Breaking the December Curse: Get Ahead While Everyone Else Coasts

This is the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast, where we discuss the connection between life and acting. All right, welcome back everybody to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. I'm Matthew Dearing here with Brian Sweeney and Joey Sweeney, and we've got Shea back in the house. Woo, Shea. Hi guys. So lit. You look better, you don't sound better. pouring. Oh yeah, it was pouring this morning. And I look- There was a tree, like, uprooted on the side of the road.

There was a tornado warning. I saw that when I woke up. That's crazy. That's insane. Yeah. So I walk out, and I'm like, whale? And then I thought about it, and I was like, oh my goodness. And then I was like, oh, I parked my car here, because I always leave my car at the studio, and the one time I needed it, my car was at the apartment complex.

So I still got soaked, but literally the puddles from our apartment complex to the studio was straight up, like, three feet deep. And I was just, I was gonna get so soaked if I had to walk like I usually do. So I was like, score! So this morning started out great. So were you going to walk, or were you gonna just, like, call it? Oh no, I would have walked.

I like to hear that. Yeah, but the thought was in my head of, like, do I want to face this rain, or do I want to walk? And so as I was walking, I saw my car, and I was like, yes, let's go! Joey, let me give you a friendly word of advice. All right. Because one day… It's the wrong, it's the wrong sound. One day this will really matter, but don't say on a recorded podcast that you park your car at the studio every day.

Why? What's wrong with that? We live so close. Because it's literally like, don't say that either, you guys. I'll tell people. It's like tagging your location on Facebook. Okay, that's fine, but, like, here's the thing, I lock my car every night. Yeah, but what if somebody were to break into the beloved Monty C? Well, there's nothing that's valuable. They can take my footballs and my cones, because that's the only stuff that I leave in my car.

Footballs and cones? Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. There's a lot of 7th graders. Yeah, right. Yeah, I don't keep valuable things in my car. I hardly ever drive it anyway, so. That is a true statement. Yeah, for real. Whenever, like, it's really funny, because, like, if we… So, there's four of us, so we always have at least three choices of car to go with. Typically, it's mine or Brian's, because, obviously, Matt's got car seats in the back of his car.

But he really likes driving, so he'll drive Brian's car a lot of the time. But typically, it's either my whip or Brian's whip. And it's just funny, because never once has anybody ever been like, should we take Joey's? Joey's whip? That's not a single time. Let's take Joey's whip. Hey, take the Monte Carlo. Let's do it. Actually, that's a fib. Okay, we've never taken the Monte C as a team.

But you and I have taken the Monte C multiple times. Joey took me one time, it was, like, the second week I was back after I broke my leg. So, I was, like, full cast, full could not move, full everything. And Joey was, like, hey, do you want me to go get you some lunch? Because everybody was kind of taking turns getting me food for those couple weeks, which was very kind.

And I was, like, let me go with you. Like, I got to get out of the office for a second. And Joey had no, and I didn't have a car. So, and Joey had no AC, and it was the middle of August. I warned you. I warned you. Dying. I have my leg out the window in my poop cast. That's safe. And the Panera Bread people took so long that day.

Oh, forever. So long. And me and you just sat in the drive-thru sweating. Like, oh, but you know what? It didn't matter because somebody was nice enough to take me to go get food. I'm pretty sure I took my shirt off. You did. I got back to the studio. You did. Because it was just drenched at that point. But now we're drenched in a different way because it's 46 degrees outside today.

And we're loving it. So let's talk about this idea. I like the way you mentioned this, Joey, facing the rain, you know? And we're coming up on December 1. And I've been warning you guys of this for a couple months now, maybe three or four months. And, you know, it's so funny because the reason why I try to warn the people I love a lot of the times is because I'm really trying to warn myself.

Like I'm talking to me most of the time when I'm trying to give advice because I know what's right, but it doesn't always mean it's so easy to do, right? And so there's this concept of what happens at the end of the year. And it's so weird, but the holidays start and you feel like the year's over. But there's a whole month. There's a whole one-twelfth of the year left, but it feels over, right?

It feels like we're done. And instead of like trying to just 10X right now, like where we're in, it's so hard to stay focused. So I'm going to just admit something. So last night, the food was really good. It was really good for Thanksgiving. And especially the mashed potatoes we made. I know what went in there. I mean, there was a lot of, like a lot of butter, a ton of butter.

It was so good. And so I slapped on the mashed potatoes. Did you make the mashed potatoes? I did. Yeah, I saw it. They're literally some of the best mashed potatoes I've ever had. I mean, it's so good. And anyway, so I pile a whole pile on my plate and I do it for seconds. And then, you know, I'm only taking what I like to eat. And I'm just feeling just so bad afterwards, just sweaty and gross.

And then on the way home, I could not keep my eyes open. Well, of course, I was in a food coma. Yes. Right? To the point where when we finally got in the garage, I wanted to just sleep in the car. Yeah. And Leeann had to yell at me. She was like, get out of the car. So I go to bed and then I wake up, as you know, like usually 3.30 in the morning.

Today, I get up at like 8, 8.15, just unapologetically. And my wife, here's what's tough, is you got to be careful. You got to be careful because people who love you, love you. But if they're not looking at everything for you, you know, sometimes they can be like overly nice. So my wife says, hey, I think it's good that you've learned to listen to your body sometimes and that you, you know, you sleep when you need to and you're still, you know, doing everything so great.

But every now and then it's okay. You know, you can sleep in. Good job. And though she's right, it's also because I put myself in a massive food coma. Right. Before. Yeah. You know, and I got to be careful to not get stuck in that because all of a sudden what happens is your body starts craving it again. You have all these like just, you know, everything changes.

And then you go on this slippery slope, spiral downward. Yeah. And that's the thing we've been trying to warn our students of. And why we, why we ran that one special is because what happens is people start to kind of like die off in November, December, because they feel like they're getting too stressed and to this or that. And money seems tight and all these things, but they forget to invest in themselves, which got them there in the first place.

And then all, and this happens every year. And then January comes and everybody comes back and hordes in January and February. But they're playing all this catch up work. And the few students, which actually is not this way this year. I mean, I think our message has gotten across because we are, we are more full than ever. But, but in the, in the past, it's been the few students who stayed consistent throughout are just like leap years ahead of everybody else.

And that's what I wanted to focus on for us this year. And you know what? So far it's working too. Don't you think? I mean, we've got, we've got two castings on the way in, excuse me. And, and the students all mindset, you know, when we, when we put it out there. And the students got excited about it. It's that it's again, darkness to light. It's like, Hey, everybody does this.

Don't do this to yourselves. We see this every year. We do it. We do it to ourselves. Like let's, you know, again, and you're, you're doing it for them, but you're also doing it for you in a way. Like you to remind you, like, let's stay, stay geared up. Like you said. And I know I'm excited to be coming into December and teaching and, and really 10 X in the class each week with that mentality that everybody else is excited to do the same.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Um, even just the power of like our minds. You talk about this a lot, but like we were setting goals for the end of the year and we set a goal that we were going to get three castings. And literally that day we got two castings and it's crazy because it was just something that we set our mind to and we were like, this is going to happen.

And so when you do that and you buckle down and you do what's hard, it just comes to you because you're, you're grinding and you're working to get the thing that you set your goal for. And hopefully you beat your goal. But when you have those goals set and you, you stay diligent with it, like it's crazy what happens to you. Totally agree. And that's why I was thinking to myself that I liked, I liked the analogy that you, that you accidentally brought up Joey from this morning because you're going to wake up and it's a different season, you know, and like Shea said, we're facing like a different kind of wet.

Like this is the rain, you know, and you walk out, it's, it's a, it's pouring, you know, we're not used to that in Arizona. And so everything inside you is going to tell you, give up. Everything inside you is going to say, Hey, you know, you, you're not supposed to get wet. But you can just, you can just go right through it and you're going to feel better on the other side because it's harder.

You know, that's, that's why. Okay. And, and let's talk about the spiral of all this stuff. That's, it's funny too. Every morning I wake up and I take a freezing cold shower now, like there's been something I do, I've done for the last six months. And what's interesting is in the summertime here in Arizona, that freezing cold water is not that freezing. Right. It's nice. In the wintertime, it's, it's, I mean, it's, it's legit cold.

And what I do is I turn it to, to like a warm setting and I get in right away. So by the, so by the time it gets warm, I'm done with my shower. Cause I don't want it to last longer than it has to cause it's so cold. Right. So it takes me about a minute and a half to shower in total. Well, this morning, record speed.

This morning Leeann showered before I did. So I flip it to the warm, it gets warm right away. I take like a seven, eight minute shower cause it feels good. Like it's, it's funny. Like everything adds up to the next thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's a crazy thing to think about even is like the, the habits you set, then you're, you get used to this time code.

And one thing, one tiny thing that doesn't even seem like a big deal can totally throw you off of like what you're used to as far as time wise. So you're one and a half minute shower turned into like a seven or eight minute shower. And usually you could have been like done with your affirmations, done with your pushups and out the door almost. And now you're like a little behind on something that you wouldn't even think would affect it like subconsciously until it happens.

By the time I got in here today, I, in, in my normal world, I would have already written in my book for an hour and a half and I would have already gotten about two or three more hours worth of high level work done. And today none. Yeah. I was, I was waiting for my good afternoon when I got in this morning at seven. I think it's, it's interesting because I teach, I teach a morning workout class every Sunday at 8am, which there's a lot of things that come up that are, that are difficult.

One, it's 8am. Two, it's Sunday. And I started this class a year ago on my own and threw it out there and was like, hey, you know, I, I will build it if they will come and hope, hopefully they will, they will come. And, and I have a very, very loyal following of students at this point, but it's funny because on Sundays, like I don't have the, I don't, I don't have the choice to have the mentality like, oh, it's Sunday and there's football on.

And I wish I could say home because I'm the teacher. So I have to show up brain or shine and I have to show up whether there's 20 people who show up or two. And, but it's always funny because sometimes like these ladies feel so bad for not coming to the class and they always tell me, they're like, I'm, you know, I had a, I had a barbecue at four that day.

So I couldn't come, you know, or like, well, the, the Steelers were playing at 10 or, or something like that or whatever. The only one I never got at is church. Cause I get that obviously. I think you meant the Cardinals are playing at 10, not the Steelers. Well, that's just first one that came to my head, but it's funny because people have all these, it's like, and I love teaching a workout class on Sunday because for me it starts my, it, it, cause I have a real bad problem with like the, I call them the Sunday scaries.

Yeah. Sundays are pretty crazy thing for me usually because if I don't get up early and do something, then I'm not going to do anything on a Sunday. All day. And it's just like, it's honestly like I'm, I'm, I'm okay to admit that cause it's the truth. But like, if the Cardinals play on Sunday, I'm going to be in front of the TV for the whole game and that's just going to be how it is.

And so I have to force myself to do something before the game and after the game or else Sunday becomes a complete waste every week because I'm just going to watch football. And that's what a lot of like people do. Like I know people who straight up Brian and I like experienced this in Nebraska and it, it was so tiring and crazy just watching all the games back to back to back.

Cause they're lined up on purpose. Yeah. So that one starts right after the other. Wow. I could never do that. And you sit there all day. And you just, you just watch it all day. And then it's like, well, there goes Sunday. I, I love Sunday because it just, for me is like, it is a day of rest. It's like a, but more like in a, like all the things that have to be prepared for the week.

So it's like, it happened that day. I know. Sunday is the day in which all the just prep work for the week gets done. And if, if that, like if Joey said, if you don't like plan and do that and make that happen, then the week becomes stressful. It's crazy. It's, it's like that planning ahead sort of for the week is that Sunday. And if you get into that lazy setting before that happens and, and miss some of those things, I know I feel like, well, I don't have my dress shirts ready and I don't have like this and I don't have that.

And now all of a sudden I'm, um, running later in the mornings cause I had to do this that where that normally is already set up and place doesn't feel clean. So I don't feel clean. Nah, you know, like it's like. Do you add the nah after it? Yeah, I do. In my brain I do. Big time. It's pretty cool actually living with Brian. I can speak on this, but in the last like couple, two, three, four weeks, it's been.

Six, four. Interesting to see because he'll like, he's starting to get that goal setting, but he will not go to bed until whatever goal he set is done, which is interesting because sometimes I'll straight up go to bed at like 12, right? I'll get up at like 435, whatever it is that day and I'll come out and he's still awake. And then he's like, all right, I'm going to bed now.

Wake me up in four hours. And it's like. Which is insane. Yeah. It's, it's funny, but it's like that. That's also cool to be able to have that mentality of like, oh yeah, I set this thing. And as long as I have the energy for it, I'm going to keep plugging away at it. Right. And then I'll rest when it's done and I know that I'm not going to be stressed out.

And that's, that's pretty cool. It's been, it's been interesting for me to watch because every time I, that you do that, I'm like, oh, okay. Okay, Brian, I see you. So take the rest when you need it. But you know, like sometimes you don't. Sometimes like I wasn't tired. So, and I had these tasks to get done that I was going to get done. So it's like, you just go after it versus, oh man, it's this time.

I should go to bed because it's like, and force myself to fall asleep because it's that like, no, I'm wide awake right now. And then I'll sleep the amount of hours that is needed for me. And I'll make that happen. And the need is like, well, it's technically, it depends on the day, but technically for me is like four. Like that's a, I can get up and still feel really good and still like be in a good headspace and, and crush it at that.

Like, so quick question, guys. And I think we should maybe wrap on, on this. What is next Friday? What's the date? Can somebody tell me what that would be? The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th. It's the 6th. Okay. So December 6th, let's just say. Okay, good. So let's, let's all set like a mini goal, like a mini week goal where when we jump on the podcast. On Friday?

Yeah, on Friday, a week from now that we're all going to be reporting back off of this. So just something, something that you're going to go, okay, like this, if I, uh, if I jump into this, it's going to supercharge me. And I, and I think it's going to, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to feel better and accomplish a lot. Um, and, or it could be a couple of things, you know, something you wanted to, something you want to throw in there.

Thanks. So I'll go first. And so that way we can kind of throw that out there. So, um, based off of just like, and, and, and this is something I've known is coming. And so I fought it and fought it and fought it, but it's still tough when you got Halloween and you have, you know, Thanksgiving and all this stuff. So I'm going to, I'm going to tackle food.

So I'm going to say in this next week, um, two things specifically, I'm going to commit to only two things. And then from those two things, we're going to see how many other positives come from them. But one is I'm going to, uh, I'm going to do my quarterly fast that I do. Um, and then two is I'm going to, uh, have my full next week scheduled by Sunday the way I used to do religiously.

Okay. So those two things I'm going to commit to 100% and we're going to see, uh, perhaps the difference in energy, difference in, uh, things that they got accomplished, or just even the way I feel mentally a week from now. Okay. Who's next? Shea, ladies first. Joey, you, you spoke first. I mean, maybe it should be you. I don't know. I mean, maybe, maybe it should be, but I feel like Shea's talked the least right now.

One, two, three, nose goes. Nose goes. Okay, Brian. Is that fair? Cause you didn't have a finger to touch his nose with? Well, yeah. That's absolutely fair. It's like, it's like punching himself in the face. Nose goes. Bloody nose goes. I don't know. Um, uh, the week thing sounds, honestly, uh, the week thing sounds awesome. I can't think of a second right now, but, um, so the, the planning out a whole week cause I haven't done that in a while.

That'd be, that'd be awesome. So I'm going to commit to that. Okay. So, so you're going to have done that, um, by Sunday, you mean? Yeah. Okay. By this, by this Sunday. Yep. And it'll be good anyway with the fundraiser coming up to like really zone in on those times and, and the first week of class and all that. So doing that and, um, uh, you don't, it can be just one thing.

Yeah. I'll stick with that. Yeah. Okay. So it's Joey. I'll come up to the second and report what that second is. No, no, just do one. It's fine. Cause here's the thing. By doing my, my, my thought is by doing something simple, something very simple that you can commit to. But then you get to report, Hey, also it had this impact down the line. There were all these other things that, you know what?

I felt better. I got X amount more done. I, you know, I had more energy for my kids and my husband or whatever it is. Um, but it, but you, you can look back and go, you know what? It's really because of this thing that I felt better. So I am going to, yeah, I, I see you over there. Um, I thought you were tying your shoe or something.

No, my, my shoes don't have laces. Joey was hiding under the table because he didn't want to go next. In his Santa Cruz shirt. Yeah. I would like to go last. All right. You can go last. Oh, because his is going to be the coolest. It's going to be epic. It's going to be mic drop. Well, it better be so much time. At this point, we've really built it up.

Don't, don't, don't drop these mics. It's going to be amazing. They're really nice. So this is like a weird one, but it's something that's like, like weirdly really important to me. I would like to commit to going on a, uh, early brisk walk every day with my dog. Boom. Like that's something I, cause I really need to do that with her. How long? Um. Ooh, setting the time.

T-I-M-E time. Can we do, can we do 30 minutes? Oh yeah. I was thinking like miles wise. Yeah. Probably an hour. I'd like to commit to like an hour. A full hour. Yeah. Cause that's a big time commitment. Well, and that's a big time commitment for a dog too, but. Well, why don't you do this? I mean, it's your goal, but I would think if you, if you set it at like a half hour, what happens is you get out there, you feel good, you go longer.

You can surpass it. Yeah. But you have a, you have a minimum standard of like, I have to do this and no matter what. That's a good idea. Okay, cool. Cause I'm adding, cause that cool one would be, what's cool about that is again, in order to accomplish it, you might have to wake up earlier or you might have to do some of these other things that you haven't committed to doing.

But if that has to, has to get done. Yeah. No matter what, otherwise you're going to report on this podcast that you failed. I'm going to give you guys, I'll send you a picture each day in the morning. Your gym is, I want to add that to mine 30 minutes. Back on it. Back on it. Bro. What is your problem? That was one of mine. Good. So Brian's back in the gym.

Good one, Brian. All right. So Joey's got new ones here. Something new from Joey. Very excited to share. So, uh, first of all, by the way, where are you going to go to the gym? Oh, just your apartment for now? Yeah. The apartment, but there's a new gym up here. I know. And there's a deal for it. It's not done yet. Totally. It's cause it's not done until February.

You get like three months. Matt already looked into it. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's going to get it for all of us. Just put that in there. Um, so first off, I'd like to solidify my morning routine. Cause I've fallen off that. Like as far as like, um, just setting the exact things that I need to do before I come in in the morning. So like pushups and like Bible and like motivation, um, doing my, uh, I said pushups already, but doing weights and stuff.

And then I want to commit to, um, doing 30 minutes of exercise a day, like whatever that may be, whether it's running or lifting or whatever I want to do that. And then, uh, third, I also want to work on scheduling. So that's too vague. Like, no, same, same deal as you guys. I want to schedule my week. So you'll have a full week scheduled by Sunday.

Yeah. Every detail, every hour. Is that what you're committing to? For sure. Okay. All right. That's it. So we've got, we've got, we've got some calling ourselves out. If you're listening to this podcast and you've made it this far, congratulations. Good for you. Um, but, but we're going to, we're going to encourage you to do the same thing. We'd love to hear back from you. Um, you don't have to post publicly unless you want to, but you can, you can reach out.

Yeah. Let us know how it's going for you. On the DMs. Make a story. Tag us in it. Twitter. Yeah. So, so think about this too. Throughout our lives. And, and I'm, I borrowed this from, I think it, I think Tony Robbins said something like this, but a lot of the guys do basically a lot, a lot of, and we have one, you know, we have a new year workshop that we're going to be doing.

Right. And so a lot of the people who are very interpersonal development will do that, but they also all sort of say the same thing, which is don't wait till the new year. Don't wait till the new year. So anytime you're feeling off and you're not feeling a hundred percent, that's the time to reset and pretend like it's a new year now. Cause you can always be reborn and that, that way you, cause you're going to slip, you know, where there's going to be ups and downs, but you don't have to let the down go all the way to where you used to be.

Right. So the down comes down a little bit and you go, you know what? Ah, I got to change. I got to change right now. So I don't keep going down. And then you, and then you surge even higher. And that's like one of those stock tickers where you'd rather be Apple, you know, where you go kind of up and down a little bit, but, but the overall trajectory is sky high.

So join us and, uh, we would love to hear your, your successes as well. And we will report back our own next Friday. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Have a dearing day, everybody.