The #1 Way to Get Out of Your Way? Stop Comparing-and-Despairing!
I’ve lectured on it before. Compare-and-Despair-ism. Don’t do it. It’s a zero-sum game you can never win. You’re comparing your dress rehearsal to everyone else’s opening night, and when you do that...
View ArticleActors Ask: How Do I Get Out of My Own Way More in the Work?
I get asked hundreds of questions by actors and I thought this week I’d tackle one of the most common ones posed to me – and also seems to be the one that most actors struggle with everywhere. “When...
View ArticleTo Swipe or Not to Swipe: What Tinder Can Teach Us About Acting
Robert Duvall says acting is simply “talking and listening.” If that’s true, then connection is an essential part of the equation. You can’t actually listen to someone with your head buried in an...
View ArticleA LIFE CHANGING LESSON IN SIX SECONDS
Science has recently discovered that a human being’s attention span is that of a goldfish – 6 seconds. That’s scary. Especially if you think that lots of the things we ruminate on within those 6...
View ArticleIt’s Not “Happn”-ing On Your Cell Phone App
Happn. Heard of it? It’s the latest app that tracks where you are in real time. (Do we need yet another app tracking my every move?) When another user passes your current location, their profile...
View ArticleStop Being Afraid to Take Action
It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting. That goes for life and for acting. Why is this? Because the more we sit around thinking about...
View Article#SorryNotSorry: The Art of Learning How to Stop Apologizing for Your Existence
Stop apologizing. When you’re at a restaurant and ask the waiter for more water, “Sorry, can I have some more please?” Or you lean in at the Starbucks condiment counter grabbing a packet of sugar, “So...
View ArticleHow Listening Can Win You A Million Dollars
Listening is an act of discovery. It completely has the power to transform our lives. In our acting, it is the principle that can take us to unexpected places of feeling and experience that can shock...
View Article3 Goddamn Great Realizations (!) About Love
Love. It’s our natural state. It’s all around us. It permeates everything we do. It’s the greatest force driving our actions and creative lives. (Although fear can be a very powerful distraction!)...
View ArticleWhy Actors Must Keep Their Hearts Open
Just stay open to receive. I can’t take someone else’s hand in my own if I continue to clench my fists. It all sounds so easy. And at one level, it is. But we become so conditioned by the...
View ArticleYou’ve Got All The Goods Inside You. (Why are you looking for them somewhere...
Why are we obsessed with doing things perfectly or “right?” Why do we believe there’s some magic formula to creating or acting or life itself? As maverick filmmaker, John Cassavetes said, “It is all...
View ArticleThe How to Use What We’re All Seeking (to Your Advantage) In The Audition Room
I was at my dental hygienist the other day and she was telling me about her latest dating woes. As I looked up from my reclining chair into her eyes – somehow clear and glassy even through her...
View Article5 Rules for a Better Life (and 5 ways to improve your acting)!
1). Stay open when you want to hide, shut down or retreat. This sounds easier said than done, but staying open and leading from the heart is going to be the major calling of our lives. It’s so easy to...
View Article7 Rules to Improve Your Acting (and Your Life)
I think we’re living in an exciting time, because the rules of acting that are really becoming popular (and understandable) are those that follow the same rules of life. It’s not really hard to stop...
View ArticleAre Your 20’s Like Your 40’s . . . And Beyond? Yep. (if you keep seeking the...
I realized the other day that there is no primer for understanding the phases of life that we inevitably go through. I thought it odd as so many people have come before us, and yet, I personally...
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