Author Archives: thevsstudioblog

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” -Viktor E. Frankl When any external event happens to us, big or small, we have three decisions to make. What does this event mean to me?Continue reading “Three Decisions”

Welcome Fellow Travelers. Below are my March picks. Thanks in advance for reading. I look forward to your feedback and your own picks! Here goes… FILMS Honey Boy. How did Shia LaBeouf not get award recognition for this film? Easily the performance of his career. Absolutely magnetic. He wrote this super-personal story and it showsContinue reading “Bonus Post! Bonus Post! “Fellow Traveler” Newsletter Vol. 3 – March, 2020″

“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.” -Ernest Hemingway (givingContinue reading “The Hemmingway Hack”

“Expectation is the root of all heartache.” -Shakespeare We should avoid having too many expectations in life. They lead to disappointment if we don’t get what we want. But they sure are wonderful for our acting. Give yourself as many as possible.

“The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile.” -Gerard de Nerval Even though cliches, by definition, are so overused that they’ve lost their original effect, they still can contain good life advice. There’s a reason something sticks around as long as it does. We’d be foolish notContinue reading “Cliche”

100 blog posts today. Woo-hoo! Let’s celebrate! Thank you for reading, for commenting, for encouraging, for sharing these posts with others. You inspire me to do my best work every day and I’m very grateful to all of you. And thanks to my virtual mentor Seth Godin. (Be sure to check out his awesome blogContinue reading “100!”

My friend and world-class acting teacher, Howard Fine, often says, “There are no genius acting mistakes.”  What he means is that no matter how accomplished the actor, if something isn’t going well in a scene, it’s always the basics.  Not listening, not having strong actions, not playing the given circumstances, etc…We don’t reach a levelContinue reading “No Genius Mistakes”

The interview master, Cal Fussman, tells a great story about a conversation he once had with the writer, Harry Crews… Harry’s books and essays were always filled with rich, colorful detail. Often pulled from his own life and experiences. Harry was also a drunk. Cal asked Harry (who was drunk at the time) how heContinue reading “The Good Shit Sticks”

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about affirmations.  Lots of interesting things about quantum physics, the observer effect, the reticular activation system, etc…Fun, rabbit hole stuff. But what if the reason affirmations might work is simply that they force us to pick? To pick one thing we really want and focusContinue reading “Why Affirmations Might Work”

“I’ll go first. If I’m at checking out at the store I’ll say hello first, if I’m coming across someone making eye-contact I’ll smile first. Not all times, but most times — it comes in your favor. The response is pretty amazing…You have to go first because now we’re being trained in this world toContinue reading “Go First”