Be Unshakable: Where a Tree Gets Its Power, Why the Mess Is Part of the Process, and Questioning From Love

Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. This is Mornings with Matt, the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast, where we discuss the connection between life and acting. All righty, good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Mornings with Matt Show on the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. I'm Matt, here's Brian and Joey. What up, what up, what up? Hello. We got a great show for you today. We're going to talk about being unshakable. How to be unshakable, why that's important. So we're going to talk about what does it mean to be unshakable? How are you going to be unshakable in business? How can you be unshakable in your acting? And of course, since acting connects to life, we get to talk about life, how being unshakable is going to help you in life. Life. Which, you know, this is a part of life. Part of life is the obstacles, is the distractions, is the mess, the noise. And so we want to figure out how to be centered during that time. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So, Brian, can we hop into our daily devotional, please, sir? Yes, sir. It's time now for Brian Sweeney's daily devotional. Daily devotional.

God, Son, Holy Spirit, amen. We have to come up with something like that. Dude, God loved that. God was like, that was, that was, that was, that was a huge intro. Angels were singing in heaven in that one. I almost said dope intro, but I'm like, God wouldn't say that. Yes, I mean. All right. So our verse today is Hebrews 12, 28. It says, therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And thus, let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. Nice. Very good. Well, I want to say good morning real quick to Matt Siebert, Astrid, Gabriel, saw you online there. Uh, welcome to the show. Good to see our friends here tuning in. So, um, Brian, let's, let's go to that beginning part again. Okay. I like to break down these verses a little bit. I think this is important. I love it. I had some cool thoughts on it as well. So it goes, therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Kingdom that cannot be shaken. So, so what I'm hearing, and you can tell me if this is what you're getting too, what I'm getting is the, the beyond here and now is very peaceful. Yes, absolutely. And if we can focus on that, focus on God, focus on good, we're going to be more at peace. This is my interpretation. What do you, what are you feeling? Yeah, I feel that. And I feel the idea of the unshakable-ness is the, the power behind it here on earth too. So our understanding of like, uh, for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, like we get to receive that, the gratitude and the power of like, of this peaceful, amazing place that you can tap into essentially was what I sort of got out of it when I was going into that cannot be shaken. So, so let me, so therefore, what does it say? So it says, therefore, let us be grateful. So hold up. So let us be grateful. Meaning we got it. We have a choice to be grateful or not be grateful. This is something that we've talked about quite a bit.

The idea of I get to versus I have to. Yeah. Let me, let me be grateful for today. How you doing, Matt? I'm happy to be alive. I'm grateful. Today is a precious gift. Today is, is one time. You're never going to repeat it. What are you going to do with today? Yeah. You know, are you going to praise God? Are you going to, are you going to let yourself fall into any kind of depression? You know? So, so it stems from gratitude. Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting. You've been saying, uh, happy to be alive for a very long time. And I feel like now more than ever, people are like, Oh, me too. Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny. Everyone thinks it's because of the pandemic. I'm like, no, it's a G thing. No, he's been saying that. I feel like we should rewrite the, uh, the Snoop Doug song. Just real. Ain't nothing but a G thing, baby. But it's actually God. Oh, I like that.

You know what I'm saying? All right. I'll wrap it. I'll wrap it. So, so, um, so our agent, Ruth Layton, she got, she got me this book a couple of days ago called Jesus Calling. Yeah. It's pretty, uh, pretty good. I, and what's crazy is I, I hear the story. Joey tells me he's got a copy of this, right? You got, yeah. And, and you got it from Brian. Yeah. Brian got it from me on my 18th birthday. So have you, have you both read this cover to cover? I've, yeah, I've given it out multiple times also. Like it's good stuff. It's amazing. And I don't know how, but I mean, I do know how, but it's, it tends to like, it's the same, you have the same one and it just hits you right at the right moment with all the right stuff. Like, well, once again, it's doing it. So you're, you're right. I I'm, I'm looking at today's and I'm going to read a little part of this since we're in the devotional spot here. It says, uh, from God's perspective here, let me bless you with my grace and peace. Let me bless you with my peace. Yeah. I'm going to do that for you. Let me do it.

But you got to let me see. That's the thing. You got to let me, if you keep getting in my way, I'm trying to bring you peace. Let me do it. Open your heart and mind to receive all that I have for you. Do not be ashamed of your emptiness. This is interesting. Do not be ashamed. Shame is such a, it's such a thing that we all battle, right? The shame of all this stuff. So it says, do not be ashamed of your emptiness. Instead, view it as the optimal condition for being filled with my peace. So once again, what I'm reading here is be grateful for my weaknesses, be grateful for the thing. Instead of being shamed, I'm going to be grateful that this is an area God gets to work on in me.

Yeah. Yeah. And that can bring me peace, right? Absolutely. Yeah. It's, and it's so hard to do because we, we have this impact on each other, this massive, like we're all so connected through God that when we, when we let ourselves get out of sync, we, we have this tremendous impact, whether we know it or not on people for both positive and negative, you know, and our energies can get drained so quickly. And if we're not, if we're not careful, so, but if we're careful, we can really help fill people up, but also make sure that we're maintaining, and this is, this is a big part of today that we're maintaining our root system that we are, that we are, um, unshakable first. Yeah. You got to put, we got to put on your mask before you can put on everybody else's masks. Right. Yeah. Right. Hmm. Matter of fact, Brian, I know, I know you're, um, you're in that state right now, right? I mean, you just, let's just, um, let's over exaggerate and say you just Hey, Joanne Stafford's on there. Good morning, Joanne Stafford and Nick. Good morning to, good morning to the fans. We love, love seeing you guys on here.

Nick was saying that he also has that book and he opens it to a page every time it says the right thing. Really? Yeah. He said his mom gave it to him. Dude. There's a divine power in that book. Yeah. You're talking about Nick Milotta? Yeah. Dude. How connected are we? This is amazing. Like so connected. Nick, love, love you. Love your mom. It never mattered. Love her.

Yeah. For real. For real. You hear the stories. I feel like I know her. Oh yeah. Yeah. I just got this overwhelming like sense of Nick's mom. I just did. Yeah. I'm serious. I don't even mean that. Like I, I don't, like that just came to me and I'm, and I'm not BSing. Like I do. Like it's an amazing thing. It's very cool. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Was that it? Was that it? Yeah. I, I, no, I, I had something that was like to build on. And then once we laughed about the, yeah, I forgot where the, yeah, was leading. So really when I said like, that's my note, like guys, that's my note. Well, let's call this, yeah. So let's call this our, our daily devotional time here. Okay. So when we can, when we come back, we're going to have a, we're going to have three segments coming up. So we're about to hit the commercial break. And the first segment is just going to be, what does it mean to be unshipped?

Unshakeable. We're going to take that idea and put it into life perspective. Okay. And then, uh, then, then we're going to, uh, in the second segment today, we're going to talk about business and, and all the challenges and the things that are going to come up in business. And how can we be unshakable in our business? And, and by business, by the way, it's, you don't have to own a business.

You just need to be in any form of work. And so how can you be unshakable? Cause here's the thing. Like I've heard so many stories about, about different, different people, um, and, and how they get attacked at their workplace. And so we're going to talk about how to be unshakable at work. And then finally, um, you know, we are the Dearing acting studio and, uh, and, and Joey, Joey's, Joey's the best by the way, but he's always like, man, you gotta talk more about acting.

All right. So third segment today, we are going to talk about how to be unshakable in your acting. Um, that will also connect to, uh, presenting anytime that you are performing in any way, shape or form, um, how to be unshakable in that as well. So we will be right back. Thanks for tuning in. All right, everybody. Welcome back. Ladies and gentlemen, who wants to be unshakable? Raise your hand. Everybody's raising their hand around here. Hopefully you want to be unshakable in life. That is a, uh, uh, a really good thing.

in life, I want to think about being a tree and I don't mean like a new tree that you just planted. I'm talking about an old established big old tree. Thank you, Joey. All right. And, and, and, and what happens with, with a tree, right? Where, where does a tree get its power? From its roots. From the roots. Yeah. As, as why we have this, this podcast, divine roots and a lot of what Paul teaches us and talks to us about. So, so a big tree has this root system that spreads really wide, like crazy far out and the, and the roots can be huge. Right.

And so the power of the tree is actually under the ground. So the issue is in life. So we're talking about how to be unshakable in life. It all stems from the inside. It stems from your root system. And the, the issue that, that we all struggle with is trying to present an unshakableness on the outside by combing our hair a certain way and looking a certain way and having a certain clothing and you know, the, the outward look, because you can fool a lot of people. Yeah. You can, you can make it look like you got it all under control when really on the inside you're hurting. Yeah. I've definitely been in that place for sure. I felt that through about how, how, um, Oh, you've gone through so much and you're so happy. You're so whatever, but you can bury all that, you know, and, and make it look like you're happy and joyful when really there's just like all this pain. And that was a big part of, of my discovery was, was going and going into self, like you said, realizing that that's the case and, and that there's so much there that it's okay to, to express stuff, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, Joe. I was just going to say, it goes back to this idea of, like you said, the powers and the roots, the roots are underground. It's within, right? It's what people can't see that is the power, right? So that's, that's the power within us too. That's why the tree comparison is so strong to us as human beings is we're both God's creation, but the real power we have within is unseen. It's, it's untangible. Like nobody, you can't put a weight to it. It's, it's like our soul. When somebody passes away, you go to a funeral, the body's not the same. Right. Whether it's open casket, closed casket, whatever, you can tell that the soul has left the person and nobody, nobody can put like a thumb on like, oh yeah, this is why, like you can just see it. It's like a lifeless body and it's beautiful. But at the same time, it's like, you just, hold on. I had to interrupt you. You just said something that, that, and I, and I, we got to be careful and not going into detail here, but, but you just said something that reminded me of a conversation we had last night where you, so Joey's walking, um, the hallway of a store and he saw somebody's eyes and he described it last night as a lifeless body. Yeah. Right.

Right. Yeah. So you can be, you can be lifeless while, while still having a moving body. And that's, that's, this is like darkness. Right. And you just saw like, you looked in this person's eyes and it the score store. That's normal now, but they had like a bandana, they had their hood up and then they had a bandana mask. So it was just their eyes and it was like a black hole. And it's not the clothing. No, it's not the clothing. It's the, it's the eyes, right? Yeah. Eyes, they, they tell you a story. I had, I told Joey a similar, um, experience I had in New York when I was, my mom was visiting and we went to a show and it was really late and we got ourselves a little turned around. We were a little lost. I hadn't lived there for very long. And so we were trying to navigate our way home and we're like, Oh, it'd be fun. Let's take the subway. Well, it was late.

It was like one in the morning and we were going to pick up the last subway. There was nobody down there and these guys came down and I just, I mean, the Holy spirit was talking to me. I could tell these guys wanted to jump us. There was three, there was three guys. And so I just, I just sort of told my mom like, Hey, stick by my side here. We're being watched. And I could just tell, I just, I could just tell. And I just saw them kind of like hovering, you know, these guys. And so we go up to the subway and I go to, I go to walk on the subway. I put a, put a foot in and then I grabbed my mom and I pull her back and the guys got on. Like they watched us. They watched the whole time.

They got on, on the, on the two doors down and then the door shut. These guys were walking toward our door. We didn't get on. I made eye contact with them and, and they were coming to, they were coming down to get us and they just turned and just looked at us and they just sort of went away. And I was like, like literally God protected us at that moment, you know, but, but here's the key, right? It comes back to you, your, your Bible verse where it says, God says, let me, let me work in you. So he, so, you know, God's there, but are we letting him, are we listening and letting him work through us?

And it goes back to, you know, he gave us free will. So it's our choice. Yeah. You know, he's always going to be there. He's around us. He's in all of us. He's, he created the world. Right. But, but he gave us free will. He's like, if you choose to walk this other path, I don't recommend it. It's not what's best for you, but you're okay to do that.

You can do that. You can make that choice for yourself. Yeah. So, so, so how do we be, um, how can we be unshakable here in the life circumstances when it's messy? Life is messy, right? It just is. There's no, there's no other way around it. And I believe, again, coming back to your, your verse here, Brian, I believe it comes back to gratitude. Gratitude is the key to being peaceful. Yeah. And, and, and, and I, I, I personally believe that God says, you know, if with a grateful heart, you get to see all that I'm doing through my eyes instead of through your eyes. Right. It's sort of like, like what's, what's something messy. Okay.

Like, like gross and messy would be, let's just say a baby's diaper, poop diaper. Yeah. Okay. It's, it would be disgusting. A bad poop, right? Pew. But, but, but to a mother and father, the infant and the, and the baby and like, they, they don't see the mess. They, they, they, they honestly, there's a time when like the, the baby needs to have that happen. A bowel movement is like an important part of, of an infant's life. And so they're like, oh yes. Like we, we pass. So like we celebrate and the, in the infant at the time doesn't know anything but trust anything. Like they're not worried about it. Right. But then at a certain point, then, then you start worrying about the mess, but not realizing that like, oh no, no, no. Like the mess is a part of the process. Like the mess, it has to happen. Yeah. You know, you just gotta be grateful that I'm, that I'm willing to change your diaper all the time. Right. Yeah. New, new episode. Uh, the mess is a part of the process. Ooh, I like that. I'm thinking another one, uh, diaper changes.

All right, here we go. Change the diaper. So, um, you know, and I, and I, maybe you guys have something in your life that we can tap into. If not, no big deal. But, but right now with me, you know, we've got, uh, of course there's all the, there's all the, the stuff out there in the landscape, but I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about like just your life, like right in your living room. Here's what I got going on. We thought we had a slab leak. We're not sure now. It looks like it's not a slab leak. It's some other kind of leak, but there was water coming out of the floor in my kitchen. Right. So I, I came home and my wife keeps like, she kept coming in and wanting me to be, she wanted me to be shaken. I can tell you that, but I didn't have time yesterday. I was just too grateful. And I just said, babe, I love you. I love you. I love you. I got to teach these classes. I love you so much. Just stay, just stay focused. Thank you guys, by the way, for coming. So I could be unshakable. Um, no. So, so anyway, I, I, I wasn't there. There's, there's a restoration company at our house. And so I go home last night and everyone's asleep.

And I was like, Whoa, like, Whoa, look at this. This is my kitchen. Oh man. Like everything, everything's been pulled. The floor, the floor's gone. The counters are gone. The cabinets are gone. Like they, they had to pull it all out, you know? And I'm sure the process was messy. It was messy, you know? And now it's, it's clean, but it's still like gone. Right. And you can see the roots. Like you can see the framework of what's underneath the counter, the stuff you never see, the, the wood planks. And you're like, Whoa, like that's what's under there. And here's the issue, right? If, if we looked the other way for a couple months and we just didn't take care of the mess, the root of the mess, because we could, we could just wipe up the floor. We can just take a rag and wipe up the, you know, wipe up the mess. But that's, that's the surface. You got to get down to the root.

So now there's these big industrial fans and they're drying the root so it doesn't keep spreading and ruining the whole floor and then becoming a bigger mess. Yeah. Right. And so what you, the key then is during the cleanup process that is uncomfortable to be grateful through it. Cause it's hard right now, you know, it's like, it's a, Hey, it's 2021 and we just got out of 2020 and, and, and, you know, and we don't have all this much money and we feel like insecure and we all blah, blah, blah. And then you're going like, I, I don't have more money to spend.

You just want to worry. Yeah. But instead of worrying, focusing on gratitude and gratitude puts it through the lens of the father or the mother looking down at their child and seeing, Oh, I don't care about the mess. Don't the mess is going to get taken care of. Don't worry about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, um, you know, the, the last note we have here on this is, is, is the strength of having like-minded individuals around you. Yeah. Right. So whether that be classmates, family, friends, whatever, you know, if you have somebody who has the same mindset as you, similar values that you can go to for consult, it changes your whole life's trajectory. And, and that's what I found here through you and through Brian. Right. And, um, is, is that, that like-minded, you know, I get to learn from you. You don't get to learn from me right away, but you will one day. Right. Yeah. I'm already learning from you, but let me, let me tell you this. I also believe Joey that we have clawed and scratched and, and, and sacrificed and we didn't know what we didn't know, but we were fighting for something that was, that it was intangible.

You couldn't see it. And, and we were, we're now at a new frequency. The three of us, it's different than it was. Yeah. We, we were fighting and we were on surface really showing everybody kind of like we were focused on where we wanted to be, but we're at the same time, honest with the process going like, it's messy right now. You know, like I would come on the show and be like, well, Joey and I've been fighting all day, you know, uh, because we would talk, we weren't trying to lie about it. We're like, it's the truth, you know, but, but now we're in this place. And so it's, it's great because we want to, we want to spread this frequency and help people realize that, that there's a, there's a movement happening, sort of an enlightenment of sorts. And we can wake up, we can wake up and move forward and, and decide to be more grateful, more connected, not less.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a great point. All right. So we're going to go on another break here. Uh, before we do, however, I think it's time for a little, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Well, it's time now for Brian Sweeney's shameless plugs. I like the way the book goes up and down. I just realized acting is my day job guys. Seven strategies to market and make money as an actor by Mr. Matthew during over here, dude. So, so we had like, we had, we had, um, just a few, like we had a spike in viewership, right? As shameless plugs comes on. I mean, it's a great song. It's a great song and even better book guys. That's probably what it is. Everybody just gets really excited about the book. They just want to get it. They can get it on Amazon and they can get it for so many people and just pass it around. Just give it as a gift and have it because it's the best. It's a good book. It's a, it's a handbook for life. Handbook. So when we come back, we're going to hit up being unshakable in business and, um, business being whatever work you do, if you own a business, if you're in a business, if you work in any type of company, even school, school might be your business right now. Um, how to be unshakable in business.

We're going to talk about that right after this. All right. Welcome back. We're talking about being unshakable. We're going to jump right into how to be unshakable in business. And, and this means any kind of work. And so, um, and this is, this is huge because we are at work probably 60 to 80% of our day, 60 to 80% of our week. Yeah. Right. So, so work is a big part of life. And so to be unshakable in that place, right? That's right. To be, to be unshakable at work is a very important thing.

Yeah. You know, and, and there's a lot of disruption that happens in the workplace and there's a lot of, there's a lot of head game that that's involved. Right. And so this past year is a great example because everybody, I don't care who you are unless, unless you're one of the big, big, big ones that I don't want to talk about right now. Um, unless you're one of those, you were pretty, pretty impacted this past year and, and you were faced with a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty. And, and the question is how, how are you going to manage it when that type of thing happens? And hopefully for all of us, this, this last year was what, what Paul calls training. It was, it was a workout. Yeah. Cause, cause, cause, cause like, it made me laugh so hard when everyone, you know, people, people like LeBron James, like way back in like June was like, see you later 2020. And I'm like, dude, you got six months left. Number one, bro said that before he won a championship in 2020. Like what? And so it's like, like a, don't dismiss the year, but B it's not like, it's not like you turn 2021 and just magically, Oh, well, there you go. Like it's not like, it doesn't work like that. So, so there's this mess of 2020, but what did it teach us? And are we stronger now? Were we training during that time so that we can move forward with a new, with a new perspective? Like, and that's what we're talking about with the new frequency, right? Yeah. As, as a business, as a business owner, for me personally, I was looking for ways to be refined. I was asking questions, looking for where are we weak right now? Because, because going back to the roots here, what's the most important part of any business is the root system. Yeah. Okay. So what, so it caused me to look at all the fluff and I'm still, I'm still evaluating that. Like what is the fluff and what is the stuff that's core? That's, that's the roots of this business. Because at the end of the day, a business is meant, it's designed, the whole purpose of a business is to make money and provide value. And I'm just going to, I'm just going to take the floor from you really quick. Yeah. Do that.

Because 2020 is what brought us this. I'm just, I'm just throwing that out there for the people on here that are new and the people on here who have been here since the very first episode. Without 2020, it's funny. This doesn't happen. That's right. This doesn't happen. We're not called to do this thing. So there are good things that come from it. This is a highlight of my day every single day.

And it helps a lot of people. I truly believe that. Well, this, I mean, I can talk, there was a lot of refinement that I had through this. Um, and even just like the cord process when you guys were going through that, like seriously though, like, uh, as a, um, as an, again, employee, like coming into this idea of you guys, like, I didn't understand why you were doing all the little things that you were doing and it would frustrate me. And, um, I would get so mad about it. Uh, and in that, like everything would continue to change and it felt like we were like behind, but I would never speak on it or do anything about it. And I wasn't trusting in the leadership. I wasn't trusting in, in that you were figuring out all the little things to understand all the stuff that's leading us to where we are now.

And so like, okay. And then, and that, that goes into then the, the employee or, or let's just say, let's just say that the leader and, and then the people that are under the leader. Okay. Rather than saying boss employee, let's just say it that way, because some people are called to be in a leadership role. And I believe the people who are doing it right are, are looking to be led by the people that are, that are following, like looking to make best decision to the best of their ability and, and looking at all the facts, listening to all the information. So a good leader, and I, and I, and I hope to be one is going to ask, is going to want the critique, but not the judgment. There's two, right. That's different. Right. So I would, I would, going back to this, it's interesting. Um, they, they, they say that the most profound thing, the most profound concept, it can't be profound unless it's simple. Right. So look at the setup we have now, we're talking about the chords, right? We had set it up, even in this room, we've, we've already set up three times, but the idea was, can it be done with less? Can we use less lights? Can we use less chords? Can we, can we refine it down to simpler? Cause simpler is more profound, right? Yeah. Now what's interesting is rather than you seeing it and being like, you know, upset about it, it's, thanks Joey. I don't think anybody can see it actually. It says mad as a great. That's cute. Um, but, but, but what, what I believe, and this is coming from the, the, um, let's just call it the employee position question from love. Yeah. Like, and just, just you, you observe and you see, and then you go, Hey, okay, let me ask you this question.

And you know, when you did this for me, Brian, and I've talked about this many times, but now's a good time because when we've many times in this company, it's, it's been the case where we get pushed against the wall, we've got to make choices. And, and, and I've had to do that a few times and you put your chips in and you go, okay, we're going, we're all in right. And there was a time when the company had that thing. But, but there was, there was money sort of owed to me. And there was a time when I was like, I've been driving this car that I just, I just wanted a new car. I just wanted it. That's the truth. I just wanted it. I didn't need it. I wanted it. Okay. And I was trying to kind of talk to everybody about it. And, and honestly, I was getting affirmations, but to my credit, I didn't all only go to the people that I knew were going to give me affirmations. So, um, so I, I came to you and I say, Hey, what do you think about this? And you know what you did? I don't know if you remember. Do you remember how you reacted? I don't remember. No, the exact reaction. You didn't say don't buy the car. Here's what Brian did. Sneaky Brian. You questioned me. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's Oh, you just, you just asked me. You, you said, well, what, what do you, what do you think?

Like, do you think that we can afford it? Do you think that the business is in a good place? Cause if you do, I trust you. Oh man. Like I'm not going to abuse that kind of trust. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So what you did was you pose the question, which pushed me into a deeper state of really seeing. Cause if I looked at it and I go, you know what? It is safe. And I looked at it and I was like, we could do this, but it also puts me in a position where I feel uncomfortable. And that money that I've got in there, sure. It's mine.

There's guys, but, but it's like, it's there, but like, nah, yeah, maybe need it for Randy. Guess what? Within, within like eight months of that conversation pandemic hit. And I had that money that I, that I would have spent in a savings account and needed it. We needed every ounce of that because all of a sudden, all of our clients were like, you know, they all got scared.

And then this happened to most of the small businesses. Like it just went and, and I remember just being grateful and how many times I've said, I've said, thank you to you. But you see, you questioned from love. Yeah. You, you weren't judgmental. You didn't make me feel shame. You didn't come in and get upset. You just questioned from love. Like, let me, let me question back to you. Yeah. And it was like, good, like in a good, in a good way, it was refining. And I think that's, that's the relationship you want to strive for as a, as a leader or a boss. And as a, as a, as an employee and somebody who's dedicated, that's going to push a vision forward. Cause that's really your job. You know, we all have these like different roles to play in order to be a great team. And, and, and I understand you need people at the different positions. Not everybody can be the, the, the commander.

Right. Right. Yeah. And, and you need, you need, you need people on the front lines. You need people over here. You need people over here and people have different God given strengths and gifts and, and to fall into the role and then do your role to the best of your ability creates this, this synergy. That's incredible. Yeah. Right. And so you're right. Like this show literally doesn't exist without the struggle of 2020, but that was our, that was our reaction to it. Yeah. That was our decision. I sat you guys down. I prayed actually. I was, you go back on our Instagram. I put up a few Instagram posts. You can see in my eyes that I'm scared.

Yeah. But I, but I'm putting out love, putting out love, putting out love. And we sat down and I was like, I've, this is what I'm feeling. We just got to give, we got a 10 X our giving because if we're feeling uncomfortable, I bet you anything other people are feeling even more uncomfortable. Yeah. Absolutely. And then, and then freaking Brian just with the slam dunk goes back to roles. He's had this idea for so long for you to go on air and talk to people. And he was like, dude, we, we just got to start a show, man. And you and I were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Teacher Brian doesn't understand the tech. Like it's a lot harder than you think it is. And he's like, no, for real. And you know, it's been a process every single episode, you know, there's, there's been, it's a graph, it's a line graph. It goes up and down, up and down. Um, this season totally feels different and it's because of that new found hard fought energy from 2020 from that, you know? So, so me personally, I'm grateful for it because I love this show. I love all the, the refining we've all had throughout the year.

And, and it's a blessing when we realize, oh my gosh, like through the hardship, I got stronger through the hardship. I am teaching now. That's crazy. You know, and I think you're doing a great job by the way. Yeah. Thank you. Uh, that's where we really find too. Your biggest strength is when you understand your role, you'll find joy in it more than, more than trying to like me be your role or whatever. Like when you just fall into where you're meant to be, you'll actually be way more joyful. And the, the product of what's happening, like you said, will be more synergy and more strength, but you'll also feel that inside. Gosh, I wish I had the button from his Monday motivation. So, so this will probably come up at every segment. I think it has to, but if, if you approach the mess in business from gratitude, from a place of gratitude, then, then you see the field differently. You see things in a new way. Yeah. I'm grateful for the mess. Cause what does the mess do? What is the uncomfortableness do? What does the obstacle do? It, it, it exposes for you. It turns on a light so you can see where you're weak and then I get to work on it. And that's like an exciting thing. Yeah. You know, to be at work, to be in progress, to be, you know, getting better. That's the joy of life. That's the juice. And everyone wants to be comfortable. Comfortable is an illusion. It's an illusion. Ah, that was the title. We're going to do another show. It's an illusion. No, something else. I got you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Facts.

I'm like, you came to me fine. Okay. So, so I want to end here. Okay. But on this segment and it's this, there was a really great guy, um, incredible businessman named Bob Parsons and he, he, uh, he owns a bunch of companies now, but he's, he's, um, he's a, he's a huge giver. And Leeann, my wife got very close to Bob at one point they were, they were working together and I would watch the videos cause Leeann was in the video with him and I would always tune in and I, and I loved him cause they were business videos. They were, they were funny, but they were business related. And I remember something he said. It was very, very interesting is like, and this is sort of like paradoxical a bit, but the idea is, um, number one, there's going to be trends, right? There's going to be a trendy thing. Don't get distracted by that. So I imagine, I imagine like a kid's on a soccer field and the bunch of kids, they're all following the ball. You don't want to be one of those kids. Cause think about like a really good soccer team knows how to play their positions, right? They know how to spread out and they pass the ball and they, you can get so much more done. You can cover so much more field, but, but everyone wants to go like, Oh, follow the ball. So we've done things like that. And a lot of companies where, where sometimes we get stuck following the ball thinking like, what, what's the easy way? Let me jump on that. And then, and then all of a sudden you're, you're distracted. So, so how many social media platforms are there?

There's like, like 20, like, so all of a sudden you feel guilty. You're like, well, but what if I'm not on this one? What if I'm not on that? Well, there's opportunities on that one. And then, and then you're like spread across the board. Yeah. Instead of getting good at one. Absolutely. And then watching what's happening right now. I mean, things change. It just, it's the way it is. Yeah. You know, AOL used to be a thing and that's not a thing.

How's MySpace doing? Yeah. How's MySpace doing? It's not MySpace anymore. So to say that, to say that like Google could go down, like, of course it could. Yeah. Yeah. YouTube, of course it could. So you can't put all your marble, you know, everything into one basket. Right. Yeah. But at the same time, you don't want to get distracted by all the new flashy things. Yeah. Yep. So, so then the other thing was, and when it comes to this root system, this is something that Bob said was, was to pay attention and be willing to move, to change, to, to adapt. Okay. And so, so what it is, is, is it's, you don't, you don't make like, you don't just move with everything. You don't, you don't just, you're not always moving all over the place. Yep. But when you decide to move, you are decisive and you, and you go fast and you rip the bandaid. So like, once you've decided, it's like, now we go and we go full force and that's really important. Yep. And it goes back to the tree. Yes, exactly.

It goes back to the tree. Where do the roots grow? The roots grow where the water's going and the roots grow where it's the safest for it to get bigger. Yeah. Every storm, every wind, everything does not make the tree move. Some of them do, not all of them. Right? Yeah. A hundred percent. And, and some of the, some of the trees, let's just call the businesses trees. Some of the trees in this past season, they looked like they were strong on the outside, but they didn't have strong root systems and they've been uprooted. Yeah. And some, some big names are now out of business, right? Like that's happened and it will continue to, that, that is always going to happen. So we want to focus as a business and going, always be aware of your roots. Always go back to like, what is the core? Where am I drawing my water from? That's a really good way of looking at it, Joey. Thanks. He's smart. You know that? He's so smart. All right. So we're going to come back and then we're going to talk about acting. We're going to talk about how this, uh, this idea of being unshakable is going to impact your acting. It's going to be a quick segment here at the end, give you a little takeaway. All right. So we are talking about being unshakable. We've, do we've, uh, hit being unshakable in life. We've hit being unshakable in business. Now we're going to talk about being unshakable in acting or in presenting, which all of life is a presentation. This is why we're able to do what we do. You're right on our website. We say, you know, we are connecting life and acting, right? We want you to master your life through the craft of acting. And yes, we work with famous people. Yes. We, we train at a high level, but it's, it's so not about that for us. You have to come here and experience it to know what we're talking about. But we, we kind of don't care if you land an acting job. We're happy for you. Yeah. But we really want to impact your life. We want you to be more confident and, and be able to use the skills here in all that you do. Yeah. It's interesting on the way out last night, I was talking to JD, who's one of our newer students. He's been there for like three months. Me too. He's legit. He's so awesome. And people were saying like, well done tonight, all that. And he was like, he was like, I just don't, I just don't think like I'm good. Like, I don't think I'm funny yet. Like I go up there and I kind of black out. You know, I'm going to say something, I'm going to say something controversial. Go ahead. He's not good. He's not. Yeah. He is, he is in process and he's good. If he can stick with it, he's going to be great. Yeah, totally. So I'm, so I'm actually very excited about the fact that he doesn't think he's good. Yeah. And as long as he's not beating himself up. Yeah. Cause I, I see, I can see like four things that, that are just going to take a little bit of time for the light bulb to go off. But he has these, he's like your mom. He has these instincts. He has these moments where I'm like, that could have been so great. You just didn't know what to do with it. So you got yourself there, but then, but then kind of got stuck. Yeah. And what I was sharing with him is I, cause I was in the room for his play and same as, same as you just said, I was like, your scene was funny, not because like it was super witty or like certain lines. You said, no, what was funny about it is you, you, you understand now. I feel like the, um, the power that comes from not acting, even though that's what it says on the outside of our building. It's, I'm going to come in here and I'm going to be myself on stage, a heightened version of myself one way or the other, but I'm, I'm being real, my emotions, me reacting as myself. That's what's funny about watching him on stage is because he's, it's just a heightened version of him one way or the other. He's delightful to watch on stage. I'm going to, I'm going to just, uh, I'm going to hope JD's watching right now and I'm going to, let's, let's go into being unshakable and acting and let's use JD here. Okay. So I remember that I'm the one that answered the phone when JD called. Sick. I remember this. Okay. He's a dentist. He runs, I don't know if it's a couple dentist's office, but at least one. And he, his, his initial purpose was he wanted to become more comfortable in communicating and in leading teams of people. He's like, and he's like, would this help me? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, you came to the right place. And then I remember telling him and I tell everybody this, I'm like, you come for this, you're probably going to get more than you think. And then you're probably going to become addicted to it because you're going to grow as a human being like crazy. And he's like, all right, let me try it. And he showed up and, and our community as it does welcomed him in immediately because he's the, he's a right fit because that's his mindset wants to be here. Right. So that's how you become unshakable is you, you got to start from a root system of what are you trying to get? Yeah. If you're trying to get attention, you're trying to be good. You're trying to, you know, whatever. That's when you get yourself off. Yeah. So going back to now why I said, you know, and that's the controversial thing, right? I can say things and be like, whoa, you just said that. I literally just said, I've complimented him, right? A lot of my words were compliments, but one word was I said, he's not good yet. Yeah. And that's not an insult. Not at all.

No, no. That, that is a skillset that I'm realizing that much like if, if let's just say he trained me for five months in dentistry. Okay. I might know how to do one thing or a couple things. Okay. I might be able to look like a dentist, but he'd probably, he'd probably be like, he's not good yet. Yeah. He needs some time. And the key, the key is the word yet. That's why, that's why it's not an insult.

Right. It's, it's, Hey, I see the potential. I see your drive. I see where your goals are. You're not there yet. There is a light bulb that you will switch on and it's coming soon, man, but you're not there yet. It's not a compliment. It's a, it's a, you're on the right path right now. Yeah. You know, and I love that, that don't give up moment, right? Yeah. That goes into the unshakable. That's the, cause there will hit there. And most likely a point where you may get frustrated with yourself because you're not like receiving, if you're not rooted in the right things, what you want it or expect it or whatever, or it's like really hard. And at that spot, like you're going to feel this, this moment where like, you have to remember it's about the process. Yeah. Right. And it's, and we see this a lot in acting and auditioning because people come in and you like audition over and over and over and over. And it can feel like if you're not rooted in the right thing, like you're being rejected or things aren't going the way you expected. Right. A hundred percent. And, and, and why as, as an instructor, why, why are you even in the room? What's your purpose for being in the room? Yeah. Your purpose is to help people refine. It's to question them or to critique them from love. You got to do it from love. And sometimes you'll say something and you, you, you meant it from love, but you see it didn't land the right way. That's why it's so, it's such a difficult job to be able to look at somebody and see not, not let's just take one of you guys, not how does Matt say it, but how do I say it to this person in this moment to give them what they need right now? And that's a big growth moment for, for us, Brian and I, and any teacher or employee that's ever been here that you try to hammer in and it takes forever. And I speak from experience is this idea of, you don't want us to teach like you. Right. You don't want us to teach the same as you. We have to teach from who we are. Right. That's where that's, that's the difference.

Cause I didn't want to teach guys. I'm talking straight to the audience. I didn't want to teach. I wouldn't teach scared of it. Didn't think I was good at it. Didn't, didn't want to dive into that. Right. Circumstances hit, ended up having to teach. And then it became a want to, not a have to immediately. And because, you know, all of the time, all the pushback I gave Matt on that thing of like, well, no, like you're the, you're the master coach. Like I'm going to teach exactly what you teach and then I'm going to have a successful class. Like, no, what I do is I hop on the virtual screen with virtual sunglasses on. And I'm like, what up kids? What up kids? And, and, and I've said this too, when you're, when you're you, both of you or whoever in the past, when you're you, but coming from the core values of our studio, what we stand for, but you're you, you're better than me. Yeah. In, in whatever way. And I'm better than you in whatever way, but it's irrelevant because you're coming from your core. You're coming from your root system. And, and the truth is when I, I've, I've watched the kids sometimes and I've seen the virtual and I've watched you do your thing and I realize they don't want me anymore. They don't, they don't. Why would they? Right. Yeah. They got Joey seriously. And they're, they're, they're getting the information that they might, maybe they'll want me for a minute. Maybe they're going to want me to come in and push in a certain way. But then they're like, you know what? As long as I can get it, I'd rather have the kids with the sunglasses. Yeah. So cool. I still can't figure out how to put sunglasses on myself. I have no idea. I've tried like a couple of times and still haven't been able to figure it out. It's so funny watching the kids just manhandle me. Yeah. So, so going back to this idea of, so we're, we're here in the acting thing. Okay. And, and, and here's another thing as a student. Okay. You got to be careful and you got to make sure that your, that your roots are correct. Okay. And so, and this is where, so I'm going to hit this JD thing and then I'm going to come back to a kid.

I'm not going to use his name, but somebody that's in our team class and cool story. So, so, so going back to JD. So, so what is right now, I'm just going to say JD, if you're watching, you're the number one thing. Okay. And what it is, is not trusting your ideas, not trusting your scene partner and allowing nerves to take over and have you try to fill the space with sound. Hmm. Hmm. So it's like, he'll say something, a really great idea. Um, let's just say, um, I think last night he, he said something like you're, you're nervous, right? So he, so he's like, you're nervous. Well, you look nervous. Oh, there's a lot of nerves. And then, and then he keeps talking, keeps filling the space with breath and sound and breath and sound thinking that every second needs to be filled and that's not the case. Yeah. And so that's the idea of relaxing into the, into the scene, finding the really good idea, waiting, and then being very, very insistent upon listening. Yeah. You've always described it to me as just like this game of tennis. Like, and imagine like if somebody had just a bunch of tennis balls and just kept hitting at you over and over and over and over, you wouldn't be able to handle it. Right.

Yeah. It'd be too much to receive. And, and bro, I feel you. I used to do that all the time. Bad habit that I had to. Yeah. So, so there's this, there's this kid and he's in the teen program now, but he was in, he was in Valleywood and he had, he had come like a long time ago too. So he's been kind of in and out. And, and I believe that there, there's been, you know, ups and downs in, in, in family life and different things that are, you know, unrelated. But anyway, in this last Valleywood, there was a moment and one of our counselors was like, man, this kid's just like, he's like, he's, you know, it's tough. And I was like, all right, let me, I'll talk to him. And I sit down and, and there is a lot going on in life and this and that, but, but really it came down to, you know, um, he, he wished he had a bigger part. Hmm. And it wasn't about, it wasn't about him being selfish though.

So that's, so that's what was told to me like that. He's selfish. You know, he wants a bigger part. I listened to it. I was like, okay. And then brought him, I talked to him, got his head right, brought, brought him on set when it was his turn to go. The kid's talented. Hmm. He was realizing that his talent was overlooked. Yeah. And truthfully, if I knew his talent, I'd have given him a bigger part. I would have. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I didn't recognize the talent because I didn't, he, we weren't spending time together and I talked to him and I just said, you know, it's up to you, but, but get involved. I, I, I see your talent. If I, and I told him flat out, had I known how good you were, you'd have gotten a bigger part and everybody else wanted me to be mad at him because he was disruptive. And I was like, I'm not going to get mad at this kid. Yeah. If he's acting out, we said yesterday, if he's acting out, he needs more love. So I give him more love. Right. Yeah. So anyway, he's in the program and I noticed yesterday he's in the back, back, back, like farthest away in the room. Okay. And, uh, and we're doing an exercise and he goes up and you know what? He's talented. This kid, he gets up, he was great. He was great. And yet there were lots of places I could have refined him, but I didn't really have time last night. Cause I mean, our in-person program is blown up. Yeah. You know, great energy last night. Unbelievable.

And so, so here, but here's the, here's this listening thing. Here's the roots of things because all these teenagers are here and they're feeling all the feels of this life, of this world, of this, like going virtual, coming back in person and doing this. And then there's a pandemic and then there's a mind. And they're like, what do I do? Yeah. Do I cover up? Do I protest? Do I not protest? Do I say this? Do I, I mean, it's tough. Okay.

Yeah. And, and everyone, they come here and they need this day when they come to class to just kind of like not have to be in that world for a minute. Yeah. That's a part of what we're doing for these kids. But the other part is the, is the, is the actual skill. And so I watch this kid go up and I'm cool. And then I'm leaving and I, and I see him in the corner of my eye is the back of the room. Everybody's left. I go up to him. I was like, Hey, he's like, Hey, and I was like, you know, you're, you're very talented. He goes, thanks. I said, uh, from now on, I want you to sit as close as you can to my desk. And he just looked at me like, okay. And I said, because, because you need to get on stage more. He's like, okay.

And I said, and from now on, I'm going to be harder on you. And he's like, yes, yes. And I was like, Hey, which means I'm not going to treat you like everybody else. Just so you know, because you're talented, I'm going to be harder on you, but we're making a contract upfront. So you know what I'm doing, not picking on you. I'm going to help you by, by somebody else might do what you do and I'll compliment them because for them, it's a win for you. It's not. So I need to help you because you're already talented to get more talented. That's my job. And he goes, thank you. Wow. And then I left the room. Dang. Mic drop. Yeah, for real. That's the roots. That's the idea. So when you're, when you're in your acting, you want to get to a place where you get onto stage and you are open, you are listening, you are connected to the room. If you're, and I see this all the time and I joke about it at different, different ways. But if you keep checking with me and you care about what I think, there's no way you're in the scene. It happened last night with a couple actors. You keep, you keep wanting to know what I think of you. You got to be in, you got to be listening. And then you got to, instead of like being curious if I like it, you should be curious if there's a way that, that the teacher, whoever it is, can help you get better. You want the critique.

I like, I wanted for real for Brian to, to stop me from buying the car. I didn't want it. I mean, I wanted the car, but I wanted the truth. Yeah. I wanted to be, I wanted to be challenged in my thinking or else I wouldn't be asking. Yeah. Right. So think of yourself as an actor, as a performer, as somebody who's presenting to, to, to breathe, to ground yourself, to root yourself into the stage, into the space. I've noticed the two of you now. I told you, we've all risen up. You, you are at a new place where you're rooted into the show. And even Brian, the last three days, you've become more and more rooted. Yeah. Right. And that's what's being present. That's the idea of what that means. See, I, we, we, Joey and I were joking about having a segment of like, what's Brian thinking? Cause you space out. Yep. Can't do it anymore. You can't do it. Nope. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you're, cause you're there, you're listening. I can, I couldn't go to you half the time before. Right. Yeah. I'd want to go to you and I'd look at you and you're like, you know, literally just like in my own world.

Yeah. Right. And I'm, and I'm so happy that you found that. Right. Because the segment would have been hilarious. It was going to be you, but it would have been a dried out segment over time. Yeah. Yeah. It would have been like, all right, when's this guy going to learn his lesson? Right. Right. Right. And we even talked about that. We were like, cool. That'll be funny. That'll be cool. Um, can't use it every show. It'll get really old. So this could be like, what was Brian thinking? We'll go back to old material.

Yeah, there you go. And then you can join us and you'd be like, I was thinking about frogs. Hilarious. So ground yourself, be that tree on stage, be that, you know, you're, you're sitting, you know, you want to root yourself, drink from the truth, the stuff that can't be seen. That's the work. That's the preparation. It's, I always say you get, you get praised in the light for what you do in the dark and people, you look at them and you're like, oh, they're so good. They're so good. You're only looking at the leaves. You're not seeing all the stuff that's happening underneath what they're really doing. And, and instead of focusing on the leaves and trying to be like them and trying to put up a post like them and trying to do the thing like them instead go, gosh, they must work really hard. They've got a really good root system. I'm going to go to that. I'm going to go check that out and think to yourself, I want the, I want the Wheaties they're eating. And I'm going to tell you right now, it comes from the centeredness, from the, from the work, from the being prepared before you hit the stage. Yeah, absolutely. All right, everybody, that is our show. Thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget right now, you just want to be unshakable. You want to find this place inside you to go to your root system, become unshakable as different distractions, obstacles, as, as life, as this world will continue to hit you. You want to be firm and solid as a foundation.

So you're, you know, your branches can move, but your core is going to stay unshakable. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening to Mornings with Matt. Please like, subscribe and follow us at Dearing Acting Studio to keep up with the latest content. For more information on classes, private lessons or professional development coaching, visit www.dearingstudio.com. Have a Dearing day, everyone. Have a chippy day, everyone. Rough.