You can have everything else in place, but without the right mindset, you won’t have a lifetime of success. Join Anna Vocino, Jack Plotnick, and Colleen Wainwright to learn the importance of a healthy community, tenacity, and focus. What is Friend Shui and why do you sometimes need to do it? How can your choices ensure that the phrase “struggling actor” no longer exists in your life? Find out now on Your Actor MBA!
Mindset: If your head’s not on straight, if you’re not centered, all the tools in the world won’t help you reach your full potential as an actor.
Community: Jack says it’s not hard to find your community. You just have to get out there and meet people (because your community can’t form from your sofa, no matter how powerful social networking may seem). Anna says that “keeping score is the kiss of death,” and Jack adds that “compare equals despair.”
Get Out of Your Own Way: Don’t let the negative, ego-based stuff rent space in your head. That’s valuable real estate and if you let negativity take up residence, it will spread like a cancer. Jack’s foolproof saying for combating this is: “I release and destroy the need…” (with the end of that sentence being whatever it is that you’re using to block yourself).
Tenacity: Jack Coleman told Anna, “Stick around long enough; they have to hire you.” It’s true, if you’re out there creating and building your community. Those of us who’ve been here a long time can tell you, endurance makes a huge difference.
Expectations: Come up with a release when you don’t book. “You don’t know what’s best for you,” Jack says. Being results-oriented will make you crazy. Give yourself time to grieve, acknowledge the feeling of loss, but then move on.
Friend Shui: “Sometimes, the ones closest to you are the least supportive,” Bonnie reminds us. Mitchell acknowledges that they mean well, but just don’t understand this business sometimes (see TIPS for Mitchell’s tactic to get his family up to speed with the journey). We teach people how to treat us, and we condition people to expect complaining or solution-oriented discussions from us.
Know Your Focus: Colleen tells us about a Sufi saying: “Comparison is of the devil.” It’s not possible for most people to avoid destructive self-talk every minute of every day, so the goal is to identify when you’ve “gone there” and get out and start creating again as soon as possible.
Struggling Actor: Who came up with the concept that artists must struggle? We hate this concept! Be more excited about the cool stuff you have going on than you are about the audition you have coming up. And get happy before the money starts flowing in, because money simply accelerates what you already are (happy, sad, addicted, whatever). You control your thoughts and every emotion is a choice. Decide how long you want to struggle and then decide to stop struggling.
Attitude: Mitchell talks about working with a life coach and choosing to go for five-year goals “right now.” Why wait? Go for it! Remember the kid in you who just wants to create, simply and freely. Remember at your core what’s important to you about this pursuit. Go have fun. Colleen advises, “Be a crappy realist.”
Gratitude: “Remind yourself how far you’ve come,” Mitchell suggests. Bonnie shares the analogy that acting at the professional level is like playing in the Super Bowl. Not every player gets to that highest level of excellence, and very few have names the general public will shout from the stands. But just by being invited to play—even if you sit on the bench—you get the ring. “Act worthy of the ring,” Colleen wrapped up.
When It’s Time to Quit: Jack asks, “If acting doesn’t bring you joy, why are you doing it?” Of course, so many decide to pursue acting but don’t spend much time actually acting and the pursuit is what brings them down. So, find ways to create to be sure you’re being fed, creatively, while you pursue. Remember that it’s okay to put acting on ice and come back to it later, if you want to. Your best years as an artist may come after a mental health break! You never know.
Jack says, “Your job is to do your craft. Find a way to be acting.” This goes back to last week’s episode on Self-Producing and how our guests stopped waiting for permission to do their art. Keep creating! Find a way. Showing the world that you’re an auditioner isn’t enough, according to Jack. You have to be creating.
Bonnie’s mission in life is to surround herself with the best people on the planet and make sure they all know each other, so magic will happen. If you know brilliant, creative people and want to be inspired, make sure those folks know each other. That also takes the pressure of you being a source of inspiration. You will be, by making those introductions, but you won’t feel that you have to be.
Anna says that “having a rich, full life helps you through the downs.” We all have the downs, so don’t try to avoid them. Instead, wallow in ’em when they come, get through ’em, and get back out there to create something. Being creative is the ultimate cure for Actor Funk.
Never set a timeline for “making it” in this business. If you say, “I’ll give it a year,” all you’ve done is set a ticking clock that will drive you batty. It takes time to build a career in this industry. Enjoy the journey!
Bonnie loves to ask any stressful situation in her life the following question: “What are you here to teach me?” Because there’s a lesson in there somewhere, and the sooner we get to it, the sooner the stress can dissipate.
Mitchell taught his mother how to use IMDb-Pro, so she could feel like she’s a part of his journey without always hounding him about how this audition went or how that callback went. By getting a broad overview of the industry and how long it takes for booking even that first co-star, your family members can become more supportive and more constructive in the types of questions they ask about your progress as an actor.
Know that family and friends want you to be happy. So, if you can assure them you are happy—even if “happy” doesn’t look like they thought it would, when they created a picture in their minds of how you could (or should) best find happiness—they should stop worrying as much.
Megan Mullally told Jack to figure out how to not need the job. Everyone has a different strategy for this. There’s having that full, rich life outside of acting, which we’ve already discussed. There’s reading. There’s doing things not associated with the entertainment industry that allow you to give back, selflessly. There’s meditation. There’s walking the dog. There’s creating your own work, which is incredibly satisfying and gratifying.
Jack says, “Acting is easy. Making a career out of acting is hard.” Amen!
There’s a Cherokee parable that Jack shared about two wolves, always fighting one another. One is all the “bad” (anxiety, depression, anger, bitterness), the other is all the “good” (creativity, love, hope, gratitude) inside us all. Which wolf will win the fight? The one you feed.
As Joseph Campbell says, “Follow your bliss.” Truly, if you do that, you’ll enjoy the journey.
This episode of Your Actor MBA with your hosts Mitchell Fink, Bonnie Gillespie, and Marci Liroff was recorded on August 8, 2010.