Tag Archives: auditioning

YOU WANT TO BOOK A TV PILOT? HERE’S HOW.

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Anthony

When I was in my 20’s, I didn’t like myself very much. I had low self-esteem and a lot of self-hatred. I thought I was dumb and unattractive. Too “this” and too “that.” Too much, too gay, too weird, too “out there.”

So what did I do? Well, like most 20-year-olds at that time, I spent most of my energy trying to be someone I wasn’t. Duh.

I’d try really hard. To overcompensate for my perceived lack, I’d always put on a good show. On dates, I was so surprised when someone actually liked me, I’d ultimately sabotage the experience because of my insecurities. (Not more than an hour after a date ended, I’d call them and leave a voicemail – this was before cell phones! – asking if they had a good time and wanted to do it again!)

OMG. Stalker!

In my acting, I’d try to pretend to be someone else being the “character.” So I’d play ideas or mimic famous people or show caricatures because how could I ever believe that someone would ever be interested in merely watching me. That could never be enough, could it?

I learned the hard way. By running away from who I was, I discovered, over time, that the only way I made any sort of progress in my life – whether it be acting or dating or creating or relating – it all came down to me being me.

And ultimately I discovered that who I was (who we each are) is all I got.

You want to know the simple answer to any question you might have about anything you’re wanting in life?

Whether it’s about booking a job or landing the promotion or nailing a successful interview or having a second date or getting your TV series?

Be Yourself.

If you don’t know who that is yet, you’ve got time to figure it out.

But stop postponing.

The world is waiting for you to share who you are.

And really, you’re waiting to discover yourself.

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#51 – EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW TO HAVE A HAPPIER, MORE CREATIVE LIFE FROM A TO Z! PART 3

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Anthony

J = Joy.

Our natural state of being is joy. But you’re often your own thief of your own joyful experience. You rob from yourself that which is innately yours. Thankfully, joy is a never-ending commodity and it can’t be diminished entirely. But you do compromise it when you continue to re-write history and tell yourself stories that are not only blatantly untrue, but also make you feel like shit about yourself. Stop it. Tell a story of joy instead.

K = Kinesthetic.

Learning by doing. Get in the game of life. Stop sitting on the sidelines bitching, complaining and bemoaning. You learn by doing. Try. Crash. Burn. Do things that scare you. Attempt. Fail. This is not only a kinesthetic experience, it’s an experience of being alive.

L = Laughter.

Keep things in perspective. Stop taking everything so seriously. As long as you’re moving forward and experiencing new things in your life, being challenged and moving beyond your comfort zone – there’s progress. Celebrate what’s working. Stop being so dramatic about what’s not.

M = Mistakes.

Make them. The younger you are the easier it is to do that. As you get older it gets scarier because you become invested in what you’ve become, how you’re perceived, what you earn, what’s your identity and what you’ve created. These illusions can trap us into not taking risks because we’ve become so identified with the stuff we’ve amassed. Be like a kid: scab your knee, overreach, get yourself into a pickle. You’ll discover that you’ll survive.

N = Navigator.

You are the pilot and the co-pilot. You are setting the path and driving the vehicle. You have your own inner GPS system. If you don’t like the co-ordinates you are putting into your system, change them! No one is making you take the paths you don’t want to drive down. You decide where you want to go and you start moving in that direction. Follow your heart. Be a rebel.

O = Occam’s Razor.

The law of economy, the law of succinctness. The law of simplicity.

Which means, the simplest explanation for something is generally the correct explanation for something that may seem to have many hypothesis. The answer that has the least amount of assumptions is usually the truth. Stop assuming worst-case scenarios and doom-and-gloom stories about your life.

The agent didn’t sign you. It doesn’t mean you sucked.
You didn’t get the call-back. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.
The agent didn’t sign you because you reminded him of his ex-girlfriend.
You didn’t get the call-back because they already made an offer to someone else.

K. I. S. S. = Keep. It. Simple. Silly.

P = Purpose.

The purpose-driven life? Not sure what that is. I know it’s a best-selling book. Your life already has purpose. Purpose is created by showing up in our own lives more totally. More fully. It’s created by being more present with what’s in front of us right now. It’s not about being with someone and also answering our phone and responding to texts and sending emails and tweeting and watching an episode of 30 Rock and worrying about what’s going to happen in the future. It’s not about placing ego demands on yourself that you have to change the world or become famous or make millions of dollars.

True purpose transcends the ego-labeling of what we do as a career or how we define ourselves or the descriptions of what we do. Purpose is created in the minutiae of the moment. And it changes moment-to-moment. But we’re constantly missing the calling of purpose because we’re so distracted by our ego needs of, “How do I look?” “Will this sell” “Am I popular?” “What will they think of me?”

Mother Teresa said it best: “Let no one come to you without leaving happier and better.”

Holy crap. If you can just do that with every interaction you have in life, your life will rip open right in front of you, your ego demands will fall away, you’ll stop focusing on the ego self and its fears and maintenance of the status quo and your life would become one of the most joyful celebrations you could ever imagine.

Now that’s purpose!

“If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.” ~ Albert Einstein


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#6 – LIVE MORE, CARE LESS

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Anthony

We expend so much energy trying to look good, maintain control, focus on the end results, micro-manage and worry about things that are insignificant, that we lose the ability to be fully expressed, liberated and free in the moment.

You’ve got to stop caring how you think other people think of you. The truth is – they’re not thinking of you – because they’re thinking of themselves. Like all of us.

When I say, “care less,” I’m not asking you to stop caring about things that matter. I’m talking about giving up worrying about things that have to do with the ego: how you look, how you’re perceived, trying to maintain appearances, trying to show you have it all together.

Have you ever noticed that when you audition for something you don’t give a rat’s ass about, you end up booking? Why is this? At a practical level you simply free yourself up in the moment and express yourself without judgment and concern for the end results. You don’t care how you look and consequently the energy that normally gets diffused when we are so concerned with the outcome, ends up instead being used properly. That is, creatively.

From a scientific/universal standpoint, it also is a declaration of alignment. In other words, you were totally in the moment of full creative expression. You weren’t second-guessing and stopping yourself from being expressed and you let go of the end results. Normally, we end up leaving an audition and immediately question every choice we made, desperately clinging to the need of wanting the job, beating ourselves up for what we didn’t do. All of these things are an implicit declaration to the universe stating “I don’t really believe I can have that.” And so we don’t.

Homework:  Watch the video and then see how you can give up the need this week of having to fulfill an expectation of how you think something should look.

“In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you love? How deeply did you learn to let go?” — The Buddha

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