steps to build that self esteem. When reframing disappointment, remind yourself that success is a process and is also a long term journey.

This perspective helps reduce the emotional weight of short term setbacks and also reinforces your commitment to your acting career.

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The Working Actor Road Map

Connect with Jocelyn on Instagram

Today I am talking with Jocelyn Sandstrom about quantum manifestation.

About Jocelyn:

Growing up in Hawaii, Jocelyn has lived and worked in 12 different countries. This experience has allowed her to realize that even though we may speak different languages or have different traditions, at our core, we are all the same. She has used this knowledge to help and support clients around the world in creating next-level success not just in their careers but in their personal lives as well.

Since 2010, she has been providing Quantum Energy Sessions and teaching Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Neurological Re-patterning, and the Millennium Method to clients globally.

In 2022, she founded Wellness and Metaphysical, a community-driven platform that promotes a higher level of consciousness through expos and retreats.

Jocelyn's mindset and energy work have propelled her career, allowing her to work with leading global luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Fendi, Cartier, Tiffany & Co., Christian Louboutin, and Yves Saint Laurent, among others.

She has been featured on the covers of Elle, Marie Claire, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, and more.

Alongside her husband, she has hosted two travel shows and appeared in various feature and short films.

Now, she is focused on sharing her knowledge and experience through coaching and mentoring to help others to quantum leap their reality.

Jocelyn specializes in helping clients release deep-rooted issues from their past that are holding them back. She supports clients in building not just success but also fulfillment at the same time because success without fulfillment is empty, leading to burnout and anxiety. She supports her clients to discover their authentic truth and share that with the world, magnetizing their energy to start attracting people and opportunities out of the blue, enabling them to fall in love with themselves and their life while creating more success than ever before!

How did you get into quantum manifestation?

So basically I got into doing this one because my mom got sick in 2002 and so it was my inspiration to really dive into this world and I helped her to get better naturally and then through that at the same time I was working on my career when I was modeling and I was able to take that career to a place beyond my wildest dreams through quantum manifestation.

And I just kept blowing my mind over every time I would work on something and a job would show up or an opportunity would show up. And so much so that my husband was like, what in the world is it that you're doing? And he ended up taking all the classes because he couldn't believe it as well because we lived in such a fixed reality of you do this, then this happens, you do this, then this happens.

But when you play with quantum manifestation, you're co creating with the universe, things in your life that don't make sense, that drop in out of the blue, those magic emails, opportunities, chance encounters, being in the right place at the right time. And every time that happens, it quantum leaps you to a whole other energy.

And so my passion is to share that with the world, because really, we don't need to be doing it the hard way anymore.

There's this way that we haven't tapped into yet that just helps you to collapse time. And my passion is to help everybody to do that.

My big thing is about waking up every day, suiting up, showing up, and reporting for duty.

I so strongly believe that the universe has a much better plan for me than I do.

Because I have all of my limiting beliefs that I've brought with me throughout my, throughout my life.

And I have found that, that suiting up, showing up and reporting for duty, really, it's amazing how fast things work.

Can you talk about the very beginning process of quantum manifestation?

So there's a couple of different things. The first one is being able, I call it tapping into your inner knowing or your inner soul knowing, whatever word you want to use for that.

We all know, I truly know that any of my dreams and visions are my soul or my inner knowing showing me what it came here to experience.

And so to me in quantum physics, past, present, future, it's now like it's happened. It's a future memory, a future echo showing me what's coming.

If I show up every single day and take aligned action.

It's the knowing that's inside.

If you listen to any actor that's doing their acceptance speech, it's this is for everybody that told me I couldn't I knew that I could, and when I first took my career to the next level, I was told by everybody that you're too old. You don't have the right look.

You're not this, you're not that. Can't do it. And I'm like, no, watch me.

And I just, that was so deep that I didn't let people suppress it. And so every single day I took aligned action. I know that we are an energetic match for our goals. The only thing in the way is our beliefs, our doubts, our worries, all of these stories that it then has to come through to find us.

And so my job is to help you to find those beliefs, to shift them out, to clear those worries so it can drop in faster.

And so if you just tap into that inner knowing, I have a soul evolution process.

Anybody can message me on Instagram.

If you do that every single day, you're going to cultivate your inner knowing to be stronger than your conditioned mind.

Our job is to override the conditioned mind.

Our conditioned mind is going to give us more of what exists.

Like you said, that your soul, the universe, your knowing has a bigger plan.

Like I always tell my conditioned mind to let go of the steering wheel and let my soul take me on the ride of my life.

Because what's waiting for me on the other side is beyond my wildest imagination.

So if I try and figure out the how, I limit myself, I kill the magic, and I get stuck in more of the same. And we're not here to play in more of the same. We're here to innovate and create and bring in the next level of things.

Two thought and power systems. There's the ego thought system and power system which is finite. And then there's the universe's power and thought system which is infinite.

And what I want to be living is in the infinite. But that has taken me to really work on.

And what I love about quantum manifestation is that we're really talking about moving it as fast as it possibly can, and easier.

So the thing is with quantum manifestation in the past, I used to manifest like individual things, right? Like I want this and then I want this and then I'm so exhausted because I had to put all my energy into manifesting that one thing that I'm like, okay, I need a break, right? Instead of just continuing to go.

In quantum manifestation, we don't work on the projection, we don't work on the symptoms, we work on the root.

We work on that root to shift that root from the core so that you're just being. You are just being this new way that all that other stuff just works.

So once you shift that, it's when you're trying to untangle your hair, if you start from here, it takes forever, right?

But if you start from here, it's, it just untangles effortlessly.

That's the core, like really tapping into that inner knowing from yourself, reprogramming those beliefs, any trigger, any fear, any anxiety, there's a belief there, there's a story, there's something that we picked up that's not serving us, that's allowing us to be triggered.

And so you just need to find what that is and shift that story out. An easy way to do it without the reprogramming process, is if you've really if you've really anchored in your knowing from within and you know that's the plan that's coming you know that it's inevitable if you just show up and take a line action every single day.

I do soul work so if you tap into the inner power of your infinite soul because all our souls are same power but different or one of the same and so if you recognize that a lot of these things are just the conditioned mind of what we took on, but they're not our soul.

If we're afraid of taking a leap because we're afraid of the rejection, the only part of us that's going to be bruised is our ego, not our soul.

Our soul is infinite. And so if you can tap into that knowing and into that power, you can override a lot of the stories. You can say, Hey, that's not mine. That's my parents. That's societies. That's from a past life, whatever it is. And you can remember who you are, which is limitless, which is infinite potentiality.

And so a lot of times just that can shed some of those beliefs.

Other beliefs are so deep that we have to do a reprogramming process on them because your conditioned mind is so afraid of letting them go because it doesn't know what's going to happen, right? But when you can just cultivate that every single day to override it.

And I love that because I love it. Yeah. Blow my mind every single day. I'm like universe blow my mind today.

It's really change your thoughts, change your world. But it's not only your thoughts. You said something very pertinent that I think is so important, which is you're changing your thoughts every day. And you're changing your actions.

It cannot be just one or the other.

So you have your goal.

You need to make sure that all of your thoughts are aligned with that goal. And you need to make sure your daily actions are aligned with that goal.

You're taking aligned action or what is going to bring the most value to your vision, not just doing all the time, we're like, no, we're very clear that what is going to bring the most value to this. If I could do everything, what's that one thing that I could do today?

I also talk about for those of you who are older tuning, if you can imagine a radio dial Getting it off the station of ego and turning it on to the station of the universe, if that makes sense.

What do you tell the disbelievers? The people who are like, the universe has it out for me. Nothing ever good happens to me and I don't believe anything ever will.

I used to have to do everything the hard way because my condition mind needed to prove that I didn't, I wasn't the lucky one that I didn't, it didn't just fall into my lap that I'm not, it's just not easy for me. And it's not like for everybody else.

Until I realized I don't want to live that life. Like I don't need to prove to you. If I get to live an easy life, I'm the one that's riding the, riding down the lazy river. I don't care what other people think. So that's when I realized I'm not here to prove it to anybody. Like I'm here to live it. And if you want to hop on, I'll give you the secret. And if not. That's totally fine. You can continue to live that.

The other thing is, we validate whatever story we desire to validate over and over again.

Because we're the ones that get to live this life, and if you don't want to, that's totally fine, everyone has a different journey, some people want that journey, and that's perfect, it's exactly as it's meant to be for them, it's just not my journey anymore and validating it someone will come to me and they'll say, this always happens, I always attract these people, I always get to this point, and then it just sabotages, or whatever it is, and I'm like, okay, always, and they say, No, not always, but this.

And I'm like, okay, congratulations. You validated it. Do you want to keep validating that? Or do you want to start validating a story that you actually want to live?

Because You can say, I'm not, I'm just not confident and all of these reasons why you're not confident, but you're very confident that you're not confident, right?

Or I just can't trust, I just can't trust this happens and this happens, but you can't trust that you can't trust, but you trust that you can't trust or that I'm not the creator of my reality. Everything is outside of my hands. And so you just continue to show up that way. So of course, you're going to have a reality that's out of your hands, but once you decide what you want that narrative to be and you start validating it like the red car theory.

If you were driving down the street, how many red cars did you see? But then the next day if you did, how many red cars would you see if you were looking for the red cars? Like you'd see a red car down an alley parked somewhere because you were looking for it, right?

So just make your new story, your red car, of course, there's a lot more to it than that, but that's where you get to start.

You get to say, okay, what are all these patterns showing up in my life that aren't in my life that aren't serving me?

And do I continue to want to have this pattern or what would I like to shift it to instead?

And how do I then stop validating that story and start validating this story?

And once you do that, your whole world is going to shift.

Sayings is from Dr. Wayne Dyer changed the way you look at things and the things you look at change. A hundred million percent and overnight.

Yeah. It's overnight. That's the crazy thing. I didn't realize how fast it would be. Like I used to always attract people into my life, so called attract, because, and we'd always start out at the same point. Yeah. But by the end of it, I'd be doing all the work, whether it was a partnership, whether it was a corporate company.

By the end, I'd be always doing this. And I couldn't understand why I keep attracting these people until I did the inner work and realized, oh, it's because I didn't think I was worthy and deserving. So I'd start out this way, but then I kept having to prove that I was good enough. And so I'd keep taking on the work.

And if they say, can you do this? I'd say yes. Or if they didn't do it, I'd say, don't worry about it. I'll do it for you. I got you. You take a rest, and then I would, I was bringing, I was creating it out of them. And the minute I realized that, and I said, stopped and I saw one of my ex partners and just randomly, and I was like, I'm not that person anymore. I know who I am.

And I spoke to her, same power, but different. All of a sudden, the relationship changed instantly. And she started asking me questions and offering me things. I had no idea it would happen that fast. That's how fast we can change our reality.

We get to fall in love with our life in an instant. If we realize that we're in love, that everything we're living now, there is a younger version of us that dreamed about it and manifested it.

And so if we live this life for them and stop like living on the next chapter, we get to live this life, like that version of us that dreamed about it, like this house that I used to drive by every day envisioning my son playing in the yard and all of those things and then you move in and you're like okay that's great what's next right but then now I sit there and I watch him and Iwatch him in the yard like that girl that used to drive by I watch it for her and I feel the feels deep in gratitude while i'm creating the next level so instantly your life changes because just like the frequency on the radio you've now shifted your frequency to gratitude you're no longer in lack you're now in abundance And when you're in the abundance frequency, you just start attracting more abundance.

And it just becomes that you get to love this incredible life that you get to live while you're creating the next level instead of, I just need to get there.

Can you talk about how you work with actors in particular? Just like any industry, it doesn't matter what it is. We just go in and we find what those blocks are.

I'll ask you, what's that pattern that's coming up? What's the thing that you've been like you plateaued in, or what's that thing that you want to open up that you want to call in when everybody says you can't.

If you know that it's possible, I know it's possible.

So then we go on a deep dive and we discover what are those blocks, where are they coming from? What story are we going to shift it to? What are we going to reprogram from the root so that you now just create this new reality where it just flows and drops into your life.

It becomes effortless because you're just getting the things that are in the way out. So you become magnetized. When your energy is magnetized, you're not chasing the butterflies. You're building the garden. So the butterflies come to you. You will start receiving emails or opportunities in your, or you run into somebody at the Starbucks and be that thing. That's how I started doing corporate workshops, right?

I wanted to do a corporate workshop and I was doing all the behind the scenes actions, and then the universe is okay, you're ready. And they dropped in a CEO and told them and said, Oh yeah, I have a team. I said, absolutely. I train, I do that. Suddenly the proposal I did, boom, you quantum leap into that.

So when it's acting, it's the same thing. Those roles, those meetings, the right people, the right place at the right time, we just got to clear out the stuff that's getting in the way.

That's already trying to make its way to you, but it's going through all of this stuff. And so when your job is to just be in the zone, to get in the zone and be in the zone to amplify your magnet your magnetism, you let your energy in the universe do the work for you.

But of course there's aligned action that we're going to have to take. And a lot of times aligned action is not comfortable, but that's why I'm here. To help you to make it comfortable, right?

So on that subject, I'm going to use myself as the guinea pig and I'm going to talk, tell you how I have come through this and then I would love to get your feedback.

I have always from, and I'm validating it right now because I just consider it to be a fact, I have suffered from anxiety pretty much my whole life up until a few years ago when somehow the thing, if you ask me, what is the thing that frightens you most in the world, I will tell you, having a panic attack.

Or getting that anxiety. And I know what that is. But then this started to happen. I went, that's not gonna go away, that is a pattern that I live with. And so if I just accept that it is a pattern that I live with, and I started to realize there were things that I could do that when it would come up would diminish it, and then I would walk through it, and then I'd get something else.

I'd get the confidence that I know how to deal with it, which was like humongous confidence, right?

So self esteem. So much so that a situation that I now can't even remember what it was happened, I don't know, a week ago, that the anxiety didn't come up anymore.

Because I know that when it comes up, I will be able to deal with it because I have found the antidote for those specific things that I use tough love, I know what aligned action I need to take when it comes up.

So that's how I have worked through it.

And to this day, continue to do it and will continue to do it. And like I said, The anxiety doesn't come up as much, but would you say, and I'm even being brave asking it because I'm like, okay, I got it. I got it. I don't even want to know more, but I no longer want to be afraid of it coming up anymore because again, I know how to deal with it.

Is that how you deal with it? Or do you think you just don't have anxiety anymore, because on some level, I do think, it's not that I don't have anxiety anymore, but it certainly, it isn't stopping me anymore, so I'm curious to get your feedback on that.

The first thing, if you're I believe what I would do. What you did is amazing. Like basically our conditioned mind is here to keep us safe. And so if you push yourself out of your comfort zone, your conditioned mind is going to pull you back because that's the conditioned mind's job.

But the work I do is tapping into the infinite power from the infinite soul to override the conditioned mind.

Which it sounds like that you did, you were able to find, regulate their nervous system, pull yourself out of it to show your conditioned mind that it doesn't have to be afraid for you, right?

And so the more that you build that confidence, the more that your conditioned mind can slowly start to relax.

However, you do that in whatever modality you do that. You do that and then so it gets to relax because it knows that you got this because you say you're going to do something and then you do it.

You're taking the aligned action.

You're making the brave moves and you're showing your conditioned mind that you got this.

Now the way that I would help my clients is because I like to do things fast. And I like to quantum leap. Is I'll go straight to the root. And I'll reprogram it. And we'll go do a reprogramming process to discover where it's coming from to begin with. What happened that's causing your conditioned mind to have so much fear for you?

Then go back, reprogram that and shift it out from the root so that thing's not even there. Because fear is an illusion, right? Fear comes from a story. When I was working on clearing my fear of heights and I was going to jump off this rock in Hawaii at Waimea Bay, a lot of people might know about it, I only ever jumped off the lower level, never the high, highest level.

And this isn't like a crazy fear. So I knew I could do it by myself.

And on the way up, I was reprogramming myself to shift it out. And this 12 year old girl is just like running around, jumping off, coming back, running around, jumping off. And I had this clear, I was like, thank you universe, because I had this clear vision of what the illusion of this fear was that this girl didn't have in her reality.

And so that's just something that my conditioned mind picked up, but that's not my soul.

And so that was also a piece that helped me to release it, to recognize this isn't even real. I created a story around it. That created this. And so when you can poke holes in the illusion and when you can reprogram it from the root, it's no longer in your reality anymore.

It's just not even a thing.

And then if it does come up again, we get to reprogram it again.

But as you do this more and more, you're going to override it.

It is a thing if you keep saying you have it. So I'm not saying you don't have to gaslight yourself and say, No, I don't have it.

But just neutralize it to the point that it's just something that you're shifting through. And that's it. But you don't say that I have it anymore. Because the minute that we say that we have it, we pull ourselves right back into it. But it's just okay, I'm shifting through this. I'm growing through this, I used to have severe.

Now it's just something that I'm overriding. And then one day you're just not even going to think about it. It's going to be like, oh my gosh, like I used to have that? Yeah. You know what I mean?

I love the idea of neutralize.

That's a great word because I feel like my anxiety has been neutralized. Just something I never thought would be possible. And so I do want to say that for people who are listening, I also love this thing about saying that you're going to do it and then doing it.

And the more and the more you do it, the more trust you build up in yourself, how you do one thing is how you do all things.

And I think that pick one thing that you are going to be, or I always say, pick one thing that you're going to be disciplined in doing.

And then if you do that, you can spring off so much more just from that.

You're talking about anxiety, but as actors go into readings, and all of these things, there's so much emotions that go through it, right?

What if we cleared all of those emotions so you could just go in and you could just be? Your most magnetic self, what if you could magnetize your energy that like, you're in a room and all of a sudden you turn and you don't know why and you're drawn to this person who's just so magnetized.

You don't know what they do. You don't know who they are. You just are drawn to their energy. What if you could magnetize your energy that way? And so when you walk into the room, people say that they walked into the room and I just knew, right? What if you could do that? Becausethere's that movie I feel pretty.

You remember that movie with Amy Schumer?

It's like a whole belief shift movie. It's hilarious. And so in this movie, she wants to look a certain way and she doesn't like the way she looks and she hits her head and she wakes up thinking that she looks that way, even though the whole rest of the world sees her as she was, but she thought she looked this way.

And so she, because she believed she created that belief shift, that she looked that way. She walked around the entire world in that belief shift. In that reality and so if someone insulted her in her mind, there's no way it could ever be an insult. She just thought they were insecure and she's oh, it's okay.

It could be intimidating to be around me.

And she was just in her power and all of a sudden people were like, who is this woman? I want to be around her.

Watch that movie because it's a belief shift in action. And all it was her belief. That then she reframed everything and her whole life changed because it's our beliefs.

It's us doing it to ourselves.

As I become more confident within myself, as I become more comfortable in the skin and living the life of Peter Pamela Rose, which is the only one I have the choice to live in, I find that people are drawn to me.

And it's so interesting and I so strongly believe that I always talk about chiropractor for the mind being about emotional self sufficiency that we understand how we tick, how we operate and everything that's just exactly what we just say it in different ways.

And that's why I wanted to have you on because maybe the way you say it makes more sense to someone than the way I say it, and maybe the way you say it of the way I say it makes more sense than the way you say it. And that's how it all expands, so freaking brilliant.

And anyway, but this idea that of being, emotionally self sufficient. Oh my gosh, then we don't have to be so frightened of ourselves.

Or anything. People feel that. They feel they want to be around you. They feel the safety in that. They can't explain what it is. Yeah. They're just drawn to it. And not only are you then the ripple and the inspiration, but you're living your best life at the same time.

You're feeling this fulfillment and satisfaction, which then magnifies you even more, I just imagine going around, we get to go around the world that way. We get to be the ripple wherever we go. And this is bigger than just, us taking our careers to the next level. This is us rippling out into the world, into the store that we go on, wherever it is that we go, we bring that morphic field with us, wherever we go.

And we shift the reality, not just for us, but for the whole world.

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Kick Your Acting Career in Gear

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again, none of my damn business.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Second is one step behind first.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's just not comparable.

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

So that you don't abandon yourself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your personal goals and your priorities. Personal growth.

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Okay, so let's talk about being tenacious.

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

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

My biggest mistakes have been my best teachers.

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

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

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

How incredibly strong and resilient I am.

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

Persistence comes from resistance.

Diamonds are made under pressure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I need to break it down into bite sized pieces.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm only responsible for putting my head forward.

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

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

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

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

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

I decided I was really going to push myself.

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

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

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

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

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

But you can support you.

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

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

We have over 200 podcasts here.

Let me be your positive mentor.

Let me help you.

Let me be there for you.

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

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

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

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

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

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This week we're going to talk about gossip.

Oh my god, I used to love gossip.

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

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

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

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

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

If not, you're probably not human.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And also, why is it our business?

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

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

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

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

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

We always want to get clarity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because that energy could be spent on productive tasks.

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

And that will stop us from being more positive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You want to be emotionally understood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am not abandoning myself.

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

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

And I need to acknowledge my feelings.

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

So becoming aware.

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

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

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

How am I going to walk through it?

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

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

Not gonna work. It's not gonna work.

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

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

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

Why do I say that?

Because we need to get out of ourselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best way out is always through.

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

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

I am the most capable person I know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There's no need to abandon yourself.

Stay with yourself, love yourself.

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

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

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

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

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

There's not going to be another 50 again.

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

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

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

What do I want to do with this gift?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that's the truth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's doing the uncomfortable things.

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

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

I have my biggest learning.

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

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

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

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

Yeah, I have had trouble having fun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And if you don't, that's okay.

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

I've certainly done that.

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

In fact, I hated it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can have fun with all of this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have fun. This business can be fun.

It can be exciting.

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

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

And that word is being decisive.

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

But this is the thing. Everything is fixable.

And mistakes are how we grow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So what happens when I'm more decisive?

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

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

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

And that's why that decision will be effective.

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

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

I get more done creating more Opportunities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's time to eradicate that from your life.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Today, I'm going to talk about mistakes.

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

Because my name is Peter Pamela Perfection Rose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I never really do more than four in advance.

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

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

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

You have heard me make so many mistakes.

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

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

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

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

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

And she teaches through example.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it's okay not to be perfect.

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

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

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

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

I start talking with the universe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Language of Letting Go

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I did. Who said that?

That is just making things so much harder for you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again, we need mistakes in order to grow.

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

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

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

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

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

We are all going to regress from time to time.

It's two steps forward, one step back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It has me being fully conscious.

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

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

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

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

That's the only reason why that happens.

It happens because I was programmed that way.

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

It takes practice to notice what's right.

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

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

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

I'm sorry, but that is not easy.

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

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

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

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

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

“Negativity empowers the problem.”

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

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

Negative energy sabotages and destroys.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love that word transforms.

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

If I can help myself, I can help you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then there is the wonderful energy of anabolic energy.

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

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

One, this too shall pass.

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

In this energy, you have real energy.

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

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

You also have a high level of success.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Language or words orient our thoughts and our feelings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And we're gonna look at that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I always, never, those are catabolic word choices.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It tears me down.

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

Remember, the only constant is change.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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, Peter@actingbusinessbootcamp.com 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.

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Apply for the Terry Knickerbocker Studio’s Summer Intensive by June 7th and receive a special discount when you mention the podcast. Apply HERE

About Terry Knickerbocker:

Terry is a graduate of The Experimental Theatre Wing in the Drama Dept. at New York University. After graduating from NYU, Terry trained as an actor and a teacher with William Esper.

He taught at The William Esper Studio for 25 years, and continues as part of the core faculty at the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He has also taught directing at Playwrights Horizons Theatre School and Yale University.

Other essential teacher/mentors include Maggie Flanigan, Rina Yerushalmi, Steve Wangh, Terry Hayden, Nikos Psacharopoulos, Jackie Brookes, Mary Overlie, Ryszard Cieslak, Jerzy Grotowski, Pierre Lefèvre, Moshe Feldenkrais, Dr. Louis Ormont, and Dr. Harry Fogarty.

He has coached actors on over 300 films, television and theater projects, both on and off-Broadway and regionally. He also consulted with playwrights and screenwriters on their scripts.

Some of the actors he has worked with and trained include Sam Rockwell, Chris Messina, Boyd Holbrook, Natasha Lyonne, Leslie Bibb, Emmy Rossum, Yul Vasquez, Jordana Spiro, Gillian Alexy, Gretchen Mol and many others.

A past recipient of the Drama League of New York’s directing award/fellowship for emerging directors, Terry is also a former member of Circle Rep’s LAB. His directing credits include many new works as well as contemporary and classical plays such as Measure for Measure, Tartuffe, The Normal Heart, Candida, All My Sons, and David Rabe’s In the Boom Boom Room.

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This week what I wanted to do was a breathing exercise for actors because I think in this incredible turbulent world that we live in, and yes, it's always turbulent, but it seems particularly turbulent right now.

It is so important that for us as artists, that before we are about to perform, that we get to the center of us.

As a little girl, I called it, go back to the source.

And I believe that is connecting to that part of us that is connected to the Universe.

So what I'm going to do I'm not going to breathe with you, but what I am going to do is guide you through breathing exercises.

So what I ask of you is to breathe in through your nose

and let out a big sigh, ah, and again, breathe in through your nose, and let out a big sigh,and that can be as loud as you want it to be.

Pause. Stay still. Breathe in through your nose.

And again, sigh out. You can even scream if you want. And pause.

And just allow your breath to be where it wants to be. Whether that's breathing in through your nose or your mouth.

As you do this, I can encourage you to do this for those of you who have subways on the subway, on the tube, or if you're on a bus, or you're riding in the back of a car, or you're at home, sitting on the couch, or maybe you're lying down.

And if possible, see if you can wear an eye mask or put a gentle scarf on your eyes, just to block out that little extra light.

As you breathe through this next set of breathing exercises, I want you to almost imagine your body expanding and contracting.

Your entire body expanding and contracting. Expanding and contracting. Expanding and contracting.

Exhale all of your breath.

And take a deep breath in.

Hold it. Two, three, four, five. Exhale.

Pause, two, three, four, inhale.

Hold, two, three, four, five, exhale.

Pause, two, three, four, inhale.

Hold, two, three, four, five, exhale.

Pause, 2, 3, 4. One more. Inhale.

Pause, 2, 3, 4, 5. Exhale.

Pause. 2, 3, 4. Good.

Now just allow yourself to breathe.

So what you notice there is we did an inhale and I had you hold for five, then an exhale, and then I had you hold for four.

I'm going to do one more set and this time we're going to go a little bit slower. Just allow yourself to breathe.

This will probably be an exercise that you'll listen to several times.

Each time if you can, really see if you can match your breath to my voice.

What that does is takes the control out of you and surrender it to something else.

You're not surrendering to me, you're surrendering to the Universe.

Exhale all of your breath, and inhale.

Hold, three, four, five. Exhale.

Pause, two, three, four. Inhale.

Hold 2, 3, 4, 5, exhale.

Pause 2, 3, 4, inhale.

Hold 2, 3, 4, 5, exhale.

Pause 2, 3, 4, 5, Inhale.

Hold, two, three, four, five. Exhale.

Pause, two, three, four, five. Inhale one more time.

Hold, two, three, four, five

Let it all out Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Rest. Just allow yourself to be okay. It's okay. It's safe.

You are secure

Love yourself in this moment It's okay to do that

Be in this moment. Just for this moment. It's okay. It's okay.

It's okay.

Now at this moment you can pause and just allow yourself to breathe and stay in stillness.

Or you can gently open your eyes, let them flutter, remove your maskyour scarf and feel your body.

Sometimes when I can't sleep, which doesn't happen all the time by any stretch of the imagination, but it does happen, I find this breathing exercise to be very helpful.

I hope it is helpful for you too, and I encourage you to practice it numerous times.

It only takes a few minutes.

And again, if you can. To the best of your ability, really see if you can listen to my voice and follow that.

Obviously, I don't want you to strain, but work up to it. You can do it. You can do it.

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Today, I'm going to do something to follow up from what I talked about last week, which was prayer and meditation for the actor.

I got a lot of emails about how many people enjoyed that podcast. So what I wanted to do today was focusing on centering, and centering for the actor. So this is going to be a little different.

I don't recommend that you do this while you are driving a car or maybe even walking down the street.

This would be a podcast episode that you want to be at home and in a comfortable place because I'm going to be going through different areas of your body and talk about centering them.

So if you will, I have taken off my shoes. I am standing here in front of my mic and you can do this, I guess actually if you wanted to do this on a subway, you could or just somewhere you don't have to pay attention for a bit.

Put yourself in a comfortable spot. That could be lying on the ground with your legs in the semi supine position, meaning they're bent at the knees and your feet are flat on the ground. Maybe put a book underneath your head or a small blanket and find a comfortable place for your arms, whether that be down by your side or stretched out.

And if you're seated, locate where your sit bones are.

And allow your spine to get real tall. Place your hands in your lap.

If you're standing as I am right now, feel the ground beneath your feet and just take a deep breath in through your nose.

Let it go.

I want you to think of a cloud.

A light blue cloud just above your head.

Imagine how puffy it is.

In this cloud, there is clear, light blue liquid.

And imagine an angel coming with an arrow and pricking the bottom of that beautiful blue cloud.

Slowly, gently, the liquid hits the top of your head

and slowly goes down your forehead, the back of your scalp, to your ears, down the back of your head, to your eyebrows, to your eyes, down your nose and your cheekbones.

Into your cheeks, top of your lips, down the sides of your face, your lower lip, your chin, slowly down the back of your neck, down the front of your neck, relaxing those throat muscles.

As it does, breathe, and allow your face to relax. To be completely submerged by this magical blue liquid as it pauses right at your clavicle, your collarbone.

Breathe and allow your face, the back of your head, your scalp, the hair on your head to completely relax and just be.

Allow the liquid to continue down your collarbones, into your shoulders, down your arms, your biceps and your triceps, into your elbows, down your forearms, into your wrists.

Take a deep breath here.

Into your thumbs and that fleshy part of your thumbs. Into your palms down the front of your fingers and starting to drip gently off your fingertips. While the blue liquid goes from your wrists and down the front of your hands into those front knuckles of your hands, into your fingers, down the front of your fingertips, and meeting The back of your fingertips and dripping off.

Now your head, your shoulders, your arms, and your hands, and your fingers are completely relaxed.

Place your attention now back to the clavicle, and allow the blue liquid to rush down into your chest, your breasts, your shoulder blades, down your spine, down and around your torso, off your breasts, into your abdomen through your solar plexus, down into your buttocks and into your groin.

It is now as if you are wearing a full bathing suit, and you are completely relaxed and centered in this moment. Just being here with your breath, and my voice, again, and again.

Imagine that blue liquid being in your head, in your shoulders, down your arms, in your hands, in your fingertips, down your chest, in your breasts, in your solar plexus, in your abdomen, down your back, through the shoulder blades, down your back of your torso, the sides of your torso, and don't forget to let go of any tension.

In your armpits, allow that blue bathing suit to just rest gently on your skin and allow that blue liquid to purify you and center you.

With your breath, I want you to concentrate on your groin area and I want you to think of your right leg.

Take a breath and allow that blue liquid to go from the right of your groin down your hamstring and your quadricep into your knee, relaxing it, nurturing it, loving it.

We hold so much tension in our legs. And for right now, for our purposes, we don't need to. It is safe for us to let go and to center.

From our right knee, we allow the blue liquid to go down into our shins and our calves and rest in our ankles, again, letting go and centering, feeling very grounded on our right side.

Down into our heel, into our foot, into our toes, and out the tops of them.

That can be the point of your toes, that can be the back of your toes, that can be where the little hairy part is of your toes. And yes, if you want to giggle, you can giggle.

Our right side is completely relaxed. And we are centered. As we direct our attention into our left hip. Into our left groin. Where again we allow that blue liquid to rush into our hamstrings and our quadriceps, and rest in our knee.

Allow it to be in that other knee.

Take a breath.

It is safe to let go.

From our knee we go into our calves and our shins, into our ankle. We pause there for yet another cleansing, centering breath.

We release that liquid from that ankle into our heel, into our foot, down our toes. And let it drip out of the point of our toes, or the back of our toes, or that sweet little hairy part of our toes. Wherever we wish.

We are completely relaxed. We are centered. We are ready.

We are paused, and we are poised.

I am with myself in this moment.

I will not abandon myself in this moment. I am here for myself in this moment. Universe, let me be a beacon of your light.

And one more.

And so it is.

I hope you enjoyed that. I hope you are more centered and if you feel yourself warm like I do, it's because energy has released.

You are truly centered. You are truly with yourself.

And you can always be this very special way.

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So today I actually, I've been just so intensely busy with so many different things and I was in New York City today and one of the things I used to do when I was in New York more than I am now is I would go into churches and I just happened to pass by an old church that I usually would go into and I just walked in.

And it was quiet, quiet.

And I have been noticing this past, I don't know, week, that my mind has been racing a lot.

Just tons and tons of talk and nothing negative. Just very busy.

And it's disrupted my sleep and it's been so unpleasant.

And then I went into that church and I noticed that in this church when I closed the doors and I sat in one of the pews and I've done this, you know, with other spiritual places of worship.

So I sat in the pew and I just closed my eyes.

and it was so wonderful. Because it was so quiet and almost instantaneously it was like my soul was soothed.

My soul was soothed with silence.

And so today, I wanted to do a podcast about prayer and meditation.

Now I need to stress that I am not a religious person.

My relationship is with the universe. And sometimes I do call the universe God, but for me, it is really a spiritual entity.

I think of it as my higher self. Because I so strongly believe that the universe is a part of me and I am a part of the universe.

So as usual, as per the usual, I am going to be doing a reading out of The Language of Letting Go.

I'm gonna alter it slightly for our purposes.

So the first thing that she says is she gives a quote by Emmett Fox The Sermon on the Mount.

And it says, “as a matter of fact, prayer is the only real action in the full sense of the word, because prayer is the only thing that changes one's character. A change in character or a change in soul is a real change.”

And although I felt that today while I was sitting in silence, because I felt a change in me.

And it's a change that I've kept with me for the rest of the day.

And I said to myself, well, why don't you do this more often?

But I don't even have to go into a church to do it. I just need to be quiet, which is something that I do. Not for as long as I was in that church. I probably was only there, I don't know, ten minutes.

But again, it was very soothing to my soul.

Melody Beattie goes on to say, “Erika Young has said that we are spiritual beings who are human. Prayer or praying and meditating are ways that we can take care of our spirit. Prayer and meditation are disciples suggested by the 11th step of 12 step recovery programs.”

And a prayer that I love, that I believe I, I shared with you recently, is I pray for the knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry that out.

I pray for the knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry that out.

And I can say that for my acting career, I can say it for anything, but you can also say it for your acting career, because sometimes we feel so lost and I want that word, I've told you before, it's my favorite word, wisdom to guide us.

Prayer and meditation are not necessarily connected to organized religion, prayer and meditation are ways to improve our personal relationship with higher power or the universe to benefit ourselves, our life, our growth.

And again, the, the, the phrases that come up for me are take care of yourself first and the rest will follow.

Take care of yourself first and the rest will follow.

And that means mentally, physically and spiritually. Praying is how we connect with our higher power, our universe.

We don't pray because we have to.

We pray because we want to.

It is how we link our soul to our source.

I remember when I was a very young girl, I wrote down on a piece of paper: go back to the source.

And at the time, I did not know what that meant. But yet I felt it. I understood it. And it's one of those pieces of paper in your life that you cherish.

Because at some young age, I knew there was something bigger than me.

There was something out there that was bigger than me.

I don't think I understood that I was a part of it and it was a part of me. But I understood that it existed.

“We're learning to take care of our emotions, our mind, and our physical needs”

Again, take care of ourselves first and the rest will follow.

“We're learning to change our behaviors, but we're also learning to take care of our spirit. We're learning to take care of our soul because that is truly where all change begins. Each time we talk to the universe, we are transformed. Each time we connect with our higher power, we are heard, touched, and changed for the best.”

It's funny, I can't prove to you that I was changed for the best by just walking into that church today and sitting for ten minutes in silence.

But yet, somehow, somehow I was.

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Today, I'm going to talk about the subject of Wisdom.

Wisdom is my favorite word in the American language.

God, do I love Wisdom. The reason why I love Wisdom is because Wisdom gives me power.

And sometimes it isn't even the power of knowledge, but the power of knowing what to do.

And I don't have any script for this podcast or guidance for this podcast. I'm just talking to you about this subject because it is truly just the thing that I crave more of.

This past week I turned another year older.

I help people to adjust their thoughts and their lives to work for them instead of against them.

And, that's a really crucial thing because it's certainly something that I did a lot when I was younger.

I constantly worked against myself because I also was like, “Yeah I'm, I have so much energy and I'm so tough, I don't always have to be working for me.”

Oh, would I like to go back and talk to that 20 year old.

Becoming emotionally intelligent.

And how do I teach them to do that?

By teaching them to be emotionally self-sufficient. In order to be emotionally self-sufficient, I need to be very wise.

So I'm going to talk a bit today about a couple of prayers that I like that help me to become more wise.

And the first one is very obvious. It is the serenity prayer.

So if you're listening to this, I'm going to ask you to write the serenity prayer down.

I'm going to give it to you as I'm writing. If you need to push pause, that's fine.

So here's the serenity prayer.

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

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. So write that down and then skip a couple of lines.

Then I want you to write down the next line, which is “courage to change the things I can.”

And then skip a couple of lines.

And wisdom to know the difference.

And wisdom to know the difference. And I always, when I'm writing down the serenity prayer, I always circle the word wisdom.

Again, because it's something I want more of.

So let's go back to that first line, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

Underneath that, I want you to write this: I cannot change or control other people, places, things, or situations.

So grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

I cannot change other people, places, things, or situations.

I cannot change or control other people, places, things, or situations.

Let's go to the second part.

Courage to change the things I can.

I can only handle or manage, handle/ manage myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.

I can only handle/ manage myself, my thoughts, my attitudes, my actions. That's the second part.

And the third part is, wisdom to know the difference.

Wisdom underneath that, right?

Wisdom to know the difference between what I cannot control, which is other people, places, things, and situations, and what I can handle, which is myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.

So I am looking for the wisdom to be able to determine what I can do something about and what I cannot, because all anxiety, all unrest in me. It comes from my wanting to control something.

But here's the thing, that may not be my job.

That may not be my job. My job is to handle or manage myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.

And here's the thing, when you really focus on that, your life is busy.

You don't have time to control other things. You are not, you don't have time to control outcomes and other things like that.

You gotta focus on your own life. You gotta focus on your own life.

The Universe is the pilot. I am the co pilot.

And every morning I wake up and I say, good morning universe, Peter Pamela Rose reporting for duty.

And I invite the Universe into my day. And I ask the Universe.

This, and this is what comes from the 12 step programs. I pray for the knowledge of your will for me today and the power to carry that out.

I pray for the knowledge or the wisdom of your will for me today, and the power to carry that out.

But understand, I am not asking for the power to control. No. I am asking for the power to manage and handle myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.

See, my job isn't to control. My job is to handle.

My job is to manage.

That's what my job is. That's what my job is as co-pilot. So every morning I differentiate, using my wisdom that I have acquired.

I use my wisdom to differentiate. Pilot, co pilot. Peter Pamela Rose, you're a co pilot. Reporting for duty. I pray for the knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry that out.

Now the thing about wisdom is also there is a little bit of humility involved here because I need to acknowledge another little phrase I'm going to throw to you, which is, I can't.

The Universe can. Let the Universe.

I can't deal with this situation, but the Universe can. I'm going to let the Universe, but sometimes it's very difficult to admit to ourselves that there is nothing we can do.

All of these things, especially that ability to differentiate between what is my job, manage and handle, and what the Universe's job is to control or do whatever the Universe does.

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Now I wouldn't say that I would sometimes call myself Peter Pamela Perfectionism Rose, but sometimes I've called myself Peter Pamela Perfectionism Rose.

The biggest thing about perfectionism that I want to talk about today is that perfectionism leads to procrastination, leads to paralysis.

The other thing that I think is so important about the lesson of perfectionism is to make your ears grow bigger, cunning, baffling, and powerful.

I look at all the ways, in fact even this too, recording today's podcast, I was looking for the right time to do it.

But do you know what the right time to do it was? Right now. Right now was the right time to do it.

See, my wanting to, and this is just me but maybe you can relate, my waiting to just feel like it is perfectionism in a very cunning, baffling, and powerful way, trying to get me to not do what I most need to do to move my career forward, which is because for the past, I think over two years now, I have put out a podcast every week, even when my house flooded, even when my house flooded and that If you can start to override that perfectionism and let it go for just a moment so that you do that action now, bingo, we got some serious success about to happen.

Now, I'm also going to lean into the fabulous Melody Beattie.

The Language of Letting Go

She talks about how perfectionism is an individual process that necessitates making mistakes. So recovering from perfectionism necessitates making mistakes, struggling through problems and facing tough issues.

And it's especially when I have to do things I most don't want to do that my perfectionism kicks up.

Again, waiting for the right time, waiting till I feel like it, waiting until somebody else tells me I should do it.

Again, cunning, baffling, and powerful, how I get in there, how perfectionism gets in there or my perfectionism gets in there to prevent me from doing the things that I most need to do in order to achieve what I most want to do.

“Expecting ourselves to be perfect slows down the process to our getting to the level of success that we want to get to in whatever area of our life. It puts us in a guilty or anxious state. Expecting others to be perfect is equally destructive. It makes others feel ashamed and may interfere with their growth. Keep the focus on yourself.”

It was one of the craziest things I've learned in core work. Is that once I finally got the focus on me and off of everybody else, I was like, how the heck did I even have time to focus on other people and try and control them and try and manipulate them?

How did I even have the time?

I'm so damn busy with me. I'm a freaking full time job. That's when the good stuff begins, when you start to really focus on you, that's when the good stuff starts.

“People are human and vulnerable. We can accept and cherish that idea. Expecting others to be perfect puts us in a codependent state of moral superiority.”

And sometimes I find I do that with myself. I put myself in “Peter, you're just gonna have to do it better than everybody else.”

What the fuck is that? Oh, that's so much arrogance. That's so much moral superiority that I think I know what perfect is.

IIt's really all about process and life being a process.

“Expecting ourselves to be perfect makes us feel rigid and inferior.”

And also as an actor, I find it makes us rigid. We have to do the scene the way we planned it. No, you don't. In fact, mistakes are the best things that can happen.

Mess ups are the best things that can happen.

I was talking with my producing partner who told me about these mistakes that happened on the set and the actor was like no, I have to redo it. And the director, he was like, ah, no, you don't. Because that was comedic genius. Remember, there is that in imperfection, some of the greatest creativity can happen as an actor.

“We do not need to go to the other extreme, tolerating anything that people throw our way. We can still expect appropriate, reasonable, and responsible behavior from ourselves and from others. But most of us can afford to loosen up a bit.”

Oh my gosh. I used to be so freaking tightly wound until I really gave myself permission to be me. And I am so much more fun now. I am so much more fun in my fifties than I ever was in my twenties and my thirties.

“And we can stop expecting others to be perfect.

We may discover they're doing much better than we thought.”

And that's, that's also where that arrogance comes in. Where my thinking, what you should, what my thinking, I know what you should do for your life. Hell, I barely know what the hell I should be doing for my life. Why am I putting that on others?

Another cunning, baffling, stinky way that perfectionism comes into our lives.

“When we stop expecting ourselves to be perfect, we'll discover that incredible beauty in ourselves, and also the beauty in others.”

Perfectionism. leads to procrastination, leads to paralysis.

My assignment for you is to use your mind to govern your brain and notice the cunning, baffling, and powerful ways perfectionism comes into your acting career, and also into your life.

And if I can help you with your journey to let go of your perfectionism, please let me know.

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Today I'm going to be talking about something that I have been doing recently, which I've been really taking risks.

It's been real. It's been an adventure. And I've said to myself, I remember earlier this year, I was in a foreign country. I was driving in a foreign country, on the opposite side of the road. And I went in my car. It was late at night and I'd been traveling for a while and I just said to myself, You are so brave.

You are so brave.

And I think one of the things that I've learned in taking risks is really to encourage, be your own cheerleader while you're doing it.

Because taking risks is scary. It gets us out of our comfort zone, and of course there's that, saying life begins at the end of our comfort zone, but it really is true.

And I don't think you are ever too old to take risks.

I did a podcast, oh gosh, I guess it was over a year ago, with my mom where, she shared with you all that she finished writing her 10th cookbook on her 80th birthday.

And it's funny because now she's 85 years old and she said, I have this great idea for a cookbook.

I'm going to do this. And I'm just like, man, you go, mom, you just go.

So today is where I'm going to be encouraging you to take risks, not only in your acting, but also in your life.

And to encourage you and to help me along in the format of this podcast, I'm going to be reading from the fabulous Melody Beattie.

The Language of Letting Go

And the subject, like I said, for today is taking risks.

“Take risks. Take a chance. We do not have to indulge in obviously foolhardy or self defeating risks, but we can allow ourselves to take positive risks in our life. We cannot afford to keep ourselves paralyzed.”

I really started to Up my game in terms of taking risks. About three years ago was right after I turned 50 and I don't know what it is about turning 50, but it's when you really realize, wow, I have less of my life in front of me, potentially, than I do in back of me. And I decided I wanted to have the best freaking second half of my life that I possibly could.

And I was no longer going to let fear or judgment or other people's opinions, no matter how close they are to me, stagnate my life.

I want to live. And the thing is that if you want to live, you've got to take risks. Or else, you'll be paralyzed.

“We do not have to keep ourselves stymied and trapped out of fear of making a mistake or falling.”

And here's the thing. One of the things about asking. Somebody says it says I don't know. Do you think they'll do it? And I go let's just ask. Because no is survivable. Hearing no is survivable.

“Naturally, we will make mistakes and fail from time to time.” Again, that is survivable.

“That's part of being fully alive. There are no guarantees. If we are waiting for guaranteed courses of action, we may spend much of our life waiting.”

I don't want to be at the effect of my life anymore. I don't want to wait for life to happen to me. I want to happen to life. I want to be at the cause of my life.

“We do not have to shame ourselves or accept shame from anyone. Anyone else, even those who are close to us for making mistakes, the goal of life is not to live it perfectly. The goal of life is to live, learn our lessons, and make our own decisions. And make overall progress.”

There's a wonderful phrase that I love called progress not perfection.

Progress not perfection.

Remaining teachable, which I think is also just a wonderful phrase like progress, not perfection.

Take a risk. Do not always wait for a guarantee.

There again one of the things I've been thinking about recently is leap and the net will appear.

Leap and the net will appear.

Dust yourself off after a mistake and then move on to the success.

Dust yourself off and move on to the success.

One of the things my mom used to always say to me when I was a little girl and I would be disappointed because, I don't know, I didn't get a role in the play or something would happen, she would say to me, you dust yourself off, you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off, and you start all over again.

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PITCH PERFECT MASTERCLASS

Today, I'm going to talk about something that I've been feeling recently—vulnerability.

Yeah. Vulnerability. Just feeling a little tender.

Now, the thing I always think about with vulnerability is vulnerability and emotional availability is two of the greatest assets that actors can have.

All I have to say about that is that can also be like your cross to bear, as it were when dealing with the industry.

Because as an actor, as an artist, we wear our hearts on our sleeves.

But how I like to approach the business is the business. When I go in there, I do my work, my good work.

What I want to do is focus on that and not focus on the business.

So that's what Acting Business Boot Camp is all about. It's about getting you to focus on the right things at the right time.

But today, we're going to talk a little bit more about vulnerability. I'm going to use my dear friend Melody Beattie.

The Language of Letting Go

She says, “I've learned that the more vulnerable I allow myself to be, the more in control of myself I really am.”

Now, I don't really like to think about it as in control. In a lot of my work and in my more chiropractor for the mind work, and think about that, chiropractor for the mind, really adjusting yourself so that you understand how you tick. I talk about emotional self-sufficiency, and it's not that I want to control myself.

It's that I want to know that I can manage and handle myself emotionally no matter what situation comes up, including losing my voice and feeling sick and feeling unwell.

Tender.

Melody goes on to say, “Many of us feel that we can only show our strong, confident side. We believe the face we have to show to the world should always be one of politeness, perfection, calm, strength, and control.”

But let's take a moment and let's take a step back and think about how incredibly unrealistic that is.

I received some disappointing news the other day. And I just said to myself, Okay, it's disappointing. It's all right for you to feel sad. It's all right for you not to feel a hundred percent on, especially when I am someone who is on so much.

It's okay for me to show a little weakness. It's okay for me to be vulnerable.

And it's okay, or I should say, it's more than okay, for me to take care of myself when I'm feeling that tenderness.

One of my favorite phrases is go as slowly as you need to in order to take care of yourself.

And when you're feeling vulnerable, or you're feeling tender.

Go as slowly as you need to in order to take care of that vulnerability and that tenderness in that day.

This too shall pass. You won't always feel so vulnerable. You won't always feel so tender. My voice will not always sound like this. In fact, in a few podcasts, I hope it'll sound better.

She goes on to say, “While it is certainly good and often appropriate to be in calm controlling and strong moods, there is also another side of all of us, that part of us that feels needy, that becomes frightened, that has doubts and gets angry.”

Because, hello, guess what? You're human. That part of us needs care.

That part of us needs love. That part of us needs reassurance that things will be okay.

And again reminding ourselves, go as slowly as you need to in order to take care of yourself.

Expressing these needs makes us vulnerable, yes, and less than perfect, yes. But this side needs acceptance too.

There's a wonderful phrase that says, don't go to the hardware store for lemons.

When I am feeling vulnerable, needy, or frightened, there may be people who are more appropriate for me to go to than not.

And the number one thing I want to do for self-care—make your ears grow bigger as I say this—is not to go to that person who is the hardware store for lemons.

Because they are not going to be able to give me that comfort, that love, that reassurance that I crave right now.

It may be better for me to leave it out. When in doubt with people like this, just leave it out. Get off the phone, get off the text message, nurture yourself, and reach out to someone else who will be a little more caring.

Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable will help us build lasting relationships. Sharing our vulnerabilities helps us feel close to people and helps others to feel close to us.

It helps us grow in self-love and self-acceptance.

It helps us become healing agents. And it allows us to become whole and accessible to others.

Just today I finished one of my weekly adjustment classes. And a few people were just vulnerable enough to share. What the response was from everyone else was, Thank you for sharing. You made me feel like I was not alone.

The Weekly Adjustment Group

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NEW FREE MASTERCLASS

I'm going to be talking about something that a listener sent me, and I thought it was a really interesting idea for a podcast, which is about nepotism.

I do think it is yet another one of those areas of the industry where we can get our heads in the clouds and not on our bodies, and really allows us to make excuses for not showing up and taking responsibility.

As a NEPO baby, I am not one.

I do not come from anyone in the industry. You have an advantage in that you have those connections. However, you also have to have the talent, consistency, and persistence to back that up. The other thing is that, oh, you're so and so's daughter or you're so and so's child. Oh. Then you must be fantastic, and then you have to live up to that, or you can never be your own person.

Now, I have a friend of mine who is the child of an incredibly famous actor, but that child chooses to use a different name because they don't want to be known as so and so's child. Now, that is very admirable.

I may go about it differently.

I would say use every advantage you have.

But this is the thing, and this is the real key point because most of you listening to this podcast are not; do not have nepotism in your family. What do you do?

And this is the best advice I can give you. You need to keep your focus.

So often, I have actors who look at point A and point B, and instead of just drawing a line between point A to point B, they go up, they go down, they go around, they twirl around.

They walk outside, they come back inside, and then maybe eventually get to point B.

The question, the thing is that things like nepotism and a lot of things that I feel in the industry, try to get your focus from the three points where you need to be putting your focus, which is your acting training, your business skills and the core work, the work on you are the things that distract you from taking real responsibility for the job that you have been given to do on this Earth, because I believe the universe has given you given all of us a gift.

The question is, are we going to nurture that gift and are we going to stay focused on pursuing that gift?

Or are we going to allow our focus to go off into things that we cannot control again?

My favorite prayer or affirmation is the serenity prayer that reminds us of this. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. I cannot change other people, places, times, things, or situations, and whether my competition has nepotism or not, courage to change the things I can.

I can only change myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions, and keep the focus on myself, my strengths, my career, and wisdom…

Wisdom, my favorite word in the American language, to know the difference, which is the difference between what I cannot control or change, which is other people, places, things, or situations, or change.

Nepotism and other actors I may be competing against and what I can change, which is myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.

So, that's my response to the first part of that listener's question. I'm going to read the second part to you because I think this is very interesting.

Getting past the “what chance do I have?” misconception, ever having the opportunity to compete with a nepotism child.

Again, what I would say about that is your job when you go into an audition is to focus on the work.

It is not to focus on who your competition is. I joke about how I used to go into an audition room, and I'd sit in the audition room and basically pick the actor who I thought was going to get the job.

That is so working against ourselves instead of for ourselves.

What I think is so crucial here is that when you go into audition, that your focus is again on that courage to change the things you can, which is really, truly freeing.

Focusing in on your work as the actor and living the life of that character in that space and time, whether that be in a self tape or be in the room.

The listener goes on to say, my own personal Cher story. I consider myself a Nepo baby to an extent. I was raised in a theatrical household with family members who made their living in the arts and entertainment. When I was a child, they would say things to me that made it almost impossible to understand.

And trust me, we were nowhere near the Barrymore status. If anything, that caused far more damage. And then validation. It is something I have struggled with on and off.

I could elaborate so much more, but I think you get the idea.

So grandiosity, let's just talk about that word.

I have also experienced grandiosity in my life, whether observing it in other people or, sadly, myself carrying it out. Oh, what dress are you wearing? Oh, it's a Valentino. When, actually, maybe it was bought at Target.

Oh, we're a grand theater family. It's just a small theater town in Connecticut or somewhere, but we are the family known as the theatrical family. Where has grandiosity played a part in your life?

Do you have family members who exaggerate? Do you have friends who tend to exaggerate? A partner who tends to exaggerate?

The question is, what is wrong with the truth? What is wrong with the truth?

We don't always have to sell ourselves. We can just be.

And especially as actors, I find that grandiosity is about us trying to prove to an agent, a manager, a casting director, a writer, a producer, or a director that we are “so much better than we actually are.”

But here's the thing. How you actually are is enough.

I am enough. I always have been, and I always will be. And that is what I also want you to notice. Use your mind to govern your brain to notice. Am I trying to be more when just being me may be enough?

I will also give you one final lesson on this, which is about from the casting director's point of view.

You don't have to prove to me that you are good.

You just need to do your job and know that you are good at doing that job.

And that will make me want to bring you in for auditions, and that will make me want to hire you.

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Work with me privately

About Angela Mickey:

Angela Mickey is the Managing Director of Casting at Liz Lewis Casting Partners, and has been working as a Casting Director for 24 years.

Angela works across the board on commercial, voice-over, film, TV, and theater projects, with a concentration on comedy, real people, and theatrical casting.

She enjoys working with both veteran and up-and-coming creatives, developing the best, unique plan for each project, and working as a partner to the producing process.

Recent on-camera commercial projects: Spectrum, UberEats, DCU, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Tillamook, Door Dash, Woodbridge, NJ Lottery, Marriott.

Recent real people projects: New York Presbyterian, Aleve, NorthAmerican Bancard, Redemption Whiskey, Chevy, Wells Fargo, JC Penney, as well as a variety of editorial projects for Condé Nast.

Recent animation/podcast vo projects: Dee and Friends in Oz (Netflix), SuperKitties (Disney Jr), Get Rolling with Otis (Apple TV +), The Snow Globe (in conjunction with Chik-Fil-A), This Job is History (Wondery), Killer Questions with Daryn Carp (ID).

Recent film projects include "Martyr of Gowanus", Lifetime's "12 Days of Christmas Eve", "The Legend of Lake Ronkonkoma: The Lady of the Lake", Filipino movie musical "The Girl Who Left Home", and Hallmark's "Where Are You Christmas" and "Mystic Christmas."

Angela's got a treasure trove of tips, secrets, and stories that are pure gold for anyone in the acting game, whether you're just starting out or you've been around the block a few times. Here's the lowdown on what we covered:

What You Need to Know:

• Reading Instructions is Key: Angela talks about how something as simple as sending the wrong file type can throw a wrench in your audition. She's all about paying attention to the details. Make sure you know what they're asking for and nail it.
• Ace Your Online Auditions: With auditions going digital, Angela shares the scoop on making sure your setup is on point. Good internet, good lighting, and a space where you can do your thing without distractions are your best friends here.
• Bring Your Flavor to the Role: Angela's not looking for robots. She wants to see what you bring to the character. It's all about showing up with your take on the role and being ready to collaborate to make something awesome.
• Self-Care for the Win: One of the big themes Angela hits on is looking after yourself. Acting's a marathon, not a sprint, and giving yourself permission to take breaks and live life outside the acting bubble is crucial.

Top Quotes from the episode:

• "Making me work harder to fix your audition tape? Yeah, that's gonna make me think twice about calling you back."
• "Don't just show up expecting to be directed. Bring your own magic to the role. That's what gets noticed."
• "Worried about your online audition setup? Just do your best to keep things simple and stress-free. It's about what you do, not where you do it."
• "The industry isn't going anywhere. Taking a break for a bit of self-care or to just breathe is totally fine. You do you."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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About Spencer:

Spencer Robinson is a literary and talent manager at Art/Work Entertainment who's been in the industry for over 20 years. He represents writers, actors, producers, and also a full book publishing company. Spencer’s writer clients have been on the writing staff of shows for Netflix, Amazon, Max, HBO, Comedy Central, and many more. He’s also sold clients’ features to studios as well as brought in financing for independent projects.

Spencer’s actor clients have been in films with directors Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Clint Eastwood, Gore Verbinski, Jeff Nichols, and more. In the TV world, his clients have been regular cast members on shows for Netflix, HBO MAX, Amazon, Disney+, HULU, The CW, NBC, FX, Starz, Nickelodeon, EPIX, and more. Spencer’s clients have also recurred on series for Peacock, Netflix, Freeform, TNT, AMC, Showtime and many more.

I'm a manager.

I'm a talent and lit manager. So I manage actors, writers, producers, and I actually also represent a fully functioning publishing company for all of their IP.

How the heck did you get there?

It was almost by accident actually, kind of accident when I was growing up I was a musician and I'm still a musician, but I played music And I love movies and television and I knew I wanted to do one of those two things. So I went to film school for exactly one year.

I grew up in Los Angeles and I went to San Francisco, stayed for one year. And I was sitting in a class where they were teaching us how a camera works. And I was like, I don't care about this at all. Don't care. I was really bored. And I realized I don't want to actually shoot things myself. I don't want to, be the person that does that.

And I don't really need to know how a camera works. So I actually ended up dropping out of school. And came back to LA and I'd realized at that point too, that I left Los Angeles to work in the film industry, which was probably pretty dumb. So I came back and I had no actual real connections to the film industry, even though I grew up here.

My mom's an elementary school teacher. So I asked her, I said any of the parents at the school you work at, do they do any television or film? And she goes, one of them does commercials. I said, great. Can I have her phone number? It was okay. I called and I introduced myself and I said, please, will you give me a chance as a PA? Can you give me one day? And she said, okay. And it was a 23 and a half hour day on a car commercial. And it was very long.

But it was cool. It was like, I'd actually never been on a set before. So for me, it was really cool to see, crane shots and very serious people doing very serious things and craft service and all that kind of fun stuff.

And I liked it. And then for the next year and a half to two years, she hired me and everything she did. So I got, a lot of commercial work, a lot of independent film work. And I did anything that I could to pay the bills at that point.

I think I worked in a costuming house for a couple of weeks. I just, whatever I could possibly do.

And I realized after about two years that I did not want to be on set for the rest of my life. I actually wanted to learn how Television and movies were put together. So I wanted to get into an office.

And I knew that like you could be an office PA or a mailroom person. I knew that was a thing that existed. So I entered an ad in the reporter, the Hollywood Reporter back when it was still a magazine, and it was a million years ago. And it was an ad in the back that said, looking for a mailroom employee at a management company.

And I was like, I don't know what that is, but I'm going to go try. And because I've been a PA for a couple of years at that point, I've been delivering packages and then on set, I was actually qualified to sort mail and deliver packages. So I got a job at a management company called MBST, which is not around anymore.

But at the time, they were a cool place to work. They had Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, they managed the Beatles affairs, and they had a development deal with Disney. So it was a great company to learn at for me.

Just because I got a chance to see how it all worked. And the owners had produced a bunch of movies, and they represented all these very big people in their careers.

It was really cool, and I learned what management was and I delivered packages all day and I build it at people's desks and did all the things that you do when you're the bottom of the wrung. And after being there for a couple of years, one of the partners broke away and started his own company and asked me to go with him.

He liked me and he said, you do a really good job. I want to put you on a desk working for two mags X and I said, great. So I worked, I got put on a desk at that company working for a talent manager and a lit manager. So I was watching somebody pitch actors all day and watching people take out scripts and do the whole thing and give notes and it was really cool.

And after being at that company for about a year and a half, they started getting more into doing film distribution, which I did not care about actually like management and I wanted to stay in it.

And one of the actors left that company to go to a company called Howard entertainment and refer me to his new manager and said, “Hey, if you need an assistant, this guy's good.”

And I was really good. I was good at everything except for filing. I never filed anything. I had a big stack of papers. I just sat on my desk and I refused to file them, but everything else I was very good at. I read scripts and I, yeah. Was aware of what was going on and all that kind of stuff. And when I went to the interview for that job, I gave the worst interview of my life and got hired anyway.

But the upside was that, this person that I went to, that I went to interview for who eventually became my mentor she represented a lot of comedians and comedic writers.

And I knew all of them. I was a comedy nerd and I knew all of her clients, I knew her business really well. So she was like, Oh yeah, I'll hire you. Like you already know what I'm doing.

Ask questions, sit in my office, and answer them.

Yeah. And I did that every day for two years, two and a half years. I read every contract, I asked every question, I sat in her office, like at her desk next to her and watched her work and learned as much as I possibly could. And it was a great, really amazing experience that I still have today, and really great relationship.

And after being there for two and a half years with her, the head of that company said to me, “Hey, I'm never going to promote you just so you know.” I was like, cool. That's really great. So I talked to Cindy and I was like, look I'm never going to get ahead here. She goes, I know she'll look, I'm probably not going to be here much longer either.

So you should probably leave and we'll figure something out.

And I said, okay I'm going to quit then. So I quit and I didn't really know what to do with myself at that point because I'd been, an assistant at a lot of companies. I didn't want to go start somewhere else. And I was a little bit burnt out on the idea of trying and never being able to actually get that job as a manager.

So I took a break. And I joined a band and I went on the road. I joined a band that I was a fan of the band had one record out like on an independent label, but pretty quickly after the band was called the Lords of Altamont. Still around not in the band anymore, but they are still around.

And pretty quickly we got a French record deal. So we started doing European tours, like three times a year, every year. And I did five years of going to Europe three times a year and then doing some shows in the U S and we would play for a couple hundred people in LA and maybe, eight or nine people in the middle of the country.

And then we go to Switzerland and pay for 40,000 people. And I played with the Pixies and the Who and Depeche Mode and all these really cool bands all over Europe and made a little bit of money doing that, not a lot.

So when I was back in the US, I played professional blackjack for a living to pay the bills.

So if you've seen the movie 21, the MIT blackjack team movie with Kevin Spacey, I was on an offshoot of that team.

At the time, we were the biggest blackjack team in the country. There was 40 of us. And the team was started by some attorneys and some people that were tired of practicing law and wanted to make some money a different way. Started driving around the country and counting cards and winning money, and they built it into this massive enterprise.

And I joined, and we were, we had a million dollar bankroll for a weekend in Vegas, and we had smaller bankrolls for these little trips in the South and the Midwest, and I would go to Las Vegas for a weekend, make a bunch of money, and then I'd go on tour for six weeks and make very little money, and I'd come back and do it all again, and basically, or I'd go to Biloxi, Mississippi or, Gulfport, Mississippi or Tunica or whatever, somewhere in the South and play river boats and wear disguises and get kicked out of casinos and go next door and do it all again.

And for three years I was on that team and I loved it. It was really great and exciting. And, we would mostly win, lose sometimes, but mostly win money because you're, you're playing with the edge, of course, that's how counting cards works, but you don't win every time. But it was a really cool experience.

And I met a bunch of very smart people that are very good at math.

And after being on the team for three years, we actually ended up folding the blackjack team, not because you weren't winning.

It's because the wins weren't as big as they had been because people were getting better at catching card counters.

There'd been a lot of movies that came out and television shows and books and. Everybody was talking about card counting, so they just got better at catching us. And we could still win, but the wins were getting smaller, and we no longer needed a team of that size to go in full force, because we were going into Vegas and we couldn't go back for months, because they knew us and they threw us out.

I started walking into casinos and they'd be like, “Spencer, no,” before I even sat down. So it was like, oh my god! Yeah, and if you can't play, then you can't win, right? So it got to the point that we couldn't go in this big full force with, and heat up the entire state of Nevada at once. We had to pare it back.

So I needed a job. And Cindy had left Howard Entertainment and started her own company. And I went back to her and I said, can I please have a job?

And she goes, okay, yeah, you can come back and work for me. You can still go on tour with your band, be my assistant, and I'll get a temp when you're gone.

And finally she said to me, look I wanna promote you. I want you to be a manager of my company, but you have to be here. You can't be gone half the year. So if you wanna stop touring. The job's yours. And I thought about what I wanted to do with the next, 20, 30 years of my life. And the band that I was in, I love, and I could keep doing those same tours, but I was always going to be scrounging for money when I got back.

And I love music. I love playing, but I also wanted to, be in one place for a while and actually have a little bit of financial security. And I really love management. I wanted to do it already. I just got stopped at one point. So I said, okay, let's do it. And I left the band that I was in on very good terms.

I'm still very friendly with the guys. I saw some of them last night, and took a job. And I said to Cindy, when I first when I first got promoted, I said, look, I want to work with writers. I love writers. I love giving notes. That's my thing. And she was like, cool, you're starting with actors.

And I go, but I said, writer, she goes, I know. And the reason why she said that is because. Calling a casting director, and at that time we used to call casting directors because they were in their office. And they didn't know who I am, they didn't know my clients, and getting them to actually stop and listen to a pitch, and give auditions to this person they don't know, to actors that they didn't know yet.

Cindy was like, if you can do that, you can do literally anything. And she was really right. And it took me about six months to get really good at that.

And then she was like, okay, now manage whoever you want. So I've always stuck now. And I actually really, as much as I wanted to work with writers, I love working with actors too.

And I didn't, I wouldn't have known that I had to not forced me to do that, which is really good. So I've always represented actors and writers. And about two and a half years ago, I took on producers and a publishing company. And I've just been doing all that ever since. And she merged with Artwork about 14 years ago, and I came along with her.

And when we merged with them, they were all lit. And we had actors, writers, and comics. And we were a little more comedy focused, they were a little more drama focused. So it was a really good marriage of the two companies. And now it's great. There's four managers there. It's a boutique company, and we all work as a team for all the clients.

And me and one of the other managers run the talent department.

And then I have a bunch of lit clients and some producer clients.

You never know where anything is going to lead you to. And another thing that I am a big one on when talking to actors we're talking to anyone is just ask. Yeah. Just freaking ask. You'll survive the no.

And the funny thing about doing my job is I hear no all day for my clients. I hear, I pitch actors. No, I pitch writers. No. A thousand times. And then you get the one. Yes. And it's okay, then the last thousand knows are worth it because now someone got a great opportunity or a great audition or a great job, or someone's willing to read their script, whatever it is, that you go through a lot of nos, but.

At some point they start, they stop really hurting, the nos. It's okay, another no, fine. They're wrong.

I remember when I think it was the Golden Globes or I think it was golden globes or maybe the Emmys or Mike White won for White Lotus. And he was like, we went to everyone and you guys all passed on this, and pointed to the room.

And I love that. Cause it's true. It's like people pass out a bunch of really good things until somebody doesn't. And they pass in giving actors auditions until somebody doesn't, and I love that you have to just keep trying.

What would you say is your biggest piece of advice to actors?

I think, obviously always be training in some kind, always be in some kind of class, learning to do something, always working that muscle.

That's a really important piece. And this is the fun thing is be aware of the industry, watch TV, watch movies, know what's out there.

If you, when you get an audition and you only have a day and a half to do it, if you've already seen the show, you've now saved yourself two hours of having to go watch that show to learn the tone.

You know what I mean? It's those kind of little things.

And always be off book when you're doing an audition.

Make sure that your self tape stuff is in the top shade that it's ready to go at all times.

Most of the actors that I know have their self tape corner set up at all times and they don't have to worry about setting it up.

And it becomes a time management thing.

Always have someone to read with you.

All of those things that they sound like they're obvious, but all of those things together make for really great auditions.

And I do think too, and I have a client of mine that is an acting client that for me is the best actor I've ever seen.

He's phenomenal. He works nonstop. He's somebody that the biggest problem we have with him is that we get more offers than he can actually take in because there's not three of him, and he started doing self tapes. I started, I pulled him out of the room eight years ago from auditions because he wanted to self tape and he was always somewhere else in the world anyway.

But he, what I've seen for him is he's somebody that when that tape starts, he's already 110 percent in character and he always is.

And what I mean by that is. Some actors, when they're doing self tapes, you can see them waiting to speak. You can see their eyes go dead when they're not talking.

You know what I mean? And it's you have to really, when we're having a conversation right now, we're both engaged with each other. And that's the way it should be when you're acting too. It's really to have, to be in it 110 percent all the time. Even when you're just reacting and you're not the one speaking.

Any interesting success actor stories that you'd like to share?

That client I mentioned his name is Damon Harriman.

He's an Australian actor. He already had a career when I signed him, he had a great career in Australia and he was just starting to have a career here in the U.S. but he was recurring on a show on FX, which was great.

And I met him and he's a phenomenal actor. And we said, look, we're coming in. We're new people coming into this company. And he was deciding if we wanted to stay there or not, because they really weren't repping actors before.

And I said, “look, give me a chance.” I said, “what do you want out of your career?”

And he goes, “I really want to do features. I've only done television here in the U.S. and I really want to do movies.”

I said, “cool, give me six months.”

And within, four months I had him in a Clint Eastwood film.

And from then on, he's just been working on some ever since doing television and movies. And it's not just because of me, it's because he's so damn talented, but it was just a matter of, he needed somebody to just champion him and make sure that every casting director and producer in town knew how talented he was, and now they do.

So now it's a matter of him, just doing one thing after the other in Australia and America.

And like I said before, it's just the biggest problem we have is that there's not enough of him to go around.

Talk to me about actors and content creation in terms of actors becoming multi hyphenates.

I think it's great. I love when actors are also writers. But I also, cause I represent writers too, right? So I love when someone wants to take it on, I take writing very seriously. I think structure is really important and learning all of those things.

So when somebody wants to take it on. Like actually learn it, learn how to do it, learn the proper way to write a script, learn what the structure is, learn how to do it, learn the formatting, all of those things, and do it properly. So I think it's a great idea to do, but I think you got to be smart about it.

I think if you want to write a script for yourself to be in that's fine, but write a couple of other roles that are also big size roles to cast some more well known actors if you're not well known.

As because we all know we have to get financing for your movie, right? And that's going to take some people like that, things like that.

I think it's really important. I think it's a great thing to do. I think that it's really smart. And on top of that, if you're an actor, that's still building your reel and you haven't booked a lot of jobs yet and you're new and that's great. You can write a short film for yourself, write a sketch, whatever it is, all that stuff, as long as it looks good, it can go on your reel.

So besides just being someone that wants to sell scripts or write a movie for yourself. Write a sketch and use it on your reel, write a short film or whatever it is and use that as a calling card for yourself too.

So that kind of content creation also comes in really handy.

How the heck does a manager represent a producer?

It's a good question. And it ends up being a very kind of wide ranging job because these producer clients that I have had their own slates of projects, they'll be like, Hey, here's the 20 scripts that I found that I liked. And one of them will be in the first draft. One of them will be 10 drafts in one of them maybe has an actor attached.

One doesn't, whatever it is. And we go through their slates and we go, okay, we feel like this one's ready to go out. So now I'm going to help them take out that, that television show and sell it. Or I'm going to help them take out that movie and find financing for it. Or I'm going to help them attach a showrunner to this show.

It also means that I'm reading all the scripts and giving notes on all the scripts. And that means I'm giving notes to the producer I rep, so they can give it to their, to the writer.

Or we're all meeting and giving it to the writers together.

Yesterday morning, I read three features before work.

So I've read about, about 15 scripts a week, the last few weeks.

When you're on the top, you're working at such a high level in terms of, yeah, I'm reading three scripts before I even start my day. That's just mind boggling.

You know what we always say to like we have, cause we get paid 10%. That's what a manager makes, but what our clients make, which, that's fine. That's the job. And that's what we do. And that's cool. So that means, look, we have a 10 percent commitment in your career. You should have a 90 percent commitment in your career.

So what does that mean? That means be on top of your game, keep yourself healthy. So keep yourself energetic so that you have the energy to do all the things you need to do. Get yourself tapes in on time. And all, if you're a writer, finish those scripts, meet your deadlines, all those kinds of things.

I can't make a client do that. I just love when they do that because it makes my job easier.

I had a client once that a really good actor and he turned in a self tape and he was kept looking down while he was acting. And I was like, picking a swap because I watch all the cell tapes before we send them in.

And I was like, Is he not off book? And finally I saw the paper come into the screen. And I was like, so I called him. And he said a couple days before it was due. And I'm like, hey I noticed you weren't off book. I think you should do it again. I think that you should, you could actually, because other actors are going to be off book.

And he started yelling at me. Yelling at me and he was like, how dare you? How dare you tell me what to do? And I'm like, okay I'm not representing you anymore. And not because of the off book thing, because you yelled at me. It's Yeah, like I would never yell at you. I don't yell at people, right?

So that's not cool. I'm calling because I want you to get a job and you're making it harder on yourself by not taking the extra time to learn the material.

So I just think that you have to do the work. You just got to.

In this new negotiation, they are not requiring you to be memorized. And I hate what I'm about to say. You can not be memorized and you can also not get the job. Yeah, I know. And I think, I absolutely despise That I am saying that.

Yeah, but if you think back to, like, where acting started on stage, right?

You didn't get a chance to stop on stage and grab your script. You had to actually know the material, and that's the entertainment. I know we're lucky today that everything isn't live, you can do things different, but that commitment has been there for, a very long time. We're talking hundreds of years, right?

And I don't know why all of a sudden people don't need to be committed anymore.

We have a client of ours who's an actress who's been on a million things.

She's been around for a long time. It's phenomenal. But when she, you should go in the room now when she sells tapes for stuff, she makes really bold choices every time.

Now what that means is sometimes it's the wrong choice, right? She makes really strong, bold I'm gonna really go for her choices, right?

So sometimes, it's way wrong for the role. So she doesn't get everything she auditioned for by any means. No one does. But she, she, half the time it's really very off. But everyone loves her. Because they always go, oh wow, that's different. You know what I mean? And if they want something different, they'll bring her in.

I've seen her go in for roles where she was so against type, but they're like, we want to see what she's going to do. And then she'll book the role and they'll rewrite it for her.

Because she goes in there every time and she's I'm going to do something that's so out there that no one else will have thought of this.

And it's still, she's doing a great job acting and doing all the right things, but it's making a really cool, strong, different choice and doing it at 110 percent so that people will either give her the job or they'll love her and remember her so that the next time there's a role they'll bring in for that.

Let's talk about your screenplay coaching. What do you offer actors who want to write?

So basically if somebody is just starting getting writing and they want to learn how to write a pilot or a screenplay, I can work with somebody from idea.

Into a finished piece, books, book time to talk about how you start doing it, talk about structure and all those kinds of things. I teach classes on structure anyway, and I love, I'm a total structure nerd. So I think it's very important, like to know when things are supposed to happen and you can play with it and bend it, look, an hour long television show follows the Shakespearean play structure.

Like I didn't make it up. It's been around for a long time. You know what I mean? So it's like. Following it is important and movies with reacts and that's the way that it is. And all those kinds of things. So I work with people to actually teach them how to start and get going into writing and what you do in what order.

And then it's the kind of thing that once you know how to do that, you can do the same thing every time.

You only need to learn it once you just do that same process every time for each different piece. And it works great.

Once you have a piece and you want notes on it, I can read somebody's script and then I'll set a set of zoom and go over with them and basically.

I give really detailed, actionable notes. And without being, too braggy, I think that my notes are as good if not better than anyone else I've ever seen.

And I mean that in the sense that I really do try to help somebody make the script better by not letting them know what's wrong with it, by saying, “hey, I bumped into a thing here, let's talk about why, let's talk about what you're trying to do, and let's figure out a way to make it better.”

I'm not going to rewrite it for somebody, but yeah, it's, and I always give broad thoughts first, hey, Act 1's a little too long, it'd be better if you could make it end here, Act 2 starts a little late, whatever it is, and then go through the script page by page. And really point out, hey, on page 22, I bumped into this thing.

Let's talk about what you were trying to do here and figure out a better way that this can actually work.

I think that being an actor and a writer, being a storyteller of some kind is maybe the greatest job you can have.

And the reason why I think that it's not just because you can make a lot of money doing something that's seemingly fun, right? And something that you love to do. It's just because being able to elicit a reaction from somebody, a laughter, a cry, a feeling, whatever it is, make somebody's day brighter, what, make somebody feel something that they didn't feel before.

I think it's really powerful and I think it's really important.

And on top of that, I think being able to get ideas across to people like, I've been rewatching the show will and grace.

And you think about how, when that show came out, how maybe the middle of the country didn't have a lot of people in their life that were gay or, part of the LGBT community and how that show made it feel more normal to people, and I think, so being able to hide the peas in the mashed potatoes like that, to get across an important social message is also a really cool thing you can do.

So I think being a part of that is just amazing. And I feel like it's something that's worth striving for. And with as much content as there is out now for both actors and writers, why not you? Someone's going to get that job.

So why not you?

So yeah, I just think that it's a really great way to think about it. And just don't give up. Keep trying and just be smart about the way you do things.

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What's Standing in the Way of Your Voiceover Career? Masterclass

About Mandy Fisher:

Mandy Fisher is a NYC-based full-time voiceover actor with over 15 years of experience in the industry. She has worked with brands like Crayola, Disney, Peloton, Coke, Walmart, and Kohls to name a few.

Her passion for voiceover and genuine love of helping people inspire her to work with actors of all stages of their career.

With a theater background, she brings her training to guide copy analysis and character creation. As an industry vet of 15 years, she has witnessed the changes and understands the ebbs and flows of the business.

Mandy created her own voiceover business from the ground up and has a successful and replicable model to help actors build their own successful businesses.

All of this adds up to a coach who can provide audition and career advice while helping actors become the best they can be!

I am a professional voiceover actor, and I've been in the industry for a little over 15 years doing lots of different things across the industry.

And I wanted to share with you some things that have happened to me in my voiceover career that maybe you can learn from so that you don't make the same mistakes that I did.

The number one thing I think that I wish if I could go back tomorrow, right, if, if I could start my career all over again, the number one thing I would tell myself is to not rush the learning phase.

You only have one opportunity in your career to be a beginner, to be a newbie, to be fresh into the industry.

You have this one golden sweet spot of time where you don't know the answers. You don't have the training. You don't have the experience. You are a fresh baby bird, and it is a little intimidating sometimes to not know, to not understand, to not have the answers and to not know how to move forward.

But that sweet spot of being able to learn and grow and ask questions and figure it out is so important.

And I rushed that.

I was always rushing from one thing to the next. I graduated high school early, I graduated college early. I was always just trying to move on to the next thing, and I wish I would've taken more time to just breathe in these moments of learning, breathe in these moments of not knowing and, and getting the opportunity to have different perspectives.

Because also when I was first starting in voiceover, there was nothing, there was literally no resource, no people teaching voiceover, definitely no people on the internet teaching, no forums, no nothing.

And nothing for anybody, but especially nothing for a child. So we were scraping, trying to figure out how to make this a business.

And it was very, very difficult.

And now you are exposed to more information than ever. There is so much information out there, a lot of free information out there, right?

I always point people to www.Iwanttobeavoiceactor.com by D Bradley Baker.

It is a fabulous resource. There's so much information there, but it can also be very overwhelming because there's so much information there.

And while you can definitely read it over and over and immerse yourself in from the starting from zero point to checking out all of the myths, tips, and tricks and ways that you're going to be able to set up your business, it's not comprehensive enough because it's just from one person, you need to expose yourself to multiple people, to people who say things that maybe you don't agree with, to people who have only been in the business for X amount of time, for people who have been in the business for 10 times that amount of time, the new people, the older people, the vets, the people who are just breaking in.

There's so many perspectives. There's so many people writing blogs, showing off TikTOK, showing their experiences in different ways because technology has evolved and the landscape of the industry has evolved.

And it is so important for you to take this time to absorb all of that information.

I've been doing voiceover for a really long time, for over 15 years. And guess what? I still, to this day, I will still take beginner voiceover classes. And you may be thinking, why would you waste your time?

Why would you waste your money? Don't you know all of the things? Don't you have more important things to do? Hell, you're teaching voiceover. Don't you know what you're talking about, Mandy?

Yes, I do. But the point is, the reason why I do that is because I need to keep my ear to the ground to understand what these teachers are teaching new actors.

I want to know what the new trends are. I want to hear what an agent is going to say to new voiceover actors. I want to hear what a casting director is going to say to new voiceover actors.

I want to hear what other actors are saying to new voiceover actors.

I want to understand how the industry has changed from their perspective and, and adapt that, as it makes sense, to my business, to my craft, to how I am not only teaching, but how I am performing.

So taking beginner voiceover classes, even if you are an established voiceover actor is a very good idea.

It's going to keep you in the know. It's going to keep you relevant. It's going to keep you understanding, but it's also going to keep you in that growing phase.

Like I said, doing this a long time, 15 years. You never have too much knowledge, you're never gonna say, “Oh, well, I've learned enough and I'm all done.

I don't need to grow anymore. I don't need to change my business model. I don't need to do this. I don't need to do that.”

That's [00:07:00] that's just not how this works. That's not how you're going to grow and scale. You need to constantly be absorbing information.

And if you establish that as your foundation right out of the gate, you're never going to lose that zest and yearn for more information.

If you only do a couple of classes, maybe coach with one person, it's not going to be ingrained in your creative DNA to seek out those new knowledges and seek out those new teachers and, and try new things.

You might get stuck in a pattern. You might get stuck in quote unquote, traditional ways of running your business, and that is not going to help you scale.

It's not going to help you adapt and evolve and change and grow.

And that's what the entertainment industry is all about. learning, adapting, changing, growing, scaling, and being sustainable.

So one thing that I just want to encourage you to do, even if you feel like you have reached the epitome of your knowledge is maybe take a step back.

Maybe, you know, you've taken advanced commercial classes and advanced interactive. And you've taken workshops, four week workshops with casting directors, and you're about to take an amazing business voiceover program with this woman named Mandy Fisher. Maybe you're doing all of these things, right?

But take a step back.

Let's examine how you feel about your confidence.

Let's examine how you feel about your approach to your craft, to your business, because there's two sides, right?

There's your performance side and there's your business side. And the marriage between those is how you're going to keep your business sustainable and financially sensible.

So I want you to take a breath in. Relax into this time where you are allowed to be in the unknown and to gather the information to ask the questions.

Look, you can always ask questions, right?

But at a certain point in your trajectory, it's always okay to be inexperienced, right? You're always going to have all of the bookings and all of the experience in at certain points in your career.

It's okay to be inexperienced. What's not okay is to be uneducated.

You have more opportunity than ever to get the education for free for paying classes. There's so many opportunities to learn.

So it's okay to be inexperienced. It's not okay to be uneducated.

And take it from me, from somebody who has lived those moments of rushing the eagerness to work and to book and to make the connections without having the education behind me, I got experience, but it wasn't formed in education.

And that made my booking ratios plummet.

I got lucky in some instances. Yes, I was in the right place at the right time. I met the right people at the right time. I sounded a certain way that someone needed at the right time. But because I didn't have all of the other tools in my arsenal to sustain that, to keep that going, to build a business behind, I ended up walking away.

I knew that I couldn't keep myself afloat that way, so I ended up stepping away from voiceover for a while.

And in that time I trained, I met with coaches, I took classes. I wish I would have taken more business classes because there's so much about owning your own business that I never knew.

And I wish I would have had that foundation because once you decide to be a voiceover actor, you are a business owner and there's so many hats that come along with that.

You're the CEO, you're the CFO, you're the head of sales, you're the head of marketing, you're also the janitor, you're all of these different things. And I just wish I would have understood that in a different way to keep my business growing instead of having to stop and start all over again. So take that with you.

I sincerely hope that I will see you in my free masterclass coming up. And if you feel inclined to join a voiceover gym, I would love to work with you. If you feel inclined to join the voiceover actor road map, I would love to work with you, but my door is always open. So if I can help in any way. Please shoot me an email at mandy@actingbusinessbootcamp.com.

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Managing Anxiety for the New Year.

Sometimes when I have something really large looming in front of me, like an entire year, I get anxious.

I think, “How am I going to do this? How am I going to handle this? This seems like too big of a thing to tackle.”

And there's that wonderful phrase that says, “Anyone can eat an elephant one bite at a time.”

And that's what I like to help actors with, not only helping you in the business, in the basics, because I have this theory that really the business is something that can be learned.

The problem is it's taught so poorly in so many places, and I have a tried true system that really works. And once you get on that system, it just chugs along in the background. It's like it works and it chugs along so that you can focus on the two other things that I think are the most important things, which is the ability to do your job, which is acting.

So to become a better actor. Possibly, more importantly, what we're talking a bit about today, which is core work, which is the work on yourself.

Because the more you know how you tick, the more you'll be able to apply that to a character.

So the more you become emotionally mature and the more emotional intelligence that you have, the better you'll be able to translate that into a character.

For today, talking about managing New Year's anxiety, or managing anxiety with an entire year in front of you.

You will never be given more than you can handle, but you will be given more than you can control.

And why is that? Because control is not your business. Handling is. That's also where that phrase, “Take the action, let go of the result,” comes in.

It's my job to show up and do the absolute very best I can.

My job is to suit up and to show up and to be the very best I can be in every single moment.

“I can handle this.” It's something I say to myself quite often, especially when faced with such a big thing in front of me.

Also, asking myself the question, “when the anxiety comes up, what do I think I can't handle?”

The other thing that I find, and this is just magical, is once I take responsibility for doing something in the area that I have that anxiety in, the anxiety does start to dissipate.

It starts to disappear. Why? Because I've taken responsibility.

There's something else about fear and anxiety that I want to point out,fear is your anecdote to success.

Let me say that again. Fear is your anecdote to success.

It is a bridge. If you can, slowly, methodically, quietly, stealth fully, do those things that you are frightened of, you'll start to build real confidence, a real understanding of you.

And that confidence that will carry you to the success that you want in your life.

It becomes the road more traveled.

That when that thing that comes up that you're frightened of, you do that.

It’s very important to stop, take that step back, and observe.

And at the beginning of this year, I so recommend you taking that moment, sitting down and doing a lot more planning and organizing.

And then, of course, doing that very difficult thing of following through.

I want to be responding as much as I can to 2024 and not reacting.

When I react, I go by my first thought, and my first thought generally is not healthy for me.

But my second thought is, because my second thought is more of a response.

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

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So today, we are going to talk about goals for the first quarter of 2024.

January through March 31st is the first quarter of the year.

We are setting 3 to 5 goals for the first quarter of 2024.

Now, the other thing is that if you do the full yearly goals, you could break that down a little bit, baby-stepping into that first quarter.

But what I want you to be thinking of is the first of the year through March 31st.

That's where I want your focus to be because it's a much more bite-sized piece to apply your goals to and your positive thoughts and actions towards.

I want to give you some questions to think about:

The first question is, with these goals that you have, where do you feel you are at in achieving them?

Talk about what you've done in the past and where that has brought you.

And then the next thing I want you to ask yourself is, looking at where you are at in achieving them and what you've done in the past, how has that made you feel?

What are your emotions around it?

If you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, you will change.

Now, the reason why I asked you where are you at in achieving them and how does that make you feel because if you did write something down, "I feel like I've let myself down, I feel like I just keep procrastinating, I feel like I'm such a loser…"

I want you right now to feel that pain. I want you to feel it.

I want you to get uncomfortable. I want you to recognize all of those things that you just said. Why? Not because I'm some masochist. No, but because I want to get you to change. If you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, you'll change.

And then I was hoping you could write this: Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

There's that wonderful phrase "Do something today that yourself in year from now will thank you for."

Use your mind to govern your brain.

Perfectionism leads to procrastination leads to paralysis.

Now, I have one more journal question for you:

How do you feel when you do not do what you said you were going to do?

When you have a thought, that thought leads to an emotion and then to an action. Which then goes back to reiterating that initial thought.

I want you now to make three columns.

I want you to put one of your goals in the first column.

So you're going to put down one of your goals.

And then, in the second column, I want you to write down some thoughts that support that goal.

So, if my goal is to be a working actor, the thought or thoughts that you would want to write in that second column are I am a successful working actor.

I go from success to success in my acting career.

I love myself, and I approve of myself.

So some good positive affirmations around that goal. Because your thoughts need to back up that goal.

What else needs to back up that goal? Your actions.

So, I want you to take a look at whatever that goal is, and I want you to think of one to three small actions that you can take towards that goal.

What's your goal?

What are the thoughts that support the goal?

What are the baby actions that you can take towards supporting that goal?

And that is the secret to success.

It's your thoughts, and your actions must back up what you want.

I want you to go back now and look at your goals, and I want you to put next to them, whether they are a habit goal or an achievement goal.

So let's say I want to take a vacation in 2024, a two-week vacation in 2024. You need to save up for that. That's an achievement goal.

But let's say you want to practice your voice five times a week for half an hour each one of those times. That is a habit goal.

So take a moment and review all the goals you have written down and write down if they are habits or achievement.

I want you to look at each one of your goals, and I want you to ask yourself, is it a goal that is actually achievable or attainable by the end of the quarter?

Or is it a quarter/year project?

It should make you just a little uncomfortable.

If you babystep your goals enough so that those baby steps are something that you eagerly put yourself forward to do that help you to move in that direction, that is something that is great.

Again, that is great because it builds self-esteem. It builds confidence.

Now, I want you to look at your goals and I want you to ask yourself questions about them.

What is my motive for making my first goal, second goal, third goal happen for me?

What will I get out of making it happen? What is my motive?

We do things because there is something in it for us. And it's okay to be selfish.

When you get to those times when you really do not feel like doing the action step for your goal, you can remind yourself what your motive is.

And that's when you can really start asking yourself. How bad do I want it?

I consider that question to be the secret ingredient.

I operate like this all the time because not every single day do I feel like doing things towards my goals.

But when I remind myself what my motive is, I remind myself how it's going to feel when I achieve it. Ooh, baby, that lights a fire under my ass.

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Special Rate Life Coaching

This is one of my favorite episodes of the year. Why? Because I recap the entire year, and it's like a play-by-play of all the podcast episodes.

So, over 52 episodes, you can get a quick little like burst of what it's about and write it down and say, "Oh, I wanna listen to episode 210."

What's so incredible is that we have over 160 episodes for you to listen to all free content. And it's a great little way to celebrate the holidays by just marking down which ones you want to listen to while you do that dreaded holiday travel.

Money Mastery for Actors

It's important to encourage yourself.

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What do you get your reps for the holidays, especially this year?

Because it is this year, the year of two strikes, after, let's see, a global pandemic, and a heck of a lot of other things going on in the world, I think we can be assured that it doesn't have to be some momentous gift.

So let's say you had a Killer year, maybe in theatrical at the beginning of the year, or you had a killer print year, or a killer modeling year, or a killer commercial or voiceover year, again Wahoo!

I want to hear about it because that sounds fabulous.

If you did, you can be more generous in what I'm going to suggest.

This year, I would go for a card.

A card that says something sincere in it about how much you appreciate them sticking by you or how much you appreciate their sense of humor or something genuine.

Now, that is if it is a very lean year for you.

If it's not been a lean year and you really want to do a little something, I go to my old standard of Amazon gift cards and Starbucks gift cards.

I know that's not that imaginative, but honestly, from the casting director's point of view, it's just a token.

If you want to take it one step further, then do a little investigating. When you were there, What were they eating? Was it Chipotle? Was it Sweetgreen? Was it McDonald's? Whatever it was, they have a little thing.

Maybe you know that they love VR games.

If they do, then get them a gift card that's appropriate for that.

If you know they love going to movies, get them a movie gift card to a movie theater near their work or their home.

You can be imaginative with this.

The other thing I recommend is A charity.

You can say, listen, in light of this being a crappy year for a lot of people, I wanted to give a little donation to a charity of your choice.

Ask them.

ASPCA and Women for Women International are the two charities of Acting Business Boot Camp. We give a portion of our proceeds every month to those two charities.

Broadway Cares, Equity Fights AIDS, that's always a great one for the industry.

The Actors Fund is another charity that's fantastic for the industry.

You can do stuff like that, too.

I always feel these things are better than alcohol or cookies because then they get to choose and they get to have something that's special for them.

And I also love those gifts where somebody gave it a little more thought.

Do some homework on this.

Think about it. What would your reps really like?

And honestly, if it's just a card with something nice, that's perfect.

Just take that moment. Stop and take that moment and think about what you most appreciate them.

Thank you for noticing me.

Thank you for seeing me, seeing my talent, and believing in me.

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Radio Imaging Class with Mandy

About Mandy Fisher:

Mandy Fisher is a NYC-based full-time voiceover actor with over 15 years of experience in the industry. She has worked with brands like Crayola, Disney, Peloton, Coke, Walmart, and Kohls to name a few.

Her passion for voiceover and genuine love of helping people inspire her to work with actors of all stages of their career.

With a theater background, she brings her training to guide copy analysis and character creation. As an industry vet of 15 years, she has witnessed the changes and understands the ebbs and flows of the business.

Mandy created her own voiceover business from the ground up and has a successful and replicable model to help actors build their own successful businesses.

All of this adds up to a coach who can provide audition and career advice while helping actors become the best they can be!

The first thing is, what the hell is radio imaging?

Radio imaging is when you are the voice of a radio station, not the DJ, but it's virtual branding for a radio station because they want people to when they turn on their dials to a specific radio station; they want that familiarity.

They don't want it to be confusing. They want to have that brand recognition. And that is what is done through your voice.

My next question is, how is one even hired for radio imaging?

My first kind of foray into it was by accident. And I didn't realize I was doing radio imaging as I was doing it. I didn't realize that's what it was. I started this several years ago when I was a struggling voiceover actor trying to figure my stuff out.

I was sending samples of my voice to different radio stations, like all over as many radio stations as I could look up and find on the internet. I would send them my voice and say, can I do anything for you on your radio station?

Do you need anything? Is there anything I could do? And they would say, Oh yeah. And they would throw me a couple of lines, and that was radio imaging at the time; I had no idea that's what that was.

But now you can still do that; by the way, you can still absolutely reach out to station managers and say, Hey, I like your radio station.

I'm a big fan. I think I could fit in with your other radio imagers.

So you can always absolutely reach out to a station manager, but I work with a specific manager, not an agent, a specific manager who handles my radio imaging career; that is definitely a way because he has all of these connections and has been in the business for a very long time. So, if you're really interested in forging a career in radio imaging, I would suggest trying to get a manager to do that because it's a close-knit group and tons of station managers know each other, and they've got this sort of radio world that they're in.

It feels very different than other verticals of voiceover.

So, if that's a passion, I would say try to get a radio imaging manager.

So, let's actually talk about the difference between a manager for voiceovers and an agent for voiceovers.

It's very similar to the theatrical world, where agents are in voiceover. You are almost expected to freelance with several agents in non-competing markets.

I don't know of any full-time voice actors who only have one agent.

And they're going to source auditions for you. They're going to help you in different verticals of voiceover, whichever kind of vertical you're interested in.

A lot of people have a commercial voiceover agent. And if that agency doesn't have an interactive department, they'll find an agent who specializes in interactive or audiobooks or radio imaging or whatever, but a manager is someone who will really handle the career aspect of your voice-over world.

So, very similar in theatrical where you have agents who source auditions for you and are less handholdy than, say, a manager who will craft some of the other things, help you with your pitches, help you with your demos, give you feedback, really be there to help you along your career.

Interactive is all things animation, video games, toys and games, things outside of commercials, audiobooks, long-form, e-learning, or anything else.

It is the umbrella of animation, video games, mobile, and that kind of world.

First, is there anything you want to say more about radio imaging?

Yeah, I would say, if you're interested in doing it, I wouldn't say it's necessarily hard to get into, but I would say if you don't have a lot of experience in voiceover, you should try to take like a promo class or a commercial class or improv class.

Because you do need to provide a lot of variety, and usually it's short little lines that they're going to cut into what's happening on the air alongside the DJ and other people, other guests, whatever on the show and songs and what you're listening to.

So they like to have a ton of variety.

That variety is going to help you book with more stations because they don't want the plain, boring, or the overly kind of sticky sound that was of long ago and is no longer popular these days.

But you wouldn't know if you didn't know that and taking classes like promo, commercial, and even radio imaging classes exist.

Before you start pitching yourself in that area, try to get a bit more knowledge so that you are prepared and can start getting radio stations under your belt.

I'm saying the same line over and over again, but it is in multiple different ways.

So anything else regarding radio imaging besides the fact that we're going to have you now tell us about these VO gyms that you've been doing for acting business boot camp that people are just freaking loving that people can either attend and participate or they can audit.

It's amazing for me. I love getting to work with actors. I love getting to, it's educational for me as well because I love seeing what people come up with because what I would do in copy is different than what someone else would do. So seeing that variety, getting that variety from everybody, is a gift to me.

But it is so much fun. Working with actors who are just eager to work, being a part of an environment where it is safe and fun, supportive, hopefully, it's educational, and people are learning from me. It is a blast.

Auditing classes, I think, is so valuable, especially if you don't know the teacher. If you don't know them sometimes taking a class and working in a class with someone you don't know can be very intimidating.

I understand how this person works and their sense of humor is how they are, and you can decide then, all right I feel comfortable working with them in the future, or maybe not. I got what I got from them, and I can move on.

If you see an opportunity to audit, obviously, you should participate first, in my opinion, but if you don't know the teacher, it's a great vetting tool. It usually is for less than the actual price of the class.

You're combining voiceover business skills and you're combining core work big. You're like one of my biggest fans on that one. So, can we talk about how amazing you are working with someone one on one building, teaching them how to build a six-figure voiceover career?

How do you do that?

Building a six-figure voiceover business is not easy, and it's hard to sustain. And I've definitely had years where it hasn't been six figures. I've definitely had years where it has been that and plus and that's all great, but it's.

For me to achieve that, it hasn't been about chasing the money, because if you're chasing the money, I think in any entertainment field, you're going to get burnt out. It's not a sustainable way. It's not a good way to look at your career from a holistic bird's eye point of view for the long term.

Sure, money is achievable in the entertainment field, but if that's what you're doing, especially in voiceover, you'll get burnt out very quickly. You're probably going to get depressed very quickly, and all of the investments you've made to get to where you are right now will feel heavier and will make you feel heavier and it will be harder for you to climb out of that.

So don't think about the money. Sometimes I get auditions that are like huge $50,000 for the job, $100,000 for the job. Of course, my heart quickens a little when I see jobs like that come through, but you have to treat every job the same way, the $250 jobs up to the $100,000 jobs, because it's not about getting the money.

It is about being remembered by the casting directors and the people that you are working with.

That's such a working actor mentality.

It's about being remembered.

It is about making choices in your audition and having the opportunity to perform for somebody.

Anytime you have an opportunity to use your skills for somebody, you have this opportunity to showcase your abilities, that's a gift right there and giving that to them for them to remember you is that's your goal, baby.

That is the goal, which is how you will build your business.

Any other words of wisdom before we go, Mandy, that you would like to impart?

Just know that voiceover is the long game.

If you are in it for a career, look; if you're in it as a hobby, God bless. There's plenty of hobbyist work out there that you can go and pursue and not have. The mindset of it being part of your business.

But if you're in it as a careerist, you need to think like a careerist.

You need to treat it as a business, not just something fun to do but something sustaining you both creatively and financially as part of your career.

Just remember, it's not about chasing that money. It's a long game, for sure.

AI.

AI has been around for a long time and has only recently reared its ugly head in the entertainment industry, specifically towards voiceover.

I haven't read the agreement yet, so it's hard to comment on everything.

But I do think I've had many a client this year, big clients. I have quote unquote lost them to AI and they said, "Sorry, we're no longer going to utilize your services. We're going to go the route of AI. And Thank you very much."

Months later, this was actually like at the beginning of the year.

And then they came back to me around June or July. And they said, "Hey, are you still available? Because we really don't like it. It's not for us. We tried it. It sounds okay, but we prefer working with a human being, and we prefer working with you."

So I've lost them, quote-unquote, and they have come back.

I think it's going to be a mixture.

It's just going to be a new learning curve of how we will work alongside it, not against it.

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About Heidi Dean:

Heidi Dean is known as the industry’s top social media strategist for actors and the creator of Marketing4actors.com. She’s a social media writer for Backstage Magazine and a frequent speaker at film festivals, SAG-AFTRA, AEA, conferences, podcasts and universities across the country. Her clients include Emmy Award-winners, Broadway stars, series regulars, directors, producers, casting directors, voice actors and audiobook narrators. Heidi turns social media rookies into ROCKSTARS!

How the heck did you get into doing social media with actors?

The tweetable version is well, I really got my start in social media marketing and I was actually running social for my husband who is a Broadway and television actor and now audiobook narrator.

And a lot of the things we were doing for him and promoting his album and everything, just started taking off. And of course, working actors know working actors, and I started running social for other people, for actors, producers, and casting directors.

What I started to realize is that I was not just running social media for them, I was acting like them, and the people interacting with me had no idea I was this person. They had no idea. So it was enlightening to me because I realized that actually, nobody was helping actors with their social media.

You had to be like an A-lister and have media training and social media training and really have someone running your social media to actually get that kind of education.

And so that's when I started my blog, Marketing for Actors, now 2015. And really just talking about the mistakes I was seeing every day, as people interacted with me when they thought I was this producer, this casting director, or this big actor, and that's when the blog just took off because no one was helping.

And there was a need that nobody was fulfilling unless you paid thousands of dollars every month to have someone run it for you.

How important is it for actors to be on social media?

It's important for so many reasons, and I feel like the conversation gets stuck on followers all the time.

I love that you're asking this because, like I said, I think this conversation of like, How important is it? Why is it important?

It tends to get stuck on this conversation about followers and I think it's the wrong way to approach it and it's not even the most important reason to be on social media.

So let me give you a couple of reasons why I think it's important and hopefully, that's going to help reframe some things for your listeners. Yeah.

First of all, it's like almost 2024. You may be listening to this in 2024 and social media is just part of the world. It's, and it's becoming part of your job, right?

Your next gig is probably going to have posting guidelines. They're gonna have some guidelines about when you can post, when not to post, what to post. There may even be posting requirements in your contract, which, just so you know, it's actually a powerful thing. If they require you to post, and you have any kind of audience, ask for more money.

This is powerful, okay?

So you may have guidelines, you may have requirements. Your next job could have an Instagram takeover or they could ask you to go live or do live tweeting.

These are all just reality.

So it's becoming part of your job.

It's also part of your first impression. We know this business has gone virtual and people are looking you up all the time. It's a business of referrals and also, people, they need to know who you are.

So they're going straight to social, they're going to Google, and guess what pops up for a Google search for your name.

Your social media, your bio, you can read it right from a Google search.

So if you're using social media, I want to make sure it looks professional because it is part of your first impression.

Another reason I think it is so important is that it can help you get cast and this is not just about followers, but yes, whether you like it or not, having an actual, real live social media following can help you get cast.

But I don't want to sit on that idea. I've witnessed it over and over again, social media helping actors get cast in so many other ways, from my students sharing a post with their special skills.

Or creating a post that has a certain location hashtags or special skills hashtags and people went online and they were looking for an actor with that skill and now they're auditioning.

It happens all the time or even now that we've been gifted vertical videos like TikTok and reels and Youtube shorts you have all been given a virtual stage to perform and yes actors are getting cast all the time because of it so you know It can help you get cast beyond the followers reason, right?

Honestly, I think the biggest reason, it helps you build relationships and your relationships are your career.

I always say your network is your net worth as an actor and social media can help expand this network and you can actually put yourself in circles of the people you want to know.

But even more than that. It's the world's best tool for staying top of mind with the people you already know.

And I really believe it's the people who already know you and your work, that's the fastest way to booking new work because they already know and trust you, right?

For those four reasons alone I feel like social media is such a powerful thing for an actor.

If you're looking at it the right way.

Because one thing I would say is, I can tell you everything I just told you. I could give you a hundred more reasons, but it's not going to matter if you don't switch your mindset toward social media.

I've worked with thousands and thousands of actors on their social media and I can basically group them into two categories with how they approach their social media.

We've got, actor A and actor B, they're both looking at the same pathway of stones, and actor A sees these social media stones as stumbling blocks, something they have to do.

Why do I have to be on social media? It's a waste of time. I just want to act, that's actor A.

Now actor B sees the same path of stones as stepping stones for opportunity to, build their influence, to grow an audience for themselves, to meet more people in the business or as a virtual stage, for their talents, and you're never going to get good at something that you hate or you don't want to do.

So if actor A, the actor that looks at social media as a stumbling block, looks familiar, I want you to switch that mindset and start seeing social media as a stepping stone because you're never going to get good at it if you don't want to do it.

You've got to make that switch.

You're never going to get good at it if you don't want to do it.

We all want to be actor B.

Learn how to love auditioning because you're going to be auditioning for the rest of your life in some way or form, even if you're being offered stuff, you're still going to be auditioning, when you meet a new up-and-coming director, when you have those new opportunities in your life.

Can you quickly talk about know, like, trust factor?

In terms of relationships, this is a business of you will get more jobs from people who already know and trust you than just random auditions, right?

It's a business of referrals.

It's a business of who you know, and who knows you.

So the more people that can know and trust you know and trust your talents, know and trust your accountability and that you're consistent, you're going to show up and that you deliver in the room, the more opportunities you will have.

When I talk about relationships, I actually invite actors to first look at the people who already know them. Because, like I said, those are the people that know and trust them. If we can stay, the more they can stay in contact with them between that, the phone ringing, the email coming in for an audition, the more auditions they will get.

And that's what social media can do is it can, help you stay top of mind. It can help increase that know and trust factor.

And the reality is that meeting new people online, it can create a relationship and also build that know and trust factor online. So it actually ends up being an audition, being an actual new connection as well.

Your network is your net worth.

How you stay in touch with people that you know in this business is going to change the trajectory of your career.

Who do you know and how well are you staying in touch with these people?

It will change your career. Your network is your net worth.

What is a good social media following for an actor to aim for?

A following is not their goal. Like I actually when I work with my clients and students I would say, okay, let's figure out what your goal is.

Is it to share your talents? Is it to share your projects? Is it to build relationships? Is it to grow an audience? What is it? It might be a combination, but what are the main, what is your main goal? Because it doesn't have to be to grow a following at all. And that is completely fine.

What I want you to do is make sure you're growing your following with every job you book.

So whether it's fans of that project or people, the casting directors, the producers, the associates, everybody, fellow actors, you're always building your following with every job you book because you're getting these little fans, whether it's the fans of the project or the fans that, are working with you on the project.

So I do want to put that out there first because, in terms of numbers, this is impossible to answer really, because if you talk to people in the industry there are smaller projects that, having a hundred thousand followers, even having 10,000 followers and the other person up for the job has no social media.

That's a that's an advantage because you're a team player.

You have more people you can share it with.

But when we're talking like big blockbusters, we're talking millions of followers really turn, make it make a difference. And a lot of times it's just the tipping point.

At that point, both actors are right for the role. They both are funny and beautiful. They're both right. But one person has a larger audience. And a lot of times now, I really want people to hear this. We're in a different time in the past. This used to be an influencer. Now, you're getting [00:15:00] Juilliard trained.

Actors, you're getting NYU-trained actors. You're getting, conservatory-trained actors that are growing they're following. So it's not just, it's this person that's never had an acting class getting a job. It's actually trained actors that are taking control of their career and growing their following.

That's something I hear a lot too. It's people saying, oh, it shouldn't be about followers. I'm like these people are, they're taking control. And I do want everybody to hear this too. If you're becoming an actor in this career, it's hard to hear. This career has always been a popularity contest.

We have different metrics now with social media. So the job you got into in the first place, it's always been about putting butts in the seats, whether that's a movie theater or a theater, it's just the metrics are slightly different now, and we can complain about it, but that hasn't changed much.

The thing that has changed. Actor B. You can grow your audience. That's the thing that changed. And in the past, you couldn't control that. You can grow an audience now.

And I wanna say again, I'm putting in a plug to be actor B, a stepping stone.

The biggest mistakes I see actors make, and I think it comes out of this idea of, they're so set on hearing about followers, is that they treat their follower count like a number instead of a person.

Stop seeing numbers, start seeing the people behind that number. You're not just growing a number, you're growing an audience, you're growing a community, and I encourage all my students, all my clients, to not call it a following, but to call it an audience.

Number one, I don't know an actor out there who doesn't need an audience, performing for yourself, but you're growing an audience; these are actual people with actual struggles and hopes and dreams, just like every single one of you.

And I really want everyone tuning in, look at your follower count and I want you to think about it. If you have 400 to 500 followers, you filled a 747 airplane. If you have 3,500 followers, that's the audience at the Oscars. If you have 1,800 followers, you filled the Hollywood Bowl.

That's a whole lot of real people. I want you to think of these as people, not just numbers, and take five minutes, hop into the comments of your post, and have a conversation with some of your audience. Or click over some of your followers accounts and show them some love on their post.

Make a connection. Because when you make this switch, everything changes for your social media. And you start approaching followers in a whole different way.

And you're trying to get more and more numbers when you're not even honoring the followers that you have.

I'm going to share with you what I think is the biggest mistake that actors make in social media. “I'm having a really tough day today.”

And they shoot that. Because what that makes me as a casting director go is, “Okay, that person's emotionally unstable.”

That's rough to say, but I don't feel that's appropriate to share on social media. What I want to know is that the actor that I'm hiring, I need people who are emotionally stable, they are going to show up early, going to be prepared, they're not going to bring their shit into the room, and they're going to concentrate on what I consider the actor's most important thing to do, which is they're going to focus on the work and getting the job done.

Because honestly, once we get into a studio, once we get in on a set, the most important thing is the work.

I also realized that I might be having a generational thing here go on, but keep in mind that a lot of people from my generation are in, are watching it, and are going, my husband and I, who I do a lot of casting with, he goes, “Oh my God, did you see so and so's post?”

And that's not reflecting well on that actor.

Now, it's not that we don't have compassion. That person is having a bad day or, is going through a tough time and I'm not talking about I just put my animal down or my mom just died and sharing about that verbally.

I'm talking about, you're in the car, and you're just crying and sharing about whatever. I just find it, for me as a casting director, it does not reflect well on you.

Now, mind you, if I need that person for a particular job, of course, I'm going to hire them. I think it comes from a couple of places.

I think some of them are doing it for views and I immediately know when they're doing it for views, which makes me not like, know, and trust them anymore.

My trust in that the actor would be able to get onto a set the next day goes down.

I invite you to take the Insta out of your Instagram.

As an actor, you're a public figure. So number one, if you are a parent of a child actor, take the insta out of your Instagram. You should never be shooting at the Magic Kingdom when you are there.

Take the insta out of your Instagram for safety, for spoilers. Too many projects have been spoiled because you shot something thinking you weren't giving anything away but your location did or something did.

When we take the insta out of Instagram, we're able to take that second and really ask, put together a good post and should we be posting this?

And it directly relates to what you just talked about as well. If something just happened, I think it is a generational thing, some people just turn on the camera and go and, as your career goes, you need to take a pause.

And, either enjoy the moment or deal with a moment.

Really take the time to reflect on what you're going to say. It does not happen just because it happened right now doesn't mean you have to post about it right now.

And I feel like when you take that little bit of time, it does make us create a different post, usually a better post, and tell a better story with what's happening.

Even if you're hopping on video, it's going to help you make a better video for watch time, which more people will see, if you just take a second to think about what you're saying.

Stop, take a step back, observe. Is this healthy for me? Is this unhealthy for me? Respond.

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

And that's precisely what you're saying here. Just because it happened right now does not mean you have to post it right now.

What platform should actors be most active on in 2024.

It's hard for me just to give a blanket answer for everybody here because your social networks which you choose, should always be based on your goals, no matter if it's 2023, 2024, 2030, it always has to be on goals.

I want you to write down these questions.

This is what I do with my students, my clients.

These questions will help you decide if the platforms you're using are right for you and your goals.

They're also really good to go through when there's a new platform that you're not sure if you should use.

Yeah, grab your name on that platform, but these questions will help you decide if you should play there.

So write these questions down.

Number one, will this platform help me reach my career goals?

Number two, does it help me with my networking?

Meaning do the industry pros I know and do the people I want to know spend any time there?

And then number three, after you have learned the 101 of that platform, do you actually enjoy it?

Use the networks that play to your strengths and talents. It's not the same for everyone. Like I said, you're never going to get good at something that you don't like to do.

Does it help you reach your career goals?

Does it help you with your networking?

And do you enjoy it?

And there's a bonus question, too, so I guess it's really four: if you're in a show, do the fans of the project spend time there?

And that's important because sometimes you like a certain platform, maybe you love Facebook, and you've been there forever, but the show you're on, all the fans are on X, or they're on Instagram, or maybe they're on TikTok.

Every job you do is an opportunity to gain a fan base.

And if the fans are on a different platform, you should be spending time there.

Now, I want to reframe this question a little bit instead of what platform for 2024. I want instead of what platforms I want to think about what features.

So many actors are afraid of vertical video: the vertical video thing, TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts. Vertical video is the future, which is now; it was the future two years ago.

I have been preaching this. I've been preaching TikTok for a while, but I've been preaching Instagram Reels since the day it came out; I think it was August 5th; I know this because I was camping for my daughter's birthday in 2020.

That's how long Instagram reels have been out, and I know some of you have never made one.

Vertical video.

It does not mean dancing on TikTok. It doesn't have to be lip-syncing, pointing at things, or doing trends. It could be you sharing your talents with the world, with a video that is just shot vertically.

Vertical video is the best way to get more views on your talents. Vertical video is not going away. Video is not going away.

I want to challenge everyone listening today to lean into more video in 2024 and beyond.

Because it's so important, you're actors. We need to see you on video. It will change the game. Okay. So choose platforms based on your goals, but please lean into features that are going to help reach your goals and share your talents as well.

And I know this is scary for people. It's so funny because actors they're on camera, but it's scary for actors.

A great resource for you. Totally free.

My YouTube channel. I have a billion videos on Reels, TikTok, and all of those things. Plus, my recent videos how to be more confident in videos for social media.

That's going to be a good first step for you to push past and start using features that are going to help you.

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About Maribeth Fox:

Maribeth Fox has worked with Laura Rosenthal Casting for fifteen years and has had the privilege of working alongside major talents like Todd Haynes, Paolo Sorrentino, Oren Moverman, Joachim Trier, Ed Burns, Mindy Kaling, Anton Corbijn, and Lisa Cholodenko as well as up and coming feature directors, Guy Nattiv, Olivia Newman, & Paul Downs Colaizzo.

Favorite credits include Olive Kitteridge and Mildred Pierce both for HBO, Jay-Z’s music video for Smile, Wonderstruck with Todd Haynes, A Quiet Place, Modern Love for Amazon and Liz Garbus’ narrative feature debut, Lost Girls.

Two of her three films at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival broke sales records, Late Night and Brittany Runs A Marathon.

Most recent credits include Sharper for Apple TV, directed by Benjamin Caron, Bottoms, produced by Elizabeth Banks, Murder Mystery 2 with Happy Madison, and the upcoming A Different Man from Killer Films and A24.

How did you become a casting director?

I learned how to work with actors, what they need you to tell them, and what they don't need you to tell them about ego. And I just decided to spend five to seven minutes with actors instead of a career with them.

So I switched to casting, and I worked for CBS primetime casting for two and a half years, which was a really good learning experience, but corporate wasn't for me.

I wanted to do more film, and I wanted to be freelance so my eight-week job with Laura turned into 16 years.

How does a casting director get a film job?

So oftentimes, we are one of the first people hired and production companies hire us, producers that know us, that know what The material is that we're drawn to.

Sometimes we're hired by our directors who you hope to get repeat business if you've worked with them before.

The first thing we'll do is read a script to make sure we're creatively aligned and feel like we strategically know how to cast the job. And then we're offered one of two situations.

The first situation is. Attach names to this to green-light the rest of the financing. So we do that side, and then sometimes people come attached to a film, which is wonderful news.

And they're like, “We just want you to cast this movie if you like it. And this is who's doing it.”

So we're normally found by producers and directors, and we're one of the first hires.

So, just a question I have: if you are asked to attach a name talent, and let's say it's one part, let's make this real simple, Sure.

How long does it generally take to cast a film, would you say, to attach that kind of name talent if it's a good script?

It's a long time.

It's a long time, so much so that Laura has received producorial credit on quite a few of her features because of the time, attention, and effort it takes to get those attachments in place.

You think about somebody, let's say you're offering something to somebody like Julianne Moore. It could take a month for her to read it. Not because she doesn't read quickly but she's got a lot going on. And somebody of that ilk, their whole team, has to read it.

She has to read it. Everybody has to have an opinion. They have to have a discussion about it. And so we try our best to set respectful boundaries with agents and managers to say, “We really need this to be read by this time.”

But if a creative team is invested in a certain person, oftentimes, that deadline will stretch.

So you could be with one actor for a month or more.

We try to get them sometimes to line up like their top three for each part if we're doing more than one part so that if there is a pass, it's not an utterly crushing situation.

The producers knew that a writer strike was imminent, and I was a little shocked to hear what you said, that you stopped getting calls about six months before.

Can you talk about that and what that was like?

It's helpful to know just in terms of our similarity to what actors go through that a lot of our business is independent film and that really continued. That was not a problem. We were still getting calls. We were still getting pings for that, but in terms of the book of business that would streamers and network, which is a lot of people's businesses, they anticipated the strike.

And normally, we have no shortage of things to read, think about, sign on to, or not sign on to.

And I think all casting directors experienced a similar shut-off. That was very different than the strike in 2008 where we were out of work for a little while, but no big deal.

But yes, like the work has been. It's been different this time around.

How has it been different, do you feel?

So I think a lot of people feel, there's a lot of feelings this time around. Where, as there should be, right? I obviously heartily support the actors and what they're going through, and it's, it's time, right?

It's time to do this and ensure everybody gets what they're owed fairly. And also, I think there is, within the SAG interim agreement, there's some stuff where I think we all need to work together in community to understand what everybody does and what everybody is going through and maybe have a little bit of empathy and open conversation and understanding because right now, it has felt a little bit of an angrier time and I understand it.

Also, It's hard to think about what life will be like after the strike ends, and I don't know.

I think a backlog of projects stopped right before the strike or started to shoot, not believing the strike would fully happen. And those are the things that are going to start to go first. And those things are already crewed up.

So, from my perspective, could it be an influx of new work? Maybe. I sure hope so. But also, we have to think about all the stuff that got interim agreements is stuff that mostly was already staffed.

And so I wonder how much the huge influx, or if it's just going to be figuring out what's actually going to shoot now and what's going to be put to the side.

The great news is that I think you're right about the flood. And actors will feel it. And start to work and self-tape again. And hopefully, it'll get back to business as usual.

And I think what's very important for actors to understand is it's not only you who is on strike, it's everybody.

I'm so proud to stand with the actors that I love and support in my day to day.

And absolutely, we are with you a thousand percent. And also, it's real, right? Many people have turned to survival jobs that they haven't had since they were 22.

Everybody's done. Employment is out. And you live in an industry town, so every business is thoroughly affected by the lack of availability of income for people.

The actors are the ones who are fighting and are going to get the benefits but do remember when you get on the set, there were a bunch of other people who were fighting right along with you, who are not going to get necessarily, the benefits that you were fighting for.

They were supporting you, but the hairdressers aren't going to get any more pay, or hair stylists, the grips aren't going to get anything.

I think that AI is an existential crisis for actors, and I don't think that is something I cannot give up my voice and my likeness and have you pay me once and that be okay, so I do think it's a worthy fight and as you said, it's a definite fight.

I also think it's in the forefront of what humanity will be dealing with. Bartenders will be dealing with it, taxi drivers will be dealing with it, it just has come. Not here first, but here.

We don't do any background casting, and I don't know what that life is.

But I do think about that entire loss of an industry. That will go first, right? And it already has started to go. They take your picture; they can pump you in if they need an arena full of people. I've had many family and friends during this time try to like talk in a fun way about chat GPT and those types of services.

And they're like, have you played around with it? I'm like, no, I don't want to help it get smarter.

And I think it will have real ramifications, and it already is having ramifications for our industry. No, I'm not going to hang out on that service, but thank you so much for asking.

What do you want actors to know [00:18:00] about self-tapes?

So many things. The first thing is it's a grocery store sample. If you're at Costco, yep, that's exactly right. If you're at Costco and the old woman is serving you pizza, you're not going to steal the whole pizza. You're going to take your sample of a square.

We do not expect a fully baked moment for a self-tape. I think artists are artists, and folks are getting bored. And so there's a lot of Heavy wardrobe, heavy movement choice the ability and the time to make almost like a short film.

It's not the job.

A self-tape should look different than how you would behave if you're on a set with a DP.

I think the other thing that I've noticed that I've started to see as self-taping goes on and on, as a public service announcement for actors, is... You're getting too good at them, and I'm going to explain more.

I think actors are really great at self-taping now, and it can almost feel robotic at times. Because they've gotten so good at knowing and thinking about, their mentality has shifted from what I want to put forward as an artist that's unique to how can I get this job by thinking about what they might want.

And so then they know what pace to do. They know what tone it is. They've done their research and all of those brave, bold choices start to get ironed out and it's safe acting work.

It's still beautiful work, but it's safe because they're so good at it.

They know exactly what they might want instead of infusing their own artistic uniqueness in the mix.

And I think casting directors hear the plight of actors, and I think something great that's going to come out of the strike is, I think there's going to be more options offered.

So some actors love the self-tape process and bless, please, if that's how you feel comfortable, wonderful. I will still take time to adjust you via Zoom. If you need an adjustment, if I get your self-tape and there's something close to there, I will still take time for you on Zoom and say, hey, and we'll workshop it together.

But then there's, we really do hear actors that they want more of us again.

I do think that in-person chem reads and callbacks will start to come back.

In the meantime, I think casting directors are far more open to reopening Zoom rooms, to make sure that we're available in some tech-helpful live way so that we can make better connections with actors.

I still get lovely, vibrant self-tapes on everything that I do. But generally, I think, there's a mindset that I've been thinking a lot about that actors carry that is, I think trained into a lot of people that it's just a scarcity mindset.

And so you come out of school and you're told that your job is so hard. There are so many people competing. You're in constant competition. There's not a ton to go around. SAG releases their statistics that only 3 percent of actors are working. And it creates this mindset that can be helpfully hungry and eager.

And it can also really destroy the artistic spirit of what an artist has to offer.

I think within that scarcity mindset, the goal of this is how I feed my family. This is how I gain health insurance, pension, and welfare. And I can't make that brave, bold choice because we don't have a casting director anymore.

You don't have us in the room to be like, “Okay, let's just do that a little bit faster here. I know the director wants this. Let's just clip it up.”

Or give you a simple redirect that could really change your performance.

Now, a lot of us are doing that. We are adjusting people who give great self-tapes.

Actors feel like I've got one shot at this. I'm sending it off into the void. It better be exactly what I think they want.

The one thing that I have always stood by is that it's one audition in a lifetime of auditions.

I am going to get the opportunity to audition again, and there is enough work for everyone.

What's important for me is what's going on in the work.

People ask me, “what do you look for in an actor?”

And I'm like I'm looking for the actor who shows up a bit early, not too early. Knows they are, knows themselves. They are good at their job and I'm also looking for someone who when the work starts, they're focused on the work and not what I think of their work.

Actors do have it tough in the sense that, it's the only art form where you have nothing to stand behind.

You’re not painting a picture to show me. You're not singing a song, which is separate from your acting. You're not doing a dance, which is your body and your emotions. But it's just you; it's just your subjective raw emotion.

And I think what a lot of actors specifically, I love my New York actors in our market, they've all been to school. They're all crafty, great actors.

And I think that a lot of actors think, “Gosh, I must be doing something wrong.”

And so much of film and television is just subjective look-based. If you're in an audition with me, you're probably a well-trained, good actor.

And so it's not about someone being such a better actor than you are. It's about the dinner party atmosphere we're trying to create. And somebody was a better fit. So we invited that person to the dinner party and not you this time. And that's hard.

You can be the most talented actor in the world.

You get the opportunity, but ultimately it does come down to who doesn't blink at the end.

And I also feel that it's the person who knows they are good at their job.

And what I want to give actors the perspective of is, you know what? Maybe you're doing everything right.

Maybe you're doing everything right. And you just need to keep doing that.

Because a lot of times, it's about what's being written. Are there roles for you right now that really fit your marketing package and your type?

Do you fit the world? With our eyeballs. And so that has nothing to do with your craft a lot of the time.

You do have to think about this as a business. And so you think about putting somebody on set, and when we get to cast somebody and it's their first job on a set like that's a great day.

There is like buoyancy and adaptability that we're looking for in people to be able in that callback setting to turn something on their head if needed, to be able to take direction quickly. And if they're not understanding what we mean or what the director means, ask a question. Nobody's going to think you're stupid.

Nobody's going to think you can't hear it well, or like that you don't agree.

It's okay.

We all have days when we're not that great at our jobs.

If I give an actor a direction that's not clear, I don't want them to yes to me and nod their head. I want them to ask me a question and follow it up. If you're not understanding, then the two takes are going to look exactly the same.

Read the directions out loud.

I think it's really important that when you get a breakdown and, they say, submit it this way and, specifically, do your slate at the end.

One of the things that I encourage the actors I work with is to really, read the directions out loud, then you know you've heard it, and highlight anything that's specific.

Speaking of breakdowns, I think. A lot of times, people's focus on the breakdown will be the small adjective-filled description that we write instead of knowing that if you've got the audition, the breakdown has already done its job, that part of your job has already been done, your agent or manager or you submitted yourself based on the breakdown.

I saw your headshot. I selected you. Now it's done.

So you briefly look at the breakdown and ensure you're in the realm, but actors often get old breakdowns. And it's not because we're lazy. It's because we don't want to resubmit a breakdown with a subtle change to hundreds of agents and managers.

So if an actor gets a breakdown and they're 55, the breakdown says 30 to 40, they freak out or they think their manager or agent isn't doing a good job.

It's you just got an old breakdown; you don't have to worry about that anymore.

Focus on the work.

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Today, I am going to talk about what is honestly sometimes a very painful thing to talk about, which is going home for the holidays.

Because actually going home for the holidays for me is a joyous thing now.

But when I was younger, it was harder. And it wasn't necessarily because of my parents, but it was things that triggered me, like the cold, like it being darker. And those kinds of things would bring up a lot of anxiety with me.

One of the things I will be talking about is triggers and how to take care of yourself around triggers.

So, what do I mean by a trigger?

A trigger for me is it gets darker earlier.

If you listen to my podcast episode 102, you'll hear that when it started to get dark when I was a child, that's when my anxiety would kick up.

Guess what happens now? It gets darker earlier.

Now, I will be honest with you: it still reminds me every year, but I also have come so far that it doesn't bother me anymore.

But I'm not going to tell you that if I get emotionally ruffled, it's not going to get kicked up again, and that's what I want you to look out for this holiday season.

Exercise:

Either on your phone, while you're listening to this or pen and paper, I want you to think of three to five things that could potentially trigger you this holiday season.

So for me, it's that it gets dark earlier. The other thing is that my family lives on the East Coast. And guess what? It's cold on the East Coast. It's freezing. That's why I live part of the year in Los Angeles because it's nice and toasty here.

Those are things that immediately crop up for me.

My parents also live in the country. And for some reason, even though in L. A. I'm in the middle of nowhere in the middle of L.A., and I, for some reason, get very triggered by the cold and the night and being isolated.

So those are the three things that trigger me. And I want to ask yourself what your things are.

Is it a family member who says, “Oh, wow, that strike? Hey, are you even going to still have a career?”

Whatever Uncle, whoever Aunt, your mom, your dad, that older brother.

I recently heard from a dear friend of mine that his older brother used to put him down a bit. And although time has passed, it's still a trigger.

So, write down your three to five triggers. If you have more, that's fine.

Then, what I want you to do is I want you to think of a contrary thought or an alternate thought that you can say to yourself if you start to get triggered.

One of them, which is the ultimate Truth, is this too shall pass.

Or reminding yourself, is there something soothing you can do for yourself?

One of the things I like to do is have these special peppermints. My mom gave me them. They're Dutch peppermints. I like to have them in my pocket. It's just a little thing that comforts me.

Also, sometimes, putting my hand on a particular area of my shoulder comforts me.

So it's things that I can think of and things that I can do.

You want to think of an alternate thought and an alternate action.

With an alternate thought, as I said, “This too shall pass,” but also, a good thought would be, “It's going to be okay. I got you. It's going to be okay.”

Reminding yourself that the Universe is on your side.

One of the things that I do is light a candle that makes me feel safe because it reminds me of the presence of the Universe and that I'm not alone, that this too shall pass, that I'm going to be okay and that I love myself.

I approve of myself and that I've got myself emotionally during that time.

The thing is, and Melody Beattie talks about it in Language of Letting Go, for some people, it's Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or whatever you celebrate; it's that time of year.

And for some people, it's like the worst trifecta in the world, which is Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, or Thanksgiving, winter holidays, and New Year's, and they're like, “Oh God, I just want to get through.”

How can you take care of yourself this holiday season?

One of the ways you can is to write down those potential triggers and create a plan.

Create a plan of positive thoughts. Create a plan of positive actions that are going to help you.

What are you going to do if you get triggered?

Are you bringing a pet with you? Is there a pet where you're going that you can go to?

Is there a relative who you know you're safe with?

What can you do to take care of yourself?

Remember, you also have this podcast. There are so many core messages. In this podcast, I've done over a hundred of them.

Bring it with you. Bring me with you on your holidays.

I'm more than happy to be your companion.

Write to me if you get scared. I'm here. peter@actingbusinessbootcamp.com

The thing is, have your own back. Have a plan. If you need to, go a little late and leave a little early.

And also remember, you can just listen.

That's one of the best things somebody told me about triggering situations. When you're in a triggering situation, start asking the person about how they're doing. What's going on in their life? You don't have to prove anything to anybody.

Do you know what you need to do this holiday season?

You need to love yourself and take care of yourself.

And how do you do that? Write down those potential pitfalls, those potential triggers, and then write out your thought plan and write out your action plan of how you are going to get yourself through.

Because you know what? You can do it. You are capable.

You can manage this holiday season.

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The Power of Intention

An actor shared that they had turned down an opportunity because, ultimately, they felt that they didn't deserve it.

And, I think that is an incredibly painful place, especially when she realized afterward what had been done and why they had done it.

It brings up the question, how many times have I turned something down or walked away from a potential opportunity because I felt I didn't deserve it?

And that programming that we have in our, as I put it, motherboard, in our belief system is so deep within us because that is what we operate out of.

And yet, what I am trying to do in these weekly classes is to make you more conscious.

And what do I mean by more conscious?

What I mean is when you are conscious, you are operating out of what the Universe sees you as, who you truly are, as opposed to who you think you are or how you were taught to be.

So there's who you really are, how the Universe sees you in all of your glory, in all of your greatness, in all of your incredible wisdom, and then there's who you think you are, or how you were taught to behave or to act or to think. And most of the time, that is two very different things.

It's really about success and deserving success.

You deserve success.

And a wonderful affirmation that she talks about is every experience is a success.

Now, why is every experience a success? Because I learn something for it. I either gain something in terms of a win, or if I don't is an experience for me to learn.

"What does failure mean anyway?

Does it mean that something did not turn out the way you wanted it to or the way you were hoping? The law of experience is always perfect. We out-picture our inner thoughts and beliefs Perfectly. You must have left us out a step or had an inner belief that told you that you did not deserve or you felt unworthy."

What are you out-picturing, out-feeling, out-believing?

Are you thinking positively and with the Universe's thoughts behind you and the Universe's strengths and Truths with a capital T behind you, or are you operating out of "the motherboard" because somebody told you only deserved "X" amount of success?

Or you told yourself that because you are (fill in the blank), you only deserve Y.

Your beliefs can be changed from someone who feels they don't deserve to someone who very much knows it is their right to.

She says, "It is the same when I work with my computer..."

If there is a mistake, it is always me, which I find very frustrating. It means that something has not been done to comply with the laws of the computer. And what it ultimately means is that there is something for me to learn.

If you think of the Universe that same way, that is really powerful.

Because there are laws of the Universe.

My job is to get myself in line with them, but I can always ask for help in doing that.

I can invite the Universe into making this podcast, guiding me to think more positively, guiding me to get on my own side so that I feel I am deserving of that success.

And it takes attempts at this.

I never did this perfectly.

I have been doing this work for 28 years. And guess what? I've never done it perfectly, but I've always aimed in that direction.

When a plane is on autopilot, It's only on course 10 percent of the time. The 90 percent it's trying to find its course.

In my learning to be deserving of success, I've probably only been on course about 10 percent of the time, but ultimately, I have headed to a much more happy and successful life.

Thomas Jefferson said, "The only time we ever really fail is our last attempt at trying."

And the old saying that Louise Hay talks about here is, "If at first you don't succeed, try again."

And it's true. It doesn't mean to beat yourself up and try this old same way again.

It means to recognize your error and try another way until you learn to coordinate with the Universe.

Adjust yourself to the station of the Universe if you think of a radio dial. Tune myself in to the station of deserving as opposed to the beating up of not.

Which, again, is how I may have been programmed in my past.

Louise Hay says, "I think it is our natural birthright to go from success to success all our life. If we are not doing that, either we are not in tune with our innate capabilities,

because I so strongly believe. That we are smarter and more capable and greater and wiser than we think we are. That was today's lesson in the weekly coaching group.

And if we don't believe that is true for us, We're not going to even recognize our little successes along the way, which is so important.

I think another thing that I keep talking about in my weekly coaching group is this idea of being your own best friend, of having your own back.

And that's when good stuff happens, and also when not-so-great stuff happens, but having your own back in all areas throughout the day.

When we set standards that are much too high for where we are in this moment, standards we cannot possibly achieve right now, then we're going to always fail.

But I'm a big one about teaching people how to baby step. Because with each little success, we get something that we cannot buy, and that is self-esteem, and that is confidence.

Self-esteem and confidence are magnetic. They are magnetic. People are drawn to them.

When a little child is learning to walk or talk, we encourage and praise them for every little improvement they make. Why are we not doing that with our life today?

And the child will beam, and they will eagerly try to do better. Is this the way you encourage yourself when you are learning something new, or are you beating yourself up?

Are you working for yourself instead of against yourself in your quest for success?

In your quest for knowing that you deserve all the good and the abundance the Universe has to offer you.

Or do you make it harder to learn by telling yourself you're a failure, or you're stupid, or you're not good enough in some way?

And I love this because Louise Hay goes on to talk about actors and actresses.

"Many actors and actresses feel they must be performance perfect when they arrive at the first rehearsal. I remind them that the purpose of rehearsal is to learn. Rehearsal is a period of time to make mistakes, to try new ways, and to learn.

Only by practicing over and over do we learn the new and make it a natural part of us."

When you watch an accomplished professional in any field, you are looking at innumerable hours of practice.

And it's the same thing if you hear truth in my podcast. If stuff is resonating, understand I have spent countless hours, decades, almost three decades of my life devoted to practicing this, to practicing opening myself up to Consciousness.

The Consciousness that I am a part of the Universe and it is a part of me. I deserve all the good and the abundance the Universe has to offer me. I am deserving of success.

If you say that out loud if you write that down, see what other things follow up.

It's taken me a long time to say I deserve success.

And the answer that comes right after it is yes because it used to be, "No, you don't. Are you kidding me? You're such a loser."

That is the kind of stuff that used to come up. Everything that I coach in the weekly coaching group and in these podcasts, everything that I coach, I have guinea pigged on myself.

And I share it truly because if I can help you, if I can share with you one moment less of the agony that actress I spoke about at the beginning of this podcast felt when she realized she turned down something because she felt she didn't deserve it.

But you know what? She learned something from it.

She learned that she actually does.

So that when that next opportunity comes up, she'll say, "Yes, of course, I'd love to."

This is why we refuse to try things that are new.

Because, on some level, they scare us.

I encourage you to try new ways of thinking and new ways of acting that are in line with that belief that you deserve success.

Affirmations to think of are, "divine intelligence gives me all the ideas that I need."

"Everything I touch is a success."

There is enough success to go around for everyone. It's not that if Jane gets success, I won't. It's not that if Bob gets success, I won't. There is enough success out there for all of us.

You deserve success.

"I am a magnet for success."

"Golden opportunities are everywhere for me."

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Energy attracts like energy.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi

Like attracts like, and we attract and create our world.

If I am not treating myself well, that is what I am giving out to the world, and I will end up attracting people who don't treat me very well.

By focusing not on what was but on only what can be, we create the world we choose. And we do this through the practice of affirmations.

So again, by not focusing on our past but focusing and putting our attention on the now and the future we wish to create, that is how we create a better life for ourselves.

Now, I'm not going to lie to you. When I first heard this kind of stuff, I was like, “That's a bunch of voodoo, voodoo, gobbledygook.”

Until I was, honestly, sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I was desperate enough to change.

Until I was like, “I cannot stand my life as it is right now. I need to change things up.”

So, I started the practice of affirmations. I stopped putting my focus on my past and started putting my focus on now and the future I wanted to create. And here I am, decades later. And I have a life beyond my wildest dreams.

Everyone wants an abundant life. Living an abundant life begins with believing in and focusing on an abundant world.

I just finished teaching a class on Money Mastery. And one of the things I talk about is how I used to believe that there was not enough money. But that's the biggest bunch of bullshit out there.

That's thinking out of my ego. That's thinking out of finite thinking. I need to be switching my thoughts, aligning them with universal thought, with infinite thinking. Which is there is always enough money. That's the way I think today. There's always enough money. If I don't have any at the moment, I will be making more.

There's always enough money because there's always more money out there. Why? Because it is an abundant and infinite Universe.

We are practicing gratitude and a gratitude list. It is so important because whatever we put our attention on will expand.

So if I am putting my attention on abundance and the abundant Universe, whether that's even in this moment there is an abundance of air around me, if that's the only thing I can put my thought on that I can grasp in my brain, fine, we start there.

It doesn't matter where you begin in this. It's that you begin.

If we focus on lack, if we focus on failing relationships, if we focus on not finding work, if we focus on not having enough money, like I just explained, we start to live in those “realities.”

And I put the word realities in quotation marks.

And what am I doing by doing that? I'm putting a label on myself that I always have failing relationships, that I'm never able to find work, that I don't have enough money. And then that is the world I find myself living in. But I don't want to live there.

I gave that up a long time ago. I want to live in an abundant life.

And I want to focus on an abundant Universe. Because it goes so much further than planet Earth, it's universal. The Universe is constantly expanding.

And it wants us to expand. Why? Because we are a part of it. It is a part of us.

Always remember the Truth is that the world is an abundant place with enough resources for all.

There's a fabulous affirmation for you. “The Universe is an abundant place, and there are enough resources for all.”

And now, I'm going to move into the concept of truth and talk about how truth exists past my ego belief.

I must understand the difference between Truth with a capital T, which is universal Truth, higher Truth, my intuitiveness, higher knowledge, and little t truth, which is ego's truth.

Now, there's a wonderful acronym for ego, which is “easing God out.”

Now again, I consider this term God to be of your understanding. Someone once told me that God can be “good orderly direction.” It can be nature. It can be the universe. It is up to you. You can think of it as higher intelligence. Or your higher intuitive self. It can be that. It's the part of you that knows what good, orderly direction is.

Capital T Truth is Universal Truth. It is plants, it is nature, it is the wind blowing. And I want to be in alignment with that Truth.

Because I don't want to be tuned into that ego truth.

Because of that, I'm only then relying on finite amounts of information and wisdom. I want to have access to all the wisdom. And that is Universal Truth, infinite wisdom.

And here's the thing: if everyone in the world still believed that the world was flat, would it be flat just because we believed it to be?

Some things are the Truth, whether you believe them or not. Including there is enough. Including I am enough. The incredible thing is that successful people question everything. And they also do what they most don't want to do by noon. But successful people are curious people.

Do not believe anything, and most importantly, do not believe anything you think about yourself that is limiting you in any way. That is just a limiting Belief.

Remember, we started this podcast talking about energy. Then we moved into Truth. Truth with a capital T.

And now we're looking at our beliefs.

The definition of consciousness is who we really are as opposed to the you that you believe that you are or we're taught that you are.

So again, we talked about energy. We talked about what kind of truth. Now, I am challenging you with what is your consciousness.

Are you operating out of your limited beliefs and thereby accessing little amounts of energy and little amounts of truth?

Or are you truly conscious?

Understanding who you really are from the universe's point of view, that you are infinite. Your success, your money, your abundance, your happiness, your achievements are unlimited.

I'm going to end this with a journal question, and it's a challenging one, so I encourage you to take pen to paper.

• If I did this, and then (fill in the blank), what would be possible for me?
• If I did (fill in the blank), what would be possible for me?

For me, it was if I solved the riddle of my anxiety, what would be possible for me?

And if you go back to the second podcast, now we are 150 podcasts in, more than that, but if you go back to the second one, you'll hear my story about anxiety.

It's even been in the journey of doing this podcast on a weekly basis that I've really started to see what the possibility is if I solved the riddle of my anxiety.

I'm now seeing what is possible. And it's infinite. And I wish the same for you.

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Work with Jason

About Jason Figgis:

Jason Figgis is an award-winning IFTA-nominated film and TV director who has had feature work commissioned or acquired by major broadcasters that include Sky One, Sky Arts, Channel Four, Hulu, RTE, Apple+, iTunes, KSM, SVT, Cinedigm, Discovery Channel, Amazon Prime, and Lionsgate Studios.

This work has been placed in territories that include 150 countries worldwide.

Figgis’ work includes the IFTA-nominated Discovery Channel documentary THE TWILIGHT HOUR, the Sky Arts documentary A MAVERICK IN LONDON (featuring Alan Rickman, Richard E. Grant, and Joanna Lumley), SIMON MARSDEN’S HAUNTED LIFE IN PICTURES (featuring John Hurt), High Fliers Films / Pinewood Studios release THE GHOST OF WINIFRED MEEKS (starring BIFA winner Lara Belmont) and LOVE? (written and presented by Samantha Beckinsale).

Figgis directed the official music videos for the QUEEN OF ENGLAND’S PLATINUM JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS IN 2022.

He also restored the classic German horror film NOSFERATU for the 100th anniversary. Figgis is in production on the authorized documentary looking at the life and work of actress Olivia Hussey called THE GIRL ON THE BALCONY and has just completed an authorized series of films looking at the life and career of prolific writer and philosopher Colin Wilson under the title COLIN WILSON: HIS LIFE AND WORK.

Other feature documentary work on the slate include A MAN FOR ALL REASONS, which looks at the life and work of former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, the Manchester County Council sponsored feature documentary SHIRLEY BAKER: LIFE THROUGH A LENS which looks at the life of the celebrated Mancunian street photographer, DIE STRONG which looks at Fallacy of Barriers founder Lily Brasch and FATHER OF DRACULA which looks at the life and work of Dracula author, Bram Stoker.

Figgis started his career in TV and film in animation for Murakami-Wolf on the celebrated cult TV series TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. He went on to work for Steven Spielberg at his London-based Amblimation Studios on the feature classic AN AMERICAN TAIL 2: FIEVEL GOES WEST and for legendary animator Richard Williams at his studio in Camden, London, on the cult classic THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER, which starred Vincent Price and Kenneth Williams.

I started in communications and then decided that I wanted to be a filmmaker. As a boy, I'd always wanted to be a filmmaker; when the digital world opened up, and it became something feasible, I realized I could launch and start getting work done.

So I moved into the field of documentary because I've always liked reality over artifice. Even when I write screenplays, I put my mind into a real situation instead of creating something fantastical. So I'm much more interested in relationships, other than big spectacles.

In the film industry and writing, a lot of the things that happen, you don't plan for you. You have relationships with people that you feel simpatico with, and you start developing things.

So I worked a lot with a writer called Simon Golding, and he's a real facilitator. He puts people together who he feels will work together.

I like to write because when I write, I have to get my mind into a character as a real flesh and blood person.

I always loved the idea of putting a camera on a real subject. And having people and letting it just unfold in an interview, for example, but the horror and the beauty, I always think the two of them can live quite well together and that a lot of the real horror in the world is what goes on behind closed doors and people's houses.

Obviously, I don't mean everybody; I mean, even in ordinary couples where you might have an explosive argument and for that brief moment, there might be fear between the couple that it could escalate into something terrible. Thankfully, it rarely ever does, but there still is that how you can go from a really happy moment to a very dark moment in the blink of an eye, if somebody says the wrong thing or something happens, or even if a vase is dropped on the ground and suddenly this explosive anger.

I just think that the light and the dark live very closely together, and to be able to show that on-screen and for people to see a beautiful couple, but then what they hear about, in the narrative or the narration, is the complete opposite to what they're looking at.

So you can have beauty and horror right there simultaneously on screen.

The discipline of documentary filmmaking has helped you with scripted content.

When you're interviewing a real person for a documentary, when they're talking about their own real-life experience, I find that if you're really concentrating on the person and what they're telling you, you get a much greater understanding of the human condition all over because you're forced to put your attention on a subject when you want to bring it to life.

For example, if you're directing narrative fiction, you're worried about all the different aspects. You're concerned about the lighting, camera setup, exterior, and any extraneous noise, and it's quite stressful. But if you're doing a documentary, it doesn't matter about the other stuff happening around you. If something annoys the person while you're doing an interview, it's part of the reality and that real moment.

What are the key questions to get the best response instead of just the standard questions? I like to get to know the person before I film. So then you get an idea of how you can relate to them on camera. Will they be able to trust you in a given circumstance?

I'm working on one at the moment. An amazing thing called Gladiator School with a guy who was a former prison inmate and who decided that when he was in prison, he was going to change his life. He's come out of prison, and he's now setting up a thing called gladiator school for kids on the street to get them away from crime, motivate them to do creative things, and follow their passion.

But again, when working with the young man involved, I had to be very careful about the kind of questions, I had already spoken to him beforehand. I said, “Look, what kind of things can I ask you? Is there anything triggering that will throw you right off the page?”

And he was like, “Ask me anything you want. Ask me anything you want. I'm here to be honest. I'm here to be truthful.”

So I did. So I asked him some searing questions about how he ended up in prison, what led him, what were those life choices, what were those experiences that moved on and rolled onto another experience that got him into a position where he ended up in drugs and prison.

But again, it's still essential that I get to know him first and have a few phone calls to build that between us so I can ask the right questions.

If you're passionate about something and put your mind, thoughts, heart, and feelings into something, it's amazing how the Universe works on your side and allows those things to happen.

But what's really important is to be yourself, be genuine.

Don't have somebody meet you and go, “There's an artifice there. I don't believe how he's dealing,” because if you do that, they're not going to trust you. They're not going to work with you. One of my main things is I'm always myself. I never tried to be anything other than.

Just being yourself is highly important in anything you do because people know.

How do you come up with your ideas?

It could be anything. I could read a headline. I could see a little snippet in a book; it is a line that will lift off the page as an idea.

It could be a name; from that name, an entirely fleshed-out story could emerge just from the title, which has happened with several things.

I'm open to being inspired by absolutely anything.

Once I come up with the story and know who the characters are, I will allow the characters to speak to each other. And a lot of the time, I've no idea the direction they're going in, and I just follow it. I speed write with it, so I don't think, if anyone saw my notes, they're illegible, and I do have very neat handwriting, but when I'm writing a script, I always write freehand in notebooks, like A5 notebooks.

I'm usually excited by the characters' direction and the elements of their life that emerge just through a conversation.

What are the questions that you ask them to start getting, moving them in the right direction?

Decide on a character they're comfortable with and then get to know the character and allow the character to speak to them.

But if you're going to write a one-woman or one-person show, don't miscast yourself in the role, right? Write something that's going to suit you. That the people are going to look at you and go, “I believe this immediately, I believe this.”

What's the story you want to tell?

Now, take that story and put it into the mouth of a character you can inhabit in that 45 minutes or an hour and a half on stage and grab people's attention.

The scripted content becomes a documentary because it's that real, or you know a character so well that it's not a character; it's a person.

It's taking what I've learned in making documentaries and bringing them into scripted, you know, narrative drama because if you listen and listen, the words will come to you.

Now, just find this character in a particular situation and let them tell their story.

When I started writing, I never knew I could write screenplays.

I realized that with honesty, you could write things that came across powerfully.

I believe that Characters exist in space, waiting for the right actor that they can choose to play them.

Creating the backstory for your character, you arrive in a scene, but who were you before that?

Acting is reacting to your environment and the people you're in the scene with.

People just need to get out of their own way.

Find the people who can see what you're trying to do.

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About Joshua Lastine:

Joshua Lastine, Esq., Entertainment Business and Transactional Attorney is the Founder and Managing Partner at Lastine Entertainment Law.

A strategic negotiator, fierce advocate for talent, and a practical problem solver, Lastine strengthens his counsel with an ineffable passion for show business, its players, and creators.

As a former Lionsgate and ViacomCBS attorney, Joshua Lastine launched Lastine Entertainment Law in 2021, formally Lastine Impressions, to protect the artistry and livelihood of actors, production companies, writers, producers, directors, animators, social media influencers, and podcasters.

In his representations on behalf of entertainment talent clientele, including rights acquisitions, development/production deals, branding/commercial advertising deals, talent deals, and other contracts for new media, social media, and the Internet 3.0, Joshua Lastine has an intrinsic aptitude for structuring deals and closing contracts that are shaping the future of the entertainment industry.

In addition to his legal negotiations, Lastine also serves as an adjunct lecturer on entertainment business law at The Los Angeles Film School, further impelling the future of the entertainment space and its novices. Joshua’s production legal and talent transactions have spanned a wide breadth of media and projects from $100M+ Netflix series to $30K YouTube branding, endorsement, and commercial deals. To learn more visit, lastineentertainmentlaw.com. Follow on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Let's talk about protecting ourselves and how the law can help us to do that.

User generated content creators.

It's anyone really nowadays with the creative backbone. I think that's one of the great things about technology and where we are.

There's a lot of downsides and we can talk about that in a bit, but one of the great things about technology and where it's at today is that it really. Democratizes the creative endeavors. I'm a lawyer and I can now start to exercise my creative fingers in a way that I never could before because of the apps and because of the different technologies and algorithms.

I think we've all become more savvy in how we figured out to, to express ourselves and create art. I think it's unfortunate now that art and entertainment is being referred to as content, but that's still really what it is.

Whether you're creating content for YouTube, you're creating content for TikTok, you're creating content for Instagram or you're creating products and services that blend the line.

User generated content refers to anyone with a creative backbone that wants to make something cool. And then try to maybe find a way to, to monetize, exploit, and expand on that idea.

For every television show, there's a head of business and legal affairs, a head of production legal that supervises the day to day happenings of the show, whether it's the contracts for all of the actors showing up on set that day, getting the transportation in place, craft services.

The visual effects deals, transportation of large scale assets, planes, trains, automobile pieces all the way through the final credit roll, watching the final credits and making sure that all the credits align with the deals that I had negotiated through the season.

Doing that on a season by season basis for those shows, building a rapport and in a relationship with the shows themselves to make sure that we're getting what they need done to make the show because at that time, shows like Transparent, Man in the High Castle, I Love Dick which came on a little bit later.

These were first of their kind in 2016, 2017 in terms of Amazon shows. They did a lot to push the envelope in terms of what we could do on TV. I was party to many a nudity writer negotiation with many stars, where we did, nude simulated sex orgies. And we did things like hang swastikas in Canadian subway rails to film scenes for Man in the High Castle.

And it's my job as the attorney was to liaise with the line producer, the unit production manager, the guys on the ground to get all of the deals done, to make sure that filming stayed on schedule and that the company is protected and that, most importantly, in my opinion, that the people on set are protected.

We do a lot with stunts, we do a lot with practical effects, prop guns swinging from buildings, insurance, putting people in helicopters. I'm also part of those discussions to make sure that those people are protected. So it's a lot that goes into overseeing a television show or a feature film through the production side. That's part of what I do at my law firm.

The other side is the more traditional talent representation, representing actors, writers, directors to negotiate their contracts.

Why does an actor need a manager, an agent, and a lawyer?

We love our agent manager friends to death and we work very closely with them, but oftentimes there's a lot that gets left off the table.

I myself, when I work as representing the studio or the production company, I'm the one negotiating against the actors, agents and managers. And I can see those deals. And I can tell you with experience that an actor may get 40, 50, 60 percent of the deal on the table with an agent or manager, but as soon as they bring in a lawyer and it's the three of them working in tandem, they're getting just about everything on the table.

But really, also the devils in the details with regards to the contract especially nowadays studios are taking a wider position in what they can do with an artist's name, voice, and likeness, what they can do with their image. And how it can be exploited.

And, I think even actors at a certain level, even series regular, reoccurring guest stars, special guest stars, people with speaking lines and stuff like that, they can ask for reasonable restrictions on how their name, voice, and likeness is used. And obviously that builds your precedent up as you move on in your career.

Obviously, the bigger you are in your career, if you're Margot Robbie or Anya Taylor Joy, it's a big fight to be had but there are small things that an attorney can ask for that just can up your game and make you seem a little bit more sophisticated and increase your precedent for your next gig.

I think when you start making some serious money and you start making a serious living off of being an actor, it would be wise to reach out and start building a relationship.

What we should be doing in this industry as seed planting, right? Every single job interview that I go on, in business and legal affairs with a studio, every time I have lunch with an agent, manager, attorney, an actor I'm planting a micro seed that someday we will potentially probably work together again.

You never know where these relationships are gonna lead and gonna go.

If, and let's say you take on an actor, what does that look like? Is there a retainer? How does the actor lawyer relationship begin?

So typically for my actors, we engage on a standard 5 percent deal, meaning I'll take a 5 percent gross commission for the contracts that I negotiate and work on myself. There's no form of exclusivity the way that there might be with an agent or manager. You don't have to keep coming back to me.

Although the better the relationship, the better I understand and know your needs, the better it is for me to be able to communicate and advocate on your behalf.

I'll give you a good example. One of the actresses I represent has asthma, and that's something that I didn't quite know. But she was on a film set and there was heavy smokers around and I found out way later, way after the fact.

And, that is an easy phone call or an easy conversation that a lawyer can make that maybe an agent or manager might not want to make or, oftentimes we get put in the uncomfortable position of being the bad guy.

If you are getting deals, you're getting engagements, you're getting work, that's just an easy 5 percent deal.

If you are wanting more help developing your behind the camera services, you want to be a writer, you want to be a director, you want to be a content creator in your own right. We will usually charge an hourly rate or a flat rate for something like that.

Once you become part of the law firm family, we have lots of dinner parties and receptions and meetups between clients. So plug into the lasting entertainment law rolodex and really just build that community, build that relationship.

A lot of, being an actor [00:13:00] is really the dedication to your craft and learning how to grow and show up to that position. I think a lot of people want to be actors, maybe not for the right reasons. You got to be truly talented in your own right.

But the actors that I do represent, the actors that are on my roster, I will try to, recommend or suggest them or help them take general meetings with my current existing clients, or if there's somebody that they want to build a relationship, they feel very strongly and I already have that preexisting relationship.

Maybe it's something we can work on together, but not as a general.

When do you know you need a lawyer?

Entertainment Law School 101. In America, in the United States, there is no protection for unexpressed, unwritten down ideas.

On the flip side of that, the beauty of how the United States copyright law works is if an original work of authorship is fixed in a tangible medium, that work of authorship qualifies for copyright protection and has copyright protection at common law. So the second your pen hits paper and starts writing, the second you start painting with a paintbrush, start creating with your keyboard, the ultimate creative expression of that work is going to have some level of common law copyright protection.

It behooves you when you have some more of a concrete final product to register for federal copyright protection, it's $65. It's not a lot of money, but in that instance, you qualify for what is known as statutory damages. If there is a lawsuit for whatever reason later on, you can bring it in federal court, and it's a little bit meatier than just relying on common law copyright protections.

But, at the end of the day I think it's Picasso who said it, good artists borrow, great artists steal. Deep Impact and Armageddon came out the same year, and anyone can rip you off at any time. Really, what you need to do to protect yourself is to grow and expand your brand on as many different platforms between your social media pages, between YouTube.

You need to develop that idea and make your brand as expansive as possible. And really, it's a tricky thing, but what Disney does is they rely more on trademark protection than they do actual copyright protection. The Mickey Mouse copyright is going to go into public domain in 2024.

So long as they're exploiting his image as a trademark in merchandising, it has more qualified protections. And really the best thing that you can do is plant your flag and say, “Hey, I'm here and make it known and open and notorious.” This is your idea and this is what you're doing.

And do a little bit of due diligence to see if there's anyone else out there. Doing something similar because that is really a barrier towards monetization.

If I'm a buyer and I'm in, and someone brings me an idea and I'm looking at it and I'm saying, “Hey, there's a hundred of these other things just like it.”

It's not original. I am not going to take the risk on it.

So, do due diligence yourself, make sure the idea isn't already exploited. B, make yourself as big and loud like a puffer fish as possible. So you can try to create and protect your brand, start to create merch and you can qualify for trademark protection in that, get your copyright protections and fill out your creative ideas in various medias.

When do you think it is a good idea for a creator to start thinking, “hey, maybe I need somebody on my side?”

When there's actual money on the table being had that starts to say, “hey, you know what, there are sophisticated players at the table. Maybe we should have someone relook at the paperwork. Maybe we should have things done correctly by a lawyer.”

And then number two, I would say if this is your baby, if this is your project, if this is your investment, if this is your life's work, then it really is worth the $500, $1000.

I do free consultations, free 15 minute consultations, but to draft paperwork and make sure paperwork secure work for higher agreements, transfer rights, spending $1500 to make sure that your project is protected is a drop in the fucking bucket.

Talk to me about the current trends. Let me articulate it with a little story. I was at the variety marketing summit back in March. And, lots of executives in the advertising marketing space world.

That's not really where I do a lot of my business. I'm working with actors, I'm working with writers, directors, producers, and I'm making shows and making content. But the number one thing that I took out of that meeting is how they are blending these areas and how advertisers are striking back with a vengeance in kind of a way, since the Netflix and the streamers of them all have kicked them out for the last 10 years, they are interested in creating TV shows around more products and services like Chipotle and whatever.

If you look at the top grossing films this year, we had Nike, Blackberry, Super Mario Brothers, Barbie. These are products and brands and not the same IP temples like the Star Wars and Marvel that we saw in years past.

I think Gen Z and now Gen Alpha, who's coming up, have a very different way of interacting with entertainment.

So if you are an actor, Focus 100% on your craft and build that out first, but also look at ways that you can, monetize and do use social media, Tik TOK and YouTube and how you can start to think about yourself as a 360 brand business.

I don't like that idea per se, in a world full of Zendayas and Sydney Sweeney's it's what it takes to get there.

But you can capitalize on making content in a niche world for something that you like, say toy collecting and you're going to find your audience out there if you're true and authentic and it's something that you're passionate about and love.

I think that at the macro level, we're going to have to decide what we want to address as a society, as humanity because it is something that threatens every specific industry as it relates to actors and writers. I think it's atrocious. The idea that you could take an actor's likeness and decide that you're going to own it and reuse it in perpetuity for the rest of your life as it relates to the final embodiment in a film or TV project, of course, but you don't own that person's image It's something that I believe is going to have to take a fundamental shift in government and in legislation that maybe recognizes the individual right of self likeness.

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Private Coaching

Fear and Courage.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

"If everybody feels fear when approaching something totally new in life, yet so many are out there doing it despite fear, then we must conclude that fear is not the problem."

Fear is not the problem. It's our attitude and our actions.

One of the things I coach with people is I look at their goal, and then I look at their thoughts around that goal, or their affirmations, their affirmative thought around that goal, and then I look at those actions around the goal.

So we make sure that the affirmative thoughts, or the thoughts that you are having around being a Working Actor, are not thoughts like, "Oh, I'm not good enough. It'll never happen. I'm too old for this shit."

Whatever it is, that we start turning those thoughts around because we need to have our thoughts and our actions supporting and backing up that goal.

That is how you create success in your life.

But for me, when I started first to learn this work, I was like, "Yeah, but I'm fucking terrified, and I am filled with anxiety, and I cannot imagine calling my manager and asking, how come I don't have any auditions, or I haven't had any auditions for a couple of weeks."

But yet, those were the things that I needed to do, either to get more activity or learn that manager was really not that into me and I needed to find someone else.

Fear is not the problem. But what the problem is, according to Susan Jeffers, which I concur with, is how we hold and manage our fear.

It's our attitude toward fear.

So again, remember that fear is not the problem. How we hold and manage the fear is.

Last week I talked about how you will never be given more than you can handle, but you will be given more than you can control.

And manage is another word for handle.

If how we hold and manage fear is the problem, guess what is the phenomenal, exciting news about that?

Then there's something we can do about it. There is something we can actually do about it. Because if it's in our realm of being able to handle or manage. Hey, that's our job, remember, controlling is not.

You're never going to be able to control your fear. Believe me, I spent a lifetime trying to do it doesn't work.

But I can manage how I handle it. I can manage how I think about it and what I do about it. And the thing is that if I stay, in that belief, that fear actually is the problem, then I'm staying in that victim energy.

Then I'm staying in that catabolic energy, that hopeless energy. "There's nothing I can do," bullshit. There is something you can do. Now I'm not going to say that it's going to be easy, and I'm not going to say that it's simple. But it is doable. In fact, it is simple. It's just not easy.

So if we accept the truth that how we hold and manage fear is the problem, and I stress that is a truth, that is a Universal Truth, not an ego truth. That is an infinite truth. Then we put ourselves energetically of taking responsibility, and then we can move forward.

So if we put ourselves energetically saying, "You know what? I understand I have fear. I, but I can manage it. I can handle it." By just doing that, we take ourselves out of catabolic energy, victim energy and in to anabolic energy, which is the energy of taking responsibility.

But if we stay with the idea that fear is the problem, guess what? We stay stuck.

So many people, I was at a networking event yesterday and it wasn't an actor. It was just a neighborhood networking event. The number one thing that everybody told me was "I feel stuck."

The reason why you're stuck is that you are afraid.

So let's get you unstuck.

Now, if again, how we hold and manage fear is the problem, we can move out of fear and then we can accomplish our goals or our wants or our needs.

So Susan Jeffers talks about a how we hold our fear, and she has a chart.

When we hold our fear, we have some kind of what? Pain.

And that pain is caused by feelings of helplessness, feelings of depression, feelings of paralysis. But when we move into that anabolic energy, we take responsibility of managing and handling our lives as opposed to controlling it or just not doing anything, then we end up with choice.

We end up with excitement because "oh my god we're actually doing it now." And we end up with action.

And when I talk about this power, this idea of power of how we get ourselves to do what we want. I am talking about the power within ourselves, which is ultimately building self-esteem.

So if we have power over our perceptions of the world, we have power over our thoughts. We have good, affirmative thoughts.

Then, we have power over our reactions.

Let's say something happens. I spill coffee on my new blouse. My immediate reaction will then be, "Oh God, that was so stupid. Or I'm so stupid."

But then I want to tell myself, "Stop."

I want to stop. And then I want to take a step back from what I just said to myself.

What just happened? Stop. take a step back.

And I use that example of putting your hand on your face and you cannot really see your hand. But if you move back a foot and you look at your hand, you are then in a place of what you are in a place of observation.

When you are in a place of observation, you can ask yourself that valuable question, "is this healthy for me to behave, to think this way, or is it unhealthy for me?"

Then, of course, I'm going to realize it's unhealthy for me to have such a negative reaction to just what was it? A fricking little mistake.

So what am I going to do? I am going to respond. I'm going to respond with a loving thought. I love myself, and I approve of myself. And here's a genius idea. Go get some club soda. Go get a towel wipe off your blouse, and take it to the dry cleaner.

Was it worth beating up on yourself? For all of that?

For just spilling some coffee? No.

Because nothing is worth a dig at my self-esteem.

Nothing. I have a phrase that says, "A Response is a reaction with a pause and a thought behind it."

And when we have power over our reactions or our perceptions, we are using that process of stopping, taking a step back and observing, looking at it for what it is from a distance because, again, we're in that valuable place of observation and then responding to the situation.

Power to do what is necessary for our own self-growth and career and all of these things make you feel better about yourself.

It creates healthy self-love, and we need self-love to be in this business of show because the business is not going to supply you with that love.

And this is the biggie. As a casting director, I also [00:13:00] am letting you know you cannot ask it to. As a casting director, I cannot be the one telling you, "Don't be afraid; it's okay."

Now, obviously, as a coach, it is. But if I'm in a job situation, I cannot be the one nurturing you. That's not my job. My job is to cast the actor who knows they are doing a great job and who has assured me that they are in great hands.

That's what I need. I don't need to be validating your existence on this planet.

I have way too many other things on my plate. I need you to know you're good. And I need you to assure me. I'm in good hands.

This power that I've been talking about in the podcast before and in this one gives you the ability to get yourself to do what you want to do.

It gets you out of your own way.

It is empowering and ultimately, it creates a tremendous sense of serenity.

But guess what? It always. It always. is, it's always magnetizing.

It's like when in sports, when you see the person who breaks away and runs with the ball and crosses the finish line, or gets the goal gets the goal, or scores the touchdown.

That is so exciting. And it's also exciting when a casting director sees an actor be great at their work.

It just makes me want to cast them over and over again.

You do not have to be incapacitated by your fears. You do not.

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Fear and Bravery

One way to look at fear is that it is just a fact of life.

And I remember when I had so much anxiety as a child. And I used to think to myself, I'd be like, "If could just get rid of this. I just wish somebody could remove anxiety from me."

But remember that anxiety and fear were given to us for a specific reason: the sabertoothed tiger.

Because a long time ago, we needed to rely on our fear instincts.

I want to have some element of that ability to feel fear because, to be quite honest, I live near a mountain and these animals are around, and I need to be cautious; I need to turn on the lights, I need to make noise, I need not to be thinking about something else when I go outside at night and to be quite honest during the day as well. But really, at night, when I can't see anything.

So, I think again to understand that fear is something that was given to us to protect us and for us to know that we don't want to get rid of it entirely, but we also don't want it to rule our lives.

So Susan Jeffers, who wrote the fabulous book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, says, "the fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow."

Again, I talk a lot about comfort zones and that a comfort zone isn't something that is bad. It's just trying to keep us "safe."

And when I use the word safe, I'm putting it in quotation marks. I'm putting it in quotation marks because the fact of the matter is that life begins at the end of our comfort zone, but here's the biggie: so does success.

And in time management, and all my coaching, my private coaching, my group coaching, I talk a lot about doing that one to three things every day that makes you want to vomit in your mouth just a little bit.

Makes you just a little bit uncomfortable, just a little bit. Why?

Because then you expand your comfort zone and you build the thing that will help you with fear more than anything else: self-esteem.

One of the things that I also believe is that you can use fear to succeed.

Now, this might be impossible; hear me out.

If you start to look at or reframe the idea that fear is a bridge to success. It becomes easy to succeed. Just do everything you are afraid of, and then you will succeed.

And the reason why I think that we know what our next step is, we just don't want to do it. We just don't want to do it.

But the question I always pose to my clients is the following: how bad do you want it?

How bad do you want it? Do you want to give in to fear, or do you want to go after your dream? Do you want to give in to that fear in that moment?

Or do you want to choose the thing that will get you to the next level, which will get you to the success that you want?

And to do those things you are afraid of, and I call it rule number one and rule number two. Rule number one is to do everything you are afraid of.

Rule number two is when in doubt; go back to rule number one.

In other words, you can't get out of it if you want to grow or succeed.

So remember, the fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow. The only way to get rid of fear is to go out and do it, i.e., rule number one: do everything you are afraid of.

Rule number two: when in doubt, go back to rule number one.

Also, remember in that process of doing everything that you are afraid of or doing that thing that makes you want to vomit in your mouth just a little bit, remember this: you can babystep it.

It doesn't have to be all-out frightening. It just needs to be that next little step until you can feel that you can take that next bigger step.

And this can be done.

Now, not only will I experience fear whenever I am in unfamiliar territory, but guess what? So does everybody else.

And remember that doing things that you are afraid of makes you feel better about yourself and builds that phenomenal thing that only you can give yourself, which is self-esteem.

Of course, the problem is that you have to earn self-esteem from the hardest person on the planet to earn it from, which again is yourself.

"Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from that feeling of helplessness."

So, that brings me to catabolic and anabolic energy, catabolic energy is energy that eats you, that kind of that works against you, that destroys you.

Anabolic energy is energy that builds, strengthens, and expands. And again, that is the law, one of the laws of the Universe, expansion. The Universe wants you to succeed. The Universe wants you to expand.

Why? Because as you expand, it expands. You are a part of it. It is a part of you.

The lowest form of energy is catabolic energy and is the energy a victim. It's the "I can't. I can't. I won't. I'm not able. I'm helpless, and I'm hopeless."

And your chance for success when you are living in that energy is so low.

Then we have the energy of anger conflict.

Now, that is stronger than victim. And I am a huge believer because I've used it several times in my life that the energy of anger, yes, is a catabolic energy. Still, it can also be the thing that lights the match, that brings you into that first energy of anabolic energy.

Responsibility. It's like you get so sick of being sick and tired, you're like, fuck it, I'm going to change. And when you change, what happens then is you start to take responsibility.

With taking responsibility comes an understanding and a true learning that you can handle things.

You will never be given more than you can handle, but you will be given more than you can control.

And this a good exercise is, when you start to feel anxious or icky about something is, taking that step back and observing and asking yourself, "Am I handling this, or am I trying to control it?"

And if anxiety is involved, chances are it's control.

And again, when you are in that moment of anxiety, ask yourself, "What am I not taking responsibility for that could be causing me to feel this anxiety?"

Because you might be living under that fabulous line of the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness. Because you're not helpless.

You're not hopeless. It requires just a mustard seed of bravery. And the understanding of these principles around fear and around bravery to change.

You can change.

I only know it because I did. And I always say, "I never teach or coach anything that I haven't guinea-pigged on myself."

I want to remind you of two tools here that you can take away, and then I'm going to read you one of my favorite quotes about being brave.

I want to remind you that when you're feeling fear, if you can, take yourself out of the house or wherever you are. Go get yourself a cup of coffee or a cup of tea or an iced tea or whatever, just a nice beverage with pen and paper, and ask yourself, "Am I controlling? Or am I handling? How could I handle this situation?"

And if you need to, you can even make two columns: what am I trying to handle and what am I trying to control?

Because what you are doing when you do that is putting distance between you and the thing you are frightened of.

Is there something that you need to babystep in order to handle?

Again, take that step back, observing and saying to yourself, "What am I not taking responsibility here?"

You may find it might be something on the handle list, but you have been finding yourself just staying in that underlying fear from feeling helpless, in which case you are just making yourself miserable.

You're just making yourself miserable. And you are choosing to stay in that misery, and you don't need to do that.

Asking yourself, "Am I in victim? Am I in anger, or am I in the energy of responsibility?"

You are again stopping and taking that step back and observing where you are at with fear and where you are at with bravery.

My favorite quote of all time in my entire life and the most influential quote of my life is by Helen Keller. It says,

"To keep our faces toward change, and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate, is strength undefeatable."

The fear will not win, but we need to do the legwork.

We need to go outside of that comfort zone.

The following quote, which I love, is from Jen Sincero from The Badass Books when she says, "You're going to have to push through your fears, fail over and over again, and make a habit of doing things you're not so comfy doing.

You're going to have to let go of old limiting beliefs and cling to the decision to create the acting career you desire like your life depends on it. Because guess what? Your life does depend on it."

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Katie Flahive On Camera Class

Today, I am going to be talking about wisdom and choice.

A quote from William Jennings Bryan.

“Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for. It is a thing to be achieved.”

In life, we always have a choice, even when we don't feel we do.

When I forget that I have a choice, what happens is that I am making myself a victim to life's circumstances, or to even life itself.

Choice is the freedom to see things as we desire, feel what we want, and live as we create our lives to be.

So, the question is, are you happening to life or is life happening to you?

Now, I firmly believe that I am the copilot in my life. But the chief pilot in my life is the universe.

And I choose for it to be that way because the universe is infinite, whereas me, just of myself, am finite.

In each moment, I can choose how I want to experience life.

I can choose how I want to experience life, and I always want to be reminding others to do the same.

Another way to think of this in terms of choice is when you choose consciously, you are at the cause of your life. And consequently, when you choose unconsciously, you are at the effect of your life.

Jen Sincero from the Badass Books, she talks about the big snore, which is how so many of us are just going through our lives sleeping.

We're not as I like to call it, using our minds to govern our brains to make sure that we are making the wisest and the most conscious choices in our life each day so that we can create the best future for ourselves.

Victor Frankel, a survivor from the Holocaust, talks about in his book how, yes, he was a prisoner. But he still had freedom, the freedom within his head, and that's how he stayed alive.

By choosing to choose, to open yourself up, you are moving, even just in making that choice, you are moving from catabolic energy, that energy that eats away at you, that is almost decomposes you, as opposed to moving into that anabolic energy, which is that energy of Expansion.

And again, reminding you that the universe wants you to expand.

The universe wants you to achieve. Why? Because as you get bigger, it gets bigger.

You are a part of it. It is a part of you. So again, by choosing to choose, to make conscious choice, you open yourself up to moving from catabolic energies to anabolic energies.

Now I'm going move into wisdom and the concept that each of us is greater and wiser than we appear.

A quote from Bruce D. Schneider, who is the founding of IPEC coaching.

He says, “Look past your reflection in the mirror and see the truth. I am always, and in all ways, greater than I think I am.”

So, what if you are only operating at 40 percent of your potential and your capacity? I think a lot of people feel that. They might even feel less than that.

Just by, again, choosing to open yourself up, recognizing that you are starting to move into change.

You're starting to move into greater wisdom.

You have the ability to see, to sense, and to know yourself to be more powerful, more resourceful, and just a greater and more gifted human being.

In terms of an actor, imagine if you were so much more talented than you thought you were.

Because that's the truth. You have more talent. You have more gifts to give than you even realize you do.

But what blocks you are those catabolic energies, which block us from that universal wisdom.

Do not accept your limitation, whether that be physical, intellectual, or emotional.

Think outside the box and know that you have unique gifts to share, regardless of how you have seen yourself in the past.

It's incredibly empowering, to see the truth about ourselves.

We are not helpless or a victim of anything.

We're not helpless.

We are in Infinite Energy and that propels us to do more than we normally think we could or should do.

Now this new seeing of who you really are also helps you to set new standards.

The comfort zone is constantly trying to keep us the same and comfortable.

But tackling these challenges, whether it be running a mile or ten miles or tackling Shakespeare or starting a new career or a new relationship, it helps you to build self-esteem.

Which leads to, if you want self-esteem, do self-esteemable acts.

But I also need to say with this that we do not want to set ourselves up for failure, so I encourage the baby steps.

I encourage going as slowly as you need to take care of yourself, but still challenge yourself. Because ultimately, you can figure this out. You can find a way.

Do what you most don't want to do in a day first.

Or as I joke do the thing that makes you want to vomit in your mouth just a little bit to get you closer to your goals.

Because that will then give you so much energy for the rest of the day.

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About Mandy Fisher:

Mandy Fisher is a NYC-based full-time voiceover actor with over 15 years of experience in the industry. She has worked with brands like Crayola, Disney, Peloton, Coke, Walmart, and Kohls to name a few.

Her passion for voiceover and genuine love of helping people inspire her to work with actors of all stages of their career.

With a theater background, she brings her training to guide copy analysis and character creation. As an industry vet of 15 years, she has witnessed the changes and understands the ebbs and flows of the business.

Mandy created her own voiceover business from the ground up and has a successful and replicable model to help actors build their own successful businesses.

All of this adds up to a coach who can provide audition and career advice while helping actors become the best they can be!

Tell me about all the different types of voiceover that are out there today.

There's more than one thing that you can do as a voiceover artist. And so often, I feel like when people ask me about voiceover, they just automatically assume that I'm an animation or like on cartoons.

Or video games. And while that's definitely part of voiceover, a lot of my work is commercial and like what you hear on the radio or on TV and e-learning. Many companies I work with have videos that they need to show their employees, and that's a big part of voiceover that people don't necessarily like even thinking about, but then there's IVR, which is interactive voice response. So, when you call a business and you, they say, "Oh, thank you for calling Ikea, press one for the manager, press two for household goods."

That's part of voice of real people who get hired for those jobs. And do that as voiceover. And I know a couple of people who do that only, and that's their entire career, and they make damn good money doing that.

E-learning is a part of voiceover where a company will hire you for perhaps they want to teach their employees about some new policies at their workplace, or maybe a new product is launching. They want to tell the whole company who's not in product development. They want to educate the salespeople and the marketing people and all other kinds of people within the company; they want to educate them about the product or even sometimes it's. It's how to handle sexual harassment, go to HR with a complaint, or negotiate your salary. A company will want to have all kinds of modules so that their employees can learn, grow, and be better.

And especially with remote working being such a major part of the corporate world these days. They rely heavily on these videos and voiceovers to educate their employees and keep their workforce culture booming so that they don't feel like they're on an island.

There's anime, there's animation, there's commercials, there's radio spots, there's e-learning, and then the next one you were talking about was IVR.

Interactive voice response and IVR and telephony are two different things, but they go hand in hand. Telephony is when you call a business and they have a message; maybe for they're on holiday or vacation. "Thank you for calling the law offices of Dunder and Dunder. we're currently on holiday, and we will get back to you as soon as possible." That's a message. That's part of telephony, and most of the time, if you get a client that wants telephony, you can upsell them on the I V R or vice versa. But they're two different things, but they often go hand in hand.

There's looping, obviously ADR. And dubbing, many actors who are bilingual that's becoming its own vertical is bilingual voiceover because many people want to hire both the English speaker and the other language speakers for the same kinds of jobs.

What's radio imaging? Oh yeah, radio imaging Is the voice of a radio station, not the DJ. So, not the one calling out the music cues, "you're listening to be 93.3." It's the voice that you hear between the DJ and the songs that makes the station recognizable. So, when you hear that be 93.3, that voice, that person calling out the radio station, it's recognizable to you. You're listening to that station and not Z 100.

There's promo, there's medical, there's political.

Let's start with promos. Promos are promotions for TV shows and movies, but not trailers. Trailers is a different kind of voiceover, but promo is like, "Join us this week for a new episode of Family Guy Only on CBS."

Medical is complicated because it's all jargon. And a lot of times, you'll get a copy with all of these very technical terms or medications, and you have no idea how the hell to pronounce them, and you are rigorously googling, and yes, of course, you can ask the person that sent it to you, but nine times out of ten that person doesn't freaking know and then they have to ask the people that sent it to them, and there is this like long chain of response.

Often, it is so specifically timed.

ISI- important safety information, which is just the bottom half of that medical, of that medical promo that you're doing.

IPA is the International Phonetic Alphabet. , once you learn it, you can pretty much look at any word and break it down through these little symbols that help you pronounce words because they stand for the different consonants and fricatives and vowels and all that kind of stuff in a word, and if you use the symbols to write it out. You are then able to read the IPA as it applies to the words.

It's basically just spelling out the word the way that it sounds.

Trailers for movies most of the time. Sometimes short films but big movie trailers always have a VO. "Coming to theaters now, it's Spider-Man."

Video games and mobile fall under the same sort of category, but again, they're two separate things because video games for release on a console are different than a video game released on mobile, only in terms of usage, for performance, they're pretty much the same.

A lot of video games use actors for an entire franchise. I know one video game used 800 different voice actors for one game. So, it's a huge industry.

Toys and games. In the voices that you hear in those little books that have Press the cow. Moo.

A lot of Fisher Price or Mattel or little kid things that have voices.

Non-union and union work for audiobooks, which a lot of people don't realize that you can; if you are a union actor and voiceover, there are union voiceover audiobooks that exist out there to do, but I know a lot of people assume that most of that work is non-union.

So, let's talk about union versus non-union. Seventy percent of voiceover work is non-union.

So, many rules and things you might expect if you're a union actor doing non-union VO don't apply.

And sometimes, you find yourself negotiating a little bit more. It can be an education process, especially if you are getting clients on your own through direct marketing or social or outside of agents.

And I find that when I have to educate a client a little on industry-standard rates, they're receptive. But there is some pushback; that's just not in our budget, but maybe it will be for next year.

So that's something that you should keep in mind as recurring clients are how you keep your business going and how you scale your business is you want to keep them; you don't want just to have one client and then never work with them again.

So, suppose you can be a little compromising in those early stages of that relationship and understand that, okay, for the next time we work together. In that case, we're going to get closer and closer to those industry standard rates. That's one way to keep those clients in and scale.

So, you used a term that I don't know if many actors know, scale your business. Can you please explain what scale your business is? Grow it.

As a voiceover actor, if you are entering into this industry for the first time or if you have been doing it on and off part-time, it's making new connections, meeting new people, and finding out who needs to hire you, that changes the landscape of the industry has changed so much, especially when I first stumbled into it. So, keeping your ear to the ground and understanding how to grow continuously is important.

Guide to Commercial Voiceovers

VO Workout

The guide to commercial VO is for any voiceover actor who wants to learn more about commercial voiceover because there's lots of nuance in every single vertical of voiceover.

All the 15, 20, but they all have their own sort of ways of working, and what works in commercial is not necessarily going to work in video games and how you approach those different things. So, all of the skills behind the performance, as well as the skills behind the business, are in this course, and it's jam-packed with information at the end of it. One of my favorite parts of this is all of the people who participated asked so many amazing questions, and that right there is just, it is worth it to me, like those questions. That's why you want to get the replay.

Get up and work voiceover session; it's 90 minutes and quick and dirty. And it's ten actors we work with. TenI provide or so minutes at a time, and I provide commercial copy that they can use and choose whichever piece they want to work on and read through the copy.

I give them some notes in real-time, and we get to a place where we feel good about the work. Is it ready to send off as an audition? Sometimes it is. And sometimes we get to really great, beautiful places that we weren't in previously, but is it always that way? No, but it's about feeling good about the work, understanding the work, understanding the connections that you make, going through the copy, and being able to say, I know what story this is.

I know what I'm doing. I feel confident about what I'm doing. And that's the goal is to be able to look at commercial copy for the first time. No, history of looking it over for days and days, but seeing it and being able to make strong choices in the moment and then forgetting about it, letting it go, working in the moment, and then you're done and letting it go because that's such a big part of commercials.

And if I sat and stewed and thought so hard about every single audition I get every day, I would never make it through the deck. I would just be sitting here doing two or three instead of the 15 that come across my desk. And I would never get them out.

What keeps coming up when negotiating a non-union contract? In perpetuity.

What we're constantly seeing now in non-union VO specifically are exclusivity and in perpetuity, which again are two very different things, but we're starting to see them go hand in hand.

Now, in perpetuity means forever and ever. Exclusivity means exclusive to a certain category or product.

So, let's say you do a commercial for a toothpaste. And it's like a no-name toothpaste brand startup toothpaste. And they come to you, and they're like, "Oh my goodness. I would love for you to do our voiceover. We would like exclusivity in perpetuity."

This means you can never do any other toothpaste ever again for the rest of your career. So, they better be paying a big sum of money.

And if they're not, then you say, "I'm sorry, I can't work within those within those confines, but I can offer you 13 weeks at this rate or a year at this rate,"

But if it's in perpetuity for any kind of commercial, I stay far away from it. If it's in perpetuity for something like medical, I don't really care. Cause there's no competition there and there, the rates in medical are pretty good, so I don't really care, but in commercial.

Unless they're paying me some six figures for in perpetuity, then then I say no.

If you are trying to have a business, you must have the business mindset at the front and the performance mindset side by side.

What kind of mic do you like to work with, just out of curiosity? Yeah. I have Neuman U 87, which I love. It's beautiful and produces great sound, but I also have a Rode NT1, which is also great, and a DEDS mic, and I think that is just as good as the Sennheiser MK 14.

I use mics for different things for promo or medical. I usually use my shotgun deity for commercial. I'm usually using my Neumann for political and other things; I use my Rode; it just depends on where I'm sitting in my voice that day, what the work is, what I'm going to be doing.

What is direct marketing? Direct marketing is doing research, whether on LinkedIn or Google, or however you like to do research to obtain information about companies and people, and then reaching out to them and saying, "Hi, I'm a voice actor. Here's my shit. Listen to my shit. Do you want to work together?"

You are a salesperson, but are you a good salesperson, or are you a shitty one?

And that comes through trial and error and seeing what works and seeing what people respond to. But I find nine times out of 10, a lot of these people I'm reaching out to have a very good sense of humor. They don't have a lot of time, and they like to be sold to in a snappy way that gets to the point with maybe a little bit of cheek and humor and fun and call it a fucking day.

They don't want to go back and forth nine times about the last episode of Game of Thrones.

Maybe down the line, sure, but right now, they need to do what's best for their business, what's best for their company, their team, whatever. They don't necessarily want to go through a casting site, pay that fee, and then pay these people.

If they can work with you directly and you are good behind the mic, you're a good business person; you can do quick turnaround, you have good sound, they would rather work with you directly than going through all the fucking hoops through an agency or a casting site to find, and then scrolling through hundreds and hundreds of auditions to find the right person that they want to work with.

So, direct marketing is a great way for you to scale your business.

Your thoughts on AI. I think that AI has always been around for a really long time, not always, but for a very long time. And yes, it's getting better, smarter, and more capable, but I don't see it as competition.

I know this will be a controversial thought, but I think there are ways we can work alongside it, learn from it, and utilize it to better ourselves.

I don't think AI will replace voiceover actors in my lifetime.

Every person I've talked to who have at one point hired AI voices for their projects said that they regretted it and they would much rather work with a human being.

My father came up with a brilliant strike slogan, which is human stupidity is better than artificial intelligence.

Working with people in all sorts of stages of their career is not only fun for me, but it is exciting to be able to offer that wide variety of coaching to all walks of life.

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Private Coaching

So, Rosh Hashanah, Happy New Year.

I am married to a wonderful Jewish man, and this is the Jewish New Year.

You can restart your day at any point.

And I thought, you know what, it's Jewish New Year, and we could all use a bit of a restart.

I also love that it's coming up right after Labor Day; I think of it being, as I mentioned before, summertime is over, and it's, the school year has begun. So, let's try and infuse some energy.

So, what does restart my day, my week, my month, my year at any point mean to me?

It means that there needs to be some sort of an attitude adjustment.

Meaning that either I have been slacking on something I have been not aligning positive thoughts or positive action with my goals, which is one of the biggest things I talk about.

And I need to make an adjustment.

Free month of coaching

As a Chiropractor for the Mind, I adjust your thoughts so that they are in line.

In other words, getting you to do everything you can to work for you instead of against you.

And how does that relate to restarting your day at any point or restarting your year?

What we need is an alignment. An alignment to get us back on track to what it is we really want.

So today, I decided to give you the opportunity to restart your day at any point: your hour, your 15 minutes, your anything, your year, your month.

I think we could all use a year if you're an actor at this point, or a writer for that matter.

And I'm going to give you some quotes on new beginnings.

One of them is by Richie Norton. "Every sunset is an opportunity to reset. Every sunrise begins with new eyes."

What I love about that is a dear friend of mine would always say to me, "Peter, I am only responsible till I put my head on the pillow at night."

That's The only thing I need to manage; the only thing I need to handle is from this moment till when I put my head on the pillow at night.

Because when you put your head on the pillow at night, you reset. And when you wake up in the morning, it is every sunrise begins with new eyes.

Again, this podcast, this particular lesson, is about resetting.

It's about it being a new year. It is about new beginnings.

It's about adjusting. Adjusting to what it is you want in your life. And adjusting your thoughts and your actions to your actual goal. Because remember what I say, I talk about if your action is, I want to be a working actor.

I want to be a working actor. The thoughts of I'm not good enough. I can't do that. Ooh, that's tough. You know what? I'll do it tomorrow. Those kinds of thoughts are not working for your goal.

And therefore, it's going to be very difficult for your goal to succeed.

Last week, in the Weekly Adjustment, which is the Chiropractor for the Mind weekly group I do, I talked about an energy action model.

And I talked about what your chances are for success in terms of mindset.

When your thoughts and your actions do not align with your goals, you have a low chance for success.

But every day, you have a chance to reset. And I'm asking you today to challenge yourself to reset your year.

I love this one by Taylor Swift. "This is a new year. A new beginning and things will change."

Another famous quote I love is from Joseph Campbell: "We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come."

When you make plans, God laughs.

Because if I look back at how I thought my life was going to be, as opposed to how it ended up being up to this point in my life, it's so different and yet so similar.

I got to where I wanted to get to, but not in the way I ever thought I would.

At some point, I just let go, followed what was in my path, and didn't force it.

Do the next right thing. And that's another great slogan for you. Do the next right thing.

Notice I don't say, do the next thing, but do the next right thing. What's in front of you? What is challenging you? The most successful people do what they most don't want to do by noon.

Vincent Van Gogh. "What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything."

Here's another one that I love. "Holding on is believing that there's only a past. Letting go is knowing that there is a future."

You can restart your year at any point. What is your future going to be? And that is Daphne Rose Kingma.

J.P. Morgan, "The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you're not going to stay where you are."

Getting out of your comfort zone. If you are having trouble getting out of your comfort zone, I ask you to baby step what you want to do. What is the tiniest thing you can do to move you in that direction?

Because when you take a baby step, it's not, "Ugh, look, I'm so pathetic I have to take a baby step." It's not that. It's that, "Wow, I'm brave enough to move in the right direction. The direction that I want to move in."

Remember, your desire to either be a working actor or accomplish whatever you want comes from the Universe.

The Universe has to give it to you for you to want it.

You have the Universe behind you. Have the courage to take that first step toward getting somewhere.

Decide that you are not going to stay where you are at. Restart your day, your year, your hour at any point. You can do it.

I know you can do it.

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

Today, I'm going to talk about clear thinking in unclear times.

And I think that could apply to so many things. It could apply to our industry, it could apply to AI, and what's going to happen, it could apply to strikes, it could apply just to the state of the world.

So, let's take a second to talk about clear thinking and how to achieve it.

The Language of Letting Go

"Clear thinking. Strive for clear thinking."

Already right there with that sentence. Strive for clear thinking. For me, what that means is to strive for wisdom.

Strive for wisdom from the smartest part of me, my highest intelligence, because many of us have had our thinking clouded by denial or potentially our egos. Some of us have even lost faith in ourselves because we've spent some time in denial.

In other words, just like pushing things away so we don't have to think about it.

"Finances, career, love, life, so many things, but losing faith in our thinking isn't going to help us. What we need to do is lose faith in denial or lose faith in our coping mechanisms."

So many times, I've heard so many people tell me that they shove their bills into the drawer and close the door because they just don't want to face it or put it in a pile over the other side of the room so they don't have to face it.

Don't return a phone call because if they don't return a phone call, then it's just not happening.

Again, we are striving for clear thinking, and we need to lose faith in those coping mechanisms, the hiding our face so you can't see me or the pushing the bills into the drawer so they don't exist. We need to lose faith in that kind of stuff and start gaining faith in our thinking.

And in our ability to receive wisdom and clear thought from our higher selves, the universe, or whatever you want to call it.

We didn't resort to denial either someone else's problem or our own because we were deficient.

We didn't do these things because we were deficient.

"Denial is the shock absorber for the soul. It protects us until we are equipped to cope with reality."

Clear thinking doesn't mean that we're never going to resort to denial again.

Of course, not because we're human beings; we're not perfect.

Denial is the first step toward acceptance. For most of our lives, we are striving to accept something, and sometimes, we need to deny it first before we can look at it because we need that shock absorption.

"Clear thinking means we don't allow ourselves to become immersed in negativity or unrealistic expectations."

I have found that when I get negative, I am working against myself. I'm resorting to lower energies. I don't want to be operating in lower energies. I want to be operating with optimal energy.

I want to deal with reality.

What is so important is that we surround ourselves with other clear thinkers, which can sometimes be very painful because some of the people we love most in the world may be steeped in negativity, may not be clear thinkers, may not have a spiritual relationship with the universe, and that is fine as long as I continue to take care of myself when I am with those people.

I always call it putting on my bubble suit, staying in my little positive bubble.

But still being real and still being steeped in reality.

"Seek peace of mind. Seek realistic support. Ask for help from the universe. Meditate. Thank you for giving me some clear thought. Thank you for clear thought. Thank you for helping me to think clearly on this matter."

Thank you for helping me to think clearly on this matter.

That's all you have to say. Just say it doesn't matter if you don't know who you're saying it to; just say it.

"We keep our thinking on track by asking the universe to help us think clearly. Not by expecting the universe or another human being to do the clear thinking for us."

We need to access our own clear thinking. Because when we do that, we stay out of victimhood, and we take responsibility for our thoughts because we need our thoughts to align with our goals so we can achieve them.

And guess what else we need? We need our actions to align with our thoughts and our thoughts to align with our goals, and we need our actions to align with our goals.

"There is so much to learn. If we can be humble enough to just ask for a bit of clear thinking, thank you for guiding me to think clearly on this matter."

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Family and separating from family issues because when I think of back to life, back to reality, one of the things I think about is getting back to dealing with family issues and either the support or the lack of support or the lack of interest from family members in your acting career.

The Language of Letting Go

"We can draw a healthy line, a healthy boundary between ourselves and our nuclear family, and we can separate ourselves from their issues.

And I think that's amazing because I don't think I realized that I could separate my issues or anybody else's issues from me.

I thought anybody I spoke to their issue was my issue, and my issue was their issue. But that is highly codependent thinking and does not lead to a happy or successful life.

"Some of us have family members who are addicted to alcohol, drugs, or you know what, anything else, and they are not in recovery from their addiction. And some of us have family members who have unresolved codependency issues."

And I might also add those might be your unresolved codependency issues, which, when I think about the word codependency, I think of it in terms of I'm not all right unless you are all right.

And I judge how I feel based on you and just Tom Dicker, Harry Sue, Evelyn, Peter, whoever doesn't matter.

"Family members may be addicted, for example, to pain, misery, suffering, martyrdom, or victimization. We may have family members who have unresolved abuse issues or unresolved family-of-origin issues.

We may have families addicted to work, eating, or sex. Our family may be completely enmeshed or may have a disconnected family in which members have little contact."

And this is where it starts to hit. And I think the core issue here is that we may be like our family and love our family, but we are, and I want you to hear this because this is the biggest part.

We are separate—human beings with individual rights and individual issues.

One of the ways this was described to me is that if you have a highly enmeshed family, It's like a bowl of spaghetti, but nobody knows whose strands are who's.

It's one piece of spaghetti. It's so enmeshed that it feels, smells, tastes, sounds just like everyone else's issue in the family.

And also, when I say the word family, it could be community. Don't think that this has to be blood. It certainly doesn't.

Or your adopted family, your friends, or group of friends, keep in mind that's true too.

"One of our primary rights is to begin feeling better whether or not the other people choose to do the same."

O M G. Hallelujah. Let's sing it to the rooftops.

We have the right to feel better.

We have the right to our future. Whether or not other people in our lives choose to do the same or not.

We do not have to feel guilty about finding happiness and a life that works or going after a career that we are passionate about. I.

And we do not have to take on our families' issues as our own to be loyal or to show them that we love them.

I think that is also so huge and heartbreaking that on some level, maybe in the past, one has learned that I must go down that rabbit hole with that person to show them that I am loyal to them or that I love them.

"Often when we begin to care for ourselves, family members or friends will reverberate with overt and covert attempts to pull us back into the old system and roles."

So, one of the ways this was explained to me is that if you think of a bike wheel, all the spokes have a certain job.

But when one of those spokes decides, you know what? Not my life, not what I want. I'm not going that way. All the other spokes of the wheel get angry, which can feel like a tsunami upon you. It can feel overwhelming, and it can feel desperately lonely.

"We do not have to go."

Their attempts to pull us back are their issues; we must understand that their attempts to pull us back have to do with them, not with us. And I reiterate we are separate human beings.

"Taking care of ourselves and becoming healthy and happy does not mean we do not love them. It means we are addressing our issues."

It also means that we are going after our dreams, our universe-given dreams we have every right on the planet to pursue.

And the other thing is, and this is our part, we don't have to judge them because they have issues, nor do we have to allow them to do anything they would like to us just because they are our family, which means just because somebody is your family or your friend or someone in your life, you don't have to accept unacceptable behavior.

You do not have to accept unacceptable behavior from anyone.

We are free now. Free to take care of ourselves with family, friends, and everyone.

"Our freedom starts when we stop denying their issues and politely, but assertively, hand their stuff back to them.

Where it belongs to deal with their issues.

So, of course, everything I've just talked about has to do with boundaries, doing things that we may not be comfortable about standing up for ourselves. Self-worth. Self-confidence, self-knowledge.

That's a lot.

But we can do it. We can do it. And if you need help, Let me know.

Work with me privately

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About Rose Marie:

Official "Auntie Bear," Rose Marie is Peter's right-hand woman at Acting Business Boot Camp. She learned the budget system and used it to completely renew her relationship with money. Moving from the kind of person who checked her bank account with her eyes closed every few months to knowing exactly how she wants to spend her resources to serve her goals.

She learned this system from Mama Bear herself, which completely changed her relationship with money, empowering her to help others do the same.

Rose Marie's history with money and how she came to the Money Mastery Budgeting program.

I just felt hopeless. I didn't know what to do.

Money was coming in very irregularly because I was working many different jobs.

And I really didn't know how to manage my money at all.

This system has completely transformed the way I look at money. I have like a 795 credit score; I'm able to save. I have zero debt. I paid it all off. I have savings. I have a retirement in stocks.

The budget system has completely overhauled my entire life in terms of finances.

I started coaching for the budget coaching in 2017.

So can you explain what Jason Harris's budget system looks like?

It's figuring out your predictable monthly spending and how much it takes to run us at a baseline.

I'm not talking about any of the extras. I'm talking about rent, cell phone insurance. I include my gym membership in my nut because going to the gym is really important to me. And I cannot survive as a human being if I don't work out.

And then also figuring out how much money you have left over for your unpredictable monthly spending.

And putting it all together using the income you made the month before.

So instead of trying to live with, "the money I made now gets spent now."

Hand-to-mouth does not work.

It really creates so much stress in your life in a way that is just unbearable.

The amount of anxiety, stress, and yucky feelings about myself and who I am. I thought I could never make money. I thought I wasn't good at making money; I thought I was just not good.

I had such a fixed mindset regarding income, spending, and finances.

On the second night, Peter deals with all the yucky feelings that come up when it yucky feelings.

We tie money up in so much of our own self-worth.

You can think your way into Right Action, and you can act your way into Right Thinking.

And I think your part of the course is acting your way into right thinking, and my part is thinking your way into right acting.

So it supports the goal of financial freedom.

More money not a problem. Less money problem.

Gamifying your spending.

"I am gonna have extra money left over in all my categories at the end of the month."

But the other thing that you made me do, which is really revolutionary for me, and I know all of the world is such an internet, digital. We all live on our phones, and there are so many apps that let you do this: you made me carry a little notebook in my purse or my backpack everywhere through New York City, and I would write down every single thing I spent money on, and at the end of the day, I would subtract how much I spent money on, from how much I had left.

And the act of writing it down just made me so much more aware of where my money was going.

AND I didn't give up the first time I forgot to do it.

And so the thing that I really tried to separate myself from was having to do it perfectly for it to work.

The other thing I love about the budget system, you don't have to do it perfectly for it to work.

The goal is to get 1% better at it and not give up the first time you hit some resistance.

Because it's just numbers.

I'll never forget the first month when I was in the green. I was like, "Oh my God, I can do this. This is not outside of my purview. I am capable of creating a financial abundance."

Even if it was a hundred dollars, it doesn't matter. It was still a hundred dollars.

The other thing that I love about this system, in terms of building confidence, is all you have to do is follow the steps.

If it takes three months to get from the red to the green, that's fine. You're just working the system, waking up every day, doing it as we teach it, and eventually, you're like, "Oh, I'm a master at this."

It becomes automatic after a while.

When I started doing it, first of all, when Jason taught it to me, I started crying. I just burst into tears. It was humiliating that I didn't know how to handle my money. I felt like I was stupid. I felt like I was totally incapable, that I wasn't smart.

These were all the things that came up for me around budgeting. And I just felt defective, and I had a tremendous amount of shame around it.

And I told myself, "Swallow your pride, suppress your ego, and remain teachable and see if he's got something here that works."

If I told you how much I have in savings now and how much, you know, abundance I have in my life because of his system, it's incredible.

I'll never forget the first person who used the system to move from New York to la. And like all she did was run the budget system for a few months.

Making rules for yourself.

You have to plan ahead. Otherwise, you end up spending money that you didn't want to spend.

An easy exercise everyone listening to this podcast can do right now:

• Print off all of your statements from the last month,
• Highlight any time you made an impulsive purchase, or you had negative emotions with a purchase
• Also, highlight all the subscriptions and things you didn't know you were paying for.

What it allows you to do is it gives you some awareness so that the next time you have the impulse to spend $40 on a new shirt when you're out and about,

Or get that $7 latte, especially when you're trying to fix your finances and, in the end, you don't care that much about the latte.

I'm not saying don't indulge sometimes, it's important to indulge, but I think to indulge with an awareness.

But also, to get all those purchases you didn't feel great about afterward, they didn't turn out how you wanted them to.

You spent money, and then you're like, "Ugh, why did I do that again? I'm self-sabotaging because I have these goals, but I just spent $200 on this thing that won't serve me."

And just by doing that exercise, you begin to elevate your awareness and your thoughts so that the next time that thing comes up, you'll maybe choose a different thing.

Understand that your budget system is not trying to make your life hard.

You're trying to find something livable and create your income around that.

Because if you say, "Oh, I'm gonna live on $500 a month." Well, yeah, you're living on oodles of noodles and ramen.

It's not practical, and that's not the point. Not spending money is not the point of the budget system.

There's so much morality tied up in spending money equals bad.

The reality is that we live in a world where we need to spend money, and also, spending money is fun when you save up.

Fun funds:

• you're an actor saving up for headshots,
• saving up for vacations
• create monthly patterns so you can end up where you want to be.

I went to Italy for three weeks last year with my fiancé. And I saved up for a year for that. But when I got to spend that money, did it feel good? And I did not even care about spending it. This is the realization of my yearlong dream.

"The walls of your comfort zone are lovingly decorated with your lifelong collection of favorite excuses." Jen Sincero

Mine was, "I'm bad at math, so that's why I couldn't budget. That's why I'm not smart around money."

Separating your self-worth from your bank account.

Acting your way into right thinking and thinking your way into right acting.

Day one is the practicality of it. That's the acting your way into the right thinking.

And then, day two is my teaching the thinking your way into right acting.

And it's also that both your actions must support your goal, and your thoughts must support your goal. Both of those things have to be happening at the same time to achieve it.

That's the recipe for success.

Figuring out where did this shit come from?

Without both together, you end up stuck because you can come up with a million excuses for why you can't do the budgeting.

I didn't think it would work as well as it did, and I mean, countless other people have said the same.

And then my thinking shifted with other things in my life because if this is true, what else is true?

I can manage my money; what else can I manage? That I didn't think that I could.

Think about where your money's going now and where you want it to go in the future.

For example, when I started saving and investing, I put in $10 a week.

That is like nothing. But I knew that if I just budgeted for that, it would get easier to add to it. And add on to that. And until you save a hundred dollars a week to invest in things.

The other thing about investing is just sitting there making money off my money.

And the other thing that I help think it helps with in terms of anxiety is it gives you, if you know how much it takes to run you, you're NUT.

If you know how much you need in your NUT and roughly how much you spend on groceries and everything else, that's your unpredictable expenses.

Then you find your magic number, which we call the number that it truly takes every month that you need to make in income.

And so it also allows you to be empowered to choose how many shifts you need in a week in a month. That's on how much extra in gig work you need to make.

For freelancers, the money comes in different months differently, but it also allows you to be like, "Okay, I made an extra two grand working on this acting project. Now I have two grand. Well, what do I do with that money?"

This budget system teaches you what to do with that extra money when it comes in.

So then, in the months that you have less money coming in, you don't freak out. Especially right now because I know times are hard with the strikes.

But this allows you to feel like you have a sense of control, even if your work is unpredictable.

Your money situation can be really fucked up like ours was, and there is hope.

We do record this, and you can, like, you can watch the course as many times as you need to.

Anyone that takes the course can work privately with Rose Marie for $35 an hour. Because people get stuck, and I want them to feel like they can get unstuck fast.

Private Coaching with Rose Marie

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Today, I will read you something that a listener sent me, so thank you, Margaret.

I absolutely love this, and I'm going to read it just as it was presented to me because I think it's so inspirational about not giving up and also just it's about tenacity.

"Hi, Peter. I ran across this post on Twitter and had to share some good points. Didn't know any of this about the film Rocky. In 1975, Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay for Rocky. He shopped the script to every producer and studio in Hollywood but was repeatedly rejected.

Eventually, one production company, Chartoff-Winkler Productions, expressed interest, but there was one condition…

They didn't want Stallone to play Rocky. They wanted a "more marketable actor" for the leading role.

In fact, they were so desperate for Stallone to not play Rocky that they kept offering him increasing large sums of money to go away.

"It went up to $360,000," Stallone said, "to go away to get off my lawn, boy."

Stallone didn't take the money for two reasons:

1) "I had learned to manage on very little money," Stallone said, "I had it down to a science. I really didn't need much to live on, but more than that…"

2) "There was something about the idea of unrealized dreams, Stallone said, "I knew that if I sold the script, even for $500,000, I knew that after the money was gone, I would've become very bitter if I never realized my dream."

Money Mastery for Actors

This course is just like what Stallone is talking about. It's really finding what your magic number is and what it takes to make that. Do that repeatedly so you're not living hand to mouth so that when oh, a strike happens, you are not panicking.

So you have money. The money you make today is actually for the future, not for today. You're not living that hand to mouth, and you are cognizant of what is going on with your money.

So that gave him the freedom to say, "You know what I'm, I'm good, how I am. I'm good. How I am."

He goes deeper, and he talks about that money. Money comes, money goes, money comes, money goes.

He said he'd be very bitter once the half a million dollars was gone because he would've sold out.

He would've sold out his dream. Think about it, $500,000 or the career that Sylvester Stallone has had today.

Tom Rothman, CEO of Sony, says, "Be fiscally responsible so you can be creatively reckless. "

The trick is to be fiscally responsible so you can be creatively reckless.

Hollywood is a ruthless business. If Rocky failed, that likely would've ended Sylvester Stallone's acting career.

But because he had his fiscal responsibilities down to a science, Stallone could make the reckless decision to turn down the money and gamble his career on Rocky.

And this is the thing; if you are not worried about your money, you can be so free.

Because you know you're taken care of. You have that safety net. Wouldn't you love to have that safety net?

Now let's talk about the other takeaway.

Stallone turned down the money because he feared the bitter person he would've become if he never went for his dream. This leads me to the core work question: Are you really pursuing your dream?

And if you are not really going for your dream every single day, why not?

Why aren't you going for it? What is standing in your way? Oh, so good.

The screenwriter, Brian Kopelman, talks about why he finally started writing after many years of putting it off.

"What I finally realized was that if I allowed these creative impulses to die, It would be like a real death, and like any form of death, it would be toxic, and this toxicity would ooze out of me onto everyone and everything."

The core work has been fully responsible for me going after what I want to do. It's the core work. It's the work on myself. It's the self-confidence it's for; it's the part of me knowing in and of myself I am enough when I create.

I can also do so freely because I'm fiscally responsible, and that is why I hammer time after time, after time, after time after time about core work in these podcasts, because that is the key to your success.

So that you can say, "I am not gonna let my creative impulses die."

Okay. The final quote for you.

"If you don't take money, they can't tell you what to do. Kid. Money is the cheapest thing. Liberty, freedom is the most expensive." –Bill Cunningham.

If you didn't have fear, How would you go after your career? What would you do differently?

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Today we're going to talk about a humbling subject: feelings and surrender.

It encourages us to suppress our egos just enough. If you can, think of that game of limbo to get under the bar.

Can you suppress your ego enough to get to the lesson that the universe is trying to teach you on the other side?

And I think that that is so interesting as an actor because I always feel like a character is teaching me, but for the character to teach me, I need to suppress who I am a little bit. See what they are saying, and so allowing that character to come to me instead of putting myself on that character.

The idea of that character allowing and suppressing that ego just enough so that that character can speak through you so that you can truly be a vessel for the character.

The Language Of Letting Go

"Surrendering is a highly personal and spiritual experience."

And I just mentioned that because I think that surrendering to the universe is, is a very personal thing.

Some people get on their knees and they pray. I love to light candles. Some people go for a walk, and I think it is really finding. That ability in you to let it go just a little bit to let go of yourself and be open to what the universe, the character, whatever is trying to tell you.

"Surrender is not something we can do in our heads. It is not something we can force or control by willpower. It is something we experience."

And when I surrender, I feel it inside. I also think that if you can connect it to an action like getting on your knees or going for a walk or whatever it is for you, it's very important that you find what is personal to you.

So much of the core work that I teach is about teaching you how to have a relationship with a power greater than yourself or the universe, or whatever you want to call it, your higher intelligence, that will, in turn help you to solve your problems,

But I also think this: surrendering takes practice.

Surrendering takes practice. It's not something that happens overnight. It gets better with practice, and then it is truly like a key to a door that you can put the key in and open that up.

The key to surrender, the key to willingness. They talk a lot about this in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is, I think, one of the most spiritual books ever written.

And they talk about this surrendering.

"Acceptance or surrender is not a tidy package. Often it is a package full of hard feelings, anger, rage, sadness, followed by release and relief. As we surrender, we experience our frustration and anger at God. Or the universe and at other people, at ourself and at life."

Because what happens when we surrender is that we are giving up our control, and our ego does not like that at all.

"Then we come to the core of the pain and the sadness. The heavy emotional burden inside that must come out before we can feel good."

And I'm just going to share my experience with this.

When I first started core work, I felt like I had a gallon of tears that needed to come out through my eyeballs, and I wasn't going to get through it until it reached empty. But am I glad I did it? The rewards have been incredible.

"Often these emotions are connected to healing and release at a deep level."

I notice that when I can truly surrender, so much energy is released, and it is that energy, that pent-up energy that you just heard released, that stands in the way of me receiving the good and the abundance. The universe is constantly trying to bring to me.

"Surrender sets the wheels in motion. Our fear and anxiety about the future are released when we surrender."

Because the reason why our fear and our anxiety about the future are released when we surrender is because we give up trying to control it and accept that our job is truly just to manage it.

"We are protected. We are guided. Good things have been planned. The next step is now being taken. Surrender is the process that allows us to move forward. If you are stuck, surrender is the answer. It is how the universe moves us forward. Trust in the rightness of timing and the freedom at the other end. As you struggle humanly, we are humans through this incredible spiritual experience."

If you need help, If you need help surrendering or feel stuck, I can help you. If money is an issue, we have a free month of core work coaching available for you with The Weekly Adjustment.

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Learn More About The Working Actor Road Map

About Juan Carlos:

Juan Carlos Diaz is an actor born and raised in New York City. He began acting at the age of six in various school plays and musicals while in private school.

While still in high school, he began working at the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre under the direction of Miriam Colon Valle, which led to his first Equity production at the age of 17 at New Media Repertory Theatre, where he immediately became part of the children's theatre company there.

Juan Carlos holds a BA in theatre from Bard College, where he studied under the tutelage of JoAnne Akalaitis and Liz Smith.

His work can be seen in BULL, HALSTON, LAW & ORDER, LAW & ORDER SVU, The Last Thing He Wanted (with ANNE HATHAWAY), and many other TV shows and films.

I've always been a good listener so I can figure out the homework later and take notes.

I went for the audition, and then this went on for about two years. I would even get emails that he's pinned for this with just the name. And you start going, "Well, I haven't auditioned for that in months, if not a year. Okay, what's the name? Let me start doing homework." And then, eventually we got an offer, and it was a guest star spot.

It allowed me to understand what our mentors try to instill in us.

Sometimes it's waiting. I got a, "I can't let you go out on this, not this CoStar. I'm going to wait for something bigger for you."

I don't care if I'm one line or a scene. You're soaking in so much that you're going, "Oh, okay. What is that? That's the gaffer. What's he doing? Okay. Because I need to know this, right."

And be part of the collective. That show allowed me to connect with, it's one of its stars, Fred Rodriguez, and being a Latino.

It allowed me to say, "Hey man, I came out of college, and I didn't have hope, and I would see you on this show," I think he was on Six Feet Under. And I identified.

I thanked him because he is part of a seminal movement across the board in this disenfranchised world, and he helped open doors and be a part of his show in this capacity.

Not to mention, I have scenes with him.

Networking

You know, you'll run into a friend who you haven't done a thing with in a while, and then you, that might be a thing, or at least you're like, "Hey, let's stay in contact."

One of the things that you're bringing up is relationships.

It's finding those pockets of the right people.

And I think now I'm starting to understand networking way better, which is, I don't have to go and do this whole formal, like a date. It's my friend who has a film. I want to support that. Oh, now I have seen four other films. I'm going to reach out to the festival, and I'm going to reach out to the directors and say, "Hey man, love that thing. Identify with that."

It's also about being genuine with it. In other words, if you see a director's movie and don't like it, that's not a director you'll reach out to.

Only reach out to the people who you really, really like.

Something that was taught to me very early in my career, and unfortunately, it's much easier to say than to do and implement, is it's one audition in a lifetime of auditions.

So you bombed an audition, honey; there will be 10,000 of these after this. You may not think so, but there will be.

The other thing that you said is that, when you were talking about the spokes of the wheel, you know, I think a lot, a lot of times, the actors think they have to be the whole wheel. You don't have to be the entire wheel; you just have to do your part well.

One more brilliant thing that you said is this idea that you're coming in to a casting director, to an agent, to a producer, to a writer, to a celebrity as peers.

You're not trying to get them to like you.

There is no us; we are figuring out this thing and bringing our own ingredients.

If you want to get better, you have to have those conversations either with somebody who sees it outside of you. And or with yourself.

Remain teachable.

Measuring your progress.

I allow myself somehow to get back to the work, and because I'm so, in a good way, obsessed with it, it's what allows me to feel 100% truly alive.

Watching movies and tv to all creativity to come.

Read a play.

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I have a choice. I can get involved with the turmoil and, you know, continue to make it more miserable for others and for myself. Or I can stand for peace and reason and strength within myself.

It's really about keeping the focus on yourself during the chaotic times, especially when there's so much chaos around us right now.

The Language of Letting Go

"Letting go of chaos. No good work comes from unrest. Unrest, fear, anger, or sadness may motivate us. These feelings are sometimes intended to compel action. But our best work emerges after these feelings have been replaced by peace."

When I am too hot in my response or my reaction, I'm just getting into the problem and trying to control it.

A response is a reaction with a pause and a thought behind it. And really, what I'm talking about there is when I have given myself a cushion of peace.

Because I don't do my best thinking, I don't make my best choices when deeply embroiled in fear, anger, sadness, or some other huge emotion.

And again, what I talk about in the core work is working for you instead of working against you.

And I'm working against myself when I react because I'm hot, in flames, turned on by anger, fear, excitement, or any large emotion.

But when I give that cushion of peace, I'm working in tandem with the universe.

I light a candle before I coach, and I light a candle before I do a podcast. And I do that to create that cushion of peace, to invite the universe into something I'm going to do, or a situation that may be difficult because I'm reminding myself, I want the universe to be in charge of this, not me.

And that is how I can let go of chaos.

"We will not accomplish our task any sooner or any better by performing it out of a sense of urgency, fear, anger, or sadness."

Now my ego will say to that bullshit.

That is not thinking and acting and choosing my actions and thoughts with thought and intelligence, and with one of my favorite words, if not my most favorite word, wisdom.

Whenever I act impulsively, I am reacting and want to respond to my life. I don't want to react to it anymore.

Our reactions were given to us to save our lives.

Fear was given to us to save our lives, not to panic about things we're trying to control.

If you can understand how you are around these bigger emotions and be able to give yourself again that cushion of peace, wiser choices, choices with wisdom, can come out of that.

"Let go of unrest.

Let peace fill the void. We do not have to forfeit our power, our God-given personal power. Our universe-given personal power or our peace to do the work we are called upon to do today will give us all the power we need to do what we are meant to do when it is time."

And again, that goes back to that serenity prayer I've talked about so many times in our podcasts.

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

Which is really asking for the wisdom to know the difference between what I can handle and what I'm trying to control.

It is my job to handle this day. It is not my job to control it.

"Let peace come first, then proceed. The task will get done naturally and on time."

So basically, what that's saying is allow yourself to stop and invite the universe in. Invite that cushion of peace in and then proceed and trust that it will get done.

Take the actions, and let go of the result.

I have found in my past, in my early actor years, that when. Situations like a strike or a difficult situation on a set would happen. I could really get in there with the emotions, but I don't think that was really ever helping anything.

My presence at a picket is enough. My chanting is enough. If I am involved in the board and with the strike committee, fantastic. But I cannot control the strike.

I can't; I can support it. I can be there for it. I can thank my fellow members for participating, but I don't need to get so heated up.

I need to stand up for what's right, but I can do that better if I let go of the chaos and insert that cushion of peace.

I will stand a greater chance of being listened to if it's actually essential that someone listen to me because I'm only one member in an incredible, incredible union.

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Inspiration from Martha Graham.

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I take pride in this podcast that I just let you see me for who I am, a flawed human being.

Cause that's what artists and characters are.

I try to use these little mistakes I make as teaching tools on how to be kinder to ourselves.

"I confess that I had a burning desire to be excellent but no faith that I could be. Martha said to me very quietly, there is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action.

And because there is only you. And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly to keep the channel open.

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. As for you, Agnes, you have so far used about one-third of your talent."

A burning desire to be excellent but no faith that I could be.

Today, I taught a class for my core work coaching group, The Weekly Adjustment.

And I was talking about how when we make mistakes, we are not responsible for our first thought, but we are responsible for our second.

The first time I tried it, I was like, "Ugh, you're never gonna get it."

"You're not doing it right. Oh, this is a waste."

But somehow, I was able to say to myself, "Hey, this is the first time you've done it. Just get through it. Just take the action, let go of the results and see what happens."

Then I was brave enough to try it again the second time, and the second time it was easier.

And I was like, oh, wait a minute. I can do this.

I can handle this.

And not only that, and this is how it ties into the quote, I noticed where I was weak and what I needed to do to get stronger, or in the words of Agnes de Mille, be excellent.

See, it's not in strengthening our strengths that necessarily make us excellent. It is strengthening our weaknesses that make us excellent.

Great artists dive into what is difficult and try and solve it. Great athletes find what muscles are weak and try to strengthen them to get a greater performance.

"Martha said to me very quietly, there is a vitality, a life force, and energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action.

And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique."

I want you to think about that. There is only one of you. There is only one of you.

I remember I was going through a very, very, very tough time many years ago. And I made a decision to make it through that tough time. And I said to myself at that time, "If there is just one person I can help for even one second, my going through this will have been worth it."

It was the universe saying you have a message someone desperately needs to hear. You are the only person who will be able to translate that message to that one person to save their day or their life, or their career or help them along in that difficult day.

Well, I'm here to tell you that you have that too, and that's why you have a responsibility to yourself and the universe to express yourself uniquely.

She goes on to say, "And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and it will be lost."

Think of how tragic that is. Think of if Picasso never painted; if Monet never painted, if Martha Graham never danced, it would be lost. If Vermeer never painted.

Suppose Rembrandt had never painted if Spielberg had never made movies. If Charlie Chaplin never got on the screen, it would be lost. The world would not have it.

We wouldn't have E.T.; we wouldn't have Girl with a Pearl Earring; we wouldn't have Rembrandt's self-portrait. We wouldn't have the Night Watch.

"It is not your business to determine how good it is, how valuable, or how it compares with other expressions."

And, what it's saying, is it's your job to create it is your responsibility as an artist to create it is not your job to judge.

When you get on a stage as an actor, it is your job to portray that character, their wants, and needs, and be in the moment with their situation.

It is the most important thing in that moment. It is not what the audience thinks of you. That is your ego.

However, it is your business to keep the channel open.

You are on one side, and the universe is on the other side of the tunnel, and in the middle of the tunnel is all this junk.

And what core work is about clearing that channel. That's all it is. It's about teaching you to have a relationship with the universe that, in turn, can solve all your problems and, in turn, can inspire you always if you are open.

Now here she says something that I actually disagree with. Oh my God, I disagree with Martha Graham.

Now this is how you know I'm confident because I can actually say that.

"you do not even have to believe in yourself or your work."

I'm sorry, I disagree. I believe you do need to believe in yourself, and I do believe you need to believe in your work.

I think that is a necessity. It also leads to a happier life, but you can choose. You can take what you like and leave the rest on that.

"You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you."

Amen. Hallelujah. Martha Graham, sing it loud. Yes. Yes. Such inspiration. Let it motivate you.

Keep the channel open. Keep the channel open.

And then she says to Agnes de Mille, "As for you, Agnes, you have so far used about one-third of your talent."

That's the bit that just kills me.

Can you imagine if I am only using one-third of my talent? What the hell am I doing with the other two-thirds?

Why am I blocking it? How can I clear it out? Because my talent serves.

My talent serves, and that's not being egotistical or anything because, to be quite honest, my talent doesn't come from me. My talent comes from the universe. I want to be a vessel for its talent.

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Yeah. Shit, we don't have one strike going on. We now got two.

So, what are we going to do about it? Well, I think the first thing I'm just going to do is I'm just going to share with you my feelings about it.

I do think this strike is necessary. AI is terrifying for the actor, and I am so proud and honored to be a part of a union that recognizes that.

Having your image so that a company just can use it, however they want to use it is just unacceptable.

I don't think it's worth it.

So what do we do now?

Free Masterclass

The three pillars are the three things that I really think you want to focus on.

Two of them in particular right now.

One, you're acting training. This is not the time to slide.

This is the time to ensure you are still going to the gym.

This is the time to work out your actor body.

I have the Acting Business Bootcamp Strike Challenge that I gave all of my Weekly Accountability Group actors.

It's a monologue workout to keep you going as an actor.

I'm asking for you to get six monologues on tap. Okay? That means, just like you would pour a beer, you would pour this monologue.

So I'm asking for at least:

1. One contemporary comedic monologue
2. One contemporary dramatic monologue
3. One classical comedic monologue
4. One classical dramatic monologue
5. One Shakespearean comedic monologue
6. And one Shakespearean dramatic monologue

This is one thing that you can do for your acting career.

Another is reading the suggested books we recommend in our weekly newsletter.

You can do these things to keep you lubricated, to keep you going as an actor, to keep you motivated, and to keep your skills so that you are hireable.

The second pillar is the business skills.

Now, again, in that Masterclass, I talk about which business skills you need to be concentrating on.

And in this downtime, this is the absolute best time to get ready to go because, let me tell you, I can guarantee you two things.

One, these strikes will end.

This, too, shall pass.

Two, I guarantee you this: when it happens, the floodgates will open.

So you want to be prepared not only as a warmed-up, ready-to-compete actor, but you want to have all of your materials speaking the "Language of the Agents and the Casting Directors."

So that leads me to the last pillar I want to talk to you about to work on while we have this quote-unquote break.

That would be the work on yourself. And right now, I'm doing a free month of coaching.

Free Month of Coaching

That is teaching you self-confidence and self-esteem.

This, too, shall pass.

Everything is going to be all right, but let's use this time to get ready and prepare for those damn floodgates to open.

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Peggy's Improv Class

I'm just going to talk about scarcity.

What is scarcity thinking?

It's not enough. There's not enough.

There isn't enough work out there.

There isn't any work out there.

Jealousy is a type of scarcity thinking because it is not acknowledging that there is enough for everyone.

And this kind of thinking as an actor really only hurts you.

The phrase is, you take the poison and wait for somebody else to die.

And, you know, it's the same thing with scarcity thinking.

First of all, it's not true. Scarcity thinking is based in your ego thought. It's not based in universal thought. And I always talk about kind of like turning your internal dial to universe as opposed to ego.

The thing about me and my ego is that I know my ego.

Even though you think by the word ego, it would want everything good for me. I have learned over many years of studying this work and practicing it that it's actually quite the opposite.

If I need to choose between what the universe wants for me and what Peter wants, I'm going to choose the universe because I know that is the wider choice.

My ego comes from a very finite amount of thought and intelligence, and wisdom.

The universe comes from infinite wisdom, infinite abundance, infinite beauty, infinite possibilities, and infinite wisdom.

So when it comes to something put in my face, like a writer strike and a potential actor strike.

Because of that, because you know what I see as the quote-unquote reality, I must understand what it means.

Take care of myself in this plane, but also remind myself to tune my thoughts into the infinite abundance of the universe.

I'm not going to be destitute. I'm not going to be homeless. None of these things are going to happen. I won't lose all credibility in my business and the reputation I've built for over 30 years.

None of that is going to happen.

Strikes are survivable, and we can all manage what is happening in our industry today. We can manage it.

We can't control it. We can't control it. It is far beyond us as an individual for us to control these strikes, the existing one and the potential one.

But what I can do, what I can do is remind myself not to act out of scarcity.

But tune my dial in to the energy of the universe, to the infinite abundance, to the infinite possibilities, to the infinite beauty and expansion, and again, the abundance of the universe.

And use this time to create, use this time to reflect. Because isn't that better than worrying about something you don't have any control over?

Recalibrating you to Truth with a capital T.

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Free Masterclass

Today we are going to talk about celebrating

The Language of Letting Go

"Take time to celebrate."

Now the funny thing is that I rarely take time to celebrate, and I need to keep doing it more and more and more because it is in the times of celebration, and it's in our resting times that we are getting prepared to do and accomplish more.

But it's so important to reward ourselves. It's one of the things I talk about in time management to reward ourselves for all our hard work.

"Celebrate your successes, your growth, your accomplishments. Celebrate you. And who you are because through celebration, we are truly loving the self. We are truly celebrating who we are."

And isn't that what we are putting out to the business? We want to put out, "Hey, I've got this great product. It's me!"

I mean, isn't that what it's all about? It's show business. Let me show you me.

It's important to have joy.

"For too long, we have been too hard on ourselves. Others have spilled negative energy, attitudes, beliefs, and pain on you."

And guess what? It had nothing to do with you.

"All along, you have always been a gift to yourself and the universe."

We teach people how to treat us.

I was working with a private client today, and she was talking to me about how she'd been really doing this work with me and how she suddenly didn't feel like she had a lot of friends.

And I said, you know what? That's kind of part of the process.

And it is odd because as you get healthier, the unhealthy people in your life do kind of seem to drift off.

And there can be that period of loneliness, but it's in that gap that we are being prepared for healthier people to come into our lives.

One of my biggest universe moments or god moments, whatever the heck you want to call it, moments happened on my 25th birthday.

I had just started really delving into this work, and I spent my birthday alone.

I told myself, well, I'm going to do something I always wanted to do. And I took myself to the New York Aquarium. And there was an exhibit of Beluga Whales.

I have always loved whales. I was always so into whales when I was a little girl, and I went to the back of the exhibit, and there was this small porthole. And I walked up to the porthole, and this whale came by me. This beluga whale came by me, and then it came, swam around the tank, and came up the second time and pressed its eye against the window of this little porthole so that me and the whale were looking at each other.

Sometimes when we celebrate who we are, there are people in our lives who don't want to celebrate us with us, and there can be that lag in between.

And for me, that day, my best friend was that whale. And I will never, ever, ever forget that moment. And it stayed with me for a long time.

My birth on that day with kind of the most unexpected creature I could have imagined.

"You are a child of God. You are beautiful. You are a delight. You are a joy. You do not have to try harder. You do not have to be better. You do not have to be perfect or be anything. Anything that you are not.

Your beauty is in you just as you are in each moment. It's time to celebrate that when you have a success when you accomplish something, enjoy it. Pause, reflect, rejoice. Too long you have a listen to the admonishments. Not to feel good about what you have done, lest you travel downward, downward to the road of arrogance.

You're not arrogant; you're just celebrating you. Celebration is a high form of praise, of gratitude to the universe for the beauty of its creation. To enjoy and celebrate the good does not mean it will be taken from you."

Oh my God, I love that sentence so much because I always thought, well, if I get too excited, then it means it's going to go away.

That's such fucking bullshit.

"To celebrate is to delight in the gift to show gratitude. Celebrate your relationships, celebrate the lessons from the past, and the love and the warmth that is there today, even if it is you giving it to you. Enjoy the beauty of others and their connection to you.

Celebrate all that is in your life. Celebrate all that is good and celebrate you."

Be your own best friend. Take yourself out to somewhere you want to be you and only you and celebrate it.

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Okay, now what? We graduated, and there's a fucking writer's strike, and a pending actors strike. Wait, this is not what I showed up for.

I've been a member of SAG AFTRA for over 30 years and a working actress for over 30 years.

And let me tell you something, I've been through a lot of strikes, and you know what the greatest thing about them is? They end.

There is a lot you can do right now, and that's getting ready.

The number one thing I recommend to actors getting out of drama school is learning "the Language of the Agents and the Casting Directors."

If you think you learned it in drama school, I am here to tell you that, no, you did not. Chances are that you did not learn what the industry was like from the agents and the casting director's points of view.

Some of the things to know, though, is that yes, you are the newbies on the block, and you are fresh meat. Everybody's all excited about you, but this is the thing you need to know is there have been thousands of you beforehand, and the more you can learn to be professional, and what I mean by that is to not waste an agent and a casting director's time.

So it is best to keep your ears open and listen to what industry professionals are saying.

As a casting director, the number one thing I cannot stand is actors who waste my time.

And one of the ways they waste my time is if I'm in the middle of casting and I want to audition you, I need you to already know some of the things that I talk about in that masterclass because I don't have time to train you.

You also understand that if somebody goes out of their way to give you advice, listen to it.

That's why when people reach out to me over social media, if they make some kind of a blunder, I actually say to them, "Hey, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not going to take your submission seriously because you did this or that or the other thing.

A lot of people call me Pamela. My name is Peter. A lot of people say, dear Peter and Pamela, well, you obviously haven't done your research on me.

And if you are looking for me to hire you on a job, I would hope that you would know what to call me.

And I know that sounds like a really silly thing, but that's just kind of that immediately tells me that you haven't even done one ounce of a bit of research on me. You've got Google, the internet, do your research.

The other thing that I would say is that although you may have been told how special you were in drama school, you are entering a whole new realm here.

There are lots of special people here, and there are lots of really talented actors here.

One of the pieces of advice that I wish somebody had given me many years ago was, don't ever, ever, ever underestimate how good you need to be.

This means keep up your training and keep doing your warmups.

Keep practicing your voice. Keep going to dance classes, keep going to movement classes. Keep going to acting classes.

Finally, I want to talk to you about core work.

That's the work on yourself, and that's the hardest thing because when you are early in your career, you can be given phenomenal opportunities.

I was given some, and I'm going, to be honest with you, I blew it. I auditioned for two films.

I'll talk about the Jerry Lee Lewis film Great Balls of Fire with Dennis Quaid, and Winona Rider got the part I also auditioned for. For Say Anything, I auditioned for the Lily Taylor role in that.

First of all, I should mention I was very young. I was still a minor actually, when I auditioned, and this was the thing, I didn't have the confidence. I didn't believe that I was talented enough. I didn't believe I was good enough. As even a human being, I don't even think I got a call back for that one, and that's okay.

I wish I'd had the core work and the work on myself at even that young age because what I didn't understand was that I needed to work for me when all I was doing was working against me.

I remember going into the audition and giving away the part to every other actress in that room.

I remember being scared to meet this big casting director when I felt so small. There are so many things I wish I had worked on as a young actor, but more than any of them, it's core work.

I let my ego get in the way of giving a great audition. I was so right for that part. I could have kicked some serious ass, but my focus was in the wrong place.

Stop working against yourself. Start working for yourself. You can do this. You can do this, and although I understand you are coming to this industry in one heck of an interesting time period with AI and strikes and so much going on.

The fact of the matter is if you work for you instead of against you, you can do it.

Become a damn good actor. Be good at your job. That's what we, the casting director, are hiring you for.

Know "the Language of the Agents and the Casting Directors," I can help you with that in the Working Actor Road Map.

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You Can Heal Your Life

Letting the Past Hold You Back.

"Many people come to me and say they cannot enjoy today because of something that happened in the past.

Because they did not do something or do it in a certain way in the past, they cannot live a full life today. Because they no longer have something they had in the past they cannot enjoy today. Because they were hurt in the past, they will not accept love now. Because something unpleasant happened when they did something once, they are sure it will happen again today. Because they once did something that they are sorry for, they are sure there are bad people around them forever. Because once someone did something to them, it is now all that other person's fault their life is not where they want it to be today. Because they became angry over a situation in the past, they will hold on to that self, self-righteousness. Because of some very old experience where they were treated badly, they will never forgive and forget."

Ways that we use our past as an excuse.

Forgiving is not forgetting; it's letting go of the hurt.

When you are so angry at your past or at someone in your past, it's like you are taking the poison and expecting them to die.

Not even the universe can change the past.

If something happened to you in your past, it is important that you look back but don't stare. It is important that you trace it, face it, and erase it.

Let's talk about an audition that was botched up or a meeting that was botched up, or you were late, so you didn't get to do something in your career.

Always keep in mind that you are doing the very best you can, if you could have done better than you would've.

If you say, "Well, I could do it better now, you're probably right."

Letting the past hold you back is working against you instead of for you.

As an actor, this business is so darn hard. Why are you going to make it harder for yourself?

You don't deserve that. You deserve the very best the universe has to offer. Now it's time to accept that, and we accept that by starting to let go of our past.

Let me focus on today on the present so that I may create a better future for myself, a future that works for me instead of against me.

Because somebody else hurt, you doesn't mean you need to keep punishing yourself for that hurt.

It all comes down to self-love.

One day I realized this is the only person I can be. So let's have a love affair with ourselves.

Just because something happens to you once doesn't mean it will happen to you again.

I now look at challenges in my life as opportunities to grow stronger and to show myself that I am more capable, stronger, and smarter than I ever thought.

I think everyone deserves to be forgiven.

Forgiving ourselves is sometimes the hardest thing to do.

Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?

Forgiving is not forgetting. It's hanging onto the hurt, and this is the thing. If you're hanging onto the hurt, the only person you're hurting is you.

The past is over and done with and cannot be changed.

This is the only moment we can experience, even when we lament about the past. We are experiencing our memory of it in this moment and losing the real experience of this moment in the process.

If you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you're pissing on the present.

If there is something that you want to let go of. Write it down on a piece of paper and put it in a box. And then, in a month from now, look at it and see if you have let go of it just a little bit.

And in the process, be as loving to yourself, as good to yourself, and as kind to yourself as you possibly can.

Because I'm in your corner.

I genuinely am in your corner to make your life and career move forward instead of staying stuck in the past.

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Learn about Wendy's Class

About Wendy:

Wendy Allnutt trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She held the post of Head of Movement at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for 25 years and is a founder member of L'Oltrarno, Acting School in Florence. Other teaching credits include Colorado College USA, Conservatoire Stratford Ontario, Canada, Penn State summer schools, Laboratorio Internationale Teatro Degli Astrussi in Montalcino/St Mineato, l'Accademia SilviovD'Amico, Rome, LAMDA, Colby London Programme, BESG, and BADA.

Movement Director: Sky TV's Fungus the Bogeyman (2016), BBC's Walking with Cavemen, and The Iceman Murderer. Wendy has been the Master of Movement at Shakespeare's Globe 1st season and recently Henry V1 parts 1, 2, and 3. Revival choreographer for Welsh National Opera's Magic Flute (Out of Joint / RNT) She Stoops to Conquer and A Laughing Matter, Romeo, and Juliet & Private Lives (Mercury) Brothers Karamazov, Maybe and Private Lives (Manchester Royal Exchange) India Song (Clywd), Goliath, Voyage in The Dark, and A Wedding Story (Sphinx).

Bad Habits

Slumping

Animals into people

Being in your body as an actor

Just standing in the space. It takes quite a lot of understanding where your weight is in the space.

Do you lean forward, which gives maybe an air of anxiety or enthusiasm? I would hate to say that if you stand in a certain way, it is a certain thing. Right. But we do read bodies.

I work on trying to find a neutrality

Neutral plus, so that your body is relaxed in line and ready to go.

Your body and your voice, and your everything are ready to go. That's why you see so many British actors that you think are mind-blowing because they're ready.

Musicians train every day. The actors don't, and if you're lucky enough, you need to be ready to play Hamlet now.

Not in five weeks when you've done the work. No. Now. Yeah. And I think actors are a bit lazy about that.

Are you keeping up with your instrument?

It's about finding your inner self, your inner balance, and how your body works.

It's a tough old business. It's not a nice game to play.

We mustn't do mindless movement.

Maybe you should challenge yourself on the treadmill, run towards something, or somebody's chasing you. It alters the way you run on the treadmill.

I love it because it's talking about being conscious in your movement.

I think that if we can apply a little bit of thought to why we do something about finding the weight in a movement.

We have to keep the mind alive. There are so many things that block the mind off.

You're going to be exploring conscious movement, that one to warm up the body, but also that can be used in learning what the conscious movement of your characters would be.

I think you have to start with yourself. And discover maybe that your rib cage is very tight and that perhaps you can find a way to make it move a bit more. And also, if you change the thought, the quality of the movement changes.

So again, if I reach up and I want to hail someone over there, it's a different kind of reach.

That's what interests me about movement. How we move and why we move rather than just, it's an exercise.

So that is actually if you are going to play an old person just for argument's sake. Why is their body decreed? What is it about their body? What are they? What are they working against?

I mean, fears, for instance, in the Cherry Orchard. What is his body like? Is it just arthritis? What is it that makes his movements? And if you know the why and the how, then it's easier to inhabit the body of fears.

To be bringing questions to you.

The language changes the body.

A physical imagination.

Just try it. And try not to judge.

Variation is what's interesting. It's not about being a clone.

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Free month of The Weekly Adjustment Coaching Group

The Language of Letting Go

"It is important to identify what we want and what we need, but where does this concept leave us? Well, generally, what it leaves us with is a large but clearly identified package of currently unmet wants and needs, but we've taken the risk to stop denying and to start accepting what we want and need.

But the problem is now that the want or the need hangs there unmet. This can be frustrating. Painful, annoying, and sometimes obsession producing."

After identifying our needs, there is a next step in getting our wants and needs met. The next step is letting go of our wants and needs after we have painstakingly identified what they are and the steps to achieve them.

We let go. We give them up on a mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical level. It's not always easy to get to this place, but this is usually where we need to go."

I'm not talking here about giving up as an actor and giving up your dream.

What I am talking about is giving up the obsession, giving up the frustration, and giving up the pain, giving up the annoyance.

Because how often have I denied a want or a need? Then I went through the steps to identify my needs, only to become even more annoyed, frustrated, and challenged because I didn't have what I want and didn't know how to get it.

If I embark on a plan to control or influence getting that want or need met, I usually make things worse.

"Searching, trying to control the process doesn't work. I must, and I have learned to my dismay, need to let go."

This is very different from getting a practical plan of action, taking the steps, aligning the thoughts, and then letting go.

"Visiting our own head is like visiting a bad neighborhood because it's a place that works against us instead of for us."

I'm going to take these actions, let go of the results, and produce amazing results.

The more I hope and try to get it, the more frustrated I feel because I'm not getting it.

We often find that we really actually can have what we want and need or even something better. But sometimes, letting go is part of it.

Letting go of that obsession, of that frustration, of that annoyance, of that pain.

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Keeping at it as an actor.

For me, that means continuing to practice healthy habits as an actor, meaning a devotion to training, business skills, to core work, which is the work on yourself.

We need to work on these things with diligence, effort, and repeated practice.

But every time we go just a little bit out of our comfort zone, that's where we get stronger, and that's where our new boundaries end.

We can practice our acting training, do business skills, and work on ourselves even when we don't quote-unquote feel like it.

And again, I would say especially then, because if we don't feel we are worth it and we do it anyway, we are acting our way into right thinking and sending a very powerful message to not only to ourselves, but to the universe as well.

We can act as if it is worth it. We can act as if we are worth it, but we need to do it and do it, and do it, and do it, and do it day after day, year after year.

It's unreasonable to expect this a hundred percent commitment to your life and your career.

In fact, I dare say that success will come when you are ready. So that is why the core work is so important.

So when that opportunity comes, you know, in and of yourself, that you are enough.

We need to use our minds to govern our brains.

And especially using your mind to govern your brain when you find yourself getting tired, stressed, frustrated, et cetera, because that is when you will revert back to old ways of thinking and behaving that will work against you instead of for you. Getting you to work for you instead of against you so you can keep at it.

Building solid relationships in this industry. Understanding and learning how you tick and operate takes time. It takes self-love, it takes practice, and it takes time, and life experience.

It takes keeping at it over and over again.

One of the things my mom always said to me when I was a little girl and, um, things wouldn't go my way. She'd say, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

And you know when you do that over and over and over again, and just when you think you've got it, guess what you find out. You have more to learn.

But that's the beauty. That's the beauty of life. That's the beauty of the process of expansion. Keep training as an actor. Keep sharpening your business skills. Keep deepening your core work and learning more about yourself. Keep at it even when you don't feel like it.

Just keep at it.

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Today I'm going to talk about making it happen or if you're me forcing it to happen.

The Language of Letting Go.

"Stop trying so hard to make it happen.

Stop doing so much. If doing so much is wearing you out or not achieving the desired results, stop thinking so much and so hard about it.

Stop worrying so much about it. Stop trying to force, manipulate, coerce, or make it happen."

Now around an acting career, it feels like so much is out of our control, so I get it. The actor mentality is, well, I'm going to make it happen. But again, it's out of our control.

"Stop doing so much if doing so much is wearing you out or not achieving the desired results."

Recording a podcast, I need number eight, nine, and ten energy, and I was operating at four, so it wasn't working.

Also, there's obsession. Oh, obsession. You know, one of the things that I used to suffer terribly from was that my thinking was unbearable because I would just obsess about wanting to be a working actor or a famous actor, or I want this, I want that.

How am I going to make this happen? It was so toxic in my own brain.

Stop trying to force. To manipulate.

My thinking was crazy. So I would do, I would do, do, do, and force, force, force, even though it wouldn't get me the desired result.

I would think, think, think, trying to get the universe to get me what I wanted.

And I'm not talking about positive affirmations here. I'm talking about worrying, thinking, obsessive thinking, and stinking thinking. And all of this was about trying to make something happen instead of stopping, taking a step back, observing, asking myself if it was healthy for me or unhealthy for me to do this, and then maybe responding.

That is the anecdote to this. That is the way to change things around, and I do this at Acting Business Bootcamp by ensuring you're getting the best training, the best business skills, and learning how to manage this.

The obsessive doing and the obsessive thinking. Making things happen is controlling.

We can take positive action to help things happen, that's more of a response, and we can do our part, which, again, is a response, but many of us do much more than our part.

We overstep the boundaries from caring and doing our part into controlling or overcare taking or over coercing our careers. And this is the thing, controlling is self-defeating.

It doesn't work by overextending ourselves to make something happen. We may actually be stopping it from happening.

Let that land.

Wow. I wish I could return to that 18 or 19-year-old girl and teach her the lesson of let.

Not even God can change the past, and I can only coach you and teach you from the lessons I've learned because I know people, and I can see when I get myself into it that it just doesn't work.

It's painful to understand that when you have a goal, you need to align your thoughts and then align your actions in positive, affirmative, and effective ways.

You're gonna have to do a lot of un uncomfy things to get successful.

"Do your part. In relaxed, peaceful harmony with the universe. Then let it go. Just let it go. Force yourself to let it go. If necessary, act as if you're letting it go. Put as much energy into letting go and relaxing as you have into trying to control you will get much better results."

Learn to let things happen because that's what they'll do anyway. Learn to let things happen because that's what's gonna happen anyway.

And while we're waiting around to see what happens, we will be happier, and so will the people around us.

I'll be happier and have more energy to do the things that will be effective for my career and life instead of ineffective. So instead of worrying about whether agent x, y, or z will call that, I focus on something that will actually be effective, like reading a play or taking a class.

Think of that energy instead of staying home and worrying or staying home and forcing.

Let it happen. Take the steps, and then let it happen.

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David's Advanced Commercial Class

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.

Most of the auditions are self-tapes.

When do you make a daring choice?

The times when I didn't ask for permission to be Peter Pamela Rose. Those were the times I got the callback or maybe booked the job.

Really understanding how to interpret that script.

What is your relationship to the product?

When you have a theatrical text, it's your job to become the person on the page. And when you have a commercial text, it's your job to make the person on the page you.

It's odd because even though you are filming something, you are capturing a live performance.

It must still have that sense of spontaneity, that alive quality if something is 95%. Great. Or let's even say 90% great. You don't throw it out because 10% is not exactly what you would want it to be.

How many takes do you do?

What am I trying to achieve here?

They have to have performance energy, and they have to have performance commitment.

It's hard to develop a healthy perspective as to what they are looking for.

Ask yourself: What am I looking for when I watch myself tapes?

Go to an audition with the, "I can't wait to show you what I've got. Like I can't wait to show you what I have."

And I think in some ways if you can bottle that excitement in your self-tape, and I think there's a real trick there.

Dropping off the gift of your talent.

Are you someone who has strong ideas about what this performance looks like? Are you someone who makes choices? Are you someone who makes interesting choices? Are you someone who does something that's out of the box that gets their attention, whether it's something that ever ends up in the commercial or not?

It's a sense of self, and it's a freedom, and it's a joy in, in doing this that just, that comes through.

There isn't a tentativeness.

It's not your job to tell the audience how they felt about your performance.

I would always love it when an actor screwed something up or said something that wasn't in the script. And I would say to them, do you know that that happened? And they'd say, oh, really?

Improv in Commercials is different.

You want to be accessible to yourself.

How to handle one-liners.