I Love the Smell of Allostasis in the Morning…

I’m going to start this week with a bit of a physics lesson. Bear with me, it comes back around.

I’ve been reading an interesting book, “Master of Change” by Brad Stulberg. In it, he brings up the concepts of Homeostasis versus Allostasis in managing rapid change, which I can use here to illustrate where I’m going with my views on what recovery from the strikes may look like.

Homeostasis is the process from which you start at a set point, for example you are healthy. A deviation from the set point occurs, for example, you get a cold. Your body fights the cold and when you recover, you return to the set point. That’s Homeostasis. Allostasis on the other hand, is the process of a deviation from the set point, but instead of eventually returning to the same set point, you return to a new and different set point. It could be better or worse than the original, but the new set point helps you to adapt to future deviations in more effective ways.

I saw a blogpost from a journalist today that said, “the Writer’s strike is over and the CEOs lost!” Yeah, not exactly. Everybody lost, especially BTL workers and IATSE and everybody else won. I know the WGA negotiators have to claim victory, well, because if they had only won 7 and 1/2 cents (Pajama Game Reference) and Work From Home rights from 6am to 7am on every 3rd Friday of the month they’d be claiming victory.

Yes, the deal looks good, and the WGA made major gains so maybe they did win. However, if the CEOs had wanted to, they could have made the same deal on May 2nd that they made on September 24th. Don’t fool yourselves, this is the deal they were always going to make. They didn’t just swallow hard and agree to the WGA demands.

From the Gang of Four CEO’s perspective, manufacturing a prolonged strike forced the studios to all stop production at the same time, creating no competition among themselves while they all saved 100s of millions to contract and reboot their streaming businesses to a version that might actually be profitable. Plus the two quarters of better earnings reports they could take credit for to their stockholders helps them keep their jobs. I will maintain to the grave that they wanted this to happen, and the WGA itself led their constituency right over the cliff. But then again, with no contract, what the hell were they supposed to do? See what I mean? Not much to take credit for, not much to take blame for. Just another day in Hollywood.

The Studios orchestrated this, and long before May 2nd. They were pulling the plug on production from the beginning of the year. This “pause” was planned well in advance, and made a reality by intractability of not only their positions, but the mere lack of willingness to have meaningful dialogue before the strike and right up until after Labor Day.

So now what? Now we all try to recover from Capitalism at its most obvious. How do we do that? Slowly. The deviation from the last set point has not been a cold that was over in a week. It is a major health event that will take years to adjust to. Try as I might, I was not able to find any relevant data or studies showing short and longterm effects from labor stoppages to provide context. Any statistics I did find only covered regular employees, and not free-lancers of which so much of the industry is made up of. So, we’re left with our experience to draw from.

2007-2008, when the Writers went out for 100 days in the midst of a real estate crash and the Great Recession provides the best and most recent comparison. The most pressing question is, how does anyone striking or affected by the strikes make up for lost income? The answer to that one is you really don’t. You lick your wounds and move on. It’s like in the Dark Ages when they came through the village in the morning with a wagon shouting bring out your dead! You dragged Grandpa’s carcass out of the hovel, and got on with your life.

We will not be able avoid a new and different set point where we will have to adapt to a new and different version of work as we know it.

I was running an agency during the 2007-2008 strike, though much smaller than now with low overhead. Even so, I wasn’t sure if I would make it financially, but did by the skin of my teeth, because I was very focused on TV Commercials, and we were still in the broadcast and cable era. While watching my agent friends in Features and Television struggle at that time, I became a big proponent of diversification lest someday the tables were turned and Commercials became the focus of a strike, which it eventually did. So, as WPA developed, my droning mantra of a balanced roster probably made everyone around me roll their eyes hundreds of times daily.

I still believe in diversification to hedge downturns. However, not at the level of CAA, WME and UTA, (see my last blog on those dynamics,) their vastly over diversified holdings are toxic to creativity and subjugates the Artist. Fine for movie stars and moguls, but if you’re trying to build a career, you will be left behind on the path of least resistance in service to shareholder returns. Plus, their lack of action during these strikes to leverage the AMPTP should not go un-noticed. The concentration for big agencies during the strikes on shedding agents and further diversification into far flung businesses should tell Artists all they need to know about their intent and plans for the future.

Here’s what I think we can expect in getting to a new set point and, you guessed it “acceptance of Allostasis”: SAG/AFTRA will settle with the AMPTP during October. We’ll see an uptick of projects going into prep. We hear from studio sources that some projects are just waiting to flip the switch, further convincing me that the studios are orchestrating the end of the strikes as much as the beginning. Netflix never stopped production, they just continued offshore with non-union crews and talent for specific markets. I don’t believe they’ll ever really be back. Our talent is now too expensive.

The actual set point is, January 2024 is when most will be back to work in an industry that will now produce 15%-20% fewer projects per year. Not even with significant salary and residuals gains can the WGA and SAG/AFTRA members expect amortized yearly income to increase over the next three years, based on the fact that by January, they will have lost at least eight to ten months of salary.

“I get knocked down, but I get up again, cause you’re never gonna keep me down…” – Chumba Wumba.

But, certainly all is not lost. The Allostasis of the moment demands us to all stay lean, mean and creative. I actually love the position that WPA is in, as the big agencies become more bloated and more dependent on debt, acquisitions and the aims of hedge fund managers, we remain independent, true representatives of Artists. Lithe and agile, and when it comes to diversification, only in support of our Artists and employees.

I suggest you do a version of the same. When your finances begin to recover, stay lean and mean for an extra eight months at a minimum to cover the lost revenue. That’s the best way to stay true to your art.

Hollywood is the lovechild of Art and Capitalism. Success depends on your ability to adapt and evolve. Onward.

Wind Direction

Have you checked the wind direction lately?

Where are you going?

Are you still on course?

Did you decide along the way to head in another much more desirable direction than where you first intended to go, but suddenly find you are still headed towards your first destination?

Has a storm risen up, forcing you to set down for a while to wait for better conditions?

Have you followed a tributary inland and now find yourself fighting your way upstream?

Has the sea totally dried up and you find your boat aground?

 

After you choose a destination, it’s easy to not notice what’s happening around you if the first part of the journey goes smoothly.  You think you’re focused, but focused on what? It’s easy to wait until it’s too late to change course.  We have so many distractions, so many things trying to get our attention that it’s no wonder that obvious changes to the environment can take us by surprise.

Any port in a storm is often a mistake.  It’s preferable to sail through the tempest.  You may know you don’t have the skill set to enter the storm, but if you can survive you will have the skills forever after. No storm can then frighten you and you may even welcome them as they put you at your best.

Just be careful not to create storms where they don’t exist. They come from changing your destination from week to week because you can’t see past the horizon. That boat just sails in circles.

Check the wind direction, set the sails, push off and stay the course. But, remember that the only constant is change. Conditions may change to the degree that you abandon your ultimate destination for another.  It’s life, we all need to do that from time to time, just make sure you are not compromising your truth or the desire of your soul.

So, have courage, be adaptable, watch the sea carefully and listen to the breeze as it whispers.  The wind will tell you everything you need to know.

The Middle Path

In the “Untethered Soul,” Michael Singer brings up the following concept:  Picture a blind person with a red tipped white cane walking down the street.  They move the cane back and forth tapping.  They are not trying to find where to walk, they know where to walk.  They are determining where not to walk.  By staying on the middle path of their trajectory, they are staying safely between any obstacles.

We have a terrible tendency as humans to swing between extremes as we make our way.  We hit obstacles at the edges and swing back the other way until we find an obstacle at the other extreme.  These obstacles tend to be the sharp rocks of our own fears, biases, neuroses and perceptions.  You find gossip, disrespect, paranoia, rejection and bullying there.  Do you want to know why people get hysterical at work?  They are out on one of the edges.

We’ve all known co-workers who are addicted to drama.  Well, that drama is found at the edges. As they are getting scraped up by immovable objects, they are also doing all they can to drag others there as well.  Before long, they will soon careen to the other extreme and beckon you there also.  Left to these swings, a effective, energetic workplace can soon turn toxic.

There are many workplaces that will mistake this for progress.  It’s not progress, it’s reactive, needless activity that in and of itself is wasted energy. It pushes people out or burns them out.

I’m not talking about the strenuous and rewarding action of forward momentum.  I’m talking about impediments to forward momentum. A person on the edge is moving side to side, not forward or backward.

It’s most easily seen in our political climate.  The polarization is this endless careening from side to side. One side holding their position on the edge against the other at the other edge.  When administrations change sides, so do the parties.  It creates intractability and stasis and it’s the people who lose. Where there is no middle, no progressives, there is no progress.

I think everyone, in every workplace, on every crew, has the best intentions of acting in the best interest of helping the endeavor be the best it can be.  But, we’re human. Our natural tendency is to serve our self interest first.  Once we do that, we’re headed towards the edge.

So, the trick to moving forward is to walk past the drama on either side of you and remain focused on progress.  Check your own drama and correct course when necessary.  In this sense, the middle way becomes the only way.  If you stay in the calm middle, you can keep moving forward, even if in your peripheral vision you can see someone thrashing about on the edge.  It doesn’t mean you have to join them there.

If you want to work effectively and you want to get things done, take the middle path. Beckon others there also. Take the middle path.

The Inefficiencies of Anger

Around the WPA offices, I am sometimes called Obi-Wan.  I try not to take this as the old, decrepit and hooded Alec Guinness of Star Wars, but rather, the sage, father figure and hooded Alec Guinness that is all at once serene and powerful.  I suppose we all tell
ourselves the stories we need to hear.

When I was a young agent in New York.  Well, a younger agent, I was prone to getting angry about the weirdest things, little things, big things, anything really.  One day, I actually got a call from the head of the agency in Los Angeles, informing me that if I kept throwing my phone headset against the wall and breaking it, I would have to supply my own.  Fair enough I thought at the time.

I’m not sure when I realized what a waste of time my emotions were becoming or when I realized the amount of mistakes I was making sans calmness, but at some point I turned over a new leaf. As I think back, I wonder if it was inexperience that made me angry or my fear of failure when I found myself in unfamiliar territory, or an addiction to the drama of it all.

I think I calmed down for good when one day, on a negotiation I said something out of anger to a producer, who instantly used it as leverage and not only beat the hell out of me in the deal, but then he (of course) used the comment to deride me to my client. I ended up losing that client, even though what sparked my outburst in the first place was my feeling the client was being insulted and taken advantage of.  Hard lesson.

Once I turned the corner, I was left with a few undeniable philosophies:

1. We’re making movies, not saving the world.  We’re white collar executives, not Seal Team 6.  No one dies in what we do if we are close to competent. In the movie industry, it’s only the extreme hubris of a Randall Miller that will kill a Sarah Jones. 99.999 percent of the time we are perfectly safe.
2. If your client will walk away from a negotiation, you can go hard because you have all the leverage.  If your client is desperate, you’ll have to accept what they give you and there’s no use in being upset about it. Supply and demand.
3. At this point I’ve seen so many people get into trouble through their emotions that it’s hard to miss the lesson.  I have passed on so many clients after hearing their reputation as a screamer on set or unreasonable in negotiations.  It means at the least that they don’t understand principles 1 or 2. At the most, they are just assholes. In a business based on repeat business, they will have a short shelf life. Sometimes, they are in the “so talented, they’ll be around forever category.”  But, that just puts them in my “life’s too short category.”

I’m left with the image of Abe Vigoda’s Tessio in the Godfather as they put him in the car to drive him to his execution.  They told him it wasn’t personal.  It was just business and he understood with a resigned calmness.  For him, it was life and death, well pretend life and death anyway, but again, in the end it was just business.

Now, when things start to get heated at work, I take an imaginary step to the left and let the other person’s emotion pass by me instead of through me.  If there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that the person who is more emotionally invested ALWAYS loses a negotiation. It’s a simple success model, be the calm one.

 

Scars

I have a scar on the knuckle of my left thumb.  I got it when I was in 7th grade and it was the first of many. It’s very faint now 40+ years later but it’s still there.  There was a kid in my neighborhood named John Coakley.  He was two years older than me and he had a penchant for terrorizing younger kids.  One day, outside a store in town, I came upon him pushing around a friend that was a year younger than me.  I stepped in the middle and told him to stop it.  He asked: “What are you going to do about it?” I hit him with a solid roundhouse from the left side and I caught him square in the teeth. Unfortunately for John, he didn’t expect that particular answer from a smaller kid, but he also wore braces and I think he assumed the unwritten law of “no hitting kids with braces” was in effect.  It wasn’t.  So the blow ripped open the inside of his mouth as well as my thumb.  He ran off yelling at me with blood flowing into his hands.  He never bothered us again.

All these years later, I have plenty more scars.  Physical, emotional and even spiritual I suppose.  I was reminded of it this morning when I got out of the shower and looked in the mirror.  I had surgery for a separated shoulder three weeks ago so I have a beauty now.  About 4 inches long, red and angry looking.  It runs from the top of my shoulder down almost to the top of my chest.  The result of another misadventure between man and horse.

I have some on my right shoulder from a Labrum repair, a few on my stomach from Gallbladder surgery and others here and there that I don’t even remember how they came about.

It begs the broader question: what are the cost of my scars?  See, horseback riding is a contact sport. Contact with the ground, with hooves, with dicey terrain and gaps in my horsemanship. The Gallbladder scars?  Bad eating habits. My emotional scars are from incessant worrying about my wife and children, the death of my father, mistakes, rejections, business failures and stepping up to do the right thing when I knew it would hurt my business and my finances.

But, now I realize that every scar means something to me. It’s the cost of standing up to a bully.  It’s the cost of having the sense of adventure to get back on horses that invariably will throw you into the woods now and again.  It’s the cost of doing business with integrity when others can’t or won’t, and those people will find the justification to call you inhuman, ruthless and worse when you show them the door.  They will multiply your scars by poisoning what they can long after. It’s the cost of loving someone who won’t be here forever and that particular scar will be where no one else can see or understand it.  That scar is on your heart.

I’m proud of my scars. I’ve earned them.  They mean that I tried.  They mean I stood for something. They mean I’ve loved some people and said goodbye to others.  They mean I had courage and I wasn’t afraid to fall down and fail.  And all those things put together ultimately lead to a successful life.

So, a big thanks John Coakley.  I hope you learned something from your scar too.

 

I Am A Citizen Of The World

I have decided that I am a citizen of the world. Coming off of St. Patrick’s day where my Irish American wife and my Irish American self scoured the southern California countryside for a decent corned beef and cabbage (and settled instead for King Crab legs) I have decided that I am not Irish.

Clara Riordan

Even though my great grandmother Clara Riordan, arrived from County Cork in the 1890’s I am not Irish. Even though my great great grandfather Jacob Jacob arrived from Prussia in the 1870’s I am not German or Jewish as he probably was. I’m not Italian like my great grandfather on my Mother’s side Joe Rosso, or even Canadian/American (is that a thing?) as would make me as my Dad’s mother, Myrtle Beck was born in Montreal, her grandparents (the Hoopers) were a British immigrant and Italian immigrant to Canada. With so much other stuff in me I’m not even sure I’m American.  Well, I am technically American as I was born just outside of Boston and at last glance it was and still is a part of the USA. It’s just very confusing and I can’t commit to it any longer.

Joe Rosso

I was brought up Catholic, though I gave it up for Lent one time and never started up again. I played music in Evangelical churches for years, but it turned out that I’m not Republican enough, fundamentalist enough, conservative enough nor insular enough to really make a go of it. I did have fun with some Methodists for a time, they’re cool.  I like Rumi and Lao Tsu and meditation, but I’m pretty sure I would wash out of the monastery life very quickly.   I am a Citizen of the World.

The Hoopers – James and Gabriella

I don’t want to “Make America White Again,” I mean “Great Again” as the idiot child of moron parents, Donald Trump wants to do. The message is Fascist, oppressive and makes people want to hit each other. His policies (if one can be accurately located) are probably in and of themselves the reasonings that my dear ancestors were escaping from in their homeland and making their way to the new world in the first place. Can you hear the hum of the millions of immigrant bodies spinning in their graves all over Brooklyn? I can.

This is a business blog right? What does this have to do with anything? Only everything. I’m an International Business Person. I travel abroad regularly. I have clients and partners all over the world. I have to think multi-culturally and globally. I have to get along in different environments with people who have very different backgrounds than me, and do you know what?  It’s not hard, because by and large, people the world over think the same way and want to get to know me, understand me and do business with me.

I’m still learning of course.  I got in trouble at a fancy London social club a few years back because I had improperly placed my silverware on my plate at the end of the meal. This resulted in the Lebanese waiter rebuking me on proper British table etiquette, which resulted in my British hosts getting really (yet politely) pissed at the waiter.

Conversely, the first time I was in Poland, I went in search of Pierogies. I pointed to the real thing on a menu and the non-english speaking waitress flagged down someone to tell me that if I ate what I had chosen, it would make my Gringo stomach drop through my shoes.  She chose something lighter in the Pierogi family for me and I felt like Chopin on a Saturday afternoon break. She was beaming that she had saved me from death by potato dumpling.

Do you know what I like?  Advertising with inter-racial families, same sex families and that PSA where people are looking at a giant X-Ray of other people behind a screen that turn out to be all kinds of combinations when they come out from behind.  They are all as much of a genetic, nationalistic, spiritual Mutt as I am. As we all are.  After millions of generations, aren’t we all just this caldron of DNA goo?  The same stuff in slightly different variations?

So there you have it. I renounce every bloodline corpuscle in my body in pursuit of being a Citizen of the World.  I don’t want to have to fit into the box of being American or Irish/American or Italian, German, Swahili/Eskimo, or whatever else worked its way in there over the eons. I’m a Citizen of the World.  Maybe I’m naive to think it’s possible, but if enough of us start to think this way, do business this way, maybe life and business will be in better shape.  Maybe xenophobes will have a harder time coming to power.

If I’m wrong? If Trump wins? I’m one quarter Canadian. I’ll write you from Vancouver, eh?

It’s a New Year and I’ve Been Thinking

Once again, it’s a new year.  OK, a little past New Years.  I’ve been kind of busy lately (I’ll get to that in a blog post next week). Anyway,  Is it going to be a fresh beginning?  Is it going to be more of the same?  Well, that’s always the question isn’t it? Maybe not for some people, but I think that if you can’t point to lessons you’ve learned and acknowledge that wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you’re learning. If you are paying attention, you can avoid making the mistakes of the past.  If it seems like you’re not learning, you’re just not paying attention.

Over the holidays, I take time to reflect.  Not just on the last year, but I think about what I’ve done over a course of many years to get where I am (wherever that is). It’s a process and there have been victories and mistakes.  Every once in a while you have to take stock and hone things down to a few concepts you know have worked for you.  In that spirit, here’s what I’ve been thinking about that has worked for me.

Invest in Yourself.  Here’s why: no one else is going to do it. At least not in the long term.  People will invest in you so long as their short term needs are being met and so long they maintain their profit margin.  So, be an owner, and if that’s not possible yet work towards being an owner.  How do you do that? Invent your job and when you’re done inventing your job, reinvent it.  You do that by doing way more than your job description. Own your position and commit to your evolution within it.  I’m not just talking about business. Invest in your physical well being, your mental well being, your spiritual well being. Own it all.  If you are not doing the investments, own it and change it.  If you are doing the investments, own the process, own the failures and successes equally.

If you’re already an owner, a freelance entrepreneur, an Artist: Examine your investment.  Are you constantly making it more valuable with everything you do? Or are you undermining it with time wasters, vamping, avoiding issues or excuses? Be honest and make sure you are on track.

Study and Be Curious.  When the world famous cellist Pablo Casals was 90 years old, someone asked him “why do you still practice 4 hours a day?” he replied: “because I think I’m making progress.”

When I’m not studying I notice.  When I’m not studying I have the nagging feeling I am falling behind.  Why do I care so much? Because this isn’t a frickin dress rehearsal.  I’m on stage right now. My career is happening right now.  I’m mentoring those around me right now.  I’m building a business right now.  

What are you trying to accomplish?  Are you seeking out the best information to accomplish it?  Are you stretching your mind and your skill set?  People who know me well, know that I am a big fan of listening to business books on my commute.  I am always looking for new ideas.  If I could do it all over again, I would have started and maintained my discipline of studying whatever endeavor I was involved in a lot sooner than I did. If you are not constantly bringing new ideas into your life, if you are not practicing what you choose to master, you run the run the risk of maintaining your own status quo.  Essentially, status quo doesn’t exist.  It’s against the laws of physics to stand completely still.  You’re always moving in one direction or the other.  Make sure it’s forward.

Trust Your Gut – When people say “my gut is telling me…” they are usually right.  You’re gut is the outward extension of your subconscious.  Our subconscious is much more in tune with how we are really feeling, because it’s not susceptible to the constant brain chatter we engage in.  The key with gut feelings is to separate them from excitement and fear.  After you work through your reasoning on a decision, take a moment to breathe and be silent and let your gut weigh in.

Feel Like an Imposter – I am driven by fear, I admit it. I’ve also found that it’s a good place to be.  So long as fear doesn’t paralyze you, it’s good to worry that you might be “found out.”  It’s good to feel not as smart or talented as people think you are.  It’s the trait I find most prevalent in successful artists.  It makes you humble and focused. Fear handled correctly will make you study harder, practice harder and be more driven. Confidence is great, over confidence breeds mistakes.

Take Risks  “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” – Wayne Gretzky.  Usually attributed to Michael Jordan, but indeed he stole it from Gretzky.  This one is very tough, especially if you have a lot of responsibility.  It’s easy to stay where you’re at, do the things that got you to where you are now and maintain. You have to force yourself to step out of your comfort zone and try things that just might not work.  We have two parts of the brain, our modern brain, which reasons and our primitive brain which controls our fight or flight response.  Our primitive brain hates taking risks, because back when we were living in caves, if you took a risk that didn’t work out,  you usually died.  Our primitive brain doesn’t know the difference between a lion and making a cold call.  You have to push through the physiology and risk failure. You also have to fail a lot to succeed.

In my youth I knew the theater impresario Hal Prince quite well.  He once told me that only one third of the shows he produced over his career made money.  It wasn’t lost on me that he he had to produce 9 shows to get 3 successful ones.  He had to work on every one for years to find out if it was a success or a failure.  That is commitment to process.  That is knowing the math and accepting it.  So, accept the math,  get out there, take some risks, fail a lot and start realizing some successes.

Look to the Horizon – When I was learning to drive, I remember the instructor teaching us the concept of looking as far down the road as you can see and let your peripheral vision handle what is directly in front of you.  That way you can see problems as they develop long before they reach you.  This also pertains to opportunities.  I’ve always been interested and excited in the future.  The excitement of what’s coming.  I’ve always looked down the road, it’s just now that I’m realizing how well it’s served me.

Have Some Things in the Pipeline – This is the game of what’s next? In the music industry, you can have a song, an album, a tour, but you’ll never get a record deal if you can’t tell the label what else they can sell after they’re finished selling what you have now.  For every deal I’ve got, I have two more that are gestating in the background. For every move I make, I have two more long range ones that I’m working on. Some will work out in the long run, some won’t, but that’s not the point.  Things worth the trouble take a long time to develop.  You have to put in time on a variety of options and that’s hard when you’d like to have some instant gratification.

And Finally…….

The truth never lives in what you say, the truth is always found in what you do – This is the most important one of all.  People say a lot of things.  I say a lot of things. Sometimes I’m thinking or fantasizing out loud.  I do a lot less of that now, because as a leader, people tend to believe me when I say something and they expect it to happen. So, when I say something I have to back it up with action or lose my credibility. I’ve found it’s very powerful to put yourself in that position. The need to act based on my words will eat at me until I throw down and do something about it.  Declarations may set a standard to be held to, but what you take action on is how you will be judged. What you take action on will determine your success.  What you take action on tells the world your values, your standards and your true intent.

Good luck out there this year.  Make some magic!

It’s Not How Big It Is. It’s What You Do With It.

A decision, yes a decision.  What the hell did you think I was talking about? I’ve been thinking about decisons a lot lately.  We all make them all day long, so often that we treat them like all but a few don’t matter. What I’m realizing is:  They all matter. Each and everyone counts.  They count towards whether or not you stick to your health goals, your work goals, your life goals.

It All Adds Up.

I’ve been reading The Compund Effect by Darren Hardy. I say reading, but I do audio books on my commute, same thing really.  Except, when I hit a good book with lots of usable concepts, I will listen to it over and over. Much like a preschooler with the movie “Annie”.  Except hearing good concepts over and over doesn’t make me want to go running into the woods yelling “make it stop, for the love of God make it stop!”

The premise of the book is: Every decision you make, good or bad, compounds. Choose to work out today? Great, you’re more likely to do so again tomorrow.  Choose not to work out? More likely to not work out tomorrow.  It’s the simple law of inertia. A body in motion tends to stay in motion, a body at rest tends to stay at rest.

But, it’s not just about exercise.  It’s about everything you do.  What you put in your mouth or don’t put in your mouth, the business calls you make or don’t make, the attention you give your spouse or don’t give your spouse, the time you spend on social media or don’t spend on social media. each decision matters because each decision leads to the next decision.

I was so happy when Snookie got kicked off and she was shocked because she thought she was so awesome.

I’m no better at this than you.  I make goals, then sometimes forget about them or let them atrophy. I can be good for a while, then get distracted by pressing matters and fall off my routine. Sometimes I just want to sit on the couch and stare at NCIS, ok, multiple episodes of NCIS (one from each city in the continental US if possible. They’re starting New Orleans in a few weeks!) followed by The Daily Show, Modern Family, Dancing With the Stars (yeah, I know you didn’t see that one coming) and forget about Sundays with 4 football games. I can become useless very quickly.

To fight back against my tendency towards lethargy, I try and keep on a schedule of working out my mind and my body.  Another recent read is “The Power of Full Engagement” by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. The premise of that book is that if you want to accomplish your goals and create a significant life and career, you have to train with the intensity of an athlete.  they bring up the concept of “The Corporate Athlete” and I am taking it seriously.  I’m also wishing I had known about the concept 30 years ago and as a young actor and musician, embraced the idea of “The Artistic Athlete.”

If you were a golfer, tennins player, football player, etc, you would train your body everyday for hours.  You would practice insesently, you would study tape, your playbook, your swing.  You would prepare by making decisions to practice another hour, get a little stronger.  Whatever you could do to get the slightest edge. Did you know that the difference between the #1 ranked golfer and the number 10 ranked golfer is an average of 1.8 strokes. Not per round, per season!

If that doesn’t prove that every decision counts, I don’t know what does. Yes, I know, we’re not golfers, but don’t kid yourself, we’re all in competition.  The next shoot, the next deal, the next client.  Are you doing all you can to compete fully? Because one thing is universal: The edge will always go to the disciplined person willing to do slightly more.

Lets start with the fundamentals. Are you getting enough sleep?  Are you eating the right food in the proper amounts?  Are you exercising? Are you at your optimum weight? To go further, are you studying or practicing your craft intensely between gigs? All these things speak directly to your ability to perform on a consistently high level.

The best way to become world class at anything is to set a routine.  Athletes thrive on routine and we all should too.  I am in the process of setting a routine for myself.  It’s not perfect yet, but it’s getting better.  I have one advantage that I know of.  I love to check boxes off.  So, I made an excel sheet with the days of the week across the top and a list of actions down the left side. Everything is listed from exercise and did I eat salad today, to certain kinds of business calls I need to make.

It’s dorky I know, but I have to say, since beginning the practice, I am sticking to my routine a lot more.  It forces me to make those moment to moment little decisions that compound towards the positive and keeps me away from the little decisions that compound to the negative. Think about it. Can you make your life and career better by instituting a little routine and discipline?

Even this is on my chart:  Did I write a blog post? Check, blog post written… Sigh of satisfaction.

There is no Magic Bullet

I’ve spent my entire career looking for a magic bullet.  Yes, it’s true, I admit it.  It’s naive, it’s purposeless and the laws of physics pretty much don’t work that way. The kicker is that I know better.  Sorry, we all look for one, but there is no magic bullet.

I’m not a behavioral PHD, but my personal feeling is that the reasoning mind works so diligently to find solutions to any problem put in front of it, that at any point, the mind feels that it will find a permanent solution and move on to solve something else.

Lets take something completely inane.  Say you have a coffee maker that you have to put water in every morning to make coffee.  You hate that. I know I do.  I just want coffee first thing, I don’t want any extra work to do.  Eventually, you’re in Starbucks and notice they never have to put water in their machine.  Why is that you ask?  simple answer: they have it hooked up to a water line.  You think, I can do that at home. So, you call a plummer, run a pipe from the main line (at great expense) to the coffee maker, problem solved permanently.  I will never have to put water in the coffee maker again.  You are totally satisfied, It’s a magic bullet. Until the coffee maker breaks. Then there’s a new problem. If I could only find a coffee maker that lasts forever and never breaks.  Good luck with that one, I’m happy if I find one that makes it to New Years from Christmas Day.

We look for the magic bullet everywhere.  The next project, the next relationship, the next business idea, the next job.  Nothing solves permanently.  At the risk of alienating my religious friends I’ll say that religion offers a magic bullet of permanent peace, permanent salvation, etc., etc.  But, as the saying goes: “Jesus Saves,” not “Jesus Solves.” No matter how committed you are, there is still a lot of work and adjustment to do while walking around earth.  Eternal life?  That sounds like a magic bullet.  I don’t know, I guess we’ll eventually find out.

Even the magic bullet in the movie JFK had a lot of work to do.  As Kevin Costner kept reminding us. “Back and to the left. Back and to the left.  That was one magic bullet.”  If the magic bullet itself has to work so hard to be magic, what makes you think there are any shortcuts for you.

Every project is another opportunity to advance your skill set.  It’s never a breakthrough in and of itself.  Your success is not just out of reach.  It’s happening right now.  Success is the never ending process of realizing there is no magic bullet. This project leads to the next project.  One challenge leads to another, so learn to take joy in the process of moving challenge to challenge. Do the best you can, find your way to the next one, and the next and the next.

Relationships are not any different.  You are finding the way to the next moment. But, what moment are you finding your way to?  Are you sculpting the moments or are you just watching them arrive and pass?

Since there is no such thing as a magic bullet, overnight success, perfect relationships, what are we to do to move things forward in our careers and life? The idea of creating conscious value.  If you ask yourself in any situation, job, task, relationship, am I creating value now?  The simple act of asking the question puts you much farther ahead than looking for a magic bullet.

You see, looking for the magic bullet is the act of looking for the world around you to bring something to you that will solve all your problems.  But remember, a bullet’s trajectory, no matter how magic, will eventually succumb to gravity and end up in the dirt.

Creating value is the act of bringing something to the world around you which is a far more powerful position. For to create value is to break through the challenges and the transience for one shining moment of clarity and success.  String together many moments of creating value and you will create a life well lived.

 

It’s All A Gift

I heard something the other day:  “Successful people have learned to like the process.”  I think that’s true.  When I look back on my career, I see that in the early years as an actor and then as a producer, I spent most of my time frustrated, miserable, moody and depressed. If it wasn’t happening I wondered: why isn’t it happening?  If it was happening I wondered: why isn’t more happening?  I don’t remember ever being satisfied.  Quite frankly, I’m still not too sure that I’m satisfied. But, I have learned to like the process.

After all, lets face it, all of life is a process.  More than that, it’s all a gift.   No matter how you look at it.  If you feel God divinely put you here or if you’re an athiest who feels that our time on earth is the result of random consequence. Either way it’s a miracle that we’re here at all. So, no matter how you look at it, it’s a gift. The process is a gift.

So, how does one learn to like the process?  I think its about living in the moment. Granted, not all moments are created equal and some are just plain better than others, but when you think about it, this moment is really all you’ve got. It’s all that is truly real.  Where you’re going, the end result and your perception of all that has happened in the past, even if it JUST happened, is now in the past and relegated to a figment of your imagination.

Moments are like a grand puzzle.  If you’re concentrating hard on something it puts you in the moment.  Your concentration is the process of trying to figure out how the work you are doing in the now will fit into a larger canvas of the end result.

Now, keep in mind I did not say learn to LOVE the process.  There are some that love the process, but admitedy, the process is hard to love.  Just ask the artist who is suffering from writer’s block.  There may be parts of the process that you can love.  However, any process has moments of drudgery and frustration. It’s in that moment when you remind yourself that this moment connects to the next moment, so fully commit to this one.  Accept it for what it is and do the best you can to contribute something to the canvas. When you feel like you’ve made a contribution, you will like the moment. When you like the moment, you will begin to like the process.

It doesn’t matter whether you are writing a script, shooting test footage or making the dreaded cold calls to hustle up work.  The moment is a beautiful thing.  Remember, you have a finite number of them.  The day will come when you run out of moments, so you might as well figure out how to fully engage and like as many moments as you possibly can.

My world can be a strange one.  I’m helping to build a company and I have great aspirations and vision for it.  But, it requires that I shape shift and I constantly find myself doing things that I am unfamiliar with.  The unfamiliar sometimes fills me with great doubt about my skills, with uncertainly and frequent paranoia. Those are moments when I don’t “like” the process.  Those moments are the ones when I just want to be an agent and do deals and help my clients reach their goals through closing the deal on the table, and I still do that everyday.  But, there is the realization that through investing in the process of building a more powerful platform and learning new things I am helping my clients in ways that I never could before.  It’s better for the company, the clients, the agents I work with and myself. If I commit to my process as entrpreneur AND agent we will all reach more of what we collectively aspire to.

At home we have a little white board next to the door.  Adrienne and I take turns writing on it little inspirational sayings that we come across.  Last week she wrote “Now is the only moment that lasts forever.”  She wrote that before she got hit on the big toe with a cast iron cassarole pot lid, opening up her foot and requiring an ER visit and some stitches.  Granted, that moment did seem to last forever, the swearing, the gushing blood, the hopping around.  But, the reality is, it didn’t last forever.  It also came and went. The three shots of Tequila helped move things along also, but the moment came and went.

So, what are you doing in this moment?  Whatever it is, it will affect the next moment and the next and the next.  It’s all connected. That’s why you need to use this moment to make a call, plan a spec shoot, take a photograph, tell someone you love them, write a blog post, write a scene, write some goals or learn something new.

It’s all about living with intention and being aware of the moment instead of rehashing the past or day dreaming about a future that is not based on right choices and hard work in the present. Intent will always put you in the moment, because intent drives you.