Under-promising and over-delivering is a great strategy.
For a while.
Just make sure you’re not continually doing it to let yourself off the hook. Or to hide.
To achieve your full potential, it might be time to make some promises you’re not entirely sure you can fulfill. To over-promise.
Or to quote the great Irish writer, Frank Conroy, it might be time for you to “throw your cap over the wall” and go get it.
“Most letters from a parent contain a parent’s own lost dreams disguised as good advice. My good advice to you is to pay somebody to teach you to speak some foreign language, to meet with you two or three times a week and talk. Also: get somebody to teach you to play a musical instrument. What makes this advice especially hollow and pious is that I am not dead yet. If it were any good, I could easily take it myself.” -Kurt Vonnegut
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” -C.S. Lewis
A popular podcast or interview question is “What advice would you give to your younger self?”
So, what is it?
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Or if it helps…What advice would you give to an eager young person?
Jot down everything that comes to mind. When you’re done, you might even find you have enough to give a TedX talk or teach a class or write a book.
Very cool.
Now back to YOU.
“Are you actually following your own advice?”
If not, why not?
It’s never too late
“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
“My former colleague, the poet Michael Burkard, used to talk about “back-door ego.” This is the habit of self-abasement we all have, in which “I suck” is just another way of saying “I am vastly important.” Either attitude can prevent us from seeing the work in front of us for what it is.” -George Saunders, Story Talk
Thinking “I suck” or “I’m not worthy” isn’t humility.
It’s just pride and ego in reverse.
Knock it off.
It’s not about you. It’s about the work.
Get to work.
It seems to be the case that…
…When you feel like you were amazing and expect heaps of praise, you get nothing. Crickets.
…When you feel like you were terrible and expect tons of criticism, you get unexpected compliments.
I’m not exactly sure why that is.
But there’s something really cool and perhaps divinely ordered about it all.
“Stanislavsky once wrote that you should ‘play well or badly, but play truly.’ It is not up to you whether your performance will be brilliant-all that is under your control is your intention. It is not under your control whether your career will be brilliant-all that is under your control is your intention.
If you intend to manipulate, to show, to impress, you may experience mild suffering and pleasant triumphs. If you intend to follow the truth you feel in yourself-to follow your common sense, and force your will to serve you in the quest for discipline, and simplicity-you will subject yourself to profound despair, loneliness and constant self-doubt. And if you persevere, the Theatre, which you are learning to serve, will grace you, now and then, with the greatest exhilaration it is possible to know.” -David Mamet, Writing In Restaurants, Cabot, 1985
“To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing
your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams
before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk to failure.
But risks must be taken because
the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing,
has nothing is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave
who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.” -poem Risk by William Arthur Ward
Why do we actors do it? Why do we put ourselves out there, night after night? Why do we risk?
Because the highs…are really f-ing high, man.
When it’s working and that audience is in sync with you…there isn’t a better feeling in the world.
That’s why we do it.
P.S. – I found both the above quotes pinned to a cork board outside a high school theatre.
“Perfect is the enemy of the good.” -Voltaire
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” -John Steinbeck
Being good, let alone great at something is underrated. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline, hard work and dedication to your craft.
Being perfect, especially when it comes to art, is impossible. It’s just an excuse to not even try.
“And then when I walked down the street people would’ve looked and they would’ve said there goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in this game” -quote from the film The Natural, based on the novel by Bernard Malamud
“Every film I do, I have to believe that I’m making the best film that’s ever been made. Films are really hard to make. They are all-consuming. So it had never occurred to me there were people doing it who weren’t trying to make the best film that ever was. Why would you otherwise? Even if it’s not going to be the best film that’s ever been made, you have to believe that it could be. You just pour yourself into it and when it affects someone that way, that is a huge thrill for me—huge thrill. I feel like I have managed to wrap them the up in it way I try to wrap myself up.” -Christoper Nolan
In your art and anything you do, why not try to make it the best thing ever.
No matter what the result, at least you were after something great. You went for it. And isn’t so much more fun to think it just might be.
That’s what the audience is hoping for when they sit down to read your book, see your play, or watch your film. That it’s the best thing ever.
Why not strive to give it to them?
P.S. – R.I.P. Robert Redford. One of the truly greats. This scene. Chills, every single time.
Per Google Search…
An irritant, such as a grain of sand or a parasite, enters a mollusk (like an oyster or mussel) and triggers a defense mechanism where the mollusk secretes nacre (mother-of-pearl) in layers around the irritant. This layering process, which can take years, forms a pearl as a protective barrier against the foreign body.
Sometimes the only reason to do something is you can’t NOT do it. (Intentional double negative.)
The feeling irritates you. Gnaws at you. No matter how hard you try, it won’t go away.
You have no choice. You just gotta do it.
The good news?
That irritant is how your pearl gets made.
Go make your art (pearl).
“There is only one happiness in life—to love and be loved.” -George Sand
For the actor…
Sometimes, the fastest way to “find the character” is to strip away some of the advantages or privileges you might have or even take for granted. Ask yourself what your world view would be like if you didn’t receive love from your parents. If you came from a broken home. If you lacked money, friends, education or health.
Far and away though, the biggest of these losses is love. Take away that…and it changes EVERYTHING.
P.S. – This is a useful exercise for anyone who wants to engender greater empathy for the human condition.
“You are not your thoughts; you are aware of your thoughts. You are not your emotions; you feel emotions. You are not your body; you look at it in the mirror and experience this world through its eyes and ears. You are the conscious being who is aware that you are aware of all these inner and outer things” -Michael Singer
“You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over” -Eckhart Tolle
We spotted the ocean
At the head of the trail
Where are we goin’
So far away?
And somebody told me
That this is the place
Where everything’s better
And everything’s safe
Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone. Don’t even have pictures
Just memories to hold
Grow sweeter each season
As we slowly grow old -song “Walk On The Ocean” by Toad The Wet Sprocket
According to a Healthline article quoting a 2020 study, a human being has on average, 6,000 thoughts per day…That’s a whole helluva lotta thinking!
Odds are not all 6,000 are positive or thoughts we’d be proud to share.
Here’s the great news:
You are not your thoughts. You are the conscious observer of your thoughts.
And.
No one is judging your thoughts. So you shouldn’t either.
Finally, perhaps some helpful advice…Just watch your thoughts come and go. Like waves in the ocean. Notice them. But don’t attach to any of them. If any thoughts are uplifting or make you feel good, collect them like sea shells. Maybe revisit them to look at later. All the rest, just let them do their thing. Good or bad, rest assured another set of waves (aka “thoughts”) are coming up right behind.
The Vs. Studio Blog