The Acting Business Boot Camp Podcast

Making The Most Of Casting Director Workshops

Two Week Monologue Slam

Three-Week Commercial Workshop

Time Management Workshop

Surviving Slumps

I'm talking about not only slumps in your career but also emotional slumps.

"A slump can go on for days. We feel sluggish, unfocused and sometimes overwhelmed with feelings we can't sort out. We may not understand what is going on with us. Even our attempts to practice recovery or core work behaviors may not appear to work. We still don't feel emotionally, mentally, and spiritually good as we would like."

 "Don't play yesterday's rehearsal."

When you're feeling shitty, you're trying to understandably recreate the feelings you felt so great about yesterday. 

But it's kind of like eating. You can't eat for yesterday, and you can't eat for tomorrow. You can't breathe for yesterday, and you can't breathe for tomorrow. The only day you can eat and breathe and drink for is today.

When I am in a slump or negative space, the best thing I...

Make The Most Of Casting Director Workshops 

Two Week Monologue Slam With Andrew Dolan

Three-Week Commercial Workshop

"If there is anything I've learned with the astounding amount of core work I've done, it's these three things: Give up living in the past. Be in the present. And don't allow yourself to project into the future." 

It's so freaking simple, right?

And yet I find it so hard.

"Not even God can change the past."

The mistakes I've made and my regrets, in some ways, informed the person I am today.

I don't want to beat myself up for that anymore.

Try to find the compassion and to really look at it and "go, wow, you are really scared. You know you are really brave."

Compassion, but also understanding how much strength it took to get through those difficult moments and then using that strength to help you in your present moments when you get scared.

So if you're someone who likes to live in the past:

• Look at those times
• Go back and listen to Episode 102; What is...

Upcoming Classes:

• Jason Sasportas
• Andrew Dolan
• David Cady
• Katie Flahive

The Language of Letting Go:

"Have you ever been around people pleasers? They tend to be displeasing. Being around someone who is turning themselves inside out to please another is often irritating and anxiety producing."

 "If you spot it, you got it."

So notice that if someone's irritating you, ask yourself, "what is it about that person that is irritating me? And is that also something that I do?"

"People pleasing is a behavior we may have adapted to survive in our family. We may not have been able to get the love and attention we deserved. We may not have been given permission to please ourselves, to trust ourselves, or to choose a course of action that demonstrated self-trust. People pleasing can be overt or covert. We may run around fussing over others, chattering a mile a minute, and when what we are really saying is, I hope I'm pleasing you. Or we may be covert, quietly going through life, making...

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Humility and being humble

Where is that balance between showing off, which is what some of the best Actors do, but then in the promotion or acknowledging success, finding humbleness?

That emotion of humiliation:

• I've been at this so long, and how come I'm not making a living?
• Or How come things aren't working for me?
• I feel so humiliated.

 "Humility was a tough concept for me to comprehend. Taught from childhood to place the wants and needs of others always above my own. I equated humility with taking care of others. And ignoring my own feelings and needs."

Being taught, you always think of the other person first.

And although that is a lovely concept, if you're always thinking of other people, you are drying up your own well.

The problem is you cannot give from a dry well. 

You cannot give money from an empty pocketbook.

Because when you truly take care of yourself, you can truly take care of other people.

And it is only when you have a full well that...

Negotiating conflict in your career and in your life. 

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

Melodie Betty's Beyond Codependency

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

Core work is about more than walking away.

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

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

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

It's about building and maintaining relationships that work. 

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

It is important to cultivate relationships...

What is holding you back? 

Anger towards the Industry.

When you have felt like:

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

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

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

From the book Courage to Change.

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

Learning how to deal with anger.

• Learning how to set a boundary.
• Write down your feelings.
• It's taking the heat out of the...

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

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beatty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can use your patience and feel the...

Katie Flahive's Free Demo Class 

I just don't have time to get sick!

How I deal with overwhelm.

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

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

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

Take your emotions out of your to-do list.

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

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

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

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

The fact of the matter is, is that we will never be...

The first tool when dealing with procrastination-- awareness.

Using your mind to govern your brain. 

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

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

Becoming aware of when you procrastinate and how you procrastinate.

Take your emotions out of your to-do list. 

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

Then we move to action.

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

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

One of the things that I started...

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Melody Beattie and her book, Language of Letting Go. 

Spokes on a wheel metaphor

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

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

The Bubble Suit:

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

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

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

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

And Melody Beattie says, "many of us have anger towards certain members of her...