Aims, Habits & Classical Music

Hi There,

After a chaotic hiatus, Film & Television Production is back—and I’ve been getting a lot of client emails and private session requests from actors who want to break into the work that’s happening.

It ain’t easy.

It’s not even remotely practical. But it is possible—if you can first figure out what you need to regularly do. And, honestly, I think figuring it out is the hardest part.

Several years back, I returned to working as an actor for a hot second. I had experience on my side, armed with firsthand casting knowledge of what great auditions look like.  But other than that, the odds of booking anything were not stacked in my favor.

But I did it. And I know how I did it.

I’ve helped other people book work, too. So, in this Sixth issue of The Dialogue, I’m letting you in on my non-secret technique for making things happen, including:

• Aims vs. Goals
• The #1 Book to Make Things Happen
• Interviews & Ideas to Fuel Your Creativity

FYI – The waitlist for On Camera Lab is open. Actors currently enrolled in October sessions get first access to classes. While all classes are currently full, we will notify actors on the waitlist when space becomes available.

This On Camera Lab will be a little different: 5 weeks for the price of 4. My holiday gift to say thank you for being a bright spot in this dark year.

Look below to find out how you can join the On Camera Lab waitlist and be first in line for open spots.

Be well,

JC

Often, when I’m sitting down for a career coaching, a client shows me a list of goals that they say would make them feel successful:

1. BOOK A ROLE ON A TV SHOW
2. SIGN WITH AN AGENT
3. LAND A NATIONAL COMMERCIAL

While these are great moments for an actor, achieving them is not directly within your control. So, when they don’t happen for an extended period of time, it’s easy to feel terrible.

Pursue Effective Steps

You have no input towards who the casting team brings into auditions, what clients an agent might need to add to their roster, or who the creative team feels can best promote their product. How would you set steps to influence these decisions? Is that even possible?

What if you instead reframe your goals so that success isn’t somewhere you arrive, as the result of someone else’s (possibly arbitrary) auditions? What if goals weren’t destinations, but how you travel?

Every damn day. Little by little.

I know this works because I’ve done it: as a Casting Director, as an Actor, and now as a Coach. The same approach. Each time. Each career.

A Clear Path with Clear Actions

Here’s the path I took going back to work as an actor:

Out of the game for a decade and on the other side of 30, my relationships with Casting Directors were all colored through the prism of my own work in Casting, and not through my experience as an actor. I held no substantial acting credits and no recent footage. But I wanted to book work on a television show.

I knew I had to reframe that “want” if I was going to make it happen. So, I set that as an Aim and not a Goal.

An Aim is something we can work toward, in a measurable way, to increase the likelihood of it happening. In other words, we release the idea that we can make the “want” happen and focus on Goals instead. With focus on the Goals, it’s possible that the Aim happens as a result.

So, what is a Goal? Goals are the actions, in our control, that we take daily. They are measurable. Either we did it, or we didn’t do it. Meet the Goal, or don’t. But always in our control. Some Goals are multi-step… but for it to truly be a Goal, each step has to involve an outcome that we fully control.

You Are What You Repeatedly Do

In short, I made it my Goal to develop helpful Habits that I could foresee putting me in a position to achieve my Aim. Goals related to my craft, my relationships and contact with casting directors and agents, and for my body and instrument.

For example, a Craft Goal might be something like studying three times in two months with a renowned coach. A Relationship/Contact Goal might be reaching out to four new contacts this month or taking a seminar with two new Casting Associates. A Body/Instrument Goal might be practicing vocal technique for ten minutes a day.

At the beginning, the progress was invisible. But these little wins of daily actions started to compound.

Within a year of setting my goals, I’d signed with an agent and manager. I started auditioning for film and TV and started to build contacts. Soon after, I booked a role on television—I accomplished my Aim, through working on my Goals.

I set and accomplished intentional steps. Every day. And so can you. And if there’s one book I could recommend to help you establish your own system of Goals and Habits, it’s the one right below.

James Clear starts with four simple laws:

1. Make It Obvious
2. Make it Attractive
3. Make It Easy
4. Make It Satisfying

These four simple ideas form the basis of a system of small habits that yield big changes.

My top five takeaways:

• “Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.”
• “Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.”
• “Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. That’s the counterintuitive thing about improvement. We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results.”
• “When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy.”
• “If your beliefs and worldview play such an important role in your behavior, where do they come from in the first place? How, exactly, is your identity formed? And how can you emphasize new aspects of your identity that serve you and gradually erase the pieces that hinder you?”

If you’re looking to make substantial progress towards your dreams, you’ll likely need goals to get there. Atomic Habits just might make the difference in making those dreams a reality.

Purchase on Amazon:
http://jamiecarroll.me/atomichabits-amz

Purchase on Barnes & Noble:
http://jamiecarroll.me/atomichabits-bn

Purchase from an Independent Bookseller:
http://jamiecarroll.me/atomichabits-indy

Or, check the stacks of your local Public Library.

If you want to understand what I mean, jump into the one minute thirty second mark of this talk by Boston Philharmonic Conductor and Best-Selling Author, Benjamin Zander.

In this talk, Zander hits on the power of story and possibility as told through the frame of classical music. If you’re looking for a jolt of energy, hope and inspiration (and honestly, right now, who isn’t), tune in.

TED Talks: Benjamin Zander – The Transformative Power of Classical Music

“The trouble with you is you’re a two-buttock player. You should be a one-buttock player.”—Benjamin Zander

https://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_the_transformative_power_of_classical_music

Don’t Give a Performance, Have an Experience

I came across a quote this week during my own study block. It resonated with what we are experimenting with this week in On Camera Lab.

It’s from Viola Spolin’s wonderful book, Improvisation for the Theater.

It is highly possible that what is called talented behavior is simply a greater individual capacity for experiencing.

Food for thought!

On Camera Lab is designed to be an on-going practice for your development as an artist. This work is structured, specific, and follows a repeatable set of steps designed for actors to craft and hone their own On Camera Technique.

It’s different from any ongoing On Camera acting class out there, and I’m so glad to share it with you.

Actors are encouraged to return to the Lab each month, as long as they are experiencing growth and progress.

The waitlist is ongoing—and since we’re still in a time of economic upheaval, upcoming sessions are still available at a special “relief rate”.

Click here to learn more about the workshop—and find out how to apply.