The dawn of a new year is upon us, dear grasshopper.
Last week I told you about something that one of my mentors says pretty often:
“Next year you will be another year older. What will be different?”
This year, I want you to start the year with that in mind, because by the time 2018 is over it will be too late.
You have to start off right to finish strong.
Lupe Fiasco says “I’m forward looking. While you’re thinking Valentines, I’m thinking Christmas Trees.” If you want to capitalize on opportunities, you have to see them coming. Look at it this way…
Have you ever seen an eagle catch a fish? If you haven’t, stop reading and YouTube it, and you will notice something crazy…
The eagle doesn’t catch the fish by swooping down where the fish is. It swoops in to where the fish is going. Get it?
While you’re on YouTube, assuming you didn’t go out to the lake with a pair of binoculars hoping to catch an eagle on the hunt, check out Logan Paul.
This kid, is killing it!
You can’t discount him as being just a vlogger. You don’t even have to like him, but you should learn from him. He has made himself into a Celebrity, with a lot of industry leverage starting to come his way.
Just this year, his channel was named the fastest to ever hit 10 million subscribers. In less than 2 years on YouTube, he hit upwards of 3 Billion views on that channel.
Here’s the first point I want to make.
He started at 0. I often go deep on this subject, because I know that a lot of our tribe members are either doing YouTube or want to do it.
Most actors don’t get started because they’re afraid that no body will watch. So what if they don’t?! Just get started. Gary Vaynerchuck, social media architect to the stars and the Fortune 500 launched his career on YouTube.
He started a show about wine. Everyday he reviewed wines, gave his honest thoughts in plain language instead of “sommelier speak” and here’s what he said about the starting point:
“No one watched the first 88 episodes…”
But he kept at it and today sits at the head of a $100 million dollar company that can trace its roots to that wine channel that nobody watched at first.
If you’re thinking that you’ll start doing something when you have more followers, when you can get some new equipment to film, or when you can find some time to edit your stuff, you will end up doing the same things you’ve always done.
A year from now, when you’re a year older. What will be different?
When I started doing shorts with my buddies in school we were doing it on a VHS camera that weighed about 13 pounds. We didn’t even have PCs to edit on because the technology wasn’t quite there yet. We had to hit pause and record on a connected VCR.
Today, it’s all in an app and some of you reading this have never even heard of VHS tapes.
What people that are leveraging social media understand is that money doesn’t make the world go ‘round anymore…now it’s attention and that’s what they’re able to capture using social media.
She who can command the most attention, can trade that attention for anything in the world. Logan Paul leveraged that attention into what is becoming an increasingly successful acting career. He didn’t have a single industry credit to his name until 2017 but the projects that he has slated, are the type that actors (using conventional methods) take a decade to get to.
The attention that he’s been able to build and that he can now leverage into an acting career is something anyone can duplicate.
More importantly, it’s something that you should actively be working to build, daily. You should never walk into an audition and say “Hi, I’m honored to be here reading for you…”
One of the boldest moves I’ve ever heard came from one of our tribe members. He was reading for a speaking role in a studio feature and really wanted the part, so he “presold” some tickets.
He took to his social media accounts, told everyone he was going to be in the movie and asked them to post if they would be going to see it.
He then walked into the audition, introduced himself and said “I just sold 29,000 tickets for you” and showed them the post. This made it impossible for them to cast someone else.
This is the kind of tenacity that will push your career to levels you were once afraid to even think of seriously.
Early in my acting career, I was fortunate enough to see the winds shifting and the trend of social media coming. I then made it my mission to master it and later to create a way for anyone to master it.
I had an actor friend die suddenly and tragically, with the music still inside, as they say. He was a class act and losing him is what put me on the path I’m on today.
I don’t want to take my final breath with the music still in me, nor do I want anyone else to. That’s why I created Boost My Star. It’s a way to help you leverage the career you want, faster and easier than ever before.
Think of it like the Staples easy button.
I’m not saying you have to do this, but you do have to do something this year that you’ve never done, if you want to move your career to places it’s never been.
Make this your year to dominate. My grandfather used to tell me “Shoot for the stars kid, you just might hit one.”
Here’s something that took me way too long to realize. I once heard a speaker at a seminar say, “Success is a ladder and the higher you reach, the higher you’ll climb, but no one said you couldn’t take the elevator.”
So, grasshopper here’s the elevator.
Take it as I raise a digital glass in the new year and toast while I hope to…
See you at the top,
Scott