Last night I had the pleasure of listening to Sir Chris Guillebeau chat about his experiences and promote his new book The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future
I must say I did actually read the book prior to the book signing and talk last night and was motivated by the variety of stories it contained. He makes starting your own business sound so easy. I’ve now even been contemplating starting yet another side hustle. But while I’m working out the details on that, I’ve been busy getting STOKED for #wds2012. Somehow I managed to let the energy of last year’s kickass conference slip away and I’m glad to be getting it back. I mean, what the hell have I been doing?! The road to hell is paved with my good intentions for posting… I’ve been drafting posts for about a month now. Enough! I’m posting. Remove my section from that road!
I’ve been taking acting classes. Not just taking acting classes for the sake of taking classes but actively pursuing acting as an endeavor. I got a great photographer friend to take my headshots, I got an agent, started taking more classes and actually going on auditions. I’ve landed a few small roles in a couple things like this student film -
Scary, right?
I’m also now continuously taking classes. Everyone keeps saying that the good actors are continually taking classes and continually learning and honing their skills. Personally, I love taking classes and I love the people I take classes with. As we’ve previously covered I also love learning, so acting lines up perfectly.
Being new to acting lends itself to lots of questions: How long have you been acting? Umm, since February. What made you get into acting (now)? Uhhh.
GREAT question. I haven’t devised a good answer yet. What makes you take action at a certain point in time? What’s the last thing you started new and what made you finally take action? What is your catalyst? What makes you finally start?
Typically, I’m a woman of action. Once I make a decision, I’m on it. I don’t necessarily fear “failure” like many people do and I’m always willing to learn from my fuck-ups less than stellar decisions and truly view them as opportunities to grow. So my inability to take action wasn’t from a fear of failure. I realized it was more that I just flat out didn’t know what to do. The entertainment industry is not exactly easy to navigate. I wasn’t in theater as a child. Never took any acting classes in high school or college. Never really took any acting classes at all until about a year ago. I’ve done some occasional/casual modeling in the past but nothing particularly formal requiring any knowledge of the industry. So what made me (a decisive action taking woman) decide to start this now? Well for one, my beloved actor friend Salim has been harassing me for years (thanks, Salim!). Two, I’ve been asked before if I’m an actor or in the arts – I chalk it up to my oversized hair, animated speech, and plethora of indiscernible facial expressions but I’ll call that an element of reinforcement. Three, I took a class and then another as a result of this blog. In the last class I took, the instructor was really encouraging of me to pursue acting and handed me a resource list. This is what I credit with my finally taking action. Without having any information or even anyone to ask, I felt lost. Google wasn’t particularly helpful. Once I had a list of people to contact and outlets to pursue in this market I no longer had any excuses. I had support, reinforcement, and information.
Is there something you’ve been meaning to do and haven’t? What’s keeping you from starting? What excuses are you using to keep yourself from progressing? Have you been meaning to start your own business? The $100 Startup pretty much lays out what you need to do. Have you been meaning to pick up a new hobby? Pick up an old hobby that you let fall by the wayside? Ask yourself what’s keeping you from starting up. Then ask yourself what you need to do to just start. Need support or reinforcement? Let’s start a club. I keep you in check and free from excuses and you do the same for me.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really need to get moving on some t-shirts that I’ve been meaning to print.
