MOTIVATION…The silent killer.  We all know what it is. We all need it to be successful. Without it, we starve, go broke, let our dreams slip away – whatever those may be. We know what we need for it to work. We usually know what motivates us but, it likes to slip away when we least expect it. you really don’t have to do much for it to leave you. Just wake up one morning and poof, what motivated you yesterday is gone today. Do we get too confident at our daily routine – “I got this.”? What drives us to achieve our goals one day can easily change the next. Me personally, I know what goals I have – have a nice, large sustainable income, get a nice house with a pool, drive a nice car (already do). Yet, what motivates me to obtain those goals one day is different sometimes month to month, week to week, even Day to day. Motivation moves in peaks and valleys for me on something like a spinning wheel.

There are haters everywhere! Their one job in life is to kill your motivation. Hi hater, bye hater. Once I realize the hater is lurking in my life, I try, any way possible, to avoid them like the plague. I only want positive energy around me. I am always happy for people when something good happens to them in their lives – congrats man, glad to hear that, that’s great, I hope everything works out for you – is usually my response. Now flip it for a sec. Responses I usually get for my activities – that doesn’t pay enough, why waste your time, that’s a really hard industry to do well in, do it this way not that way – to myself I’m like shut the fuck up already. But, I realize that no matter what, there will be more people that hate than show support. You have to already know that going in anytime you engage in a conversation with someone who you thought might be supportive.

So, I’ve been doing background (BG) acting on my days off from being an EMT and a few weeks back I read a post, by a casting director, on Facebook that really discouraged me. Basically, the post was about what types of acting work should be on a resume when submitting for a speaking role.  She goes on to say – rants on – about how there should be no background work listed on your resume when submitting to a casting director. That background work isn’t really acting and really doesn’t show off your skills. Right off the bat I thought to myself – This fat ugly bitch has probably never been cast in anything before and really represents the idea of people who can’t act, teach, or cast. – but I didn’t respond like that at all. I responded saying, “Wow, that was really insightful, thanks.” You still have to play the game and feed into their egos. But, did she really need to shit on the people who, if they didn’t exist, would make watching a tv show like staring at a cardboard box for an hour, C’mon. Honestly, take BG out of a show and see how interesting it is to watch. I can speak for myself, saying that doing background, I’ve worked directly with 1st and 2nd ADs and have personally taken “acting” direction from them. Direction that if I didn’t “act” the way they wanted me to, I would have been replaced. What really made me feel better is after that I went to The Actors Expo in Manhattan and sat in on a small seminar with an Emmy Award winning casting director and his advice was, “If you’ve done it, I want to know about it.” This made me feel a lot better about my side gig. So, I went home and put every BG job I ever did on a resume’ and sent it out to every casting director I could. Let’s see who was right.

Bottom line is you need to stay focused and do what makes you happy no matter what anyone around you thinks. No matter how close you are to them – they aren’t you.  They don’t feel what you feel.  Their purpose in life is different than your purpose. Their existence is not your existence.  Always remember to stay true to yourself and who YOU are.  Never change because some hater spits jealously or negative energy your way.

Positive energy towards all.

Rob