Why the Actors Who Enjoy the Process Are the Ones Who Book the Most

Hello. We are just waiting for Instagram to catch up. Welcome. Welcome. It's Tuesday. All right. So, there we are. Great. I want to start today with a story about my nephew. It was his birthday yesterday, actually. Happy birthday, Cairo. And um remembering a time that we went to Disneyland and he stayed with us for a few weeks and Disneyland was like the highlight of the trip. He was seven at the time. Seven going on eight. He would want me to say that. Um and so we were like Disneyland. We're going to Disneyland. So we're at Disneyland and when we're in the lines, he is complaining a lot. Like it's just like, "Oh, the line is too long. This is taking forever." And we're like, "Oh, well, but look at the characters over there and look at this amazing production design and this like Indiana Jones ride. Like, doesn't this look like we're inside Indiana Jones and whatever? There's literally a parade happening over there. Like what?" And he's just suffering in line, right? So then we get on the ride. He of course is having the best time of his life. Pure joy. Nothing could be better. And then the second the ride stops, his seat belt is still on. He's like, I want to do that again, right? Or like, okay, what are we doing next? So, there's like a theme here that I think we can all learn from, right? Disneyland is 3% going on rides, 3% like fun, thrills, joy, and the other 97% is lines, walking around, having a snack, waiting, right? So, our options at Disneyland are we can enjoy the whole thing. We can be in the wonder of it. We can people watch. We can enjoy our churro. Or we can feel ripped off because we spent the whole day in line. And okay, he's seven, right? Lines suck when you're seven years old. You don't have a lot of perspective, whatever. But here's the reason I'm telling you this story right now. Our acting careers feel exactly the same way. Before we book, we're in the line. We're complaining. This is taking so long. My agent isn't working for me. That casting director, I don't even know if they watched my tape. I'm not getting any feedback. And then we book something and it's the ride. It's so thrilling. It's everything we wanted. We're so excited to share it. And then after we shoot, it's like, "Okay, well, when's the next one? Are they ever going to call me back? Is this going to be recurring? Like, what if that was my last job ever?" I've heard so many actors say that. I I after my job, I think I'm never going to work again. So today I want to make an argument that might sound kind of backwards, but the actors who learn to enjoy the line and not just enjoy the rides are the ones who actually end up booking the most. And I don't mean that as like a woo woo kind of sentiment. I mean that like as career strategy. And I'm going to show you the actual mechanics of how that works. Clip that. This is episode 29 of Powerhouse Conversations. Why the actors who enjoy the process are the ones who book the most. So, let's get into it. So, let's start with just some math around like how this thing actually works. Even the most thriving, most well- paid working actors are have a career that's mostly like process, right? Think about super busy actors. How many days a year are they actually on set or actually on stage? Even even a series regular is shooting maybe half the year, right? They might be doing other projects while the show is on hiatus, but they're not shooting every single day. For most of us, the actual performing days are like a very small fraction of the calendar and the rest is preparations, auditions, maybe publicity, outreach, training, meetings, marketing, waiting, doing your other things. Which means that if you can only be happy on the days that you're like booked and working, like shooting something or actually performing, you have signed up to be unhappy for the vast majority of your life. And that sucks when you think about it. We're mostly in line. Clip that. And here's the part that takes some of us a very long time to understand. But that line part is not the thing that's standing between you and you and your career. The line is the career. That is the part that is important. The subtapes, the relationships, the reachouts, the classes, the dry spells where you decide to create your own stuff. You keep creating anyway. That's not like the price of admission to the real thing. That is the real thing. Bookings are just what that process will periodically produce for you. So when someone tells me, well, I'm really happy when I book, but otherwise I'm kind of miserable. What I'm hearing is I have decided to defer my happiness to a 3% sliver of my life and to make the other 90% something that I just endure to get to that. And when you put it that way, it's terrible. Sounds terrible, right? Like that is not that's not what we want. I'm glad this is resonating for you, Miss Pa. So, yeah, like that's just not sustainable, right? And there's also a spiritual dimension to this that I want to name because I really do believe this. I think that when we are in this pattern, when we're constantly dissatisfied, when we're constantly feeling bad, when we're constantly feeling like we're in lack and we're suffering, I think the universe or God or whatever force you believe shapes timing in our lives, looks at us and goes, "Really? I'm supposed to give you more when you can't even appreciate what you have?" like, okay, and you don't have to share my beliefs about that for the rest of this to work because I'm I'm going really practical with this and the practical stuff points in the same direction. But I've just seen it too many times to ignore that. And the actors who are genuinely appreciative of where they are seem to have careers that just kind of open up for them. And the ones who are chronically dissatisfied and bitter seem to stay stuck in that way no matter how hard they work. So I want to talk about why that is. All right. So there are three I'm going to call them traps that seem to pull us out of enjoyment and into that like dissatisfaction bitterness place. And so I want you to just listen to these and see which one is yours because most of us have a kind of a favorite one that we go to a lot. So trap number one is focusing on what you don't have. It's measuring your career by everything that is missing. I don't have a good enough agent yet. I don't have enough auditions yet. I'm not a series regular yet. I don't have my SAG card yet. Or I don't have enough credits or I don't have the right credits or whatever. And what's sneaky about this one is that it's kind of able to disguise itself as ambition. It feels like you just have high standards and you just want to get there. And you know, but there is a difference between having goals, which is great, and having a deficit-based relationship with your own life, right? Goals will pull you forward, but if you're always in deficit thinking, it just makes your present totally unlivable and really miserable and it makes you unable to appreciate what you do have. So the antidote to this is something that I call the reverse gap. And I'm going to teach it to you at the end of this episode. But the short version is you're always measuring the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Right? That's the forward gap. It's never going to close because every time we get somewhere, every time we arrive at a new destination, we want to be somewhere different. And that's normal. What we almost never measure is the gap between where we are and where we started. And that gap is huge. Think about what you've already done, what you've already traveled. We're not usually looking at that. Clip that. The second trap is what we do with um I guess I I would say like goals that we partially achieve. And I'm going to tell you a story about this um from my own life where I did this where I kind of hit part of a goal and I called it like failure. So when I launched the table for the first time back in 2020, I set this goal. I went to bring in 500 actors to my membership community and that was my stretch goal. My middle goal was like 300. And so I did a whole launch. I taught this great master class. I had a cart open period. And after all of that, we brought in 185 actors, 185 people. And so I go into my next business coaching session and I'm like kind of deflated, right? I'm like, well, it was fine. You know, the actors we got are amazing. The webinar was amazing. I had so much fun doing it and these people are great. But and my coach taught me and she was like, "Adre, what is wrong with you? You have a brand new program and 185 people said yes to this. 185 people joined this." Picture 185 people in a room. Like that's a lot of people. And I realized something that looking back on it is actually like it's kind of embarrassing, right? I had pulled this 500 number out of thin air. Where did I get that from? I don't know. sounded good. And this madeup number was preventing me from feeling the magnitude of what actually happened, which is that 185 amazing human beings said yes to something that I created. We do this constantly as actors. Our goal is three national commercials this year. We book one commercial, a co-star, and a play. And we're like, uh, instead of celebrating, which is what we should be doing, we file it under, uh, fell short of three. So, we took a genuinely great year and we turned it into a disappointment. Clip that. I'm not going to tell you not to set big goals. Set big goals. I set the biggest goals. I'm the last person who's going to tell you not to. But when you get 60% of the way to your big goal, that is not failure. That is a huge amount of real progress that your madeup number or your madeup goal is is stealing from you. So trap number one is focusing on what you don't have. Trap number two is hitting 60% of the goal and calling it failure. Trap number three is kind of subtle. It is thinking constantly about what you want but never feeling any of the joy of it in the present. We did an exercise um in my Fearless 21 challenge that's running right now. We're about to start October 1st. Um where we started to feel into the careers that we are building in this challenge. So think about it. You know what you want. You want the series regular. You want the team. You want a specific income. You want the life. You think about it all the time. But the thinking has this quality around it that's kind of grim and clenched and like, "Oh, I don't have this yet." Right? It's like the ache of wanting it instead of the excitement of wanting it. And here's the problem with that, whether you come at it practically or spiritually, practically when you are pursuing your career from the ache of it, it is totally burning you out. And when you are burned out, you will quit before your kind of I don't even want to call it a break, but before the good things that you're waiting for happen. And spiritually, and this is straight from my own beliefs about manifestation and how that all works. When you are coming from a place of lack and you know, grind and misery and all of that, you are rehearsing that. Um, there's this book I love. Oh, I wanted to actually have it and show it to you. I'm actually going to grab it. It's called A Happy Pocket Full of Money. I love this book. And one of the principles in it is that gratitude speeds up receiving because gratitude is a statement of belief. you are saying um you know I am genuinely excited and grateful for what's coming before it arrives even and that is an act of of faith and faith like that moves you towards your goals at a much faster speed much faster speed so when we can be in gratitude it's kind of like fertilizer for what we don't have yet right if we think of our dreams as the seeds, the consistent action that we're taking is planting and watering, right? And we talk about action constantly on this series. But gratitude is what makes the whole thing grow faster. It's like the little fertilizer accelerant, right? When we're taking action and we're not having that appreciation, that gratitude, we're just grind. We're just in the grind. And when we're in gratitude, but we're not taking action, we're just wishing, right? That doesn't work either. We need both. Clip that. All right. So, um I don't want this to sound like super woo woo. Enjoy the journey. Be grateful. Blah blah blah. So, I'm going to show you the machinery around this, like the practical reasons why most actors who enjoy the process book more. Not feel better, but actually book more. So, the first thing is that desperation reads on camera. We talked about this in the money episode and the audition ritual episode. Um, but when your happiness is deferred until you book, every audition carries the weight of like I need to book this. I uh and that is visible. It is an energy. It is a tightness. It is a pressing. It is like a pickme quality that people can feel watching your audition. even when your technique is flawless. And the actor who's enjoying their life, enjoying their career, walks in, of course, they want the job, but they're also okay if they don't get the job. And that ease is magnetic. It is what confidence actually looks like. And you can't fake it, but you can build a life that produces it. Clip that. Mechanism number two um for why actors who enjoy the process book more is that look enjoyment is like so juicy. It looks so great when you are enjoying yourself. You are someone who people want to hire. People want to work with people like that, right? And you know, think about your own experience on set or as part of a cast or whatever. Who did you want to work with again? The person who was like constantly stressed out and needing something or the person who was genuinely happy to be there. Right? Enjoyment is contagious. It's attractive professionally. If you're having a good time, you make the director's day easier. You're making everyone's easier, everyone's day easier. You're making the room lighter. You're making the work better. Word gets around about those people. Right? Offers happen, repeat requests happen. Enjoyment is a huge part of what makes you the person they want to do it again with. And then also the third thing is that enjoyment is what makes you last long enough to hit those wins. A huge percent of the actors who so-called fail didn't like there was not any any time where anyone said like you need to stop this. you're not good enough. But they quit. They just stopped. They couldn't take it anymore. They burned out. The grind with no joy is so unsustainable. We cannot do that. Why do you want Why would you want to put yourself through that? They decide that they have to do something else in order to enjoy their life. And careers in this business are won substantially through longevity. Look at the Emmy winners. How long have they all been in this business? Like staying in the game, staying visible, continue to continuing to improve and build relationships for years. That is what it takes. And the biggest predictor of whether you can actually do that is whether you enjoy doing it. That's it. So there's the machinery. Having ease in the room or on camera, having longevity in your career, and being the person that people want to have around. That's it. And all three are caused by your genuine enjoyment of the process. That's it. So, how can we get to a place where you enjoy this? How can you actually build this? Because it I could tell you to enjoy the process all day, but what's actually going to help you get there is the question. The first thing is the reverse gap that I mentioned earlier. Sit down and write about where you were five years ago. Like just actually write that down. Where were you living? What did your career look like? What did you know? What relationships did you have? What were you afraid of that you're not afraid of anymore? Like, you know, look at all that. And then look at where you are now and look at the distance that you have traveled. Like it's it's probably amazing. Even if you're not exactly where you want to be right now, you have traveled so far in 5 years. And that is the evidence that you are making progress. So I recommend that you do this once a quarter alongside your quarterly planning. Plan the future and then also honor the distance that you traveled. Clip that. The second tool is a gratitude assessment. This one takes about 2 minutes if you want to just do it every day, right? Um you could do it in the morning when you wake up. You could do it in the evening before you drift off to sleep. Three categories, three items each. First, think of three things from your personal life. I'm grateful I could buy whatever I wanted at the grocery store today. I'm grateful for my health. I'm grateful that I went to a running class today and I was able to do all the runs. Three things from your professional life. I'm grateful for that self tape that I just got. Right. It was actually a lot of fun. I'm grateful my agent checked in to see if I wanted to do this audition, whatever. And then the third category, three aspects of yourself, qualities of you as a human that you are grateful for. I'm grateful for how quickly I absorb and apply what I learn. I'm grateful that I am a good reader. I'm grateful that I have a nice smile, right? Like I'm grateful that I'm the kind of person who shows up for myself and for others. I find that that category is a game changer because we can be grateful for circumstances all day, but when we're grateful for who we are, that builds the identity that carries you through the hard dry spells. And then the third tool, I call it the rampage of appreciation. This is the emergency tool for the days when everything is sucking, nothing is working, everything's annoying, you haven't had any auditions in a while, you're like, uh, the discouragement is kind of winning. Set a timer for 60 seconds and think of, write down as many things as you can possibly think of to be grateful for as fast as you can. Big things, tiny things, stupid things, whatever. coffee, your knees still work, your scene partner got back to you, whatever, right? Rampage of appreciation. Um, it will always shift your state, your state. And even if your circumstances don't change, your state is what is what is doing so much more for your career than you think. All right. So, one more thing about all three of these. The reason that gratitude works is that it's a feedback loop. The more you practice noticing what is good, the more good you notice and then you appreciate more and then the noticing is easier and it compounds on itself. So, this is not faking positivity. you are training your attention to notice. All right? So, start that this week, this quarter. We're heading into the fourth quarter. Start that. And if you are in a place where you want to build a career, where the process is actually enjoyable, where we really design a career that you don't have to white knuckle through alone, the table is where we do that. So, this is my year-long coaching community for actors. Um, honestly, this episode describes the culture of it. We build monthly marketing plans. We do the strategic work, but we also do it in a community where we celebrate our wins. Uh, gratitude assessment is built in to your weekly rhythm. We're all standing in line together and we're all enjoying the rides. So, um, yeah, if you want your career to feel like that, the link is claimat.com. It's in my bio. It's in the description. Come play with us. All right. Um I'll see you next week.