Sam Valentine (0:00)

Fast Forward Productions. The women are speaking. What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the One Broke Actress podcast. An honest account of actor life, plus a few lessons I learn in the process. I am your host, Sam Valentine, and today we're gonna do a solo episode because we are going to talk about the inevitability of change in this business, but we are also going to talk about an acceptance mindset. This is something I have struggled with essentially my entire life. And as much as I want to always talk about the business and acting and reels and all of these things, I think that talking about acceptance in terms of change and your mindset is inevitably going to help us out in our careers and also in our life. This episode was inspired by because I just can't resist a moment to point out Trolls. I got a review on this podcast that said it was used to be okay. Which by the way is low key, so savage and I just think that's so funny. It used to be okay. That said that this podcast has changed and I've changed and yeah, absolutely, I've changed and this podcast has changed. When I started this in 2016, I've mentioned before I was so nervous about my own voice and my own experience in the industry that I heavily relied on guests to tell stories and I wanted their opinions because I felt safer not sharing my own. And I've gotten older, I've gotten more experienced. I still have a lot to learn, but I also have a lot to share. Change, to me is an inevitable part of the business of life and of growth, and we're going to address it today. Not in a let's address the haters kind of way. By the way, please rate and review this podcast, especially if you really like it. Especially if you think it's not just okay, sorry, I think it's so funny. But honestly, my younger self, when I started this podcast, it started recording in 2016, started dropping episodes in 2017. I couldn't have handled someone saying something like that. I couldn't handle some of the messages I get sometimes on Instagram. I couldn't handle having my own opinion of the business because I was worried it wasn't a universal fact. I was worried that I would say something that would offend someone or that would put someone off. And it really comes down to being liked and the fear of being disliked. And the people pleasing mentality is really rampant in us as actors because we do this with roles and auditions across the board. I am someone who will try and book a job as much as possible and listen at the end of the day, is that my job? Yes. Is it my job to please everyone in a room? No. No. I'm not hosting a dinner party constantly. But it's, it's, it's a hard middle ground to find, especially because so many of us seek validation. And something like this would have just sent me years ago. But in terms of growth and in terms of change, yeah, there's been a lot of it. But accepting it, deciding what works for you and what doesn't and moving on, I think is a part of this business. And that is what we're going to talk about today. So it's not going to be all for the trolls. This is going to be about the mindset and the process of acceptance and how really learning to roll with it and mourn it if needed and move on. And taking that mindset and changing it helps all of us in the long run. Speaking of change, before we get into today's topic, the Side Hustle Academy grind, in all my life, successful side hustles for successful actors. Look at that. Free webinar is linked below. So if you are currently looking for change in terms of your side jobs, if you're looking to uplevel, if you're looking to no longer need to refer to yourself as broke all of the time, I would highly recommend you check it out. It's free, it's an hour. It's actually good quality material. We also are selling side Hustle Academy at a discount at the end of that webinar. So if that's something you're looking for. We have a lot of actors who've changed their entire lives because of side Hustle Academy and because of up leveling their income streams so they can up level their career. That is something you're interested in. Check it out below. It's on sale with live calls with me and Gab until the beginning of March. So check it out below. And in that Side Hustle webinar, there's actually a place to drop into the chat and drop questions and we will respond to them as you go. So check it out. We're really, really proud of what we put together in there. So speaking of being pros and things, ladies and gentlemen, I'm assuming everyone who is listening to this is in some capacity either a professional actor or aiming to be a professional actor. And that means we all have guarantees in this career. Obviously, you're guaranteed to need to read scripts, you're guaranteed auditions. Even though oftentimes we wonder if we're ever going to get one again, or if that one was our last one, you know the mindset I'm talking about, you're guarantee at some point in time having someone represent you in some sort of capacity. As you become a professional actor. You're probably guaranteed going union at some point. You are guaranteed to work on your craft across the board because every day you're going to have new life experiences and you're going to work on it. And another guarantee you are given in this career that we don't like to talk about is quiet time. Having space between jobs is a guarantee of an acting career. Period, end of sentence. We are glorified gig workers. So whether it's between a commercial booking and the next job or a background session and the next week on another show, or between shows or between films, you're guaranteed to have that time. And it is built in because one of the things we love about this business is that it changes. I'm talking about change very specifically because this business is guaranteed change. It will always be up, leveling, altering. There's going to be fads, there's going to be themes, there's going to be things that are popular and unpopular. You're going to see the same topics hit on in content. You're going to see similar people win the Golden Globes and the Oscars. And we kind of love that because it's innovative, because it's art, because it's always changing. And I also know deep down that every single one of you secretly love the chaos. You love the idea that there can be a phone call tonight that says, hey, that thing you auditioned for a while ago that you forgot about, you booked it. I know you love that because I love that. It's the best part. It's so exciting. Things can change on a dime. And it's the reason we keep playing this game, it's the reason we keep investing, it's the reason we keep giving our time and energy to this business is because we never know when it can change. But we're also jumping from project to project because of that guaranteed change. And that is an experience that we are willing to take. But the part we struggle to accept of that is that there is space between this project and the next project. It means we have to accept the fact that there will be space between the highs and the lows, because if there was only highs, there would never actually be highs. You can sit and think about that for as long as you need to. Feel free to pause this video or podcast, but if we are going to get past this and keep going, what we have to do is work on our acceptance mindset. And we often wrongly assume that having free time or non working time means that we're doing something wrong. And that leads me to this chain of events. And if you are watching this on YouTube or Spotify, I'm going to lead you through with a lovely graphic here. So if you are watching this on Spotify video or YouTube, I'm going to show you a graph right now. And if not, if you're driving in your car walking around listening to this, just picture this in your head like the big recycling sign. One arrow leads to the next leads to the next. So things get quiet. It's inevitable. It's guaranteed. Because of change, because of space between projects, because this is the work we signed up to do. Oftentimes we all instantly feel like it's our fault. We messed something up, there's something missing, we fell off, something needs to improve, something has to be done, we made a mistake. Even when we know we're on strike or the business is changing or budgets are being slashed or things like that, we often blame ourselves. And then we I get frustrated, I get upset at the business and I lose strength in myself and I lose confidence in my work, which then leads to consistently not as good of work because I'm constantly questioning it. Not in a learning curve way of which I could do better and learn more, but in a I am so worried I'm not good at this job anymore kind of way. And in that frustration and in that anger and in that distrust of ourselves and the circumstances, we, we don't make any good changes. No real good true changes come out of that vibe. Every once in a while you get a circumstance you're thrown into in which you have to change and alter and up level. Very rarely is it ones that we choose. So in those times when no good changes are made, nothing productive happens. You continue the work gets quiet cycle. We feel at fault, we are frustrated and on and on and on. This at some point leads to some level of burnout, jadedness. And from what I have witnessed in this business, people leaving it all together. And listen, I will continue to say this every time I bring this up in a podcast episode. If you are deciding to take a break from the business for whatever reason, I respect the shit out of it. I respect choosing to pursue other things. It's going to be here when you come back. Sure. It's going to be a different slog, it's going to be a whole different business because change is inevitable. But I am a big fan of taking the time where you need it. A lot of you, however, don't want that. That's not what you are ready for. That's not the part of your life you're in. So if you're going to work against this cycle, if we are going to keep going, we have to work on our acceptance mindset. So if instead we accept the fact that this is a natural part of our acting career and end this cycle of self flagellation, speaking from experience, and instead make good use of our time and our creative traction, we can change our career, but more importantly, we can change our lives. Because when acceptance happens, here's the inverse of that. Here's what that actually looks like. So back to our arrow, arrow, arrow circle graph here. Work inevitably gets quiet in some way, shape or form. The time of year, the season, whatever it is, we accept this as part of the process. We allow ourselves time to grow, change and enjoy the process, and work eventually flows to us and we are more prepared to handle it with grace and a good mindset. So you are not lazy and you are not giving up. Because that is what my mind goes to. An acceptance mindset used to mean to me. Oh well, I guess I'm just assuming that this is how life is now. Or I guess I'm just never going to be as good as I want to be or get the stuff I want to get. That is not the same thing that I'm talking about here. What I would tell my younger self is you're not lazy and you're not giving up. Lazy is a big trigger word for me. There is valuable time in here for growth and change in your craft and in your business and in yourself. And then when work does flow back in and you're in a place of worth, you are also in a place of acceptance for that worth. Instead of the holding on to every thread of everything that could possibly go right. Which if you've ever had a big long quiet period and then booked something and then it was followed by a big long quiet period. If you're anything like me during that time, you hit the moment of okay, well if I just go and recreate everything that was that exact scenario that hit that booking, I can recreate it again. So maybe I need to, speaking for myself, cut my hair, change my weight, update my head shots, go back to this rep, whatever that thing was that I changed, I altered. I assumed that it was something I could have control over. So I would try to recreate the exact same circumstances. And yes, I'm going to say it one more time. Change is inevitable. Therefore, I was fighting against a monster I could not win against. This, to me, is my path to bettering my work, getting clear on my actual priorities and feeling at peace most of the time. I'm never going to tell you I do something all of the time because that would be a lie. Part of this process of an acceptance mindset is just time. It's just time. It's just existing in this sphere long enough to realize that the people you see that you think are succeeding beyond the means of which are capable for you are just on a different path. And you also have not seen them in a quiet time yet. There are several people that come to mind when I think of my first days in LA and I think of these actors that I would see that would book every job I went out for, even like some shitty non union commercials or some bad student films. And then they started to book the indies. And I can picture one girl in particular who I would see at all my auditions and I remember I watched her just go up and up and up and she would book everything and I was like, wow, she's just on a straight trajectory to the sky. And then she booked a recurring role on a TV show and it seemed like she just was doing everything right. And what I didn't know was that I had only witnessed the years and the moments. By the way, because we don't see everything in which she was having highs, at some point she would also experience lows just like I did. Now they might not be broadcast to me, I might not to get front row center on all of those lows like I got on the highs. Because social media and moments out and about, of course she's going to share the best of the best. But I know for a fact she had a really big lull in there. I only know this from speaking with her personally and she told me, you know, I had years between a couple of things recently it wasn't during the highs I saw, it was in the time afterward. But at that time I had such a limited scope of this business that I thought that I was the problem. She's getting everything, I hear that saying all the time. Oh so and so books everything. I guarantee you that person doesn't think they do that. I guarantee you in their own head they don't feel like we do about them. We all have ups and downs and that is something that it just took me a really long time to realize what I personally did not truly comprehend at that point, and what I am working to comprehend today is understanding the different paths of different actors around me. At the time, I had a really solid view of what I thought this business was going to look like and it was not the world I was living in. It was not that things were going to be consistently tough constantly. I thought it would be tough at moments, but not overall. I thought I would figure this out. I really thought I was gonna have this unlocked, you guys, and I don't. And that is a vision of what I wanted this to look like. It was my big actor dream and maybe yours was more down to earth than mine, but I think all of us at some point had a dream of what we thought this would look like. And it was, you know, for me, very contingent on only making a living doing acting. And if you want to hear more about breaking through that mindset, feel free to watch the Free side Hustle webinar below where I talk about how much that kind of kept me held down and kept me honestly, pretty broke. And I'm not here to tell you or my younger self that that's not possible because that would change my entire trajectory and it would have changed how I showed up in this business and and the choices that I made. And I'm going to be honest with you, I don't want to go back and change any choices because I'm very happy in my life. Yes, my career has several things I would like to up level and change. And you know, I would really, really, really like to book a movie this year, but that is not within my control. What I am here to tell my younger self is that the mindset in the journey of wherever it is I am going can actually be more full of ease and grace than I was giving to myself. Every person listening to this right now is on a different path on this ride because you've also had a different path to get to this moment in time. So trying to make my path look like anyone around me is going to make my path. I mindset even harder to overcome. I do think that having mentors is important. Don't get me wrong. I mean, obviously you're listening to this podcast. I hope because you enjoy it. I hope because I've been able to share some of my lessons learned in the process with you. But sometimes mentors can be taken into comparison instead of inspiration. And if there's anyone you follow on the Internet or speak with or work with or around often and you have drifted from inspiration into comparison land. I think it's time to reprioritize the viewing of those relationships. And the sooner that we accept we are where we are, without excuses or caveats, the sooner we can move forward with grace and find our own flow. Because that is the only way that I feel like this works. The faster I can get back on track and accept I am where I am. This is what it is. And I still want to strive, but I also want to enjoy the process. The more release of my mindset I have and the more accepting I am of the changes in this business. You guys remember when we switched over to self tapes in the pandemic over 2020? It had already started years before. People outside of the Los Angeles market have been self taping for a very long time. And the resistance to the self tape movement was so great. And I heard someone on the Internet mention briefly that the same resistance came up when movies started having sound. And I think about that often because that's a huge part of our life now. Self taping, just like movies without sound, is a whole different era. So if we are in this one, we have to accept it, we have to work with it, and we have to keep going. I do want to make one more quick note about comparison, because this is a part of all of our lives, no matter whether it's creative or otherwise. But comparing ourselves to anyone else is actually a massive waste of time and energy. I'm a big fan of learning from people. Learn from me, learn from my peers, learn from the people who have booked more than us, learn from other podcasts, learn from YouTube channels, learn from your acting coaches and teachers, but don't compare yourself to them. I've spoken very openly about how my parents paid for my college, and that set me up to have a very different lifestyle than other people. Not everyone talks about this as openly as I do, but not having debt and not carrying that with me into my adult career changes everything. A lot of people you might be comparing yourself to had a totally different day to day life than you, either before this or right now. And that shades and changes how this business treats you, how you treat yourself, and how you're able to do things and move forward. So the comparison is truly, truly a huge waste of time and energy. I'm a big fan of community in this aspect and learning. But we have to designate the difference between learning and comparison. Because if you find yourself constantly living in the comparison model, you have to evaluate, right? If someone seems to be your exact same type for Example, this comes up a lot. The girl I was just talking about who I went on all those auditions with so often, right. Her relationships in the business and her training is so different than mine and there could be some tiny, tiny, tiny different personality quirk in her that was different from me. I don't know. I couldn't tell you because that's not my job. Right. I also think it's interesting to get curious from this instead of just flagellating yourself more. Is it time to mute someone on social media? Is it time to take a full social media break? Sure. It might be skipping some things. Maybe you need to mute me. Maybe you need to take a break from actor podcasts. I had to do this same thing when I was going through my recovery from my eating disorder. I had to stop following recipe people and fitness people, and I had to take a full break because I was using it as comparison and fuel for a very negative fire. I wasn't using it as inspiration or joy or a learning curve anymore. And I would also be genuinely interested in when these feelings of comparison hit. When they hit, because they're gonna happen. What are you doing at the time? Is it because you haven't had a self tape in a while? Is it because you're at the job you hate? Is it because you're scrolling social media and you're hungover? Is it because you're, you know, at your friend's hospital bedside and you hate that you have to be in this moment so you're looking for any reason to mentally escape? I don't know, but those are really, really, really intense places to be experiencing a comparison syndrome. And also intensely unhelpful. If anybody's worked with a therapist before, oftentimes when you have negative feelings about something, they tell you to clock when and where and how you're feeling it. So I would be curious when and where and how you're feeling comparison. Is it because that person has something you want that's totally different? Is it because you're in a bad place mentally or physically? Is it because you just had to pay your taxes and it was a bigger bill than you thought it was going to be? There's so many different reasons and ways that it could be in different processes. And noting that will give you a little bit more space inside of your own brain to forgive yourself for falling into that trap. So when we're not spending our time comparing ourselves to other people or getting lost in the sauce of this all, I think there is a gift to free time. I know I hate it. I hate it so much. If you guys heard the last episode, Gabrielle and I talked about how bad I am with using my free time to go work on other things and fix the next thing. Sometimes it's fixing myself, sometimes it's fixing my side jobs, whatever that is. But there is a gift to free time. There's a reason that a lot of artists think that you see out in the world who've experienced success have also experienced a lot of time for self exploration because they have free time. You're left alone to your own devices to figure out what to do the best with it. There's a gift of mental and physical energy to explore things that eventually become a part of who you are. And most people don't get the time to do this until they retire, if they get to retire. That is a gift of this career. Especially when you have some success and then some quiet time because then there's a little bit more fuel in your fire. We often feel the opposite. We feel like if we have success that we have to maintain it a hundred percent. But there is a gift to the downtime. And I think that reframe of it being a gift instead of hating every moment we're not on set can actually free us up even more. Just gonna note one more time for the cheap seats. After all, we spend our work and time portraying human experiences. So if we don't have any human experience beyond working, we lack a lot of depth. I have often thought that some of my performances when I go back and watch old auditions were lacking some nuance because I hadn't really experienced a lot of life yet. And you can go really deep into this and get really deep in the weeds of experiencing loss and tragedy and sadness and all of those things, but it's not even to that extent. I really just mean practicing just being human out in the world. I could talk about this for a long time. In fact, I am going to record the next bonus podcast right now and it's going to be about our mindset work as actors and our work against negativity, bias. And the hedonic treadmill can impact a lot of our life experiences and a huge part of our acting career happiness. So if you're interested in that, hop in the bonus podcasts. We will talk more about it. But that is going to wrap us up for this podcast for today. Please rate and review this podcast and let me know if it was more than used to be okay. Would someone write a review and said say better than okay with like a thumbs up or an exclamation point. So I know that you listened this part of the episode. That would make me so happy. Oh you guys, thank you so much for listening. Make sure you check out those bonus podcasts. They are on Apple, Patreon, and Spotify. Make sure you check out the YouTube channel as well. You can also drop comments on Spotify. You know I'm always available on Instagram. If you have not yet signed up for the email newsletter, I send them out with these episodes and sometimes there's extra links in there. So that's all in the show notes. Guys. Get on that free side Hustle Webinar. Enjoy every minute of it. Enjoy the change and process and your free time gift this week and I will talk to you next week.