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
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
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