Are you busy? Is your planner full? Your class schedule, your job, your life to-do list, your personal life, your social life, all the social media outlets you’re trying to juggle…and just breathing. You busy? I bet you are, I bet you feel commonly tired, that you might be going around in circles, that you get to the end of each week and you KNOW you’ve been busy yet you’re really not sure if anything has changed. If you think that this “feels” about right…then make sure you really read this. Be sure that you really hear me, be sure that you just don’t turn the page on another year. We’re headed into the Holiday season, and it is another danger based on OLD mind sets. It is time to CHANGE your oil folks, because if you’ve been running your Show engine and Business engine on the same mentality, the same plan, the same actions and the same philosophies for more than a few years now and you don’t feel it is getting you anywhere new…then CHANGE IT.
Literally, dump it, drain it, let it run out on the floor and start over. Now here is the key part of this conversation, because this upsets a lot of people…not just actors. When I say dump it and start over, I’m not saying that everything you’ve been doing is bad, wrong, failed, irresponsible, stupid, weird, odd, silly or just plain a bad idea. NO, that is not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that the title for this particular Blog involves the analogy of motor oil for a reason. The reason why I use oil is that it is the life blood of our car engines and our minds/actions are the life blood of our careers. Parts of it may be terrific but when it is mixed in with all of the other things that we’re doing, saying, believing, and all of our actions the say good 10% gets diluted down to absolutely nothing and the purpose and value of it all gets lost amongst the rest of the oil.
This is why I recommend you stop, drain it, let it all run out…get out a BRAND NEW clean piece of canvas…and start over. But before you start putting anything on the canvas, stop, and really think about WHAT YOU WANT. What do you truly want, specifically, not in general. Remember, we all want more auditions, we all want to work, we all want to make money, we all want to have a better agent here, or a more attentive manager there, so you can’t just work from those “generic” and common positions of need or fear.
Know this, realize this, and remember this: “There are 50 people in this entire business, that could change the course of your career, 50. Not 5000, 50, so set your sights on exactly the aspect of the industry you want to succeed in first as a performer and focus on the key people who make that world run. And then, when you’ve figured that much out, start writing out a NEW plan of how you’re going to go about pursuing your career. And again, don’t just write out the same “generic tasks.” Be more specific, have more risks involved with your actions, and step up the game. But at the end of the day, you HAVE to be consistent, and you have to not stop from week to week.
My best to you always, Kevin E.
@TheKevinE, kevinewest.com, actorbizguru.com, actors-network.com, gettingthejob.com