Discipline to Talent

Leverage

What keeps you from doing the things you have planned to do? What keeps you from following through? What keeps you from having control of your time? If this is a problem for you then you might want a change. You may need some leverage to get that change happening. Leverage is acquiring the incentive necessary for change. I like to think that the four D’s are fundamental in creating the leverage needed to initiate a change. As you know the four D’s are desire, dedication, determination and, discipline.

Discipline

Discipline is not an idea of action, it is an action. Other fields of study offer educational programs allowing the success rate at completion to be much higher than the success rate of those pursuing acting. Any program that has created a curriculum of knowledge and the preset time slots for that knowledge to be learned has a much higher success rate. If you follow the prescribed course of study, attend preset classes, and do the work between the class sessions, your chances of succeeding within that education base are very good. What has been done for you is discipline. Someone else has taken the responsibility of knowing, on the average, how many hours are necessary to learn any given subject matter. Then labs sessions are set up between classes to assure you fulfill the time requirements necessary to, at least, have the opportunity to learn. You need discipline (use of time) to acquire the knowledge necessary in order to achieve the formula for talent.

Talent

Knowledge + Repetition = Talent. The amount of knowledge and the amount of physical repetition of that knowledge (to allow for the physiological process of knowledge transfer to energy and the resulting physical position to take place) may vary from person to person. As an actor your major talents can be summed up as having the ability to create a character and get a job. How different actors achieve this is based on different things. The abilities necessary to become a successful actor may be many depending on the individual actor. Those abilities can be instinct, learned or, more likely, a combination of both. However, they all require discipline. There are abilities and talents you may want or need as an actor. You may want to have the ability to do accents. You may want to have the ability to move well. You may want to have the ability to learn lines quickly. You may want to have the ability to translate the director’s vision. You may want to have the ability to understand the process of the collaborative will. You may want to have the ability to communicate with the powers that decide who gets hired and who doesn’t.

All of these abilities may come easily, in whole or in part, for different people. Therefore, the time needed to compensate for abilities that others “may already have” can require additional time for you. This time needed is nothing more than discipline and your understanding of it. Understanding discipline as the use of time on a regular consistent basis to achieve the knowledge and repetitions necessary to create a talent is important for your growth and change. You may want to understand what causes you to avoid the use of time for your personal growth and advancement. You may want to know what keeps you from using your time more wisely.

Procrastination’s Message

Why do you procrastinate at your own expense. The reasons may be something other than what you might expect. It could be lack of faith in you. It is possible you have a belief that you really don’t have the right to become special. It could be you have accepted a belief that you don’t have the things that the privileged have. This is not necessarily a conscious belief but it could be an active belief.

How do you conduct your life circumstance now? What patterns of behavior do you have that might indicate a lack of trust or belief in yourself? Earlier, when I discussed goals and their importance, I acknowledged that you may have avoided learning certain information about financing or job responsibilities because deep down you may not believe the information will be of any service to you. You may believe that when you need to have certain financial knowledge you’ll get it then, or hire someone who has it. However if you take the time to learn this information now you are giving yourself an expectation of need. This expected need communicates to the brain a message of reality.

As we have discussed your brain works diligently to prove you right. And you know the brain does not evaluate or discriminate against the information you send to it. For this reason, many of your acts of procrastination are strong indicators to your body that your efforts are not sincere and your true expectation of success does not exist. Become clear as to your communication with yourself, both conscious and subconscious, so you can remove certain patterns of behavior which undermine your efforts. Do not sabotage yourself. Your awareness of your use of time will let you know if you are.

To get the results you want you have to make the effort through time commitment. As I have stated many times before, the common denominator of all successful people in this business of acting is their knowledge of who the players are in their desired area of work. You know this and yet, something may be keeping you from making the effort to learn these names. Something may be getting in the way of organizing your time to acquire the knowledge needed to be competitive. That something would be discipline or the controlling of your time for an expected result.

The Lazy Factor

Many people like to hide behind the self deprecating concept that they are just lazy. Lazy means not easily aroused to action or activity. Yes, that is an answer but it doesn’t tell you why you are lazy. You do things for one of two reasons. You do them because they give you pleasure or you avoid them because they might give you pain. Where does lazy fit into these reasons? Lazy does not give you pleasure. You do not feel accomplished and worthy of respect when you’re lazy. Therefore, laziness is used to avoid something that might give you pain. Things perhaps like rejection, hurt feelings, self realization, etc.

There are any number of emotions that could come from not taking action. But laziness or procrastination or whatever you want to call it is an action as well. It is an action with guaranteed results. No need to concern yourself with the outcome. The results are constant. You know what those results are. On the other hand you know that the pursuit of this business is, like any other successful venture, based on the odds. The odds, in and of themselves, are a built in practice circumstance. Each audition that you go to, each reading that you experience, each interview that you have, are all helping to prepare you for the ease and ability to sell your wares when the time is right. You must have discipline to do this. Each act of discipline narrows your odds. And, you will know when the time is right when all of your efforts, your studies, your preparations, your experience, your lack of fear, come together to be fate’s way of giving you a chance to prove your worth. You are ready for the luck factor; preparation meeting opportunity.

It could be that a great deal of your procrastination, laziness and avoidance are the result of not wanting your lack of competitive talents being exposed. What are a few of the talents needed as an actor? There is a talent to take a character to make believe. There is a talent to sustain make believe. There is a talent to take an audience to make believe to free them from their pain. It should be noted that if you truly believe that you will be an actor then you can not be stopped from having the chance to prove it by anyone but yourself. No amount of rejection or disparaging comments can derail you from your path. In many cases, the sheer determination and knowledge learned from perseverance through discipline is enough to make success. The best way to insure you will become a successful professional actor is to first create a discipline for clarifying and evaluating your own talents.

Know Your Talents

Strengthening the talents that you have and creating talents that are needed should be your first concern. The best way to sell yourself is to be completely sure you know what you are selling. I am not only talking about the use of energy to move your audience. I am talking about the more practical aspects of your craft. I’m talking about the ability to have a clear character type that the audience can identify with in the process of telling a story. I’m talking about the ability to be believable within the demands of believability based on genre and medium. It is very difficult to motivate yourself when you might suspect you will only get your acting and abilities exposed for being under trained and under rehearsed. You not only want to know where you stand as a type, but you want to know where you stand as a competitor in this business.

The majority of aspiring actors will never ask these difficult questions nor seek qualified critiques. They tend to allow themselves to work with acting teachers who do not approach the actor’s ability from an objective position. They can’t. If they did they would be out of business. When you seek this information be sure to take classes with one result in mind. You want to be the best actor in the class. You want to be the actor who is always prepared and always doing the more difficult and complicated scenes. You want to be the actor that the other actors in the class want to work with. There is an irony here. There are actors who have a great talent for being the best actor in their class. Yet, the same actors may rarely work in the professional world of the business. This could come from a lack of self-worth and respect for their abilities. You want to avoid this by knowing when you have leaned what you need from that class and then move on. You are looking to know the truth of your dedication and discipline. You alone are aware of how much more you could be doing. You know how your time could be spent to get stronger results.

Many of your responsibilities as an actor may not be clear to you. You know you have to be able to show you can create a character better than anyone else seeking it. You have to be competitive. Being competitive means you have to compete. And, you must be eagerly willing to compete even if your competition level is not where you would like it to be. You want to know what is holding you back. You want to know what areas you need to strengthen. You want to get a talent for competing and as you know this is done through repetition. Each audition that you have is a path to knowledge. Knowledge is what will narrow your odds and lead you to positive results.

Risk Factor

Risk is the willingness to take a chance. You have to be willing to fall short at an audition. If you aren’t willing to risk anything you’re not willing to win anything. What you could risk? You could risk your comfort zone. You could risk your contentment not to be forced to face your competition level. You are a storyteller. You take a character from the written page and breathe life and believability into it. You use the knowledge of yourself, your ability to interpret the script, and ability to interpret the director and the other collaborators in order to create a character that you can take to make believe. You want to know the talents necessary to do this. You can find out what the talents are by application, process and risk.

Character Creation Formula

As you recall the formula for creating a character is A + B = C. The A is you. It’s your look, your age range, your voice, your body, your essence of good and bad, your personality’s point of reference. The B is the book. The B includes the written word and the clues to how that written word has been translated by the other collaborators including the director, the costumer, the designer, etc., to create a character that is true to you, true to the author, true to the director and other collaborators so it can be true for the audience. Remember, as the actor your initial audience is the buyer. Yes, that ugly commercial word that puts this craft on such a base level. However, it happens to be the reality of the business and the combination of these two elements creates C. Your ability to create a character is totally dependent of knowing everything there is to know about your A and how to translate and interpret whatever is needed by the B.

As simple as this may sound it is actually extremely complex. It is dealing with personalities, deceptions, fears, expectations, knowledge, confusion, and perhaps a thousand other human emotions when seeking the unknown. You want to be prepared by being aware of what works for you and what needs to be changed. It will take time designed by discipline to discover this knowledge.

Elements of Making Money through Discipline

Storytelling is a business that is supposed to make money. You are one of the elements the producer will use to try and make that money. Be able to make the buyer, through his representative (the casting director, the director, and the producer) believe that your understanding of yourself and your ability to work collaboratively will ensure them of your ability to fulfill your piece of the storytelling equation. Therefore, you want to know what your point of reference is to the audience. The buyer must believe that you can integrate into the character with ease and believability. If you have gotten to the second audition you have been accepted as the right type for the role by the casting director. This means that you need a talent for type, style, personality integration to create the buyer’s needs for the character.

The buyer (producer/casting director/director) will assess you abilities by how you make them feel about your audition. You want to know how you fit into the business to become a successful professional actor. It’s not a matter of the characters you could play but rather a matter of the character you can play. I realize this runs against the grain of many actors. It even causes some to lash out at the bastardization and commercialization of the art. You might want to be careful not to hide behind your respect for the art of acting. That is why you want to use your discipline to search out the science of the business and how you fit into it. You must know what you can and cannot do in order to broaden your abilities. You must seek this knowledge yourself. You know there are very few people who will risk your wrath by telling you the truth about your talents or lack thereof. Avoidance, procrastination, and laziness manifest because you allow it. Blinding yourself to the reality of your ability does not mean that others are also blinded.

It may not be easy to face the truth of your abilities and talents. You do not want to avoid the process of auditioning for fear of losing. You want to know, without doubt, what is keeping you from pursuing your chosen profession. You want to know if you are effectively competing within this business. You want to know if you are completely knowledgeable about your acting ability and your physical and personal point of reference for a character. You want to know your position of play in this profession. You want to know your strongest marketing positions. You want to know which media for which you are best suited and which types you are best suited to play. These are areas of talent. The avoidance of the knowledge is what may cause the procrastination and lack of positive action. This could result in not being hired and therefore not making any money.

Most of us work for money. It is how we survive. It is how we pay our bills. It is how we meet our financial responsibilities. Just because you are an artist does not mean that you can avoid this basic need of most of us. The people who are hiring you are doing it for a living as well. Your love of the craft, your love of the art, your love of the feeling it gives you must be tempered with the reality of any profession. You do not want to hide behind esoteric possibilities of purpose. It could well override your discipline to seek the truth.

Career Patterns of Behavior with Discipline

Look at your career patterns of behavior. Those are the career habits of your life that are basically your operating procedures. Look back over the last five or ten years and write down the patterns of your career actions. I promise you there were times when you were very productive. It could have been in college. You may have been involved in school politics. You may have been involved with fraternities or sororities. You may have been an active participant and policymaker during that period of your life. Are you using the same career patterns of behavior today? When you look back do you recognize any career patterns of behavior that were supportive of your achievements? Do you recognize any career patterns of behavior that were destructive to your achievements? When you look back at the times when you first realized that acting was what you wanted to do, what was going on? Where were you? Where you in high school? Where you doing a high school play? Where you doing a church play? Did you pursue acting in college? Or, was it in college that you ended up in a play and realized that this was what you wanted to do? How did you get the acting roles that you had before you realized you wanted to be a successful professional actor? Was it in a community theater? Was it in a university theater? Was it in a dinner theater? Where was it? Who cast you to play storytelling roles that gave you the belief that this acting thing is something that you are good at?

Acting is a legitimate profession and requires the same respect and discipline as does any other professional occupation. When you made the decision to pursue a professional acting career, you had to have experienced certain validating circumstances that led you to justify your effort to pursue this business. What were those validating and justifying experiences? Was it a local reviewer who saw your college production? Was it a reviewer who praised your efforts in a community theater or dinner theater production? Was it an effort made by someone to get a certain production done because they wanted you to have the lead role? Something in your past has led you to where you are today. You want to reinforce your belief that this is a profession that you should pursue. I want you to look at your use of discipline. I want you to question your motives. I want you to remind yourself of your motivating factors. I want you to evaluate those instances in your past when you were cast in storytelling roles.

The Truth of Your Acting Past

You are either an actor who has a history of local success as a storyteller or not. You know you can create a character and sustain it because you have done it before and you have been praised for it and encouraged to pursue it professionally or not. If you have never really gotten any acting parts of responsibility then no one has really had the opportunity to let you know if you are an actor. It is always amazing to me that in an acting class it is possible to have students who have a world of experience and others who have had none at all. And yet, both of these groups and the people who fall in the middle, are basically asking the same questions. They all seem to be searching for the same answers. Could it be that because you have heard stories of a truck driver being discovered at a truck stop became Rock Hudson? The pretty girl sitting at Schwab’s Drugstore became Lana Turner?

There are different reasons why different people find success in this business. You want to know what your reasons are so you can play on them. It has either been your looks, your body, your voice, or a combination of all that have led you to where you are to date and where you will go in the future. If a person has always been called absolutely beautiful, with a body to match, then they know it. However, just because their physical package doesn't detract from the fantasy of the character's expected image does not mean that a person, with no acting training, no past success, no praise from qualified acting critics, could get a storytelling role on a network soap opera or in today’s market of TV series and low budget independent films. That may happen but you can be sure that the odds of any of these efforts proving to be sussess producing is small. Looks and sexuality are only needed for a certain percentage of character types. If your company's product, you, has a package that is beautiful (male or female) then that just makes the position of play that you are seeking clearer. It does not mean that you have any better odds in the world of getting the job. If beautiful and sexy characters are not your best suit then you are most likely not going to play them. Nothing is worse than trying to go after character types that are suited for other actors. Being beautiful and sexy are fine but creating a character that happens to be beautiful and sexy is another game altogether.The storytelling process as an actor is about understanding character depth, story integrity, beleivability and focus. In the legitimate world of storytelling an actor may need to use sex and sexual fantasy but it still requires legitimate acting. You must understand how to discover the character's emotional and psychological history as clarified within your formula for character within the script. You want to look at where you are now and evaluate your position as an actor based on looks, body, clarity and ability. If you are blessed with beauty and sexual appeal then be sure you use your time for other talents for character development. You’ll want them when younger and prettier types try to replace you. You don’t want to wait until it’s too late.

You may find that procrastination and the inability to create action through goal setting is hampered by your lack of career information. You may be hampered by career confusion that comes from not really knowing what you are selling as an actor. You want a clear picture of yourself as a type or as a storyteller position of play performer. You want to use your time in a structured way to discover this information. The career patterns of behavior that are getting in the way of your progress could be either patterns that you have had all along or they could be new patterns that are causing undesired results.

The Reverse Process of Talent Using Discipline

The career patterns of your life should be supporting your goals. If not, then you want to change the career patterns. You may have used your motivation with discipline but as you showed no results, you slowly lost the discipline support of the motivation. If this has happen to you more than once you need to look for career pattern changes rather than new approaches to the acting process. Your moods and attitudes play a strong part in your ability to stay career motivated. They strongly effect the belief that you have a right to pursue this business because of your qualifications.

You want to know the patterns of your moods and how they are related or not related to your career efforts. Remember, these moods and attitudes don’t just happen. They are designed by you for a purpose. And, as you know, these career patterns are being controlled by either your spiritual self or by your primitive human self. Never forget that the duality of your life will always be a constant struggle. Your human physical self will always fight for the use of your life energy to protect the body by instinct. Your spiritual part, that is connected to all that is, will strive to acquire talents to control your life energy in a positive healing position.

It is very easy to get caught up in the moods, attitudes and resulting internal dialogue which become the career patterns that keep you away from pursuing your goals. This is made all the easier when you do not have the confidence, knowledge of ability and personal faith in your talents.

Career Habits without Discipline

Any emotional position or negative feelings can be the result of a career habit. This could be the code your brain lives by. Your career habits can create pain and limitation. Certain career habits like talking down to yourself, looking down at the world, allowing deflated body posturing, using drugs and alcohol are used to keep you from creating action. If you want to be happy then you must want to be happy now.

Your journey to a professional acting career will not lead you to happiness. You have to enjoy the process of the journey or you will be sadly disappointed when you reach it. For that reason, you may need to create new career habits. Analyze how you set up your physical and mental career and life habits. You know how you do this as an actor in creating a part. You want to be aware of when you are having these emotional experiences in your own life. See if they are career patterns. See if they are common responses to your career efforts. After all, as an actor you can do a character who is depressed. As a character you can do sadness. As a character you can do poor me. As an actor you can create characters that play the victim so well. See how often you are doing it in life. The characters that you create can benefit greatly from this knowledge if used correctly in your real world.

You want to discard career habits (patterns) that do not support your desire to be happy. Change what you’re doing. Do not let the career patterns and habits continue without being challenged by you. In your life you want to be your own director. You want to source positive responses from your body and mind. It is said man is made or unmade by himself. Make inspirational thoughts practical and real to your world. Discover what patterns you use to allow career limiting emotions to be used to support procrastination. You should know what physical and mental techniques you use to create the posturing needed to create a negative emotion for a character. Then reverse that knowledge and use it to know yourself. You want to use your mind to guide you to a happy life.

Actors who procrastinate with a myriad of emotional excuses should become aware of the techniques used to support their interaction so these techniques can be used in the development of a character. Procrastination is a bad behavior. It causes limiting results to you and others. Do not allow procrastination to be a viable option. Procrastination should never be an option. Procrastination is a value judgment you are making about yourself and it is certainly not a representation of the kind of value you want. The only way procrastination can be overcome is through discipline. How you use your time and energy through discipline is a key to knowledge and the physical repetition that leads to Talent.

Have a wonderful week.
Know that you are what you want to be. If not change it.
I wish you well.
Russ

Setting Goals for your Major Life Areas

Setting Goals for the major areas of life can be broken down into seven. They are:

personal
professional
emotional
spiritual
physical
intellectual
financial

As you now know you can have anything that you truly want. The keyword here is truly. What I mean are those things that you want and that you are willing to work. You have identified your wants in each of the seven areas. Now you can set goals. Always allow yourself to come from expectation. Be free to let your dreams manifest into realities. And know the achieving of those realities will come from the goals you set after the wants have been identified. I’m going to start with your professional life.

Your Professional Life

What is it that you expect to achieve in an acting career? What are the kinds of roles you want to play and what media do you want to work in? What are the media that are available to you as an actor and what are the job circumstances available? Which of these job circumstances are of interest to you? Which areas do you feel that you are already prepared to work in now?

Let me show you what your ideal day might look like. You get up early and do your housework as you practice your daily acting exercises. You go to the gym and conduct your daily physical workout. You go to an audition. You shower and dress for the day regardless of your schedule. You dress for the day based on your image department’s suggestions and your sales department’s needs. You take care of your personal and business correspondence for your PR department, your personal department and your sales department. You eat a light breakfast while you read over the trades or any articles that your sales department, education department or any of the other departments that have placed in your president and CEO’s daily briefing report. You have a light inexpensive lunch with a colleague to discuss possible projects or brain storm possible ideas. You go back to your war room and conduct surveillance of job possibilities and income generating work. You check in with your significant other and plan for a movie later in the week. You inquire about what is going on with at least one person in your life, personal and professional. You prepare for your weekly schedule of day player and extra work with your story moving company*. You get ready for tonight’s performance of your lead role in an equity approved showcase of a new play supporting your story telling company.

This is a schedule that you could be working on now. It is within your ability and reach. Of course, you may be further along in your career. That is great. Regardless of where you are, the key is making sure that your day is filled with all of the potential of your present circumstance. My point is you want to look at your ideal day based on your position of ability as a performer now.

Your current ability level might allow a day like this. You get up early to get to the set of your current project. You have a fitting for a promo for the show. You have a publicity session in your dressing room with a major tabloid. You have a brief photo session. Lunch is with a producer for new project under development. Coffee is with your accountant to discuss ways to invest your income. You have a meeting with a major commercial client for a European product campaign. Your agent is taking you to negotiate a new sitcom being written for you. You are receiving an award today for a project you have completed. You are doing a charity event where your presence will raise money and awareness of a particular human plight. You are going to your daughter’s eighth grade dance concert. Dinner will be with your significant other and visiting family friends. You finish the evening learning your lines for tomorrow’s show and then telling your children a story before you go to bed and express your grateful heart to the universe and your partner.

I believe that being grateful is a critical part to tapping into the abundance of life. Being grateful means that you appreciate all the good things that being alive offers. Gratefulness is a state of mind and body that comes from awareness, focus and accountability. Each day you should begin and end with being grateful. Being grateful is a feeling that can be achieved each time grateful thoughts are addressed. The feeling of being grateful can become a constant source of positive energy flow. Often the word gratitude is used for being grateful. Gratitude is the ability to be grateful. Often, however, it is confused with being “beholden” which implies having to pay respect beyond your birthright. Gratitude is thankfulness. It is positive and life affirming. Beholden is being under obligation for a favor or gift. I believe that the universe does not expect you to be obligated for the gifts the universe has to provide because you are a part of “all that is”. Gratitude should be a constant part of our awareness. To help you to remember have a gratitude rock or amulet to carry about. You see it each night when you are retiring and you see it in the morning as you are getting ready for the day. The gratitude rock reminds you to be grateful for the act and art of living. This gratitude is part of the secret of life’s abundance: Ask, Believe, and Receive.

Another critical aspect for your success is your level of ability or talent. Only you know your level of talent and ability. You may be prepared to have your own sitcom that lasts for 6 to 8 years. You may be prepared to have a weekly series in which your part is critical to the show’s success. You may be able to endorse a major product. You may have the abilities and talents to be a Broadway star doing comedies or musicals.

One thing that happens to many actors is that they overreach their ability. When this happens actors are not getting the progression of knowledge that comes with a step by step approach to this career. They may be avoiding one of the major aspects of a talent, which is knowledge. So, when you are making your professional goals they should reflect your current abilities and talents. They should reflect your current knowledge level. Your career goals may require that you gain additional abilities and talents necessary to make far reaching goals possible.

Your initial goals may need to be designed around your knowledge and the physical repetition to support your projected long range goals. It might be noted here that your knowledge base needs to be in place to create coincidences. As you know, many people, me included, believe coincidence is not related to the circumstance of the event but to the fact that coincidence has happened. I believe that coincidence is fates way of saying you are on track. It is a way of validating your actions.

Another aspect of your knowledge base is knowledge of the players. Remember, the one thing that all successful performers have in common is their knowledge of who the players are in the business. You don’t have to know these players personally. You just have to know their names and what they do in the business. If you don’t know who they are, there is little chance they will ever find out who you are. Get your “education department” working on this. Get your “sales department” working on this as well. This will be laid out in detail under the responsibilities for each of your departments. You should know which actors you want to work with. Which star actors could help your growth? Are they from television? Are they from film? Are they from stage? What do they have to offer as actors that makes you want to work with them? Who are the romantic actors that would work well with you? Don’t list star actors because you figure that if you work with them you’ll be in a major project. Be selective based on what you believe working with them would offer you. Which older actors you respect? Are there any dead actors that you wish you could have acted with? Clarify why you think acting with them would make a difference in your career. You may want to work with Ben Stiller. You may want to work with Matt Damon. You need to know who you want to work with and why. Identify how they would elevate your craft. What would they add to your marketability and talents? What directors you want to work with? Are they directors of film? Are they television directors? Do they direct for the stage? If you are having problems thinking of directors that you would like to work with, this would indicate that your knowledge base does not support your connecting to the universal flow of energy.

The common denominator of most successful people in any industry is their knowledge of the players whom they desire to emulate or work with. These successful people have been able to use this knowledge to draw to them those they desire to know. This is one of the ways that the universal flow of energy works. Therefore, whenever you see a production done well look for the director’s name. Write it down in your traveling notebook. See what else that director has done. Note what it is in the director’s style and taste that reflect your own. These are the people that are going to hire you. Know who they are and what it is that attracts you to them.

Know the directors that are working in the showcase theatres around you. Go see their work. If you like what you see, pursue them. Let your “sales department” pursue them. Let your “public relations” department woo them. Let your “education department” find out who and where they are. Identify which producers you want to work with. Identify at least three producers for every area of the business you wish to pursue. Select the producers that match your personal style and your personal enjoyment. Note that each medium will use the producer differently. Knowledge of specific producers can accelerate your circumstances to coincidence. Know what kind of things they produce. Know if they hire people in your style. Know if they produce for television, theatre and or film. Know who is producing at your current career level. You want to know if that level is Broadway, Off Broadway, Off Off Broadway, LORT, Dinner Theatre, Equity or Non equity theaters, equity or non equity showcases, acting company theatres, acting membership theatres, repertory theatres. How many of these acting circumstances do you know from personal knowledge? How many of these have producers that would hire you at your current level? How many of these will you need to know as your career progresses? How will the knowledge of these producers propel your career forward?

If you are having a hard time answering these questions because you don’t know producer’s names this is easy to rectify. But, it is telling you that a major path to career success that is free for the taking is not being addressed by “your company”. You need to know what teachers you want to work and study with. Do you wish to work with Mike Nichols? If so, what would he offer the “A” (actor) of “your company’s” formula? It doesn’t matter if it is Stella Adler Technique, Lee Strasburg Technique, Stanislavski Technique, Meisner or anyone else. What matters is that the technique taught serves the needs of the acting business today.

Once you can identify you current level of talent/ability, then you can see what goals you need to work on. Be clear as to what kind of classes you are seeking. Know what kind of teachers you are seeking and what knowledge you need. Know how to look for an acting teacher and how to audit their classes. Are you looking for a scene study class? Are you looking for a soap opera technique class? Are you looking for a commercial technique class? Are you looking for a film acting class? Are you looking for an acting style class? There are other kinds of teachers you might need to study with. Know their specialties. Know what talents they will help you develop. Character development and believability can only be supported by a coach who is in the here and now.

The quality of student in the class will reflect the quality of the information you will receive. Know what you are paying for. Know what additional talents you want to acquire. Do you want to pursue singing, dancing, fencing, marshal arts, stage combat, juggling, magic tricks, dialects, directing, producing, teaching, script supervising, editing, writing or stand-up comedy? You know which of these you already have at a talent level. You know which of these talent areas you have some training for. You also know which of these areas of talent would help you move ahead in your career. Therefore, you can now set goals that will move you toward a path of success. Don’t forget to include joy in your professional goals.

Emotional life

Now let’s explore your emotional life. You should be able to identify what your emotions do to and for you. They may be supportive of you or they may get in your way. You need to be clear as to just what your emotional life means. Identify which of your emotional states are the most powerful. Know how other people, those close to you, would describe your emotional life. Know if you get angry easily. Know if you distrust people. Know if you feel it’s all pointless. Identify which emotions reoccur in your life on a daily basis and the patterns you follow on an emotional level. Know if anger is a constant companion. Know if annoyance is a constant companion. Know if aggravation is a constant companion. Identify which emotions from the following list are with you regularly:

Belligerence
Depression
Happiness
Hopelessness
Jealousy
Loniness
Moodiness
Nastiness
Sullen
Savage
Intolerant
Selfish
Cruel
Selfless
Caustic
Vulnerable
Victimizer
Willfulness

Can you tell what affect the emotions you identified have on you? Which emotions are enabling, limiting, distracting, draining, disfunctional, and presentational? Which emotions are supportive, empowering, enjoyable, gratifying or liberating? What are the specific advantages and disadvantages that some of these recurring emotions offer you? What affect do those emotions have on your efforts to achieve a successful professional acting career? Now, identify what emotional states you would like to have working in your life that would support a successful professional acting career.

Remember, your recurring emotions have the power to imprison you or to set you free. Some recurring emotional states can inspire enthusiasm. That could include joy, expectation, anticipation and controlled passion. Are there ways to achieve your desired emotional states? Do you know what goals would create new emotional states that increase your expectation of success as an actor? You want to pursue the goals such as setting up time to look for the qualities you want in other people. Set up time to look for desirable qualities in TV characters, film characters and stage characters. Try to avoid your negative comments. Try to avoid the irresistible urge to criticize others.

Make the goals life affirming not life afflicting. Become aware of your current emotional patterns. Become aware of how your emotional responses affect your efforts. Perhaps you can have people in your life give you their observations of your emotional patterns. It may not be easy to hear. They may tell you things that will trigger the very emotions you want to control. Your friends/family can be profound allies at this stage of your work because you want to be aware of the emotions that are triggers to bad behavior. There is a natural desire to defend yourself from their observations. To remind yourself it is a good idea to write down on a piece of paper your desire not to respond emotionally to the information you have solicited. Do this before committing a friend or family member to telling you how your emotional manipulations have caused a certain response. Agree to make no response during their observations. When they finish thank them for their support, rather than swear you will never speak to them again as long as you both shall live.

Understanding your negative emotional presentations are important on two levels. On one level they are important to your career. Understanding your emotional presentations can make the characters you create have dimension and interest. On another level they are important to your personal life. Understanding your emotional presentations will help you avoid annoying those who can guide and support you.

By identifying your emotional behavioral patterns you can begin to understand how they support or undermine your efforts to become a successful professional actor. For example, your emotional states are either drawing people to you or pushing them away from you. Your emotional outbursts may reflect your belief that others are responsible for your lack of career development. No one can keep you from pursuing your goals but you. And, the obstacles that you face can be traced to your perceptions and patterns of excuse. Remember, once you know what your normal emotional behavioral patterns are then you can determine how they manifest themselves in thought. You don’t want your thoughts to put you in the blame game. You don’t want to get into the habit of blaming fate for your lack. These blame game thoughts are indicators to you of the frequency of energy vibration with which you are transmitting and receiving. Thoughts of expectation and anticipation, instead, will assure you of a connection to positive universal energy.

What emotional beliefs in your life need to be addressed? Do people constantly disappoint you? Do you think of yourself as a victim? Do you wear your feelings on your sleeve? Are you volatile? Are you depressed? Are you excitable? Do you have high’s that are too high and low’s that are too low? Do you let the normal odds game in this seemingly insensitive acting business make you annoyed and negative?

Change your own thoughts to bring your body to those vibration frequencies you desire. If your own energy is working against you because of your lack of emotional control, use your acting talents to create those positive feeling and vibrations that will attract the same to you. Accompany it with visualizations. I promise you will see a difference.

Remember that your brain works to prove you are right. Therefore, any instructions that you are giving it that are counter to your hope for the future must be recognized and eliminated. You can replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts, even if these positive thoughts are not based on your belief. You have the ability to trick your brain into working for you!

One thing that will help is to take your traveling notebook with you and note each time you catch yourself responding negatively. I believe you will be surprised by the number of negative responses you have allowed yourself to experience. Set goals that will help to change this pattern. Create goals that will change your emotional life to support your life choices. For every negative thought you need at least two positive thoughts to counter its effect. You can use goal setting to make sure that you are overriding negative thoughts with positive thoughts and positive emotional responses.

To open up to a more powerful life energy flow, trust your own experiences of happiness and feelings of success. Use these positive feelings to strengthen your control over your emotional life. The only way to be sure that these positive emotions are given equal time is to set a specific time to experience these positive emotions, even if it is only an act of simulation. Remember, the brain will not know the difference. Trust that the positive emotions and resulting feelings are important to your taking control of becoming a successful professional actor. The goals that you set for your emotional life are critical to your success. These goals lead to a conscious effort that gets results by implementing positive emotions. End blog 36

Financial life

You know if you are where you want to be financially. You know if you have the financial means of securing the financing needed to pursue your goals as a successful professional actor. To make sure you have control of your financial life. You want to know where you want to be financially six months from now. You want to know where you want to be financially five years from now. You want to know what preparations you are making to be prepared for the investment and security of your expected earnings. You want to know how to be prepared to have your financial responsibilities met on all levels. You want to know how to be prepared to make your finances work for you. You want to know how to be clear about investments in stocks in bonds. You want to know how to read a financial sheet. You want to know how to understand the futures index. You want to know about mutual funds. You want to know about high risk verses low risk commodities.

I want you to look at your financial situation from where you are now in preparation for where you expect to be in the future. What financial investment opportunities are available to you right now? They could be over-the-counter stocks, real estate and art works or collectables. Start investing moderately now for the purpose of learning how it is done. This will serve two functions. It will send energy of expectation into the world. It will prepare you to enjoy taking care of your money and watching it do what money does.

You may think money makes the world go ‘round. You may think it takes money to make money. You may think money can cause conflict. You may think money can ignite greed and corruption. You may think money is often hard to make. You may think money is the root of all evil. You might consider that if money isn’t being parlayed it will evaporate. And, if you leave your money in the hands of others you may well lose it. So, think about this a moment, based on your personal experience, what do you think would be required of you if you had a lot of money? This would include paying taxes, balancing your checking account, maintaining your savings account, investing in your IRAs, getting your investment portfolios set up, etc. Are there money terms that you could not explain? Do you know how the American Stock Exchange works? Do you know how NASDAQ works? What advice would you seek for your money? What do you know about brokerage firms? What do you know about financial advisers?

Maybe these financial areas have been avoided because money doesn’t interest you. If it doesn’t interest you it can only be for one reason. You do not believe that financial information will ever be of importance to you. You may not really expect to have the kind of money that will be needed to be put to work. Like many actors you may be unaware of how money works and what it can and cannot do. Your financial life needs to be part of the game you enjoy playing so to avoid those who make you feel you don’t know how to handle and control your own finances.

Learn the financial game as you pursue your career so you don’t become a victim of financial predators. Use your expectation of financial return to motivate your career moves. Figure out ways to support your own career efforts so you build a financial portfolio while you are building your career. Today you have more chances to secure a financial future and avoid being dependent on the middle man. Take advantage of your understanding of financial and creative opportunities for yourself. Know the different types of storytelling income-generating possibilities available to you. For example, you could create a one-man touring show. You could tour schools, churches, professional clubs and businesses. Learn specific buyers. Learn how you can have access to a TV station or video equipment. You could create a local advertising campaign for someone in your hometown. One goal might be to find out how many money making possibilities are open to you. You might be able to write something. Or, you could charm someone to write something for you.

As an aspiring actor being a waiter is a fine occupation if you know why you’re doing it. I know many waiters and waitresses and I find that there are two types. There is the professional waiter who can earn in excess of $100,000 a year. I also know diner waitresses who work long hard hours to eke out a minimal living. I often find some actors look at waiting for a living from the latter. I even know actors who have become so protective of a good paying waiting job that they will miss auditions or stop pursuing their careers all together in fear of losing that job. For this reason you might want to look at your present financial situation and evaluate your priorities.

Money is many things to many people. It can give you a sense of pride and acceptance. So, make sure your financial situation is designed to support your goals. Remember, it is not money, but the love of money that is the root of all evil. In relation to money you should first assume that money will come. With that in mind make your financial goals as clear and possible. Learn how to read the Wall Street Journal could be a goal. Look for a better paying survival job could be a goal. And, make your goals interesting. Know how to anticipate the financial rewards from your efforts. Make goals for money that are supported with gratitude and expectation.

One of your goals should be a budget. Make a projected six-month budget and a projected one year budget. Be sure the budget includes paying you for your services. Be sure it includes 10% for charity. Your budget should reflect your expectation of expenses. Not having a budget might indicate that you don’t believe you really need one. If you don’t anticipate making money then you might be correct. Not having a budget, where you come out in the black, could indicate a fear that you are unworthy of financial success. You could be conditioned, like many actors, to believe you are incapable of dealing with the financial world. If so, you could find yourself prey to countless people who feed on your talent, stroke your ego, and empty your purses.

Your financial life is where your security and your family’s security lays. Nothing is more depressing and effects your self-esteem more than not having the finances to meet your personal needs and the needs of your family. Many a talented aspiring actor has been forced to leave this profession in order to secure work that provides more financial security. One of the ways to avoid this is to keep your responsibilities and obligations to a minimum as you start your career. It is difficult if you have obligations that take away from your goals. Try not to burden yourself with credit cards or high rents. Try to keep your personal expenses low so you will have money to invest in your career education and development.

Remember to address your financial life objectively and completely. Identify where you are now and where you want to go financially. Know how to control the finances you have today in order to control your finances tomorrow. Look at the money opportunities within your career or supporting fields.

You should be prepared to spend 80 hours a week for the first six to ten years as you pursue this career. That is how many hours a professional person spends between education and practical application. If your 80 hours a week are needed to get you out of debt or free of college loans, so be it. If your 80 hours are needed to save money for a self developed project or image and education, so be it. Every hour you ignore will be one hour more that is working against you. Set your financial goals to make the money needed to pursue this career effectively. Make goals to find career related ways to secure money. Also make goals to prepare yourself to handle the kind of money you plan to make!

Physical Life

Your physical life includes your body, your health, and the other aspects of your physical instrument, both inside and out. As a performer your body is your instrument, the condition of your instrument is important. How you maintain your body is of primary concern. Given that this business has no retirement age, as long as you are physically fit and shave the stamina needed to endure, you may work forever. You should set goals that will involve making your physical instrument stronger, healthier, and more peaceful. Design a comprehensive exercise plan. Set goals that will lead towards an empowering physical life.

As you know the use of breath control is a major element in the creation and sustaining of any character. If you are a smoker set a goal to rid yourself of that habit. It drains you of energy. It deprives you of the breath control needed to make your character’s life more powerful. Creating a routine of breathing exercises will also benefit you greatly.

Identify positive things you can do to support your physical being. You can go to the gym on a regular basis. You can maintain your body to be competitive in your age and type. Your type doesn’t matter. If you are a character actor who plays heavy characters, that does not mean that your oversized body should not be in shape. It should. Take power walks. Cycle. Roller blade! Know what things you can do to keep you fit.

Learn about food. Eat fresh foods. The longer food has been removed from its life base, the less value it has to you. You want to take advantage of the life energy that is in the food. Identify what things are negative to your physical body and that hinder its ability to work at peak level. Do you sit in front of the television and snack? You might smoke. You might drink to excess. You may eat whatever you want. You may avoid steps. You may always take a car or a taxi rather than walk. You may take advantage of the easy modes of transportation. You may avoid the gym or you may stay away from anything that looks like physical labor.

Your body is what your company must use to create believable and exciting characters. It is important that you know what you are doing right now to keep your body fit. It is important that you know what things you’re doing that work against that effort. Then you can create goals that will enhance positive physical efforts and that will limit those things that cause harm or disempower your physical being. Take stock of the way you treat and support your physical body… from exercise to diet… from abuse of alcohol and drugs to the use of vitamin supplements and nutritional therapy. Know how much rest your body needs. Know what things your body can and cannot tolerate so you can keep your body in the best shape possible.

Remember, all areas of your physical body need to be addressed. The condition of your skin, your hair, your teeth are all areas that must be maintained and protected. Once you have taken a complete inventory of all aspects of your body then you can prepare a plan that will lead to supporting your efforts to become a successful professional actor. Every physical goal you set will bring you major return because your instrument is valuable to you. The better you treat it, the longer it will last. Take care of your instrument and it will take care of you!

Personal life

Your personal life has been created by you to give you comfort, love and support. Your personal life is your connection to others, to your relationships. Explore your relationship with your wife, your husband, your lover, your parents, your children or your significant other, your friends. Do you get the kind of support that makes you feel good about yourself? Are you happy with your current relationships? Do your give your relationships your best efforts? Do your relationships draw attention away from your professional efforts? Do you use your career to hide from your personal reality? Do you feel unloved? Are you searching for a soul mate to share your life? When the art of living begins your soul mate will find you. Do you know your children if you have them? If you want to have children, make sure that they fit into your career plans. If your children’s well being will be sacrificed for your career efforts, think long and hard about the real reasons you think you want them. Know how children will fit into your desire to become a successful professional actor.

Explore your loyalty to your personal relationships. Know what you think is a normal personal life. Don’t try to maintain a normal personal life while seeking a successful professional acting career. Know what a normal personal life means to your significant other. Know what responsibilities you have to your spouse, to your children, to your lover, to your parents, to your significant other, or to anyone in your life. Know what is expected of you by your personal relationships in every area of your personal life. Know how much of your time and financial resources are spoken for in order to fulfill those personal responsibilities.

You may realize that you have neglected certain areas of responsibility. You may even have justified these areas by being cruel or defensive. You may find that the guilt you feel for your not fulfilling all your responsibilities is doing more damage to the success of your career than you imagine. Set goals that will allow you to fulfill your responsibilities. Set other goals that will keep you vigilant of the sacrifices that others may be making in your personal life. These sacrifices must be acknowledged as debts to be lovingly repaid as your career moves toward success and your fortunes change. Make sure the goals you set for your personal life support what a personal life means to you.

In your personal life your closest loved ones, your family, your friends, must get as much as they give. At the present what they get from you may be your constant appreciation for their support. It may be making sure that you remember birthdays and anniversaries and other events that are important to those closest to you. If you don’t you may find that the price you pay for a successful acting career could be the love and respect of those you hold most dear. Do not forget that you are responsible for giving these gifts as well as receiving them.

Make sure that each goal you set for your personal life supports the sacrifices of others in your life. Their support for you during your aspiring years is fundamental to a state of mind that will lead to success.

Spiritual life

This area of your life is often misrepresented and misunderstood. I believe the spiritual life is the most important part of your existence. It is the connection to all that is in the flow of the power, abundance and bounty of the universe. Do not confuse religion with your spiritual reality. Many people have found certain ideas of religion to be counter to their beliefs and understanding. As a result they may connect anything that deals with spirituality to these religious concepts and prejudices. Your spiritual life is that part of you that longs for the comfort of universal energy.

It can manifest itself in many different ways. It is the part of you that seeks growth and understanding. It is the part of you that understands compassion and love. It is a part of you that has no fear. It is the part of you that recognizes the vast wonder of life and countless gifts of the universe. It is the part of you that recognizes the oneness of us all. It is the part of you that recognizes the power of the human will in the physical plane. It is the part of you that recognizes the universal energy of all that is. It is the part of you that knows where we come from and where we will return. Understanding your spiritual life and its power to help make your goals come true is of great importance. You want to know that prayer is the process of communication with the universe. Prayer, in this sense, has nothing to do with religion. The universe is not controlled by gods who deal with prejudice or conformity. Any doctrine that says “do unto others as you would have them do unto you… except for those who dance to a different drummer” is not in harmony with the truth of the universe.

Use the concept of prayer to motivate, guide and change the direction of your life by bringing you a stronger and more fulfilling life. Prayer is a communication between you and the energy of the universe, filled with knowledge, power and guidance. Prayer is the process of giving thanks and asking to be part of the quantum physics of reality in the universe. Know the things in your life that are spiritually based. Organized religion could be part of your spiritual base. If so, fine. But, do not let any negative beliefs you have about religion keep you from communicating with the universe. That communication is your birthright. That universal communication does not belong to fundamentalist looking for a quick fix for their emotional pain. Spiritual support should bring you comfort and peace. It should guide you toward your journey to be a successful professional actor.

There are many forms of spiritual expression. Meditation is a powerful connection to the spirit. There are new age concepts. Buddhism is a wonderful form of spiritual exploration. The writings of so many spiritual leaders are also available. There are hundreds of ways to practice and express your spiritual life. You want to understand the concept behind the practice of all of them. You want to understand the common denominators of all of these practices. They are all methods of focus to put your life energy into a rhythm, a harmony, a flow, that connects to the energy of all things. And, it is in that flow that the power to comfort, heal, forgive, understand, grow and succeed exists.

The joy in your having a talent for going to make believe is that in that talent position you become a conduit to the universal flow of energy. You become a source by which people can be given a respite from their pain and suffering. Your audience can be disconnected from their internal dialogue of confusion and frustration. Your audience can be released from their locked position of their life energy to a place of comfort and safety. When you take your audience there, you are the spiritual flow for them. The actor’s job is a deeply personal and powerful responsibility. Not allowing yourself to experience the power of your spiritual gifts would be regrettable. Therefore, set goals that will allow you to become aware of the beauty and power of your life energy. Set goals to help you focus on your spiritual development and your need to be consciously aware of the divine flow of all knowing universal energy. And, make sure the spiritual practices you now experience do not limit or restrict your gifts of love and compassion for all mankind.

Acting is the oldest form of healing known to man. Understand the actual process of that healing and how your body, in Talent, has such great power. It is not some mystical, unexplainable, faith accepting concept. It is built on truth and process. You want to make sure you understand the physiological process and work to strengthen it. Nothing is more rewarding than to know you make the world a better place. Having the knowledge of your gifts is primary to this feeling of accomplishment. Strive to know how you take your body from its life position to its make believe position. This is how you will have control over your work and career. Make sure the goals you set are possible. Don’t try to create spiritual quests that are unfamiliar to you or that frighten you. Spiritual truth can not survive in an environment of fear or prejudice.

If you are confused about how your spiritual life can be accepted and practiced in your life, seek out those who have written extensively on the power of the spirit and the need to feed it with beauty and wonder. There are many fine books that will help you find the power and thrill of your spiritual life. Don’t deprive yourself of understanding your spirit, or you will remove yourself from one of the most important ways to get to the success you want and expect. Spirituality is private. It is… peace. Don’t forget, it is through the understanding of the spiritual process that you link to the knowledge of the universe. Please do not be turned off by your past experiences with the effort of others to manipulate your spirit. Select goals that will help you find your personal communication with the universe and draw from that connection the energy and knowledge you want to have a life filled with joy, happiness and success.

Your Intellectual Life

Your intellectual life allows you the ability to gather knowledge. It allows you an awareness of every aspect of your life where you are void or limited in information. Your intellectual life is based on being aware of these voids and seeking out objective knowledge. As you know that seeking out of knowledge to support all the areas of your life will be ongoing. All aspects of your life where fear resides will be in need of your objective knowledge seeking. Your intellectual life seeks out anything that will enhance its growth and development. It could be making the decision to take acting classes should be an intellectual effort. It could be deciding on what life areas need guidance and support are responsibilities of your intellectual life. Remember, it is not important to this career to have college degrees nor is it not important to this career to excel in Latin or Greek. But, it is important that you know what knowledge is needed for your career. It is also important to know how to find that knowledge.

You want to know what knowledge based efforts your intellectual life is supporting. You may be looking to find the right gym to join. You may be looking at certain acting classes. You may want to research a gift for your significant other’s birthday. You may be looking to find a unity church or fellowship circumstance. You may be looking to find out about over the counter stocks. There may be many knowledge and research based efforts you are working on without knowing it. Such as, reading books to enhance your personal power. You should explore the goals that you want to set for your intellectual life to focus on.

These goals should include all the areas of your life. Make plans to audit acting classes. Make a plan to ask ten actors you respect who they study with. Ask them to tell you the most important thing they are learning from the class. Get an accounting book to understand budgets for your dreams. Make a knowledge plan to research the agents that represent actors of your type. Make a knowledge plan to find out your type in relation to the different mediums. You may think to yourself that you’ll never find the time to set all your goals, let alone work to make the goals a reality. This concern may be legitimate only to the extent of your understanding of your time and resources today. Ask yourself what are the areas of your life that must be maintained and supported. You will realize that the time needed to make the goals a reality will magically appear. The time will make itself available to you and you may realize that a great deal of your present time is spent worrying and rehashing old information. Free yourself to take advantage of the importance of time in relation to completion of goal setting tasks with the use of you intellectual self.

Creativity

You will discover that once you have given yourself intellectual focus and intellectual direction in all areas of your life, the creative side of you will be free to explore the power of your imagination and insight. You are a unique being. Your development is unmatched to anyone who has ever lived before. Through the unique sequence of events of your life no one can ever be you. Your creative power, once unleashed, can cross reference your life experiences and open you to the unique power of your creative self. With this power the characters you create will be uniquely you. You will find yourself having ideas and exploring new possibilities that will make your contributions to this life more powerful and exhilarating. You’ll experience what is meant by brilliance, and eagerly develop the many creative ideas and actions that have become available to you.

This is not an area where goals are needed or where goal setting applies. It is one of the most important parts of the individual’s life but may never be experienced because to many look for it instead of letting it come to them. At this point in the series your body may be giving you a fit on many levels to try and stop you from pursuing these lessons. Your body may have accessed any number of beliefs and thoughts to defocus you and sabotage your efforts. You want to keep your focus on designing a plan for your career through goals that excite and stimulate you.

Now, I’ve talked about your company’s need to know about product and packaging from a purely business standpoint. Therefore, I believe you should set yourself up like a business/company with departments and department heads that support and facilitate the advancement of your company. You want to be knowledgeable of your departments and comfortable with your department heads and their knowledge of business. Your company needs to be confident that the packaging and specialties of your product are perfectly clear to you. This is necessary for your goal setting program or it could run into some serious problems.

Let’s assume you are clear about creating any talent through energy transfer and that you understand your product is energy. Let’s say you have the ability to place that energy into make believe to the Talent position. By setting yourself up as a business you’re getting ready to create a new future for yourself. Something miraculous occurs when you allow yourself to focus on what you want. Something miraculous occurs when you make the plans and design the actions to achieve those plans. This miraculous experience is the power you have to tap into the universal flow of energy. Don’t forget you can direct your destiny if you have trust and awareness in this universal flow of energy.

As you know goal setting allows an active process that accelerates the result of the universal flow of energy. If universal flow seems too new age for your taste, find a term of understanding that works for you. The labeling of the process doesn’t matter. The power that you attribute to it does. Your ability to access the universal flow and draw from the knowledge of the universe is fundamental in your quest for health, happiness, and security. It is this energy flow that you accept and use as you pursue your desire to be a storyteller, the oldest form of healing known to man.

Imagination and Vision

In setting up your business let’s accept the effort is supported by your imagination and vision. Don’t forget that everything that you know and everything you see around you first started out as a thought. That thought led to a question. That question led to a desire. That desire led to a goal. That goal led to an action. And, that action led to a result. Everything around you was once a thought started by someone’s imagination and vision. Now you don’t want your imagination and vision for the perks of success to take away from the joy and excitement of the steps to realize that success. Therefore, envision the steps to be taken to your goals and make sure impatience does not get in the way of your enjoying the journey. Let’s look at the areas of your life that will affect and will be affected by pursuing this career.

A Successful Life

To become successful at any career requires more than just knowing what that career expects. First you want to look for a successful life. You want to discover a way to find health, happiness and security within the confines of the present. Without that you will find the journey an arduous one and the achievements and successes hallow. Make sure that the goals you set cover all aspects of your life. Remember, certain sacrifices will be expected of you in order to become a successful professional actor. Look at those sacrifices in another light. See them as choices that are based on expectations and effort. You will never feel deprived if what you give up today leads to the rewards of tomorrow. It is in the present where you find your happiness and joy of living. Those things you give up today must be given with love, not resentment. Be happy that you can be happy. Be happy knowing that the other choices can only lead to more pain and lack of action. Don’t forget that without action there can be no growth.

Don’t forget that without the power of actions created from goal setting the speed and accuracy of your future will be limited. Do not allow this limitation to be part of your life. Go for the brass ring. Use the experiences of others to be your guide. Make life work for you. Know what you want in all areas of your life.

It will make all the difference in the world for you. It will allow you to move to other levels of joy, passion and motivation. It’s been said that goals are nothing more than dreams with a deadline. If the needs of your life are clear to you, if all your desires and expectations are explored, if you acknowledge the things that need to be changed… then, your expectations can come true. All it requires is your willingness to make the effort. Stopping smoking or excessive drinking or letting go of any addictive dependency will be a challenge. But, you are up to the challenge. You can remove these crutches by exploring what they are giving you that you think you need. Your body and mind have the capacity to overcome anything. It is all a matter of giving the right instructions.

Alternative Thinking

Alternative thinking is allowing you to think outside the box. It is the ability to open you up to new ideas and the possibility of unconventional expectations. When I was living in California I had what appeared to be a gall bladder attack. I was taken to the hospital and had emergency surgery. When I woke up I was informed that the diagnosis had been wrong. They had indeed removed my gallbladder, but they discovered that there were no stones so it could not have been the reason for the attack. They made more exploration and discovered I had stones in my liver. A specialist was called and created a duct system for the liver stones to pass. This left me with, what my doctor called chronic pain. Never ending contractions followed by a stabbing pain. It took me several weeks, after leaving the hospital, to practice not bending over each time the pain followed a contraction. I was offered pain pills but was told they would only become stronger and I could become dependent. I made the choice not to take the pain pills, but to have my body “learn” how to accept the pain and hopefully channel it in another direction. Meanwhile, I set a goal to explore alternative healing possibilities.

A friend of mine called one day to ask if I was still experiencing the pain. She suggested a session with a lady who practiced a Japanese healing technique. The technique took the power of energy being transferred from a practitioner to the patient. As open as I was to alternatives, I questioned the legitimacy and wanted to know how much it was going to cost me. A three dollar donation for 45 minutes session. I figured I had nothing to lose and made an appointment to see Kae. She was a gracious charming woman who I learned would sit for 14-18 hours a day, seven days a week. Year after year she would hold her hands up to pass over, without touching, the unending line of people in pain. During my first 45 minute session she talked joyfully about my friend who had called me and her interest in my field of business. At the end of the session she told me it would take her 13 consecutive days to remove my pain. I was so taken with her warmth and compassion I would have wanted to return even if she couldn’t make the pain go away.

I had learned to sleep with the contractions followed by the piercing sharp pain. While I was sleeping the night after my fourth session I awoke to a strange sensation. I had been awakened because I had a contraction that was not followed by the pain. It was so unbelievable not to have the pain that I had to tell myself it was only a passing thing. I had to be prepared for the pain to return. I continued to see Kae and two days later, during a session, she asked me why I had not told her the pain had gone. I explained that I was fearful that the pain would return and that the contractions were still constant. I felt it was probably only a matter of time before the pain came back. I didn’t want to disappoint her or me. She assured me that she would not be disappointed. She said I could bring the pain back if I kept instructing my body and brain to be prepared for it. I understood what she was saying and the irony of my not being able to practice what I taught.

Two days later, while driving home from a session with Kae, the contractions stopped. I called her as soon as I got home. I continued to see Kae on a weekly basis for I found she gave as much to the soul as to the body. I never embraced her religion nor did she expect or encourage me to. She was my friend and she taught me a power of unparalleled giving. Occasionally, I’ll have a contraction and I think of Kae and place my own hand over the spot and allow the healing power in myself to take away the pain. I tell you this story because it makes me feel good to share it. I had set a goal to open myself up to an alternative to conventional medicine and therapies that covered the pain but did not address the source. It became clear to me the power of goal setting does more than just what can be expected by action. The action itself creates the circumstance for coincidence. And, it is through these coincidences that many people, including myself, believe our fate and future are guided to our desired destiny.

It’s a little like knowing the physiological process of turning knowledge through physical repetition into Talent. If you know how to acknowledge coincidence with the immediate focus of anything beautiful it will allow for the information to be transmitted to you. It will guide your future with greater speed and accuracy. It allows you to accomplish more than you may have expected and, allows for your spiritual growth to be enhanced by the understanding of the human physical obstacle course called life.

Have a great week
and be grateful.
I wish you well,
Russ

Setting Up Your Acting Business

Corporation Executive OfficerCEO/President

The CEO is the Chief Executive Officer of a company. The CEO is the person in charge. It’s where the buck stops. You are the product the company. Your physical body is the package of the product and your life energy is the product the company sells. As CEO and president, you are the driving force behind the company’s direction, growth and development. You speak for your company and you must represent it with style, grace, professionalism and charm. You know the responsibilities of CEOs and presidents of other types of companies. You know they are responsible to the company, for the company’s product and for every other aspect of their life as well. The big 7 areas of your life expect the bread winner to provide the means that allow them to function. With that in mind you set your goals. Set yourself up as president and CEO of your life. What are the things necessary to make your president feel good about his job and the perks he gets for having this important job? You should feel empowered knowing that you have, instantly in your awareness, been promoted to president and CEO of your acting and production company. You might want to start considering the need of forming your own corporation, LLC (Limited Liability Corporation), or just perhaps a separate bank account and business materials not connected to the other areas of your life. You want to make sure your personal goals and your professional goals support them. Now that you are president and CEO of your company with you might want to set short and long-term goals to organize your company staff and major departments. Make sure that each department and business area has clearly defined rules and responsibilities. Your company is not just about acting. Many actors have abilities for directing, writing, producing, singing, dancing and other special non-presentational talents which fall under the responsibility of your President and CEO. Even your subsidiary companies, those totally diverse areas of your holdings where monies are made and spent, are the responsibility of your CEO. Therefore, if you are a waiter, your income is the result of a subsidiary effort. Even though the money from this company will not be used to enhance and move up the ladder of the waiting business, it will be used by the parent company, you, to promote, develop, and strengthen your primary company. Again, that would be you, the actor. Your primary success goals are to make your financial and emotional security be built on solid ground for becoming a successful professional acting company. Do not confuse your responsibilities as a company president and CEO with your responsibilities as the product itself. As your business becomes more and more successful you will hire others to replace the department heads of your business that you have maintained yourself. That’s good. It’s called progress and, not to know what these department heads do or what their responsibilities are could lead you to big-time trouble down the road. The last thing you want to have happen would be to work consistently for years as a successful professional actor and then discover that you have no money or investments. Remember, it has happened so often. It can happen if you leave these responsibilities to someone else… someone who might betray you. Empower yourself now with the respect and expectation that come from being the president and CEO of what will be a major company. No matter how many of your department heads should actually be hired to fulfill the needs of your company’s contracts, never and I repeat never, give up your president and CEO position to anyone else. Surround yourself with strong advisers, not self-serving middlemen whose best talents may be making you believe you are incapable of making decisions for your product and business without their guiding hand. This does not mean you will not need agents, managers, lawyers, etc. It means you must prepare yourself to be able to hire them from strength, not weakness. You may find that your president and CEO have never really given any of these concepts serious thought. Without these clear concepts your company may have no direction. You may be putting yourself at the mercy of an agent, or manager etc. to do your work for you. This may happen but, as history has told us over and over again, anyone who is in this business not as a performer is in the business for one reason and one reason only. They are in your business to make money for them. The only way they can make money is with you, the actor. They should not end up with more than you do.

Administrative Assistant

The major department for your president and CEO will be your administrative assistant, your right hand man, your adviser and confident. It is your Mind. This is the liaison between your other department heads. This position is responsible for being the eyes and ears of your company. Your administrative assistant will keep track of the needs and achievements of all the areas of your company. This position will constantly keep you updated about the other areas of your life. Its job is to ask questions of you, the president and CEO. Your administrative assistant will keep you alert, focused and aware of your responsibilities to the company, the product, and your life and everything that includes. That is why this is the logical mind position. This position maintains contact information with names and addresses of all persons your company deals with on both professional and personal levels. This position is aware of all the goals of the other departments and their ability to achieve those goals. This position understands the importance of the four D’s; desire, dedication, determination, and discipline. And, this position realizes that of the four D’s, discipline is the key to the value of the others. Discipline, as you know, is the use of time, on a consistent and scheduled plan, for the purpose of completing a goal on a timely and structured path. It is the administrative assistant’s job to make sure that 80 hours are being filled. It will be the administrative assistant who knows that 40 hours a week may be needed to secure the funds necessary by the CFO (chief financial officer) to meet the financial needs of the company. One constant goal of the administrative assistant is to make more money in fewer hours. The goal is to shift the hours per week needed for money making work to the hours per week needed for company business. That will require an income supporting job to make more money in less time. This income will be needed until your outside, non-acting, work can be terminated and your company can be solely supported by the efforts of your acting company and its product… you. What are some goals you might set for your administrative assistant? What long-term goals as well as short-term goals can you create? How about a goal to set up a space and make sure that each department has what it needs to begin its work? I call it the war room. The war room is different from an office. It is a strategy area. It is a place where you hang a Plexiglas board and map out plans of career attack with details and overviews. It might use a black light to illuminate florescent markers of different colors. It’s a think room. It allows you to see the progress you are making with all of your goals… long term and short term. It is a place where you track upcoming auditions and interviews. It is where you keep your progress chart, which has been included in this series. It is a place where you can move about your efforts as they become more proficient and talent based. It is a place where you can monitor your current talent levels and observe the progress through process of new talents. It is a place where you control your positive moves toward a successful career. What about a goal to organize the president’s life by separating his personal responsibilities from his professional responsibilities? What about a goal to meet with the president and go over his plan of attack for the company, his vision for the company, his projections and bottom line for his expectation of profit margins for the company. Make sure your administrative assistant makes a “Mission Statement” for that position that both of you agree on. The more specific the mission statement the more likely the goals will be to support it.

Sales Department

The sales department is your most important department. In every company the sales department is the engine that keeps the company moving. Without a strong sales department product cannot be sold and the product quality and value can not increase. At a certain point in your career you will need to hire a sales director. A sales director is someone who knows your product abilities and can create new and more valuable uses for your product diversity. That person would be called an agent. For the agent’s knowledge, reputation, clout, and ability he will receive 10 percent of your income. When dealing with your sales department, realize you are your number one sales representative. In short, it’s the knowledge of what you can do and what you cannot do that is going to make your product of value. A note here, if you run your company from ego you will surely run into problems. Your ego can be exploited to trick you into circumstances that down the line you may regret. Your ego is a way people can read you and therefore, manipulate you. You do not want your number one sales person manipulating you. When your career begins to move forward it will find many hangers-on who will say anything you want to hear in order to continue to hang on. Be prepared for this by being clear about your responsibility to your product quality and commercial value. Your sales department must make sure you do not support your efforts by claiming artistic freedom. Artistic freedom is never an excuse for behaving badly. What is at issue is working in a career field and understanding how money is made and how your assets and liabilities translate into debit and credits. If this sort of thing gets in the way of your creative juices then your sales department will have a problem. If dealing with this type of information makes you anxious and frustrated then your sales department should realize that these areas are controlling you. These areas of frustration, anxiety, annoyance and other negative pain inducing emotions will always be capable of controlling and manipulating your efforts. There are many people in this business just waiting to tap into this weakness. Many actors and other types of artists share fear of this area and, therefore, have suffered the fate of being used and controlled for personal gain by trusted agent, managers, lawyers, or financial advisers. Your sales department must know what your product (energy) and package (type). Your sales department must know what your type and physical point of reference are to an audience. Your sales department must know your believability level for the mediums of film, television and theatre. Your sales department must know your commercial value to the outlying areas of acting. Your sales department must make sure those you trust give you constructive performance advice. Your sales department has a great respect for your ability to act. Your sales department knows your current range of emotional control. It knows your ability to take the formula for creating a character and using that formula A + B = C (Actor + Book/Script (collaborators) = Character) to get the best results depending on the medium of acting. (The areas of the formula including “B” Book and Character will be discussed later.) Your sales department is clear about the A of the formula. The A represents you, the actor. It represents you physically, presentationally, and socio-economically. It also will determine range ability. Your sales department knows there will be certain jobs that require special abilities of the A. It could require the A to be a leading man who is also, a Southern aristocrat, a warm and compassionate husband and father who is also a treacherous businessman. Your sales department knows the “A” is what the actor brings with him to the part. It is his physical, emotional and presentational uniqueness. Your sales department knows the “A” may be required to be of star level. Your sales department knows the “A” of the formula holds all those things needed by the buyer or producer and possessed by the actor’s company. Your sales department knows your best core/cover combination of dark on dark, dark on light, light on dark or light on light.Your sales department must know what you possess before it starts trying to sell it. Your sales department must know what your “A” consists of. For your goal setting exercise create your“A” awareness list. Define what your “A” has going for it right now. What areas of your acting ability are viable and provable? You want to list the areas of your “A” that you believe are ready for verification. You want to list the areas with which you plan to become proficient. The best way for your sales department to do this is by modeling an actor of professional acclaim that you admire and wish to emulate. List those qualities and abilities this actor possesses in the “A” part of his formula. Take Robert Redford as an example. For the medium of television, is he a leading man? Yes. Was he trained in television? Yes. Was he trained for film and theater? Yes. Was his training extensive? Yes. Is he handsome? Yes. Is he manly? Yes. Is he romantic? Yes. Is he athletic? Yes. Does he come off as warm hearted? Yes. Is his voice strong? Yes. Does his voice match his handsome looks? Yes. Does his face match his handsome body? Yes. Does he move with grace and style? Yes. Does he have a regional accent? No. Is he of star status? Yes. In this “A” category your sales department will evaluate your looks, body type, voice quality, sex appeal, humor, warmth, aloofness, and charm. Your sales department will be aware if you are menacing, loveable, scary, etc. to see how all your parts match up. When your sales department puts the parts together they all must say the same thing. They say leading man, character lead, quirky lead, character quirky, sexy, funny, scary, demented, and delusional or a combination thereof. What about Mr. Redford’s endurance level? Can he sustain a character in make believe for each of the primary media? Yes. How about his believability level in all media? Is he believable in all the areas that he undertakes? Yes. Make sure the actor that you select to study sells the same character types and emotional elements that you do. Get their biography and follow their career from the beginning. A career must have a path. Your sales department must look for the current path that you are most qualified for. Branch out to include areas you think you could do. Branch out to areas you know once you are trained in you can do. Your sales department must know what it sells. It must know the product it sells is the same product that every other actor sells. The product is your energy and how to use that energy. The product’s ability is to go to make believe through “Talent” and to sustain it. Your sales department knows the product is the energy control that comes from taking the energy from the body’s needs to the spirit’s needs. Your sales department knows the spirit’s need is to share your energy with other life forms and give them the feeling of being safe. Your sales department knows your product, energy, is based on your talents. Your talents are your abilities to control the use of your energy for proven outcomes. Your sales department knows talent is a place of energy control that you process as a result of knowledge and physical repetition of that knowledge. Your sales department knows Talent is not an idea. Your sales department knows Talent is a reality. It is provable and either is or isn’t. Your sales department knows the process of taking anything to the Talent level means you have created a physiological change in your body. Your sales department knows this happens by first acquiring the knowledge of a given effort. Your sales department knows your first talent for a character is to learn the lines and put those lines into an emotional reality and effectively communicate the character’s circumstance in a believable and non distracting way. Your sales department knows you can learn how to do this. It must know you had to get a talent for the specific ability. Your sales department knows the ability to act, as a specific talent, is separate from the talents necessary to create an individual character. Your sales department knows there may be many variables about your acting talent. It may know you are able to act in Talent onstage because that is where you learned, through knowledge and repetition, how to do it comfortably. Your sales department knows that you may not yet have a talent for acting on video or film. Your sales department knows there are media that require certain adjustments to presentation that affect believability. Your sales department must know to what degree your product has developed. It needs to know what talents you have so that initially you can go to makebelieve, using balance, passion and cover and then sustain it for the duration needed, based on the medium’s requirements. If your sales department knows what and where make believe is and what level your talents have reached then it will be able to sell you with confidence and integrity. Your sales department must be aware of your understanding of what happens physiologically when knowledge is transferred into muscle memory through repetition. If this understanding of how talents are created in order to go to Talent is not clear, then the results could be disastrous. Your sales department knows the power that energy transfer has to the muscles. Your sales department must know in which areas you have the ability to control your energy. The sales department must know when the energy is being controlled by you. The energy has been removed from its hiding place in your body’s muscles and replaced with the knowledge of a given effort which has now been converted to electrical impulses. The sales department must know that you can take your life energy and, like a radiating beam, project it out of your body through the talent position. The sales department must know when your muscles are filled with the knowledge of a talent specialty and that it can be sustained by you for a given period of time. Your sales department knows this endurance is based on the level of that particular talent in its present stage of development. The sales department knows energy is a healing power. It knows you want to become a comforting and reassuring force that reaches out and touches the energies of other life forces, which are your audience. Your sales department should know that when your energy is in the talent mode it recreates the power of all that is. It knows, as the feeling of that power radiates out and attracts the life energy of your audience, the true miracle of being a story teller takes place. Even though your audience may be in their normal state or protective body position, their life energy will gravitate and mingle with your Talent controlled energy. Your sales department knows this intermingling of energy allows the audience to be free from their emotional bondage. It frees them from their internal dialogue that runs constantly in their minds, not realizing, as do you, that this dialogue is the focus of their body’s need to control the energy with fear and survival instincts. The sales department needs to know that their product, which is your life energy, has the ability to comfort your audience and this is fundamental in order to sell to the buyer. The sales department needs to know how you use your energy, to defocus the audience from their pain and allow the audience, now in a state of safety to use their brain’s ability to check all body systems and correct damaged physical systems, while their life energy is safe and feeling at home. If your sales department understands the fundamental process of talent and how to know what talents of yours are ready to go, then sales can be confident of its results. This department knows the first audiences you must reach are the producers, writers, and casting directors, and that a talent for these specific people must be clearly in place. Therefore, the sales department must have complete knowledge of your company’s packaging of the product. It is the packaging that will initially draw the buyers to the product energy. Your sales department must know that you will have success as an actor if both parts of the company’s merchandise are in place. Your sales department knows you must have control of your product and clarity of packaging of that product. There are many people have developed a talent for the product but not the package. They can control their life energy in certain areas of performance. They can go to talent at will. They have the capacity to maintain makebelieve under certain circumstances. Some of these actors have such a powerful product base that salespeople from buying companies find them. These buyers can take that product, which is energy, and package it so it has a clear point of reference. Your sales department knows not to take this chance. It knows without the knowledge of your energy control, you leave yourself open to any number of fears. Your sales department knows many of those fears can be used by others to manipulate, defocus, and compromise you. Your sales department must be totally honest with the packaging materials your company has available to it. These packaging elements include two facets. The first is purely physical; your weight, hair color, eye color, complexion, physical imperfections, physical assets and liabilities, voice quality, regionalisms, pitch, etc., and the second; how these physical elements correspond to the current audience’s expectations of type. The sales department must be aware of how your personal use of life energy for the purpose of personality presentation supports or detracts from your physical type. There must be a match between these two elements. If the voice, body and face say leading man and the personality presentation traits, (such as walk, use of arms, animated facial expressions) do not say the same thing, then adjustments must be made by demands of the sales department before they can do their job. Your sales department is responsible for telling your company if the two parts necessary to create a blend are not there. Your sales department is responsible to say that the product energy is not under control. Your sales department is responsible to tell the company it is unaware that the control of energy has not been acquired. If these things are not in place it makes for a hard sell. If energy is your product and the ability to harness it to talent is your stock and trade, then you can expect problems in the sales area if you can’t do it. It becomes the responsibility of this department to tell the company president if the assets and liabilities of the company are working or not. Take the time now to set goals for your sales department in relation to product and packaging. If you don’t have solid proof of your sales department’s knowledge of product and package, all efforts to sell become pointlessYou now have an understanding of your sales department’s primary responsibility to your product. This needs to be done before dealing with the sales techniques used by companies that are already convinced of their product and packaging abilities.

Public Relations

Your next major department is public relations. Your first goal is to understand what this department does for a company. You want to understand how you can use it now as your career develops so you have control over your public relations department. When you become more successful you’ll find that picking the right public relations firm for you will be important. Learn about the purpose and value of a public relations department. Know what they do. Know how they affect your career. Know how they guide the public image. Know how they make the public and the buyer aware of what you’re doing and what your availability might be. A star actor is paid for the money their involvement could generate at the box office. That money comes from the audience that follows your energy, the characters you play, and the comfort they feel with the choice of stories you select. A couple of bad choices and you will be looking for a new audience base. Audiences can be fickle but they are quick to forgive if you play your public relations cards right. Once you have a clear understanding of public relations you need to make sure that the head of your public relations department, which at the moment is you, knows how to best represent your personality, compassion, interests, and community involvement to the press. Your public relations department needs something to work with. This means your company must have interest and concern for more than itself. It is easy to get self-absorbed in the survival mode of trying to pay your bills. A public relations department, no matter how good it is, must know the client that it represents. It must know every aspect of your life. It may need to rediscover interests that have been placed on the back burner. These interests may appear to be of little value to your pursuit of an acting career. However, you may find they can be a circumstance that can open the door to coincidence. You might want to make a list of unselfish things you do for other people or have done. Look for those areas where charity is part of the effort. Which charities have you supported before and how can you get involved again. When you become a star your PR department could use a charity that wasn’t selected after the fact. If you select a charity now, one that you truly care about and believe in, you’ll find that you have tapped into an additional flow of positive energy and goodwill. Try making a list of your special skills that could be used for volunteer work and community work. You may be saying to yourself that you certainly do not have time for volunteer work. I suggest that you make the time. Charity and volunteer work are not about letting others see what a nice person you are. It is a way of making you realize what a nice person you are. The benefits are circular and as important as anything you will do with your time, career and choices. You will find there are areas of your life that were once important to you that you now neglect. See what you can do to reconnect with these interests and use them to support your need to be involved as a concerned person. A person concerned about all aspects of the human condition. It is not wise to have all of your goals focused only on you.

Chief Financial Officer

Your next department is your CFO… your chief financial officer. The CFO controls the funds for the various departments of your professional life. It also controls the funds for the other areas of your life. This position deals with all money concerns. These are the job responsibilities paying all bills. Making sure money is coming in on a regular basis. Making sure there is no debt load. Making sure the other areas of your life are financially supported. Maintaining budgets for each of your life areas. Keeping all receipts and records for tax purposes. Maintaining a savings account and keeping funds available for special professional needs. Your CFO knows what money is and how it works. This position enjoys knowing that money is a tool as well as a resource. The position prides itself in knowing how interest rates work for or against you. This position deals with money like your physical department deals with calories. The more you get the greater the responsibility to account for them. Money can be a wonderful asset. The love of it can be your greatest defeat. The CFO knows this. That is why this position knows what money can be made by the various elements of your career and life abilities. This position does not take money for granted. If it did, it would not be doing its job. The CFO knows how to use credit when applicable and avoid credit when possible. The budget the CFO sets for every aspect of professional life is met with the same diligence in the other areas of your life. Many beliefs you have about money are fostered by a poverty justified upbringing. You can change this by letting your CFO deal with the financial concerns. This position sees money only from its positive aspects. It can never deal with the negative aspects. Here are some positive aspects of money. There’s plenty of it. It has a steady and continuous flow. It meets all the needs of the Company and its obligations. It has resources of reserve. It builds on itself and it has new sources of revenue as the company grows and expands. And, here are some negative aspects of money. It may not exist for you. It is an illusion. It is unavailable. If this is true then money is not the problem. Nor is the lack of money the problem. It is the understanding of money that would have to be addressed. Your CFO learns what it needs to know. It knows financial risks are taken only with risk available funds. The CFO knows that money problems cannot be solved with money. Money problems can only be solved with the understanding of money. The CFO understands profit and loss. The CFO understands how money is earned, spent, and nurtured. There’s no such thing as preparing for a rainy day. We need rain, it makes the flowers grow. We do, however, need to be prepared for abundance and sharing. Your CFO will need to make goals, short and long term that will prepare your company to meet the demands of abundance.

Image Department

Your next department is your Image department. Your image department is responsible for your look. This includes your make up, hair and wardrobe. Your image department is always seeking ways to make your package more appealing to the market place. The image department is clear as to your type and knows how to enhance your character presentation for auditions and interviews. Your image department keeps books on fashion and trends. The image department is responsible for maintaining your hair. It knows what cuts work best for you and if necessary has wigs and hair extensions to help create certain characters and illusions. The image department keeps track of your beauty regiment and makes sure you moisturize and keep your skin in its best condition. The image department makes sure your teeth are white and presentable. If you do strange character parts, the image department will have special teeth and makeup prosthetics to add to your bag of tricks. The image department makes sure you have the right clothes for the right occasions. It keeps your clothes neat and clean. It keeps records of what you wore to a given audition. This is done so when you get a call back you wear the same thing. Your image department is always looking for who is working constantly that is your type. The image department will request funds when necessary to upgrade your image needs. You want your image department to set short and long term goals that will enhance the presentation of your package and product.

Education Department

Your education department is next. It is responsible for knowing what information your company needs to pursue in this career. Your education department is aware of your knowledge base and keeps track of your daily repetition efforts. This position is aware of the knowledge base that you already have. It looks at your formal education from high school to college to graduate school. It evaluates the courses you have taken and reviews those things that may be important to your company’s growth. The education department looks at all the areas of your life and cross references those things that will support a successful acting career. It reviews past experiences of acting efforts that led to your pursuing an acting career. It knows the history of your efforts. It knows what positions of play you have taken during your developmental years. For example, My education department would know that I began my first stage efforts when I was six years old. It knew that I wanted to be in front of people and to be center stage. Being from a very small town in South Carolina, my structured acting efforts were confined to school, church and the occasional community theater effort. By the age of 10 I had created my own circumstance by running a backyard theater company each summer. I did this for the next six years. I demanded that every kid in the neighborhood participate. We wrote, produced, and acted in our summer efforts. Audiences were dragged to our backyard summer extravaganzas… many willingly, many not. My education began with an elderly neighbor who had done vaudeville and later taught elocution and stage readings. I called her Aunt May. Her real name was May Pepper Counts Scruggs Anderson. Aunt May was my teacher and coach. She advised our summer productions and was often our only audience. In my teenage years she coached me through four oratorical contest wins. She taught me a love for storytelling and respect for acting. It is an honor to be an actor. Unfortunately, my parents did not share her sentiments. My education continued with a double major in theater and journalism at the University of South Carolina. I performed in many main stage productions and was taught that an actor can play anything. Of course, that did not stop them from always placing my skinny little body in the roles of elderly character parts. By the time I graduated I had played to glowing reviews many characters ranging in age from 65 to 100. Playing my own age never seemed to be an option. I was a character actor. Translated in my time this meant not handsome or physical enough to be the leading man. However, character actors have the ability to alter their voice, body, and face to play a variety of unusual characters. In classical theater this means you get a lot of great parts. But, you get very few that would lead you to a professional career in film and television. If they want a 60-year-old man they get one. Thus began my realization of the dangers of professional training in university programs. They will invariably service themselves rather than the actor. I know, “Bitter, table for one”. The beautiful people get the lead roles, the average people will get the supporting roles, and the ordinary and, often extremely gifted actor, gets the character roles. Make no mistake; character acting is the basis of the very finest performances. And, Character Acting is an ability… it is a special talent. Many working character actors have found it necessary to select one particular character they have created and make that the persona of their acting career for film and television. Your education department knows this. Character acting that moves you to categories of mature, when you are in the category of juvenile, is damaging and distracted. Your education department knows this also. Anyone pursuing a professional acting career must know how their abilities, their physical activities, their special talents and experience are usable within the industry. The education department seeks out this knowledge. During my time with the Air Force, I was liaison between the local community and the Air Force base. I directed theater and, in many cases, cast myself in the lead. It was during this period that I played many characters that fit my age and style. When I took a graduate fellowship for my Master’s in theater, I was once again placed in the character role position. These roles all consisted of characters over the age of 50. My strongest characters were in their ‘80s and ‘90s. I received glowing reviews and a Master’s degree in theater. What I did not receive was an understanding of who I was as a type. I trusted education department to the University. It was a mistake. I moved New York City and for the first five years I took classes and was hired for soap opera work. I still could not find a harmony between the type that I wanted to play and the type that I actually was. My education department was nonexistent. I didn’t run it. I took many classes but I had no understanding of why I was taking them. Later, I began teaching classes in my quest to know why some people made it in this business and others didn’t. It was this quest that made me seek out an objective knowledge base to a subjective career field. I want you to understand the importance of guiding your own educational process. Accept that you are both company and product and accept that your product has to be packaged so it appeals to the buyers. It is not enough to be able to create wonderful characters if you never get the chance. Some people have packages that are appealing by luck of the draw. They have the appealing face, sensual body and the ability to play these assets. Your education department needs to be clear of your company’s assets and liabilities. It is enjoined with the task of using knowledge to enhance the assets. It is enjoined with the responsibility to acquire the knowledge to turn liabilities into assets. Your sales department will sell what is currently available to it. It will depend on your education department to be honest and open with the current knowledge and anticipated knowledge. Your education department sets a goal to acquire knowledge for certain ability. Once the knowledge is acquired the education department must find physical repetitions in order to incorporate that knowledge into a workable talent base. It is your education department that sets up your company’s daily practice workouts. It decides what efforts will be included in your daily acting work out. It will include those talents that are expected of you by a buyer. It will include the talents that are expected of you by the industry. It will include job responsibilities by your buyer base. Your education department will set daily workouts for the process of learning lines. It should know how long it takes you to put a script to memory. It should know how long it takes you to put a scene to talent. It sets a daily workout for emotional note placement in your body. The education department has daily workouts for monologues to be used for auditions and interviews. It has daily practices for knowing the names of industry players in your pursuing areas. It will set up daily practices for character development and core/cover character control. Your education department has daily practices for script analysis as it applies to the actor. It will have daily workouts for TV mimicking of media you wish to pursue. This and other special job needs unique to you (such as dancing, singing, dialects, accents, character work, both physical and emotional) will be set up by your education department. This is a daily practice may only require 30 minutes a day. The ability comes with a clear, objective and design of your daily exercises. The education department will make sure it has gathered all of your learning and efforts to design your career growth so it supports your uniqueness and style. There are hundreds of job opportunities and all of them have a process of achievement. Those that have achieved in those areas are the ones you wish to emulate and study. That is all part of your education departments goals.

Personal Secretary

The next department is your personal secretary. This position is responsible for keeping up with all of your other departments. Your personal secretary is aware of what you need to do in your life to make things work in harmony. Your personal secretary makes sure that all of your personal requirements are taken care of. This department makes sure that it has the birthdays, anniversaries, and special occasions marked for those in your personal life. This department makes sure that you take responsibility for the other people in your life who are within your personal reference. Your personal secretary makes sure that you are aware of the events and happenings in the lives of those close to you. It reminds you of your responsibilities to the other areas of your life in relation to giving and appreciating. Your personal secretary keeps a record of all kindnesses and courtesies offered to you by members of your family, close friends, and significant other. It is the personal secretary’s responsibility to insure a harmony and continued support of your emotional base. Make sure your personal secretary is diligent with keeping you on top of your responsibilities to family, friends and business associates who go the extra mile for you.

Physical Department

Your physical department is next. This department is responsible for your physical well being. Your physical depart is responsible for the upkeep of your instrument. It keeps watch over your diet, your health, your physical appearance, your body and your physical well-being. Remember, acting has no retirement age. As long as you are in mental and physical health you can continue to be a working actor. That effort requires that you start now. The physical department controls your eating habits. It understands how calories and fat work for and against you. It selects foods that you enjoy and that are positive for your physical health. It maintains your weight and your physical tone. The physical department is responsible for your working out on a daily basis. It is responsible to your image department for your grooming and physical appearance. It does not matter that you play large framed characters. It does matter that the large frame that you carry is in the best shape that it can be. Being overweight does not have to mean that you are out of shape. Your physical department is responsible for maintenance. It is responsible for your wellness. It makes sure that you understand how your body works. It makes sure your body is always in top working order. The physical department is also aware of any substances you are using to stimulate your body. It will look for alternatives to the feelings that you are searching for from the stimulants. The physical department is responsible for the way you live your life physically. It will not allow procrastination or laziness to get in the way of its efforts. You know your body is your instrument. It is what you must play in order for the emotions of your characters to come to life. Your body is what you turn over to your characters in the world of make believe. One of the goals that you may want to set for yourself is making sure your physical instrument is in the best shape it can be. You want to have maximum use of your life energy. Any physical need will require certain amounts of your life energy for repair and maintenance. You want to have all the energy possible and at your disposal, so your body is in tip-top working order. Make sure the head of your physical department is prepared to take your body to the mat if necessary. Be sure he will not take no for an answer in your fulfilling the goals set to make your physical world powerful.

Spiritual Department

The next is your spiritual department. Your spiritual department is your spiritual advisor and guidance support. The job responsibilities are personal and based on your beliefs and humanity. The spiritual department controls the actor’s desire for peace, health, happiness and security/wealth. The spiritual department holds the knowledge of the Law of Attraction and the secret of the universe and its available abundance.

Creative Department

Your creative department is responsible for the use of your imagination and gifts. It can only work if you create the circumstances that allow for coincidence. It must be inspired by your spiritual side and once hooked into the flow of universal energy, it knows no bounds. How you look at your life today is based in your past experiences. All of which are controlled by your true values and true beliefs. You know that many of those true values and true beliefs may not be supportive of your desired values and desired beliefs. What you do today will decide how you will live six months from now or six years from now. What you focus on now, the goals you set for yourself and the follow through of those goals, is the foundation of your career success. Make sure that the goals are exciting and challenging without being foolhardy. A foolhardy goal would be “I’m going to be a millionaire in a year.” This is not a goal, it is a dream. It’s beyond the realm of probability. How you’re going to become a millionaire in one year would be a series of goals. These goals would have been processed using the ultimate success formula. The formula has never failed anyone who has followed it. It holds the secrets of talent as well as the defeat of fear. It is a process of goals toward knowledge. It is a process of goals toward repetition of that knowledge. It contains a process by which what you want is made clear to you, your goals through actions are implemented, and the results are evaluated and changed if necessary. The process is never ending. As one goal is achieved it must be replaced with a larger goal. Each goal is getting you closer and closer to your main objective. Remember you have long-term and short-term goals. The short-term are the steps by which the long-term goals are reached. You know how to use desire, dedication, determination and discipline. They are a key to your growth and development. Remember, goals are your way of putting actions to your desires.

Energy Level

You are dedicated to the things in life that will give you success and involvement with living. The dedication is your willingness to focus your discipline to allot the actual time needed for the goal to be realized. The more you use your five senses while working on your goals the better off you are going to be. The higher the energy level used to get your goals realized the faster they will be completed and the more powerful the results. The process of using your senses of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste together with your goal application will make a world of difference in your results. Create for yourself a place where you work on your career, from goal setting to goal completion. Make that special area conducive to using your five senses. Make sure there is plenty of wall space to write on, cards of knowledge to be moved about, room to move about and vocalize thoughts as well as vocalize characters. Set goals that are what you want. Be absolutely clear as to what you expect to get from the completion of your goals. Purpose is as important as out come. The real reason you set goals is what they will make of you as a person. All you can strive for in this life are those things you accomplish that make you feel good about yourself. No amount of money or power of intimidation will ever replace the achievements of your life that make an impact on other people. Always know that material goals are not as empowering as attitudes and accomplishments. Goals must have the consistency of time allotted by discipline if they are going to have any effect. This is based on the belief that goals, once put into action, have the power to change your life. There has to be a reason why someone sets a goal and then does nothing structured or consistent to make that goal a reality. Something gets in the way of the action. I’ve talked about the duality of life. Your life energy, your part of all that is, becomes the focus of two separate elements of your existence. One element is the physical you. It is that part of you that will return to the earth when the life energy is no longer in need of the vessel. The second you I discussed is the spiritual you. That is the consciousness of all that is, your awareness of being separated from the whole of all that is. Remember, your body will vie for your life energy by distracting your focus, by accessing negative statements, by pursuing values that do not support your desires for life. Your spiritual side must fight for control of the energy through focus, through awareness of the best you, through dedication and determination, with the use of your Mind, to discipline. Goal setting then becomes the name and process by which you move forward on your journey to Talent. Goals are paths of creation. Goals are the way you go about creating your own fate and your own destiny. Find the reasons that have inspired you to set a goal and have the wherewithal to see them through.

Talent for Learning

Control the talents you say you want. You have the right to achieve anything in this life for which you are willing to work hard enough. Pursuing dreams by taking them to actions should not be classified as hard work. They should not be classified as sacrifice. Dreams should have enough value to them that the goals you set and the action you take to talent, should excite and inspire you. You know what gets in the way. Take the energy and focus away from the body and switch it into action. Acquire a talent for learning. Not just a talent for what to learn but a talent for how to learn. The process for learning is the same basically for all things. Look in your past and see those things you learned well. Look at the things you learned to do with talent based results. Isolated the process used. You can then understand how a talent for learning can be achieved. Like a talent for anything the formula is Knowledge + Repetition = Talent.

Reality as a Perception

Reality is based on how you perceive things to be. The goals you set for yourself must include a constant reinforcement of your right to exist. Otherwise you can find yourself defeating your desires with your body’s use of negative beliefs. Focus on something and you will experience it. Setting a goal lets your conscious and subconscious Mind know what you want and expect. It lets the two parts of the analyzing Mind know that where you are is not where you want to be. When you begin setting goals and creating actions to move you in the direction you want to go, the body will not just give in. You will experience discomfort and distraction. Your creature will find areas of your life you were not paying attention to and it will start challenging your space. Once you decide to take your body on for the control of the energy, it will use every available fear and negative belief to stop you.

The Wild Horse

It is very much like breaking a wild horse. Your body will fight you with everything it’s got until it acknowledges that you are not going to give up. At this point it will stop fighting you and. like the horse, your body will be tamed. At least, it will stop fighting you for the talent effort that you are working on. Talent for anything can only be achieved by taking on your body for the control of your life energy. You must be prepared for battle every time to seek to achieve a new talent. Goals will be met with resistance because they are the bucking of the horse. When you find yourself too comfortable, even though you have not achieved the dreams and expectations you have set for yourself, then you know that the only way to change the comfort zone is to make yourself dissatisfied with it. Dissatisfaction is a power of which you want to take advantage. Personal dissatisfaction is recognizing that the way you are living your life is not what you want. It is from this dissatisfaction that change can begin to happen.

Living to Enjoy

Many people are leaving extremely lucrative positions and opting for simpler, more rewarding life experiences. Money no longer is the primary need for these people. These people want to have time with family and friends. These people want to enjoy what they do with their time through work and play. Top executives are leaving their corporate post to become chefs, florists, landscape artists, etc. They are going to careers that have hands on experience. This is happening because they have become dissatisfied with the life they live. They are going for the change. They have set goals and are preparing themselves for the new direction in their lives. The career field you have chosen is the career field “idea” of what these financially successful corporate people are changing too. Not acting, per se, but a career field that gives them a feeling of pride and accomplishment.

Original Design

The goals you set for yourself must be designed with your particular talents in mind. Your goals cannot be generic in design. Your career must be designed specifically for you, by you, and with you. You want it to be an original design. No matter what it takes, you must get a complete picture of the talents you possess and the physical and emotional presentations that you use. Set goals for these purposes. Set goals to open your awareness of what is expected of a performer in each genre and each medium. Set goals to learn what the best paradigm is for you personally to follow. Set goals that give you an objective, fact based observation of you by people you respect in the business. Make sure your knowledge of what is expected is clear to you. Make sure your personal presentation formula is supportive of your desires. Do not let your longing to be something you are not get in the way of your being who you are. Make sure the goals you set are following a progressive order. Don’t put the cart before the horse. You can’t set goals to market a product that is not clear. You cannot expect the buyer to tell you what your product can do and who your packaging is designed for. Because, this is done by you. If not, you may find yourself a victim of unscrupulous people who will guide your career to serve their own agenda. Their agenda has a great deal to do with the money you make for the pocket that it will end up in. Know the primary emotional motivations of your actions. Remember, your feelings, and the intellectualizing of those feelings, result in your emotions. Your emotions are the states of being that either motivate or distract you from your purpose. Acknowledge that your emotional states are your responsibility. Acknowledge that happiness and the joy for living are perceptions and acknowledge you control your respect for you. You are using your talents to make a difference in the lives your energy touches. Be the captain of your ship. Know what makes you do the things you do. Know what makes you act on something you want to do and avoid acting out on things you want to do. Know what makes you follow through on some things and avoid others. Know what internal pressure compels you to act on some areas of your life. Know what suppresses the internal pressure from doing things that will be harmful or nonproductive. You can use the goals that you set to pressure you to action. It is always easy to use follow-through for someone else. You tend to be concerned about how it would look if you didn’t follow through on a commitment to someone else. Find out why you have such a terrible time following thru for yourself. Motivate yourself to follow through on your commitments to yourself. Know how you go about creating goals that will guide you to the knowledge and physical repetition that allow for the miracle of talent to take place. The power of goal setting clarifies the purpose of these goals and then acting on them. Know what goals would make your life better if they were achieved. Know what negative effects will happen if you don’t follow through with these goals? Be prepared to alter or change the goals when, and if, you realize they are not giving you the results that you desire. This is the process for the ultimate success formula. Have daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual goals. The goals must be clear and action oriented. They must be supported by your five senses and evaluated regularly. They must be looked at as adventures and excitements. And, above all else … Be committed to each goal with joy and enthusiasm

Career Goals

As you know goal setting is important to your career success.Goals clarify expectations that you have.Goals become the steps in reaching your next destination of growth.Goal setting allows you to know which actions to take and how to evaluate those actions to see if you are getting close to the results you want.

There are long-term goals and short-term goals. An example of short-term goals would be getting your new headshots done by the end of the month.Short term goals might be interviewing agents by the middle of next month. You might need to get into a showcase by the end of the season.You might need to find a new acting coach by the end of next month.Goals that can be completed in three to six months are short term goals.Goals that can be completed in one to thirty days are short term goals.You might need to save $600 by the end of next month to be able to pay up front for new classes. These are examples of short-term goals.

Long term goals, on the other hand, require more time and effort for completion.Learning a new talent could be a long term goal.Moving to California or New York could be a long term goal.Making sure that your children have a college fund is a long term goal.

All areas of your business need active goal setting plans.Let’s start with the active areas of your business.Remember, As an actor you are an independent company responsible for your own growth and development.You are not just an actor looking for a job and having an employer.You are responsible for the chain of command of the acting business. You are responsible for doing your job.That job has a code of responsibility which is: know your lines, show up on time, and don’t cause trouble.

You are an independent contractor. Your company’s talent abilities, diversity, clarity, marketability, and versatility are all needed to be working in a consistent and progressive direction. Therefore your knowledge of goal setting and its value to you should be explored through the various departments and areas of your business.Fundamentals of business must be dealt with daily with your goal setting. This business knowledge is necessary to get you where you want to be.You want to learn about business as well as the business of this business.

There are many overlapping business principals that will serve you well.Without career goal setting to maintain your forward direction you may find yourself getting caught in negative thinking.I believe career goal setting begins with breaking down your company to its various departments.As I go over the different departments of your company I want you to look at the goals, both long and short, you can make and put into action.You need these goals or you will have no way to pursue the steps of success.

One of the reasons an acting career has such an unfortunate success rate is the subjective and non-disciplined approach taken by those involved.Most other career fields have training circumstances that are clearly defined and structured for a predictable end result.Medicine and law are two professions that have teaching programs that are finite in their guarantee for success.If a student completes the pre-designed course work with dedication and discipline the majority of them will go on to a successful career.

Self employed

Actors are self employed. You job out. They are therefore and employer not an employee. The actor must learn for the beginning of his career to think from the employer position. It is unacceptable that many of the most successful performers find themselves in their latter years financially strapped and professionally unwanted. At the same time their agents, producers, lawyers, business representatives; public relations company employees, etc… are all sitting pretty.Avoid this happening to you.

Many of these support people’s strongest talent are gaining your trust. This talent could later cost you dearly.For that reason, with your anticipation for success in this business, you will structure your company so that you are doing the things necessary to make the ultimate successful formula work. You will work at a level that far exceeds the majority of your competition.

It is important to know the difference between being an employee as opposed to an employer.The difference lies in the number of hours the person is willing to work. Thinking as an employer your results will have more success and your journey will be more enjoyable. Goal setting will give you the knowledge of the jobs you will later need to pay someone else to do. Not only will you pay them, you’ll also need to trust them. Selecting acting as a career shows that you are free-spirited. It shows a nonconformist approach to life. But, it still requires a commitment to the rules of business.It still requires the expectations of independent contractor responsibilities.

These responsibilities include: your ability to make a living for you and your family as well as your ability to feel accomplished and self-sufficient and your ability to respect yourself in this acting game. This respect requires an understanding of how the business works in relation to getting work and making a living. You must understand your product in relation to your package.

The Product

Your product is energy. It is the life energy that you have as a living member of the human race. Life energy is that part of the energy of the universe that has been separated from the whole of all that is and placed into the individual body. It is the force that drives the mind and body through a lifetime. It is precious. The physical use of life energy is primitive and instinctive. It has the sole purpose of defending the vessel/body with which it inhabits. It is drawn to the evolutionary process from which it was created.Its primary responsibility is survival.

The spiritual use of life energy is for the growth and knowledge acquisition of the Mind. Its desire is to become aware of Talent through talents. It is seeking an understanding of compassion, humanity and hope through wisdom. It is divine.

The actor is special in that he is responsible for taking his life energy and, through talent, using it to touch the energies of his audience and give them freedom from pain and suffering. The actor, when doing his job correctly, facilitates the ability of the audience member to heal themselves while their life energy is being distracted from its survival instincts and thereby allowing the body to repair (heal) where necessary. Once the actor understands this his is prepared to seek out the knowledge of the world of business. You want to know what business departments are needed to support you career efforts.

You must see yourself as a real company. A company with expectations and responsibilities.

Have a great week.
I wish you well.
Russ