Hello beautiful people!
Let’s embrace our most castable brand!
See, many folks hope they’ll become A-list famous, and that’s a fine goal — it’s just one that (as we know from our work in Day 2), very very very few people will ever reach. So consider the thousands of actors who make a living — and quite a good one, at that — working maybe 150 days a year, being “hey, it’s that guy,” in most people’s minds, and never drawing the attention of the paps of TMZ.
Would that be okay? (It’s totally okay if your answer is no!)
Here’s what that looks like for someone who has — for more than two decades now — worked exclusively as an actor, supported his family, paid for his house, even had socked away college education money for his kids before they were in double digits themselves.
And how did he do it? For one, by being “that creepy guy.” By being OKAY with being “that creepy guy.” More specifically, by being aware that being “that creepy guy” was gonna be the check he could cash again and again and again.
He’s classically trained. He — like all actors — has range. In fact, he joked about that with the creators of Cougar Town in this great little feature for Vulture.
He has learned his value in the eyes of the buyers. Rather than running from the thing that he probably got teased for when he was younger, he takes it all the way to the bank.
He adds in physical choices that are nothing short of brilliant. He always finds joy in his journey. He even has a delightful sense of humor about some of the realities of “fame” at this level.
There is not a “famous” actor out there who hasn’t had many of these experiences and more. But when we daydream about our own fame, we fail to consider anything other than whom we’ll thank when we’re holding up something gold and shiny. I’m asking you today to do a little considering in all directions about the level of fame you’ve said you’d like to attain.
Then ask yourself if a much more realistic experience (still, a phenomenal one, a joy-filled one, a not-at-all-common one) would work. Would you be okay with folks asking, “Do we know each other?” when they can’t figure out what they’ve seen you on? How about being someone whose name is always mangled or forgotten? Are you cool with never again needing a non-acting job to pay the bills but never being a household name?
For my non-actors in the crew, this is the “Do I need to be a millionaire” question. For decades, I had a longstanding want: “I want to be a millionaire.” And that definition has always been: I earn $1,000,000 per year. Hmm. Then one of my coaches mentioned to me that I didn’t just have one business (the Self-Management for Actors empire, with a side of woo-woo stuff emerging); I actually have THREE businesses, each with the potential to bring in $1M in revenue each year.
After I settled myself down about my upper-limit problems with all of that (the gap between my beliefs and my desires just got way greater), I asked myself, “What do *I* want? What if, instead of three $1M businesses — or even one $1M business — I have one $500K business, another $300K business, and another… I don’t know… even $50K business and it’s filled with glee and joy because it’s easy?”
I immediately got lit up all inside my gut, rather than in my throat, like I would activate, when I would talk about why it was I wanted to be a millionaire. I could answer “Why do you want to be a millionaire?” with “I’ll be able to help more people, be more generous, change more lives, donate more books, transform Hollywood more and faster,” but it all felt tight in my throat.
As soon as I asked whether an easy three businesses — even with one of them “underperforming” by a lot, per someone else’s standards of what success looks like in a business — might be more like what I WANT, I felt such a sense of relief and even joy, and I knew, I had been living someone else’s vision for success even as I talked about what I wanted!!
Sitting between the oak trees at Oprah’s Santa Barbara ranch talking about my new book? WANT. Holding up something gold and shiny? Nah. I’m good. Donating tens of thousands of dollars to Planned Parenthood? WANT. Being on the best-seller list? Nah. I’m good. Getting honest with myself about what level of success feels good to me has done a lot to get me far closer to it.
Check with your own body compass for where you may be getting signals about your strongest feelings around all of this.
Basically, if you’re a doctor, are you cool making a great living doing what you love or are you only satisfied if you find a cure for cancer?
Extra credit: What’s your “creepy guy” brand reality? What’s the thing that you probably spent years running away from that may actually be what makes you a booking machine? What can you do today to embrace this amazingly castable bit of gold so that the buyers can sooner learn you’re down with being whatever your version of “the creepy guy” might be?
Have fun with this! It’s like fantasy role-playing, but better. Because we’re making it happen. 😉
Bonus watching: That Guy… Who Was in That Thing, That Gal… Who Was in That Thing, The Face Is Familiar, and America in Primetime.
Phew! Enjoy! And save some of this for later, wouldja? It’s a lot.
’til tomorrow… stay ninja!
