Dear Grasshopper,
I got an email the other day from someone asking what it meant and why I keep referring to you guys as grasshopper. LOL
In case you didn’t know it’s a reference from a really old Kung Fu movie. “Patience young grasshopper…” You may have heard it a time or two and had no idea what it meant.
That’s kind of how it sometimes goes in the industry too: we succeed and don’t really know the origin or formula for that success. We see other actors succeed and don’t truly know what got them that level of success.
This release grasshopper, is what I wish someone had written for me when I got started. It breaks down the chief principles of success, specifically as it relates to being an actor.
Traditionally, I love, love, LOVE the dramatics!...but I’m turning over a new leaf, towards brevity these days so let’s dive right in.
Look, I have to be honest, some of this might take you by surprise and you might even take offense to it. Rest assured, it’s only my way of showing love and frankly I discuss things that no one else in the industry dares to.
For example, one of the biggest reasons that actors fail to get ahead in this industry is that they have no idea what kind of a world we’re operating in.
See, there are 3 bubbles that exist in the industry. You have to know how to operate within each of them in order to move your career forward, yet 99 actors out of 100 don’t even have any idea that these 3 bubbles exist.
Once you know what the 3 bubbles are, and you can identify which bubble you are operating in at any given time, you will have an unbeatable strategy for moving forward.
If you get to know this and master the “operational principles” that follow you will be able to quickly connect with a casting director, producer, agent, or anyone else in the industry.
Simply put there are 3 main circles or bubbles that you will be operating in at any given time. It’s important that you know which bubble you are in, so that you can conduct yourself accordingly.
Most of us see our careers as linear, when in fact we must conquer one bubble in order to move up to the next one.
The 3 bubbles are: the newcomers bubble, the dailies bubble, and the insiders bubble.
In order to graduate to the next bubble, you have to operate as though you are already there.
Let me be clear, I don’t mean “act as if” in the way that motivational gurus tell you to look at your 1997 Honda Accord and “act as if” it’s a brand new Tesla…far from it.
This is the real way in which that concept was intended to be interpreted.
See when you are in the newcomers bubble, you have to act as if you are in the daily bubble.
When you are in the daily bubble, you have to act as if you are already a member of the insiders bubble.
You do this by creating a series of mental associations for those you are trying to influence.
Here’s what that means…
We all have these things called cognitive biases. These are the filters through which we process the world. You might be familiar with some of these already, such as the herd mentality effect: if you see a crowd of people running in one direction you are likely to join them without any information as to what they are running from.
These cognitive biases are the way our brains are wired, and make up what we know as instincts. Like them or hate them, if you look at any major social or pop culture movement, at the core of it is a leader who has mastered the use of cognitive bias. The Beatles, Elvis, Rap Music, the Twilight Saga, etc.
There are 3 of them that can be highly useful to you, as they are “stacking biases” that empower each other and magnify their effectiveness.
These are the ingroup bias, the herd mentality bias, and the credential bias.
The most powerful thing you can do in an audition is what I’m about to share with you.
First, I have to warn you…
Only use this tool if you truly want to become a successful actor. If you just want a few parts here and there, then don’t do this because this will absolutely light your career on fire.
It’s the palm reader trick.
Instead of introducing myself and awkwardly waving from afar as I’m “supposed to”, I walk straight over to the Casting Director and move to shake the CDs hand.
By the way, most actors won’t do this, so it immediately resets the casting director’s rhythm and sets you apart from the crowd.
Don’t worry no one will ever not shake your hand if you do this with confidence.
As they reach their hand out, I gasp softly and instead of shaking, I turn their hand over and read their palm. Yep!
Truthfully, I know very little about palm reading and I don’t even have much interest in it.
I learned just 3 things to look for on someone’s palm. This allows me to speak to both what the presence of those elements mean, or what their absence means.
Either way, I always have something to say.
Here’s where the herd mentality (another cognitive bias) comes into play.
Inevitably, everyone else in the room, will begin to look at their own palms. When they do this, you have activated the herd mentality bias, with you as the leader of the herd.
This is total audition DOM-IN-A-TION!
This exchange should last no more than about 30 seconds but it never fails to fascinate and build rapport with the people you are trying to influence. After you finish your short narrative about the CD’s palm, you can return to the audition setting with a command of the room.
It’s as simple as that. Master this and look for opportunities to use these cognitive biases to your advantage and you will be able to control a room. When you can control a room, you control your career. When you control your career, you get to decide when you are ready to graduate to the next bubble.
As you move from one bubble to the next, you may find that people will start looking for confirmation that you belong.
The best thing for them to find is a stellar industry reputation and a great social media following. Here’s how to get that.
So that takes care of dominating the audition but then you also need to be able to deliver a great performance.
There are many ways to top level your skillset but what I have found to be the most effective, and what top actors since the dawn of the industry have spoken about is deceptively simple.
In fact it is so simple that anytime they mention it, it typically gets swept under the rug, and only the sexier parts of the interview make it to print instead.
It’s not exactly 3 dimensional, so to speak, so keep an open mind…
The way that you become a character and breathe life into it, instead of just reciting lines is to enter the Alpha brain frequency.
This is where creativity lies. We don’t naturally operate in this range for very long, so we must lower our brain waves to that level on purpose.
Here’s how you do that…
Close your eyes and tilt your eyeballs about 20 degrees upward. Count backwards from 50 to 1 and imagine yourself descending a ladder with each number. Imagine that it is getter darker with each step.
When you reach 1 picture yourself in a perfectly lit, bright-white room.
See yourself as the character you are playing, standing before you. Then, ask your character anything you want to know.
What drives you, why does this affect you in that way, is this line accurate or would you say it differently in reality?...
You can even go as far asking your character to sit down (indian style), then remove their head and place it over yours, as if it were a helmet. Then, continue to run lines, act your scenes out while in the Alpha state, as if you were here in the 3 dimensional world.
Once you are finished, take off the helmet and place it back on your character.
Pro tip: it helps if you imagine a zipper.
Then slowly count from 1 to 10 and picture yourself climbing back up that ladder and reentering the real world. Then say “I’m wide awake.”
Do this anytime you are prepping for an audition. Do it anytime you need direction for your character on set and you will deliver every time.
Don’t knock it before you try it. This is not something to be underestimated. It is based on real science and has been researched for decades. Our brains naturally slip into Alpha about 5 seconds out of every minute, if you’re really creative and as little as 1 second per minute if you’re a purely analytical person.
Those 5 seconds have gotten you this far, imagine what you will be able to do when you get 15 minutes of Alpha…
It’s not just limited to actors either. Ray Dalio, the legendary investor worth over 17 Billion Dollars, recently revealed that the secret to his success was a form of transcendental meditation which (drumroll) focuses on entering the Alpha state!
This is how you dominate the industry and build the career you love.
Succeeding in any business but especially in this one, is all about confidence and certainty. The climb is what gives you confidence. You don’t need to have already reached your ultimate goal.
The progress is what raises your belief in yourself and propels you to bigger and better roles.
A lack of progress is the killer of success.
You have to make sure you are moving forward every day and you should be deathly afraid of waking up one day, realizing you squandered your life away hoping instead of acting.
Most actors talk a big game but in reality, they are more afraid of success than they are of failure. They know what failure feels like, so it’s comfortable.
Success is uncharted territory.
But what if you entered the Alpha state and created a picture of success for yourself? Would it be uncharted then?
What if you redefined failure, or rather, realized that there is no such thing as failure? See in any scenario, you will either succeed or you will learn what not to do.
Finally, as I throw brevity out the window for this release (I tried but this stuff was just too important to skim over)…I wanted to cover what is the underlying factor in all of this.
Energy.
Here’s a bit of homework for you, when you go to your audition tomorrow (if you don’t have one tomorrow here’s what to do about it) look around the waiting room and notice how many people you see yawning.
Walk around the mall and do the same thing. The world is in an energy and if you are going to perform at the top of your game you need to have the energy to give it your all.
The way that top performers do this is a combination of Alkalizing the body and Ketosis. That being said, remember that I am not any kind of health practitioner, and none of this should be construed as any kind of medical advice whatsoever.
Suffice it to say that when you’re body chemistry is out of balance, it will drain your energy to get it back into the proper balance.
On that same token, we tend to fuel our bodies with carbohydrates. I know some of you are screaming “but I’m carb free!”…that’s even worse!
Ketones are created when our body breaks down fat reserves and they are like jet fuel! When you experience a state of ketosis, you will experience the limitless bounds of human potential.
I’m serious! Every wonder why Tony Robbins can’t sit still? Gary Vaynerchuck? Ryan Seacrest?
How do top achievers pull off 20 hour days?
This is how. I’m far from an expert on this and everybody’s body will be a little bit different. So, spend some time Googling this if you want to learn more.
My expertise lies in the nuts and bolts of the industry and what makes Hollywood go ‘round.
I’ve dedicated the better part of my life, to this point, to getting to know the deepest darkest secrets of our business.
Here’s what I’ve discovered: there’s no magic pill. There’s no one person you will meet that will put you on the map.
There’s no one role you can land to go from zero to #madeit!
You can only do that by operating within the frameworks laid out above and delivering in a way that no one else can. That’s it.
Aside from that, all you need is to get your foot in the door. Here’s the way to do that.
Everyone knows that social media reigns above all else right now and will continue to, for the foreseeable future. Here’s how to get your social media going strong.
Combine that with a stellar industry reputation and you will remove all real obstacles.
See, the hard truth is that the only thing really standing in the way of your success is a door. You just have to get your foot inside, then use what you learned above.
As we wrap up another year at Boost My Star, I hope to hear about your success soon. Just know that if you don’t change something, nothing changes. Remember I’m always only a comment or an email away.
See you at the top,
Scott