Making a Living Whilst Making Your Art: The Curator Method with Anne Alexander-Sieder

Introduction

0:00I think we get into kind of like a hamster wheel of what everybody else is doing so it's escaping this kind of giving away your agency and escaping to taking radical accountability which can be a scary place but it is the only way to actually start making real changes because at the end of the day there are three things that we can control what we think what we do and how we choose to

0:33perceive the things that happen for us and these are the exact same things that we cannot control in other people as soon as you start taking a radical accountability you are able to escape the kind of hamster wheel of doing what everybody else is doing and it's a way to set yourself apart

Guest Introduction

0:54from that hello how are you welcome back to the spiritual psychology of acting podcast today we're joined by a special guest ann alexander cedar she's an american actor podcaster and coach based in germany ann has worked with studios like netflix and a24 but she's also someone who's built her career from the ground up after taking a 16 year break from acting living far away from the

1:25hubbub of the industry she found her way back through a process that she calls the curator method she's since gone on to found act bold training and has created something called the escape route challenge which is a free five-day journey that's set up to help artists build better connections break through all their obstacles and find the people that can help take them to the next level we talk about that later in the episode this is really though a conversation about how to stay connected to your creative purpose even when life pulls you in a dozen different directions

1:56so without further ado let's jump into it

Conversation Start

2:01welcome ann to the podcast it's great to have you on as a guest today how are you i am fantastic thank you jordan yeah good to see you again too john last time we saw each other you were on my podcast that's right it's really nice to return the compliment that i thought that was good the episode we had on your podcast that was a nice it was really good yeah yeah yeah i got a lot of really good resonance and response from that yeah yeah we've got something a bit different today

2:34because we're looking as well the the career of an actor and just creating work you know um

Actor Dilemma

2:42joseph campbell said that an actor or any artist has a dilemma and the dilemma is is between your job and your work your job is the means by which you put bread and butter on the table and pay your rent etc but your work is your calling it's your dharma it's your artistic work and the problem obviously is that very often you know as we start out what we all want is for our job and our work to be the same

3:12thing but that isn't always the case especially in the arts that we need to build something up before we can get into that position so the problem that joseph campbell pointed out was that the job can become your work and you don't get any time to do your work because you you know your bosses are offering you extra hours and things and i thought what you're offering here and which you know i want you to to share with our audience about is a kind of way to bypass that as a way to unite those things

3:43together yeah absolutely i think it's something that all creatives deal with how do i pay my rent and you know we're always feeding into our craft especially those of us who take it seriously we're always looking for the next training session or as actors you have to update your headshots you have to get new showreel material you you know you're you're investing in yourself and in the belief in yourself left and right and you have a job to support that habit and i think what most creatives

4:19are doing is they're like they keep adding into the bank of hope thinking that one day this is going to pay off when i make it not realizing that actually the journey can be part of the payoff can be supporting your career and you at the same time and we can get into the how and the why of that

Curator Method

4:42and the real problem or challenge starts when these highly creative people are only turning their creativity towards their craft and not towards creative problem solving so the problem is that their job is pulling from their work yeah and the solution to every problem is usually within the problem itself and often if you just ask yourself what is the opposite what would be the ideal situation

5:14and i think because you know especially as actors the first thing you go to is well that i'm getting booked so much that that is my work but there are still other things that you need to support yourself you know nicole kidman tom cruise all the a-list actors are still getting training and this is a big thing that pulls a lot of our our focus and time and and resources and could actually be feeding into them to be supporting their career so i hope this makes sense as we get more into it but i think

5:49it really starts with pulling apart the problem itself like a big knot and and just saying what is the opposite of the challenge that i'm finding for myself right now and whatever the opposite of that is to start looking at that it from different angles what does that mean do you have an example of

Personal Example

6:07that do you have an example of that principle in practice absolutely because it's what i did so i had been sag after a professional actor in chicago many many years ago and then i met this hot german guy and ended up in germany and that was 30 years ago and for the first 16 years i was doing acting adjacent stuff but i wasn't acting and so when i finally decided to relaunch my acting career um my biggest

6:39problem was that i i first of all i i had nothing i had no current showreel material no current connections no clue of of how the industry worked but the very first challenge was that i i didn't have the skills and the confidence in my skills that i needed because my instrument had gotten so out of tune instead of seeing all of these problems no showreel material no connections no clue first of all just breaking that down into the first hurdle that i could get over and that was training so i

7:15looked around and again i live in munich wasn't a whole lot going on back then especially not at the caliber i wanted to be working at so that left me with two conventional options one was fly to london fly to new york fly to la and the other one was to give up and honestly neither one were viable options and you know the problem is is that there isn't what i need right here so how do i create that and i just started reaching out to coaches kind of all over the place and some of them started

7:48responding and some really great ones started responding but for me initially before i even did that i knew that if i could just get a handful of people who wanted to take a workshop with this particular coach that i could just you know pay whatever i would pay if it were already here in munich but what ended up happening was i ended up getting free training not only free but i ended up making 1400 euros that very first weekend and all of a sudden it was like bing you know like i can

8:19actually make money doing what i would pay to do what i would be doing anyway but i wouldn't be able to do it on the scale that i could do the other problem that you know we run into is we we take a great workshop once twice a year maybe four times a year if we're really lucky because they're expensive and we have a lot of other expenses that also need to be tended to but when you are turning it around and looking at your gap this is you know what i call that that first thing that you're missing that

8:52first thing that you need is your gap and you use that as opposed to it being a wall it's actually a jumping off point it's a it's a starting point of getting what you need because also i think the other thing is oftentimes we'll end up taking what's available not necessarily what we need say we need acting training right or you know i need to get in front of some casting directors but are these actually the shows whose worlds you are right for that you want to be a part of so many times you know that when i

9:30speak with actors the first thing that they'll say is i just want to work and i think it can be non-productive because if you don't have an actual goal where you're trying to get to you're kind of buffeted around on the winds of whatever comes your way as opposed to taking agency and carving your own path you know strategically saying hey i want to get on dark horses what kind of material might get me

10:02on to dark horses right dark horses right isn't that the name of the show i'm i have dark horses in my brain oh slow horses slow horses that's the one yeah thank you dark horses that's from uh klaus kleinfeld klaus kleinfeld has this theory that dark horses are the ones that nobody sees coming they come from behind and i love this it's it's a big part of what i believe in because i think when you are curating your own path you are curating relationships you are steadily deepening your

10:36knowledge steadily increasing your skills and you're doing it in a way that's so strategic that when all of a sudden things start to come through through the connections that you've made through the skills that you've built people are like whoa why are what's happening why are you getting all this work all of a sudden and they feel like you know this horse just came out of nowhere so that's why dark horses on the brain so and that sounds like then this really kind of quite pivotal moment for you like in terms of where you've kind of where you are now came from

11:10more resourcefulness rather than like desperation because i think a lot of actors and creators will recognize this where i think in spite of all you know the years of training and the skills that you've honed and you're kind of everything you've put into your career there's still something missing so what what was it for you then that that caused you to kind of have this really kind of pivotal moment you shifted into i guess it's it's it's not a sense of of lack or self-worth and you know self-belief but there was something in you that turned resourceful can you can you pinpoint what that was that kind of turning point for you

Resourcefulness

11:41yeah honestly jordan i think i've always been pretty resourceful and i think oftentimes we think it's a lack of resources but honestly it's almost never a lack of resources it's just a lack of resourcefulness whether it's money time whatever it is and i think just because i've been so often i've been put into kind of extreme situations pretty much my entire life but even if we want to just take my adult life always living as a fish out of water right because i've lived in europe for pretty much

12:19all of my adult life i was in london rome paris and now germany for 30 years and it makes you see so many things in a different way there are so many things that you open your brain up to when you are forced to think a little bit differently and this is where i think creatives really have the advantage because we do think differently but it's just a muscle to be trained to start looking at your

12:52problems i and i say that in quotation marks because they're really challenges in a different way so you know like i was saying earlier with the challenge of not having the right training here most people and you know people were saying to me well you know i guess you better give it up you know it was really just going well how can i make this work i think that's it really not asking i think people get to a point and they don't ask and really the question is how how can this work

13:26and even if you're just brainstorming you know what would be an ideal situation for you well how can i make that work and just keep asking yourself how how how could i make that work well there's an interesting principle i was going to say there's an interesting principle i've got a fridge magnet and on the fridge magnet it says give what you think you lack yeah and you know that's there's a wider you know philosophical principle in terms of you know if you think that what you lack is love give love if you think what you lack is attention give attention

13:59if you think what you lack is care give care if you think what you lack is i don't know respect is give respect but i think this ties into what you're saying here the way to engineer it is really what what do i lack and then from that is also if you lack it then probably other people lack it as well then you've asked an even more important question in terms of you you're going to to create a service that benefits people which is what do people need yeah yes definitely but i think oftentimes we can

14:33get caught up like as actors your goal is never to become the service you want to be providing are your acting skills and so we don't want to become event planners so you have to think of it like a means to an end the way i always like to describe it is if you think of curating these kinds of experiences events workshops seminars whatever they may happen to be whatever it is that you need to get you to that next milestone if you think of the act of doing this examining what is missing for me right now

15:10and what do i need to get to the next step and then finding someone who can help you get there knowing that as you say there are going to be other people look if you are an actor who wants to get in front of a specific casting director you can be sure that there are other actors that want to get in front of that casting director if you are an actor who wants to explore meisner or whatever it may happen to be you can be sure that there are other actors who also want to explore that thing whatever that

15:45thing is lead with what it is that you are curious about because you're not trying to start and scale a business you are using this as a means to an end to get what you need in a way that is strategic and makes sense for your career and by doing that you are helping other people so if you think of it like the curator method is like a like a like a car right like a vehicle and you get into it you need to set a destination in other words you need to know where you want to get to this is what i call your macro gap

16:19so you have to understand what what is the kind of career that i am ultimately aiming for because that shapes the connections that you make it shapes the material that you create for yourself in your show reels and it it shapes how you present yourself how you put yourself out there it shapes everything that we do and if you don't know it will take other people like casting directors and directors more time to figure that out as well because you're saying i don't know i'm a blank slate you know

16:54whatever you think that's that's it so help them out i think it's it helps to first understand yourself to understand like what it is that you're putting out there in the world but that goes in tandem with knowing what it is that you want right we have to deal with the cards in our hand like you know i may want to be cast as a 23 year old hot girl again but that ain't gonna happen you know those days are gone so you have to deal with the cards that you are holding and just go it is what it

17:25is and now i've completely oh i know so i was talking about the curator method as a car how i got to that i have no idea so if you think of it when you know where you're trying to get to and you can get into your vehicle and set your gps to that the first thing we always do is try and figure out okay well where what's my first milestone how will i know that i'm getting closer to my destination but it doesn't mean that if a bend in the road comes along and something else catches your attention you can't drive

17:59off in that direction too right so you you just have to be flexible but you have to know where you're going you're in a vehicle that's actually not losing value like most vehicles do it's actually gaining value you're gaining value in skills in knowledge in connections as you get closer to your next milestone isn't there a danger though that the um that setting up the workshop so for example if you use that model that suddenly that could become your job and that you're doing exactly what the joseph

18:32campbell thing of don't do is that suddenly you know all your hours are spent putting on this darn workshop because you wanted to learn with this acting teacher yeah is that is that such a great question

Prioritizing

18:44yeah absolutely such a great question so i you know of course having steady money is seductive so you still need to be in control of what your priorities are but i know for me like when i started to get booked more and more it's easy enough to give a spot to an actor and say hey can you go in and open out you can take this course for free you can take this workshop for free there's no uh rule that

19:15says you can't stop and start i certainly did it so i did this for about a year and a half as i was relaunching my career i was bringing in two to three coaches per month and then in between those i was organizing those are what i would call my big workshops and in between that i would organize what i called the little workshops and the little workshops were when we would get together and practice what we had learned and you didn't have to have partaken in the big workshop in order to participate

19:46in the little workshop so i was getting to work out six times a week you know anywhere from three to eight hours a day so depending on you know whether it was a big workshop or it was just a rehearsal type of a thing and the other people were doing it as they wanted but when i started to get booked on things then it was easy enough to say either take my spot and then eventually i got to a point where i

20:16was like i don't i don't want to do this because being an event planner was never the objective it was using the events to get what i needed but then later as i was talking about my branding problem initially right and i just kept getting these kind of superficial super icy very kind of lean back quiet spidery type roles and i wanted to play the roles that were more passionate that were more warm

20:49that were had showed more of my maternal side other facets of myself and so i again realized the the big problem was branding when i pulled that problem apart i saw that the actual problem was that they didn't know what else i was capable of because they hadn't seen it especially here in germany you're very much cast off of your showreel for smaller parts right so and that because i was just starting out those were

21:22the parts i was getting and so you get cast you can get into a spiral very very quickly of just getting the same types of roles over and over again which you know it's low-hanging fruit there's something to be said for it but i knew that if i wanted them to cast me in different ways i needed to show them different aspects of myself and so that's when i began doing the curator method this is what i call phase two of the curator method so i just started putting on workshops that i did not participate in

21:54at all and i was just doing it so that i could finance short films so at that point i was doing one short film a month and then that kind of got put to sleep for a little while when i had that and i started getting booked on other shows in fact i ended up getting a playing a mom in a hallmark christmas movie so it was like time to put on the brakes turn that sweetness off it's a little too sweet um careful what you wish for exactly and and then then i went into phase three later on because

22:31again for me i realized like i would go to events networking events film festivals and i would find myself in the circle of actors surrounding a poor casting director and everybody's like pay attention to me notice me consider me you know all the things that we are feeling and hoping for and want and these are legitimate but i i have like a real revulsion to being that person clamoring for attention in that

23:02way and so i knew just from my own sense of self-worth and how i am able to put myself out there i needed to find a way to get on eye level and i thought well i bet if i hired them then i would have a chance to talk to them right we could have conversations about what the workshop would look like about the other actors in the workshop and i would be creating a relationship with them as one human being offering value to another human being and by the way i'm an actor

23:39so that's what i call phase phase three of you know what has eventually become the curator method and it wasn't i honestly didn't even start teaching this until june of this year because it just never occurred to me to be very honest i didn't even think of it as like a specific method so many people john you and i are similar in age jordan you are not so many people get to a certain point in their lives and they feel like if i haven't made it by now i'm probably never going to or or it's too late

24:18to start like my time is gone and i think especially if you have kids that parental instinct kicks in and you want to care for your kids and give them a safe environment to grow up in which means you know your priorities change it's interesting you say that because i i remember thinking when i decided to be an actor it was probably late teens like 18 17 18 and it was based on very little but even then i thought is it too late you know is this something they should have done as a youngster so i think that

24:53that can come at any age and in any circumstance obviously saying like you know kids are a perfect example of they have there's a real financial obligation there which causes you to panic and think i can't possibly you know go off and pursue this fairly selfish career but i think that can come at any age you know i've now been in the industry out of drama school for well over a decade now and it's always you know you age into different roles and there's that always that thing of you know is it too late or is it you know i think every actor every every age feels that to some extent because there is this kind of i guess feeling that there's an expiry date on actors in the industry i think

25:29you know females feel a lot a lot more kind of prescient that's something i think everyone will really recognize what what do you think are the qualities that that really has kind of helped you balance that obviously you've been raising a family balancing an acting career what what the qualities you think have helped you not just manage that but really thrive in that in this whole kind

Balancing Career

25:46of new new phase of your life i think in the beginning to be completely honest i struggled you know because i left i left the industry in my late 20s and it was i was doing well by all intents and purposes i didn't have to have another job i think initially i was wanting that and i was struggling with all of it i was struggling with my age i was 47 i was struggling with not being like here being here in germany and i speak german but i speak it with an american accent

26:22and i really struggled with it and i think there there is a lot of relief and letting go that comes from just accepting you are where you are and that's exactly where you're supposed to be because this is where you are and embracing that and when i let go of fighting about you know my age and all of those different things honestly so much of that was in my head sure i'm not going

26:54to play the young woman anymore but that doesn't mean i'm not you know there are other roles that i wouldn't have gotten to play when i was that young woman and one of my friends actually said it to me really helped me to let go she said yeah but now you're a character actor and if as a character actor you can be anything you are you were in a box before but you're not in that box anymore and really i think that was like a big epiphany moment for me right yeah

27:30no no yeah that's because i think yeah i definitely feel like i've gotten to point realizing that because the happiness and fulfillment doesn't come from the circumstances that you have in your life i think that you're always waiting for that it's always around the corner it's that happiness is coming up and it's always when your circumstances change and you feel that you've got this thing you're after and it speaks to i think with you know previous episodes that we've we've covered that it's all about meeting your circumstances differently it's the the shift in mindset and you have to yes and i think also we're always you know success where

28:05where is a carrot that's dangling in front of our face and you never really reach it because as soon as you get to where that carrot is you see it further ahead again and i think it's so important for actors for all artists for all creatives to celebrate your small wins and i'm talking about even the wins that hurt like the callback that you got but you didn't book the role to have gotten a callback

28:35right when if you realize how many people were submitted for that role you got an audition that is a win i know it's hard to count those as wins but they are so you so you talk there's the obviously you've got the five day escape route challenge coming up which part of your curator method when you call it the escape route you say it's not about escaping from something but escaping to something can you talk a bit about that yeah well i think we get into kind of like a hamster wheel of what

29:08everybody else is doing right we can find ourselves all doing the same things that all the other actors are doing and i think what i see with my clients is again and again they'll get into like this big motivational rush of writing to casting directors or they they finally got their scene from the tv series that they did and you know it's a year later now but they're going to send it out and this and they have this big rush of something that happens and nothing really comes from it so it's escaping this kind of

29:42giving away your agency honestly and escaping to taking radical accountability which can be a scary place but it is the only way to actually start making real changes because at the end of the day there are three things that we can control what we think what we do and how we choose to perceive the things that happen for us and these are the exact same things that we cannot control in other people so as soon as you start taking a radical accountability for the things that you want and

30:19you need you are able to escape the kind of hamster wheel of doing what everybody else is doing and it's a way to set yourself apart from that is the biggest thing so it's like escape not as avoidance but more i guess it's closer to like self-actualization we kind of talked a bit before yeah escape might not have been the best uh phrase for it um but in the moment i think it was just i was feeling like i was in this hamster wheel myself of doing all those things or remembering what that

30:52was like because i definitely have been there and done that and um i just i didn't want it i wanted a better way i wanted a more strategic way i wanted a way that actually addressed my needs as they came up yeah it was quite like it's it reminds me especially we talked in the last episode about our dharma john it sounds like it's quite similar to that it's the the escape is kind of escaping into your dharma is kind of realizing your purpose on this earth right i think well it's escaping your

31:26unfulfilled life really isn't it yes exactly john that yeah that's exactly what it is john the tragedy of life is is is dying with the music still in you yeah you know for me personally you know that death itself you know i was sharing with my students yesterday something from sri ramana mahashi that death is just a thought we have no concept we really it's just a concept we talk about death now we have a concept of death we don't really know what it is it's all just a thought you know so so which

31:58thoughts are we going to choose that's going to be our mindset isn't it yeah yes and and i think people forget they have the power to choose what thoughts they would like to think how you choose to see something that is up to you yeah well it's the the physical you know the death doesn't bother me it's dying with the music still in me that's that's the thing and it's finding a way to do that you know and as artists there is something there that wants to be manifest there's a great love there's

32:32something there that wants to come out and sometimes it could be you know a project that you don't even feel that you know it's chosen you rather than you've chosen it and there's a kind of responsibility to get it out there um and it's just finding that you know t.s elliott wrote uh the poem the wasteland which is all about this the unfulfilled life really uh that's the biggest tragedy of human existence apart from the illusion of separation that's what einstein said it's the biggest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separation but i think dying with the music still in you that's

33:07a painful one so you know and we all we live like we think we've got time don't we yeah well we hope we do you know but do you know what i mean we assume that we do especially it's especially when we're younger yeah um but it comes a point where you just you just want to get on with it and and

Legacy and Impact

33:25work out what are the things that are really important to you yeah that um i often think you know if i was on my deathbed now i i want to be able to enjoy how i've lived my life you know to i in fact i've got a very strong purpose that when i if i'm lucky enough to have a deathbed i want to be lying there thinking yeah that was great i really enjoyed that yes there was you know sometimes it was finger licking good and sometimes it was ass wiping bad but i wouldn't swap it for

33:59anything you know what an amazing experience and i think reverse engineering your life from that sort of death deathbed moment of having enjoyed how you've lived it uh is a good way to go because you think well well then what well what do i need to do in order to be at that point where i can die with peace of mind or this at least this you know the this body can die with with with peace of mind and that goes back to actually understanding what it is that you want

34:30right what does leaving a legacy and impact significance in this world actually mean what does putting your music out there mean right yeah i mean for some people it may just mean they live for the moment and they are happy with that for other people they want a lasting impression they want it they want people to be looking at them like they look you know we now look back to laurence olivier you need to know what you want so you can actually aim for it i guess as well it's kind of the ego can

35:05come into play quite easily with that as well as in terms of leaving a legacy so very often people think of that in terms of the effect they want to have on people rather than like you say what what would make them happy is it changing the life of one person that they come into contact with or is it you know changing the lives of you know well it's the globe yeah exactly and it's it's how you define success we define success within the context of the spiritual psychology of acting and the spiritual teachings behind it it's the the quality and level of consciousness that your existence brings to those

35:38around you that's the true measure of success it's not really um a financial gain or popularity or any of those things it's literally what what effect did your being and substance have on those around you and and i suppose a really successful life is one where you you you've you know that your being and substance has touched many people um but as jordan says or even just a few people very deeply right so well yeah but the ego wants to be remembered doesn't it the individual wants to be

36:09remembered and i kind of finish off that thought that it's all a bit futile because you know even the complete works of shakespeare isn't going to survive this right so what you know what are our um sort of petty achievements in this life is not relevant i don't really live for that i think the whole idea of living for a legacy well it's just nonsense really because it's having a purpose beyond death you know i want to be remembered there is um an element of that that i think has a biological basis because we want to pass on our genes don't we um and i think that that that desire to be remembered

36:46is there but but i think it it all of that just takes away from the now and it takes away from the spirit of service and i think that's at the crux of it is that when you you know in terms of success when you do what you do as an act of love and service then i think it has a much greater propensity for real success yeah well it sounds as well like the curator method that that that is what's behind it as well that unless there's love and service at the core and the base of that you're not going to be

37:16successful you're not going to be able to kind of build this network and this ecosystem of support and and kind of collaboration right yeah absolutely i i don't use the word service so much but it's i i use more give right you're looking to to give but i guess at the end of the day it's it's semantics it's one you know it's the same thing yeah people don't like the word service because it reminds them of servitude yes my lady no my lady upstairs downstairs that's not the spirit service isn't that at all you know service is the the spirit of that the universe runs on is service you know the air

37:49is serviced the light is good give everything you're served at every level since the moment that you're born and the spirit of service is just that you you participate in that play yeah in the gita it says that it talks about the revolving wheel of sacrifice and it says those that don't give krishna says they they he says oh arjuna they breathe in vain it's like that's the wasted life is the one where there is no spirit of service and as we know you know if neuroscience can show us

38:21quite simply that what actually makes us happy is serving others in fact the shankracharya once said that if only people could realize that serving oneself is bondage and serving others is freedom then they might be happy which i always think is quite a startling comment that he made that if people want to be happy is understand that shift it's shift from you know wanting me to be happy to wanting others to be happy yeah yeah that's quite like as well you're saying that you know you with

38:54the curator method you really want people to hone in on what they actually want and i think that is that's part of it is that people think oh they want to be admired or whatever that's that's kind of the thing that's actually getting in the way of what they really want which is another layer kind of it's covering over it i think the finding out what you really want is really beneficial in that way because it takes it past the ego you know past the kind of the self-serving aspects of our nature and to truly you know what is it we actually want is it is it love and communion and with other people is it you know telling stories is it you know that there's all these other ego things that get in the

39:27way that kind of muddy those waters but i think you know and what makes it valuable right what makes the journey that any journey this life journey this you know the journey of our careers what makes it valuable are the relationships along the way and a relationship is always a two-way street it's always a give and a take and there is a the law of reciprocity right people you give to someone somebody wants to give back to you it's it's normal and if they don't well you know they that's on them yeah then they're

39:59not as happy no but it's giving for the giving not giving for the taking isn't it that's yeah exactly exactly because i think that's the problem i have with like things like manifesting is that very often it's billed as it's more wish fulfillment isn't it something you want and the more you want it the more it's going to come to you we're at actually when the things don't come your way with things out of your own control then you're blamed or you only got the shame and the guilt of oh i didn't want it enough clearly when really it's you know it's the flip side of that isn't it it's like you're saying you have to give before you can receive you have to that that's that's what the

40:32real kind of manifesting is what you you actually putting out into the world rather than just you know what's it going to give me you know i manifesting i mean it literally just means to make something material which yeah which takes responsibility as well right you can see responsibility for it yeah but but you must yeah you otherwise it's just like this wish right and a wish kind of like pixie dusts up into the air and it dissipates and it disappears but if if you

41:02can focus that into intent yes i want this i want this badly but do you want it badly enough to do something about it because wishing it into existence we'd all have everything we want right and the other thing that i noticed by creating these communities around my own milestones is it creates so much collaboration it creates like true caring you end up getting on so many levels things that you needed

41:35that you didn't realize were even there because of the relationships that you develop and community i never thought of it really when i was starting out like how important it was to have a group of other people who were interested in what i was in interested in and doing what i was doing and excited about you know all in the same way so that we could be a part of each other's journeys and be there for each other when when we needed to be like self-tapes and then of course so many actors were not just actors

42:12right we're writers directors maybe you do sound maybe do editing i mean nobody hardly anyone is just doing one thing and you can combine these things in such beautiful ways so that you've got this five-day escape route challenge coming up in november

Escape Route Challenge

42:41november 10th november 10th can you tell listeners what to expect really from that experience you know if they sign up for who is it for you know what is it well this is really for any creative it's not just for actors you can really use this for for anything you don't honestly need a degree for and in just the listening of this is if you can imagine understanding if you need training for something if you need knowledge about something if you need better connections if you need a better way to showcase your work whatever it may happen to be you can use the curator method to do that

43:16so what i first help people do is understand they're not looking at the whole range of the alps in front of them right it's one mountain that you have to climb first and what's the first thing you need to climb that mountain you need a map and some darn good shoes so it's helping them break down this huge obstacle that they see in front of themselves as one big thing and tearing it apart into little pieces saying what is the very first thing that you need right now to get you further and then helping

43:51them to understand how to create that for themselves so that by the end they they have a real plan of action okay this is what i need this is how i need to create it and they know how to go out there and get that for themselves to to take that agency take that radical accountability and do you do you guide them as you as they're going through the program they bring in their ideas and you help as a group you help to shape it or how how does it work practically that is the curator academy that is where like i give

44:24you the the framework for how to do it during the free challenge and you know you'll you have everything you need to do it and if you're a self-starter and there are many people who are then you have everything you need at that point to go off and go do it by yourself but a lot of people need more feedback they need the perspective they need the coaching they need to know well what do i do when this happens and how much do i charge for it and this and that and that's inside of the curator academy itself what kind of transformations then have you seen from people who have done this previously

44:57oh well i all sorts of things i mean the last one that i ran through i had a woodworker in it his name was ian he wasn't even sure i think this is so often the case with creatives he came to me with so many ideas well i want to do this and i want to do that and ultimately we were able to figure out what what he really wanted what what his macro goal right now would be is to get his work getting it

45:28sold in fairs and markets like christmas markets and art fairs and things like that and so we figured out what was the first thing he needed for that he had plenty of stuff to sell but he had no clue how to get into one of these markets and honestly most artists very many of them at any rate are also coaching at some level and are also looking for another way to share their expertise in a way with

46:01that they're compensated for it so finding the people who are willing to help you to get to that next level is kind of the least of it so by the end of it he had figured out exactly what other type of artisans he needed to reach out to in order to get his handful of people to make this actually happen for him so you go from being very kind of like i don't know what's blocking me i don't know what i need to understanding what that first thing is and then understanding how to get it for yourself

46:34and then it's a skill right it's it's a muscle and once you start to use it you start to look at things differently the comment i get the most from people who've taken the the five-day challenge it's just such a paradigm shift because we're so used to looking at it like what is your challenge the problem is you're not getting auditions so what can we do about this what is the real problem with that are you lacking material do they not know about you what what exactly is keeping you from getting

47:10those auditions and so when you can break it down really into those concrete not general i'm not getting enough auditions but i'm not getting enough auditions because x y and z then you can say okay well my material is actually substandard i need to do something about that is it substandard because my acting needs some skill building that might be the case or is it substandard because maybe it just

47:42consists of a lot of low budget no budget student film type things and just by the very nature of those types of projects you're not going to be shown in your best light you know your best take was probably when the camera was on somebody else or it's at some weird artistic angle that's not showing your eyes which is what they need to see and when i say pulling these things apart i mean pull it apart and figure out what exactly is wrong so i i think often it's not a lack of talent for people

48:19it's a lack of visibility in that talent and it's a it always boils down to two things right it's a lack of access to the people and a lack of visibility being able to show them right and these things go together so it all feeds into each other so that when you have the proof you develop the confidence and the proof comes from the doing and if nobody is doing it for you what can you do to get that ball

48:52rolling do you find then that do people ever get to the stage where they realize all the problem is themselves that they're holding themselves back or you know that they realize that they're not putting in the work themselves you know when when it's laid out like that in terms of what are the practical steps do they ever do they ever realize like oh it's the work i need to do myself well so on the five-day challenges i see the people for five days it's super intense i bring them up we do hot seats and i you know i'm helping people show them in real time how to figure out what that first piece is

49:27how to create something that will actually get them what they need so we're doing all of that in real time but once that's gone i generally unless they join the curator academy i generally don't see them again and of course if you're going to join the curator academy you are someone who is at a point in your career where you are willing to do more than what everybody else is doing right so it's you are a creative entrepreneur in a certain sense not everybody is that and i recognize that and the

50:04people who do decide to work with me i think for me i mean i'm one of those people as well i'm definitely a self-starter but i'm also someone who recognizes that if i can get a shortcut by hiring a coach that's going to help me to skip all the you know the trial by error type of things and just like show me what i need to do so i can do it then i'll figure it out right and it's often just holding somebody's hand and helping them and showing them right that this is this is what has worked for

50:38me and helping them to brainstorm and um those kinds of things yeah totally i mean it would be interesting if you could go back you know to that moment where things really changed in your career and this whole curator method came out of those initial workshops if you could go back and speak to yourself you know yeah before that workshop what would you tell yourself you think what would you what kind of what kind of advice would you give for me like as a young woman i think even though i

51:08i was doing okay i i probably didn't take as many risks as i should have because i was afraid and i think i thought when i was younger that when i grow up that fear is going to go away grown-ups aren't afraid you know and what i realized is fear never goes away but instead of letting it stand in front of you and bully you just tell it to move to the side and watch you and if you fall on your face

51:42whatever you fall on your face you know how to stand up and brush your knees off and try again and and that for me was a really big thing is understanding that fear is always going to be there and if you can kind of make friends with it i like to say fear is not this monster it's not this horrible demon trying to make you fail think of it more like a helicopter mom it just doesn't want you to skin your knees you know don't go out there and and fall down please you know it's just trying

52:13to keep you safe and safe is what it knows safe is what's comfortable but if your dreams were already within your comfort zone you wouldn't be striving for something else so you have to get outside of your comfort zone to to get to those dreams and know that each time you take those steps this is a boundary that it's not a rubber band it doesn't bounce back it just keeps stretching and there's

52:44always going to be something on the other side of that boundary but as you expand it what scared you yesterday doesn't scare you anymore and maybe something new will scare you tomorrow but it also goes back to building that confidence through the doing when you do something again and again and again you're building that confidence and you're building that trust in yourself and that is so so so important to understand hey i got this if any of this has sparked your curiosity definitely come to the

53:20five-day challenge it's free it's fun um it's interactive you will definitely walk away with a lot of clarity and take it from there it's all just there designed to help you figure out what you need next in your career and how to get it brilliant well we'll have the the all the details will be in the description and how people can find out more about this but this has been really wonderful and hearing this is um sparked a lot of uh ideas and thoughts and i hope it has done in our listeners as

53:56well uh i think this is really important you know that this whole issue of how do we manage a living whilst we're trying to do our art and this is sounds like a really attractive potential here so it'd be really good to explore it further excellent well i hope so i hope i've i've changed some people's perspectives and and maybe introduced them to an idea that they hadn't thought of before because that's the beginning of change right you have to think differently before you can do differently

54:27thank you for listening to the spiritual psychology of acting podcast we hope you enjoyed our chat with ann if you'd like to go deeper like we mentioned in the chat there ann's next five-day escape route challenge begins on the 10th of november you can find out more details about it by following the link in the description if you found this episode valuable please share it with someone who might

55:01need to hear it like subscribe all of that as always look after each other and we'll see you next time

55:26of the 2nd of november you can find out more details about it and we'll see you next time and we'll see you next time and we'll see you next time so Thank you.

56:04Thank you.