Fear Is a Liar: You Have to Ask to Get On the Team, Crave the Critique, and Eagles Do Not Hear Pigeons

This is the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast, where we discuss the connection between life and acting. Alright, welcome back everybody to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. If you are listening instead of watching, we were just headbanging to that song. It's like the best song to headbang to, I feel like. It gets you in a good mood every time. It's the best song? Yeah. There's not a better song to headbang to?

There might be. There might be. No. That might be an absolute. I would say that it's a really, really good recording. I like it up until when that guy starts talking. Then it gets a little, you know. Oh yeah, you mean the guy in the background who goes, Yeah, at the end, out of nowhere. So I'm supposed to do this to open the podcast, so that we always stay consistent here.

I am Matthew Dearing. I'm here with Brian Sweeney and Joey Sweeney. What's going on, gents? Woo! Let's go. Having an awesome day. It has been an awesome day. And we've got an amazing guest in-house, Mr. Dakota George. Welcome, sir. Hey, what's up, you guys? Sound up? Hey, that's the one. Ah, that's the one. Good sound effect. Yeah, we got new ones! Yeah! I'm going to hit the cheers again because it's so fun.

Yeah, buddy! Woo! So we've been trying to get you on here for a little bit. Oh yeah. It's been a little bit. Definitely. So was today a work day? Yes, today was a work day. And you came straight over here from there? Mm-hmm. We sure appreciate that. I left 10 minutes early. I told my boss, I'm like, dude, I got to be somewhere like at 3. And traffic can suck, so I got to leave 10 minutes early.

And he's like, yeah, you're good. The man did his research, though. He listened to all the podcasts today and yesterday, he said. So that's pretty. So you got like a brain overload right now? You know, yeah. Yeah, you know. You know. You know. It's just every other day. Yeah. Favorite podcast? The one with your kids. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That was freaking so cute.

Oh my God. You got to wait for the drum roll, man. Oh, okay. No, do it again. No, because if you're slow, when you're slowing the, it's gone. The moment is gone. No, Joey, hit the drum set. No, he's got to practice more. No, I can't. Because when you miss the moment, you miss the moment. Well, it was just like, it was a consistent. Brian knows all about missing the moment.

Oh, zinger. Ah, I get it. See, the sound effect. He was still looking at us. He hit mine, yeah. Well, that's because you didn't hop in right away. You sat there shamefully. He was set on the drum set. He's like, I'm ready this time. I had no response. I'm ready this time. I had no response. Joey, I'm going to throw you on the spot here. All right, go ahead.

And I'm going to ask you, when are we going to have this podcast out? Will it be out today? Tonight, yeah. Today? Yeah, 100%. Every time. Oh my God. Then I think we should talk about the fact that we've got a comedy show tomorrow. Woo! Oh, yeah! Yeah! And Dakota George will finally be at one. Oh my gosh, yes. Are you attending the show? I am attending the show.

He's been trying to make a show for like four months now. And every month he gets to the week of and he's like, no! Something came up. I can't go. So funny. Yeah. No, so I'm excited for this one. Yeah, we are. We are very excited. We've got three opening acts. And then Leeann and I are going to put up the closing act. Yes. Which is amazing because it's been so long since you guys have been on stage together.

Yeah, I was joking with my buddy just now. He helps us with some of our coding on one of our websites. And I was like, yeah, so if you want to attend, my wife and I, it's no big deal, but we perform maybe once every half decade. So first off, we're going to have our teen improv troupe doing a little 10-minute set. And then our main stage, Chaos, is going to be splitting into two groups.

But the really cool part is we have two brand new players coming up who have been working. Oh, yeah. Corinne. Yeah. I see what you're doing there. Yeah, Corinne. I see what you're doing there. Dude, she's awesome, man. So. What about Nick? Corinne and Nick. Wait, they need their own separate. Oh, I thought you said them both. No. Oh, my God. I was too focused on the button.

Let's get another wah, wah, wah. Yep. All right. We're really struggling with that. Good podcast. The cool part is they've both been working their tails off in class. And Dakota's in class with them, too. So it's just kind of cool to see. Clearly not working my tail off. Yeah. Wow. Okay. All right. I see a little hint that you're on the stage. Brian just dug itself on the whole.

Are you interested in being on the Chaos Comedy Troupe? Yeah. Dakota George. I would love to be, but I know, realest possible talk. I would love to be, but I know I need to get better as an improviser and realize more things with improv, like the game and how often it can happen and just establishing a bunch of stuff before I would want to be like, yes, I would like to be on, please.

Because right now. That is sincere humbleism. Yeah. Humbleism. Humbleism. You are the humbleism. Sincerely humble person at the moment. Well, that's the thing is like, I don't want to go and put on a show where, hey, I'm on the Chaos Comedy Improv. A bunch of people are really good and I'm going to go out there and it flops. Well, if I may jump in on this one, you got to start somewhere.

Yeah. True. No, yeah. Big fact. So we had our first, when did we start Chaos Comedy? Was it 2008? It was 2008. Yeah. So we've been doing this for well over 10 years now. We've now traveled the U.S. with our show, done all kinds of cool stuff. But we did have to start in my dad's doctor's office lobby. Yeah. Yeah. And we could squeeze in 15 people sold out.

Like squeeze, like people were sitting on laps. And, you know, and we flopped a lot of shows, like a ton. But that's how you get better. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I get that, but I, it's, it's, there's just a difference that I can't really explain. Like if it's going to be a flop, it happens. It was maybe an off day, but I want to at least be prepared because some things.

You're never going to be prepared. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I'm going to tell you this. This is, this is our philosophy. Okay. We want to bring on people who want to do good work and want to better themselves and who we believe in and we want to develop. So there will be times where like this week you get to open for a show and we, we sort of ensure that the show isn't going to flop.

I mean, we kind of, we kind of set those things in place. So we know that we've got some fail safe things. It's going to be good. And at the end of the day, that way you get to be safe as you develop, ask questions, get better, et cetera. So really this is more about a you fear thing. I mean, I'm really, really sad. I don't have a mic drop sound effect at the moment because that was, that was, no, let's record that.

That was good. All right. No, it does sound like, so let's talk about your fears. Spiders. And stage time. Oh yeah. I mean, wait, wait, wait. Can I do the scary sound effect? That's the one that says, stock Friday the 13th. I love it. It says scary. Oh, I love it. Yeah. There's definitely a little, I just don't want to, I don't know. I don't want to be hard on myself and be like, oh, that was kind of my fault kind of a thing.

Cause I'm, I wasn't prepared enough. Cause I don't have a grasp on the concepts well enough to have a base understanding. Yeah. Cause I, the one thing I struggle with in improv is finding the game. Okay. And, and you bring it up every time like, oh, that's the game. And I'm like, oh God, it was now that he explains it. So I need to get better at that.

And then if, when I get better at that, then yeah, sure. I would love to be on. But you know, like there's, there's one way to get better at that. And that is stage time. That's what I'm trying to get through to you. You know, I'll take it. Can I take us back to a moment? Cause here's the thing. If you ask to be on it, we're not going to let you on, but you need to ask to be on it.

You got to be ready. You got to say, I want to be on right now. I can't wait to be on. I'm humbled enough to say, Hey, I don't know if I'm ready, but I really want it. Right now. And then we'll deny it. Oh, Brian, can I be on the improv team? Hey, let's let him on. Let's do it. Let's do it. I knew what I was calling.

I knew what I was calling. John, mic drop. That was great. Matter of fact, let's just throw him in the show, actually. Oh, yeah. I paid for a ticket. You'll be performing in June of 2020. And you can't give it. You'll be on the stage. Okay. I'm foretelling the future. June of 2020. June, 2020. I agree with that. What month is it? January right now? Yeah, January.

Yeah. No, let's do it. It'll be right around my birthday. January, February, March, April, May, June. We could do more than April. The happiness of my birthday will revolve around the performance of that show. So we will find out how that goes. No pressure. And I mean, your birthday is not as big of a deal as some people's birthdays. No, no. I don't talk about it a lot.

Matt doesn't really talk about his birthday very often. Some people do. Some people do. Some people make like a giant deal of their birthday. Some people really love their birthday. Like they're in love with their birthday. Yeah, they do. Like they would make love to their birthday. They like to do the same thing every year. Hold on. Let's be honest though. We all would. Would you make love to your birthday?

No. No. What? It's irrelevant to me. Yeah. Yeah. That's rude to your birthday. I like it as a time stamp. So you date it, but you wouldn't call it back? Here's the thing. I don't mind letting other people celebrate me. And I'm like, hey, that's cool. Thank you. If you want to do that, I appreciate it. But every day feels like my birthday. Oh, that's so sweet.

It's the truth. No. Yeah. I 100% get you. Like when they're like, oh, what do you want to do for your birthday this year? I'm like, sit at home and do nothing. Do what I normally do. Practice acting a little bit. A little bit. Just a little bit. Like, I don't know, maybe an hour or two. That's not a little bit. That's a lot. Oh, you know.

Oh, man. Awkward silence. So Dakota, why don't you throw one of those questions my way? Okay. How to not be discouraged when it comes to being an actor. Why don't you throw it out there a little less awkward? That's the one I laughed at earlier. That's why I picked it. Yeah. I figured. And I tried to link it up with the drum thing. Yeah. Well, so. Oh, yeah.

And it turned out awkward. Thanks, Brian. So I guess we have to start with, are you discouraged about becoming an actor? Not necessarily. And some of these questions I have are just also in case anyone else out there is kind of feeling the same thing. Because when I first had the thought of being an actor, I'll come back in a couple of years ago when I was like, I should be an actor.

It's like, should you though? And then not only that, but like when you're putting in so much work and effort, because a lot of being an actor is not, I shouldn't say, hold on, I'm getting for you. Sorry. Welcome back. My brain just like crossed wires for a second. Like you don't get told you're doing a great job a lot in acting. I feel like you don't, you don't get that positive reinforcement every time you do something like you, you get, you get critiqued, which isn't a bad thing.

I like critiques, but like, Oh, I feel like a majority of it is this is what you need to do better. I think it very much depends on where you're acting at though. Yeah. Like for example, doing high school theater and musicals and like whatever, like you get told you're good no matter how bad you did every time. And the audience is like, you were so great.

So good. And it's funny cause I heard that on the podcast that I was listening to that and like how that's kind of BS in a way. Cause, cause it's the positive reinforcement, but if you're not doing a good job and people are telling you you're doing a good job, then you think you not doing a good job is doing a good job. That's right. And, and sometimes you haven't done the work, you haven't earned the compliment.

So then you think, Oh, well I'll just keep not doing the work and keep getting the compliments. And that sounds like a great path to success. Yeah. It's so good. But like what happens, how do you, how do you not get discouraged when you're putting in all the work you can? And then someone just tells you the things you need to be better at. Other than taking the critique in a negative manner, just being like, Oh, work on this and this and this.

It's like, well, I thought I did a good job. Now I got to work on this. Part of it for me, I think comes into defining what it means to be an actor. I think a lot of people have just a sort of vision of that's like, Oh, that's being on the big screen or that's this. Like Matt talks about this a lot. Like if you're doing acting, if you're practicing acting, if you're working on it for an hour a day or whatever, and going to class and doing that, that should fill your bucket.

That should be the thing that makes you feel really good and feel encouraged. And so I think when we get discouraged is when we put value on the, the things it's themselves, like the outcomes, like the, you go on an audition and you want the gig instead of just being thankful that you got to come in and pretend that day that you got to pick up a script and practice a character.

You know, so I, that would be my answer for that. Mic drop. Again, these answers are amazing. I got the sound effect. So good. That's the mic drop. Yeah. No, that didn't, that didn't sound like a mic drop. Yeah. Yeah. So here's the deal. If you decide to become an actor, that means you're an elite human being. And I, and I mean a truly you want to become an actor.

And the reason I believe that is because you, you are committing to becoming a student for the rest of your life. Yeah. And you have to know that that's what you're doing. So the way to get over the idea of what it feels like to be critiqued is to seek it, to crave it, to ask for it, to demand it of people around you. So you, you do a play and everyone says, oh, you did so great, blah, blah, blah.

And you say, thank you. Just like my birthday. You say, thank you. I really appreciate you being here and everything. Was there any area you thought could be better? I'd really like to know about that because this craft is all about bettering yourself. If you're not getting better, you're going the other direction. It, unlike other professions where you could maybe get a job and then just sort of coast for a couple of years without doing anything new and just kind of keep your job.

Acting is not that way. You're going to get replaced by the next guy who's working harder than you are. So that's why it's like this thing where you go, man, I'm going to be developing forever. That's a commitment to just becoming a student. Facts. Then you can take this and go, okay, like, why would, why would one become discouraged? And my thought on this is because you're going to, you're going to, I mean, I mean, how killing, how badly timely would that have been?

About halfway through. I'm not going to be bad. So he's like, I got it. It's clear, like something really nice is about to happen. That's undeniable. The worst sound effect on any podcast of any time. be. If my one-year-old son wasn't sitting behind the machine, it would have been timed better. About halfway through a description. I knew that the big piece of knowledge was about to get dropped.

Did you? I did. And so I was waiting for the one. So you're like, it's going to be good. Let me distract so that he forgets what he was going to say. Everyone shut up. I have a sound effect. I didn't want to be a sound effect. Brian is literally dying. Oh man, that's sad. We lost Brian. Oh my gosh. You did. Yeah, no, it was poorly timed.

I'm going to admit. I mean, that's being nice. I thought it was setting up the home run and instead I set up the strike that sent us home from the World Series. Oh my God. Okay, but really. It's funny because I was just about to be like. I mean, I'm dying to tell you this. Really. I think most people. Sad, scary sound effect. Here's the big piece of information.

Sorry. This is the most important thing I have to say right now. Good. See? That was better. He said yes and. Very good. It's so much better. Okay. But because you laughed, now I got to start. I got to go backwards. Okay. Okay. All right. This is never getting done. No. Probably not. Probably not. People get jealous. People get jealous. That's what happens. What? What? Go on.

What? Go on. What happened? Who said what? Nothing. I thought it was a nice moment. Was that a mic drop? It was. Stop dropping the microphone. Yeah. That's what I did. Okay. Can you please finish? No. I'm not going to answer this question. You got to be kidding me. I'm not answering this question. There's no way I'm going to answer this question. You'll never know. Just drum roll again.

Yeah. All right. Perfect. Okay. Moving on. All right. I got time for one more question here. All right. One more question. And not one for Joey. He lost it. I'm just kidding. You can ask Joey a question. How to get rid of the feeling of judgment from others when it comes to acting. That's what I was right about to answer. There's no way we're going to answer that question.

I was literally about to say that. Oh, you should probably answer it. Yeah. Oh, man. Especially since it got asked twice. I'll take the call. Did I ask that twice? No, I didn't. That was the big point I was about to say. Yeah. Yeah. That's what the drum roll was leading up to. I get. I get. All right. Hit it. All right. Go. I thought you were going to answer it.

Yeah. So did I. You said I got it. I got this. No. I got this. I didn't know he meant to drop the drum roll. We understand you got the button. Joey's going to drop some knowledge here. No. I was saying. Dude, this is a good podcast. I was saying like, I got it. Like, we're about to go forward with this question. Joey's like, shut up. I have a sound effect.

No, no. I just want so badly to hit the slam dunk to Matt and he's just not receiving the, I'm just ooping it into the air. It's totally my fault. I never said it's your fault. Actually, I thought it was Brian's. I take full responsibility. Oh, I bet it was Brian's fault. I thought it was Brian's. I also take full responsibility. 100%. Yeah, I take responsibility for the fact that I'm not being very good with the soundboard today.

Should I answer the question? You should answer the question. Oh, God, no. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Well, but like an improv scene. Like an improv scene. No, please answer the question. Once you get to the end, then it's over. So we're going to just do this till the end of time then. Well, we just don't want to end the scene, right? Yeah. What scene? Like, this is a scene right now.

We're in a scene? Yeah, kind of. I mean, this was pretty funny. Joey, quick drum roll. Oh. I'll just do whatever you say. Baby crying, quick. That is good. I almost had a baby crying sound. It's like Dakota. Come on. Everyone's going to have a baby crying. Didn't you hear it? Remember? I was like, listen to this. And you were like, oh. Yeah, that's what I was like.

No, I don't remember that. Oh. I remember the one with the. With the kids? Yeah. Yeah. Anyways. This really went south, and it's 100% my fault. All right. I'll ask another question. I'm going to mute myself. No, don't do that. I didn't mute your sound effects. Listen, I don't. Dear diary. Today I witnessed a burn. I mean. It wasn't the drum roll. I mean. Oh, yeah. That makes it better.

Okay. Okay. Another question. Do you think people out there want to hear the answer to that question? Yeah. I mean, I want to hear the answer. I mean, at this point, still? Yeah. If they haven't tuned out. They definitely tuned out. If you haven't tuned out. Thank you. You deserve the answer to this question. Yeah. So, here's a very easy answer to how you can get over their judgment.

If you ask yourself why, why would they take the time to judge you? And it's their own insecurities. You're following your passion. They're probably not. So, they're unsupportive of you. So, I think of this as the, you're the eagle trying to fly away and they're pigeons trying to pull you down. And ideally, you say, hey guys, I can't stay down here hanging out with you, but the view is good up here.

Come join me. Follow your own passion. But stop judging me because I can't hear you. That's it. That's how you get over it. Yeah. And I think a lot of that too is like, if this is something that you really love doing and that you really want to do, who cares? Yeah. You know, like just do what you want to do, have fun with it, and just do what you love doing and just do that because that's something that you deserve as a human being.

As long as you're not hurting anyone and you love doing what you do, then it's there. I'm glad you added that disclaimer because it was super necessary. It's anything. As you grow and develop yourself and become, you know, as people start noticing you doing something, you're going to get support and you're going to start to get haters. That's how it goes. I mean, my wife did a Super Bowl commercial.

Oh, nice. Yeah. It was awesome. Put it online, all this stuff. And then it was like 98% positive feedback and then a couple like really nasty negative comments, you know? And it's like, these people have no idea who she is. They never met her. They're just like, they're trolling the internet, just being nasty, you know? So I had to cut her off from that information because it was toxic.

But that's going to happen. And then you have to just imagine that was a small sliver of something. Imagine as you grow and you get more attention and more attention and more attention, you really got to learn to block out that noise because it's going to get loud if you don't. And not only that, but it's so hard just as like you have to train yourself to do that because we, I feel like as just human beings, we just go towards the negative.

And whenever we see like a hundred good comments and then a bad one, we focus on that for a little bit. Right. And you need to really just get yourself out of that headspace and just focus on the good and like. And good things happen. Exactly. Yeah. Pardon me. Yeah, exactly. He must have listened to the kids podcast. Yeah, I was about to say, which podcast was that?

That was the kids podcast. Oh, was it? Yeah. Focus on the good. Good things happen. Yeah. There you go. I've heard you said that like so many times. Yeah. So I'm just like, oh yeah, that podcast. That's the one. Well, I think we're about at wrap time here. I would like to see every listener who's listening right now at our show tomorrow night. It's going to be amazing.

Oh yeah. It's going to be a good time. We're, we're, we're almost sold out. So by the time you hear this podcast, my guess is there'll be about five seats left. So hurry. Hopefully. Finish the podcast, put the earphones down and log on to lighthouse.org and buy your tickets. Then you'll get taken to the event bright page. Hopefully you laugh as hard as all of us did during the middle of this podcast.

Dude. And can I just say like, thanks for inviting me on. This is awesome. Like I was looking forward to this like all freaking day. You're a cool dude. I'm glad that you're now part of the Chaos Comedy troupe, man. That's very exciting. We'll see you tomorrow night. Okay. Yeah. I'll be there. Okay. Sure. All right. Yeah. Well, I'll be there. There we go. Side note. I have to say this.

Thank you for bringing the energy you bring. Yeah. Thank you for bringing in. And I don't know if it can be fully felt through the mic, but you walk in the room and you sort of just talk about like spreading love. You just bring this, this positivity and this laughter. That's just, it is so infectious. And you know what? It's a choice. It's a hundred percent of choice.

And so I'm grateful for it as well. And, and people need to know that when you, when they see somebody who's, who's like you and they're like, okay, oh wow. I love being around him. Like he makes that choice every day. You walk in a building and you can choose what kind of energy you're going to tap into. Oh yeah. And yeah. And Brian brings up a very good point.

So, and, and that's, that's the beauty of what I'm talking about. When we put different human beings together on the stage in here, it's not about you, you getting to a certain level of perfection before you hit the stage. It's about you coming together with different people and your energy combined with, you know, some of my like twists and turns in a scene could make some really good magic, but not if, not if you stay at home, you know, not if you, if you're not willing to get over the fear and join the troop and see what could happen.

So I would, I mean, I'm really, seriously, I'm encouraging you to like step up and go, you know what, what am I waiting for in life? What am I waiting for? Like why wait till the next thing? If an opportunity is there, go knock on it. Yeah. Well, if you guys will have me, I'll totally do it. We'll think about it. All right. That's fair. But yeah, I mean, going back to that, I just, I just got a lot of love in my heart, man.

Yeah. Like it's a lot. And I'm just like, I want to share it. You know, like I, I don't want to bring someone's day down or be rude to people. Cause it's like, why make someone's day better, make their life better. You know, have a Dakota, George day. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Where's the applause? Where's the applause? Cut it there. Cut it there. All right.

All right. No, so that will be our podcast. And are we going to, should we vote right now? And I guess we got to talk to Shay first. We're going to talk to Shay, but we're, you may not leave here, but without, without being a cast comedy. Yeah, that would be super cool. All right. Maybe we'll put it on our Instagram story. So you should probably go look at that just in case we do.

Shameless plug. At Dearing Studio. Yeah. No, man. This podcast is sponsored by Dearing Activity Studio. The Dearing Studio podcast is broadcasted at Dearing Studio. Sponsored by Dearing Studio. Produced by Matt Dearing. Dearing Studio. Hey, can I, can I take that sound bite and just use it all the time? Dude, yeah. If you want me to record like something for the podcast, I'll do it. Ooh. I mean, look at that voice.

It's amazing. All right. Thank you everybody for listening to the Dearing Studio podcast. Have a Dearing day.