105. Lose That "Starving Artist" Mentality

"When you can hit on what (your clients) want, hope for and dream...price is a mere triviality." - Ramit Sethi 

I promised in yesterday's post that I would share a great resource with you today...and I like to keep my promises. So here goes...

What can a NY Times bestselling author and a professional photographer teach you about building a sustainable career as an actor?

How 'bout some incredible BUSINESS STRATEGIES for artists, freelancers, entrepreneurs and even 9-5ers!?!

Meet Ramit Sethi and Chase Jarvis. Ramit is a New York Times bestselling author of I Will Teach You To Be Rich and a graduate of Stanford University. Chase is a (self-taught) visionary photographer, director, and fine artist with a consistent ambition to break down the barriers between new and traditional media, fine and commercial art.

Now, for those of you who are artists of some kind... if you are NOT interested in actually making MONEY from the fruits of your labor, then don't even bother wasting your time watching the video embedded below.

However, if any of these things spark some excitement in your tummy... WATCH THE VIDEO... And take notes. Seriously.

Some of the highlights...
A. Lose that "starving artist" mentality
B. How to make your clients "revere" your work
C. Don't try to be "better," try to be different
D. The Briefcase Technique (Explained around 33:15 in the video. If you're pressed for time and can't watch the WHOLE thing. Just watch that section.)
E. How to nail an interview

Sooooo much of this stuff can make a HUGE difference in your ability to actually MAKE A LIVING doing your art. And you don't need an MBA, you just need some tools. Anyone can master this stuff. It's not brain surgery.

As much as we artists hate to admit it to ourselves...show business is a BUSINESS and there are ways to play that game that make it easier to be successful. And by successful, I mean being able to pay your bills with your art...and also a vacation to Tahiti. Nice, right? Now that's motivation.

"How we do anything is how we do everything." - Tim Ferris

How you approach the business of your art also represents how you approach your art. You may not see it that way. But other people probably will. So make sure you are projecting the kind of message you hope to present. And if you don't know how to do something...find an expert resource...a person...a book...a video...a class...whatevs.

This is the information age. We have the internet. There are no excuses. Our access to information is unlimited. Our only limitations are the ones we place on ourselves.

Don't ignore the business aspect of the business. Because what you don't know about the market CAN hurt you...and your ability to earn a sustainable living...I know this from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. Bleh! Being a starving artist sucks and I do not recommend it.

So take a moment to assess what your weak areas are in the "business" side of the business and find a resource to improve that area of your work. Your pocket-book will thank you. Your 65 year old self that would love to RETIRE some day will thank you...(Let's get serious. Most actors would love to drop dead on stage and never retire.) Your creative-self will thank you...for being able to provide some support for those "avant-garde" projects that won't make you a dime and cost you a pretty penny, but you looooooove and MUST DO.

Having money is not bad. It gives us choices. Without it we lead veeeery limited lives.

Besides business can be fun! Especially after you get passed the awkward learning part and actually start to do it WELL. Also, it's worth taking a look at what people in other industries are doing to THRIVE and build sustainable business models. We can allllll learn from each other.

We create art because we LoVE it, but we all gotta eat.

Make that dollar,
V

"It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project." - Napoleon Hill, Think And Grow Rich

59. Juilliard Personal Statement Draft

"The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or a new thing in an old way." - Richard Harding Davis, journalist and author (1864 - 1916)

Soooo I'm in West Palm Beach, FL right now... on a business trip for my "day-job."  Tough life, right?

It's beeeeeautiful here. And between doing all my job-related duties, I've been resting and taking some time to do a few things that I lovvve... like staring out at the unending horizon of the Atlantic Ocean and breathing in the smell of the sea salt or taking a luxurious bubble-bath in the ginormous hotel bath tub.

I love water. Baths seriously rule. There is nothing like the soothing feeling of warm water and the smell of super yummy fragrant suds. Very healing after a couple of very stressful/busy weeks.

Relaxing a bit is good.

Annnnd... I set myself a "grad-school-application-prep-goal" for the weekend too... I want to write-up the first draft of my Juilliard Personal Statement, which is due (along with the rest of the online application) on Dec 1st.

Hopefully, with the inspiration of being surrounded by so much beauty, comfort and H20... I will be able to come up with two pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font.

It's funny... I write about my creative process and reasons I want to go to grad school six days a week on this blog... so you'd think that I'd be like... "Personal statement? No problem!"

But I'm actually rather intimidated by the prospect of narrowing all of my millions of thoughts/feelings/ideas/reasons/motivations/inspirations for this whole grad school endeavor down into two simple pages.

I want to tell my story in a compelling and concise way. So I've got to be selective about what I chose to include. I can't tell them EVERYTHING about me. So what are the most important thing(s) that they should know about me and my story?

There are sooooo many different angles I could take. I could write 20 different personal statements and they all would be 100% TRUE, but still only a small snapshot of WHY I am making this choice of applying to grad school for the third time.

So what's the best picture to paint?

Here's what I do know for SURE... I definitely want to write about the blog and how overcoming my fear of being publicly transparent about my creative process has helped me grow as a person.

So that's that... but there are million different WAYS for me to tell that story and many different personal examples I could include... ya da, ya da.

So this is where yooooou come in...

What do you think is the best way to spin my story? You guys have been reading the blog and following my process and being believing mirrors, supporting me since I started this project back in September... and before. So I feel like you are all incredibly qualified to weighing-in on this particular subject of what best to include in my personal statement.

Need some structure to hang your thoughts on? How 'bout this...

Juilliard spells out their "Criteria for Acceptance" on the website. In auditioning and interviewing potential students, the Drama faculty looks especially for the following qualities:

• A serious commitment to an acting career in the professional theater 
• A potential for meeting the technical standards of Juilliard’s professional training program 
• A potential for vital, individualistic, trainable growth—regarded as more important than the applicant’s present state of technical accomplishment 
• Energy, openness of mind, enthusiasm, and a readiness to take risks 
• A body, voice, and imaginative/emotional powers promising significant dramatic development 
• A potential for identification with the thought process of a text 
• A generosity of spirit essential to ensemble playing 
• A sense of humor, a sense of language, a sense of rhythm, and a capacity for sustained concentration 
• A readiness for hard, rigorous work 
• All applicants must be completely fluent in written and spoken English.

That's who I want to BE!!!!

And...here are Juilliard's guidelines for writing the Personal Statement Essay:

Juilliard’s Admissions Committee uses your essay to learn more about you as an individual, and gain a sense of who you are beyond your application, transcript and audition. Please write about why you have chosen to become an actor and your personal artistic goals. We encourage you to write frankly and openly about your life, your connection to your art, and how you see your art connecting to the world. Share your passion about people or politics or other art forms or about anything that speaks to you.

So what comes to mind about Virginia Wilcox when you read all that? Any ideas sparking from anything you've read in a previous post or a conversation that we've had?

Ultimately, I know that it's going to be ME who's going to write the thing... But I am very interested in your perspective, because I feel like we're not always the best judge of our own best stories.

If you want to go the extra mile and be really super OVER-ACHIEVING... You can click on the "Personal Statement(s)" tab on the AcceptanceProject home page and gather some context from reading my two past personal statements for NYU. Then you can flaunt your knowledge by posting a incredibly insightful suggestion for possible inclusion in this year's statement in the comments at the bottom of this post.

Yes, you can help shape this girl's future success, by your participation with this blog! How cool is that?

I mean... if you were on the audition panel at Juilliard, choosing which students would be accepted to your program, and you read an essay by this blog-writing-failed-twice-but-won't-give-up-Virginia-Wilcox-actor-person... What about her would make you sit-up and take notice and motivate you to want to help her succeed as an actor soooooo much that you'd be overjoyed to take her on and work closely with her for the next four years to help mentor her into the best possible artistic collaborator she can be?

THAT's the essay I want to write.

Send me your thoughts, peeps! Let's get this draft goin'!!!

Loves,

Virginia

"The storylines we create around a particular circumstance are far more determinative of success than the circumstance itself. They affect not only our willingness to act, but the quality of our ideas and solutions." - Jonathan Fields, Uncertainty: Turning Fear & Doubt Into Fuel For Brilliance

  

23. What's Your Story?

“The storylines we create around a particular circumstance are far more determinative of success than the circumstance itself. They affect not only our willingness to act, but the quality of our ideas and solutions.” – Jonathan Fields, Uncertainty: Turning Fear & Doubt Into Fuel For Brilliance

If I've learned one thing from working in the world of Marketing… Spin is everything. How you spin the story about your product not only determines how successful you will be at selling it, but who buys the product at well. You have to spin your product’s branding image or story to appeal to your target audience.

It's human instinct. We react emotionally to the stories we hear and the stories we tell. And we make choices based on these stories.

As a actor, it’s a tough transition to start to realize that you are also a “brand” and your brand is telling a particular kind of story. 

You are YOU! Yes. But also, when you are hired to perform a role, you are hired because you are YOU and your employers are looking for you to bring to that project the skills and talents that they associate with your brand, those unique YOU skills that only you can bring to the project.

For example...

Imagine you’re having a dinner party (that’s like your show)… and you are at the liquor store choosing a bottle of wine to pair with your meal (the audition). You look at the labels and choose a wine based on many factors…  what food you are serving, your taste, your guest’s tastes, age of the wine, origin of the wine, price, the look of the bottle, what’s popular, what a friend may have recommended, what’s on sale, the one kind you allllways get, etc.… a million different factors come into play to make that decision. But ultimately, you will choose a brand of wine (casting!) that fits the needs of your particular dinner party. Not because the other wines are “bad,” they’re probably great, but you can’t try them all. So the one you chose is going to be the one you trust to be the best fit based your available information about that brand.

So as an actor, it’s important to know who you are and what kind of actor you want to be. That's your brand. What’s your brand all about? What kind of STORY are you spinning in your own head about your brand?

And, more important than what other people think about your story, is what YOU think about your story. Are you even aware of the stories that you are spinning about your life in your own head daily?

You can go to an audition and not get a callback and be like… “Ugh, that casting director hates me. This is my third time auditioning for her and she never calls me in for anything.” Or… you can be like… “Wow, I am so glad I got out of bed today. That casting director actually seemed to have a look of recognition in her eyes when I walked into the room this time. I’m definitely going to follow up with a thank you note for this one, because I’d really like to continue to build a relationship with this casting director. I love the companies she casts for and I think I might be a great fit for some of their up-coming shows.”  

What story are you telling yourself and how does it serve you in feeling successful? Because that story is completely up to you… completely in your control… completely in your own head… and it affects your experience of your own life in a big way.

So, all branding aside, if you’re not happy with the story you are telling yourself… spin it around… reframe it.

“Reframing is a process that asks you to suspend negative storylines, explore if the story you’re telling is the only one and, if not (which is inevitably the case), construct or frame a new storyline that empowers you to experience an uncertain circumstance not as a prime for failure and inaction, but as a signpost for meaning and opportunity.” – Jonathan Fields, Uncertainty: Turning Fear & Doubt Into Fuel For Brilliance

And, I think, when you feel great about the story that you are living in your own head… Then naturally the success of your “brand” as an actor will naturally follow.

I want my story to be a rags-to-riches, story of determination, dedication, love and inspiration... a little-California-girl-makes-good-in-big-bad-NYC story! So that’s the story I’m going to tell myself… until it comes true!!!

What’s your story?

Loves,

V

P.S. Branding can be a very intimidating/overwhelming subject to approach on you own, so you may want to enlist some help. The best resource I’ve found for assistance in determining your brand is The Savvy Actor. Jodie and Kevin are amazing, super talented, business-smart and have a true passion for helping others. They've got workshops coming up in NY and LA. Check them out. They do good in the world. http://www.thesavvyactor.com