Staying on Track and Investing in Yourself: Compare You to You, the Audition That Doesn’t Exist, and Which Classes Are Worth the Money

Welcome to Mornings with Matt, a completely virtual talk show hosted by acting and personal development coach Matthew Dearing. You can text in questions or chat with Matt as he will give advice about life, acting, or whatever else you can dream up. Presented by the Dearing Acting Studio. Good morning, Brianna Fogelson. Good morning, Matt. How's your morning going? Um, great. It's just very clear. I feel very energized and I just did my affirmation, so I already feel overwhelmingly energetic and happy. Excellent. Excellent. Is that something you do every day? Yes, it is something I am at least keeping my self-discipline on. It really sets my schedule for today. I really work on honing my craft along with school, just staying focused and exercising and acting in general. That's amazing. So, when did you start all that I can. And I started organizing, um, how I need to, um, focus on my school, how I need to also incorporate my acting since that's my life term goal. And I've just been wondering since I'm trying acting, how do I know with acting that I'm getting better? Because with school, it's like you get your grades back and you know you did good and you get professional feedback from my teachers. But with acting aside from our classes, how do I know I'm getting better every day when I practice?

You know, that's a really good question. And I think, um, a difficult question to answer, um, but generally speaking, you don't get to know. And I know that's a hard, a hard answer to hear, but when, when you're working on something every day, especially as you get better, it's going to start to feel like grass growing a little bit. That's, that's been my experience. So you progress through, uh, what, wherever you're at, and then you're always going to be curious is, is what I did today. Was it, was it awesome? Was it worth it? Et cetera. And truth be told, um, some days it you're, you know, you'll be doing something that, that won't be necessarily perfect or, you know, you're not getting that professional feedback. So my greatest advice for you is going to be to find a way to be brutally honest with yourself. And then you're just, you're just comparing you to you. If you can figure out how to do that, then, then you can really objectively look at your stuff. So, you know, you asked how, how I do it and that's exactly it.

So I'm going to, I, I, I put myself through a certain routine and then I will, I will look at exactly what I did, how I did it, et cetera. And based on, based on what I see, the, the, the result of it, I make adjustments and tweaks and, and change some things and mainly, you know, you, you know what you're capable of right now. And so to me, the success comes from, did you push yourself?

Did you, did you do the extra mile? And, and, and you, again, you know, you, did you go through the process of doing the things that were hard for you or did you do the things you just like doing? And it sounds like you're doing all the hard things, which is great. Yeah. It's definitely, um, way more challenging since it's more self-discipline, Exactly. So where have you been finding some of that self-discipline? What's up?

Okay. Hmm. Strange. All right. Well, we probably should keep going. Are we recording on there? Yeah, let's just keep rocking. Thanks, dude. So I guess there's a struggle with the YouTube link there, but we're going to just keep rocking and rolling because we are recording so we can always put it up later. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, so, um, so is there, are there any places where you feel like you would like some words of wisdom? Have you been tuning into the show? Is this something that you've, uh, you've already benefited from so far? Well, actually I have, I remember I would just at least scroll through some episodes, including the ones, um, with Phoebe and Tyler. And I was actually really inspired by the one where you set out a game plan. That was the one that says, okay, I have some problems and issues focusing and that I can really set my day up and I don't have to be perfect at it, but I can get better and better each day. Did that make sense?

Yeah, of course. That's great. And so, so from that day on, you started setting a, a, a game plan and been sticking with it. I've been sticking with it most. Yes. Um, you also mentioned something about comparing where you would say you have to be your own critic, just like see how you could get better in your own terms. Right. And I would see on social media that, um, a lot of my students or even celebrities, they would keep track on their schedule. Like you would see them playing guitar, you would see them, um, working on their skills. And that is something I'm doing. I'm not posting it because I want to keep it to myself and work us on my focus on my growth. But I do wonder, even for the days where I feel very confined or very, um, nervous or hesitant, that's my dog, by the way. Um, I'm just wondering, how do you push through that? Even when you feel the most hesitant?

Um, I think you're going to have to define the feelings a little more for me. Mm hmm. Well, it's just, um, if I had to practice acting, you know, it's almost like going to the gym. It's like, you know, it's something you have to do. You know, it's something you have to get better at, be consistent, but you can't, but you still feel this hesitation. You just want to sleep in all day, watch Netflix, but you know that you have to, um, work on your craft every day, even if it's challenging. So I was just wondering, how do you get over that and avoid procrastination?

Got it. Okay. Yeah. Good. So that, that I believe when it comes to the procrastination thing, it all starts the night before you have to book it, schedule it the night before, and then you decide on doing the harder things upfront right away. So much like going to the gym, same idea, but you get in there and you get grinding on something that's going to get your body moving.

So with, with your acting, when you wake up, make it a part of your routine. And even if it's only 20 minutes to start with, it's something that you have committed to. And, and you've got, um, this commitment to yourself that I, no matter what, I'm going to get this in. Then usually what happens is after the 20 minutes you feel so good, you either keep going or you come back to it later in the day, but it's not so hard because you've already started it. You've already checked it off your list.

You know, you know, you've done something toward that. Mm-hmm. And that you at least you accomplished. Totally. You know what I did? Cause I have this really complex time tracking system system, all I did was I made these check boxes and every day I just, I look at my check boxes and make sure I was checking certain things. So my God time, my exercise, my reading, my writing, my, you know, all the things that are like guaranteed non-negotiable, they got to get done. And then, and then I would have these, uh, quadrants that I wrote out. And there's, there's a great book by Stephen Covey talks about the cop, the quadrants, uh, for time management, but basically a quadrant one activity is something that's an emergency has to get done right now. Let's say it's, it's, you have an audition due today at 3 PM. That's a quadrant one, a quadrant two activity would be practicing for the audition that doesn't exist. Yes. And that's where you get better is not doing the audition that you actually have to get done, but, but doing the audition that you're pretending you have to get done. That's where you will really, really start to see growth and, and develop yourself.

So the, uh, the idea is you want to try to keep yourself in quadrant two as much as possible because that's the place where you see the most growth and development. Mm-hmm. And, um, just to make sure to go more in quadrants and everything. Um, you said something about a book by, um, I forgot his name, Stephen. Stephen Covey. Yeah. This is a, this is a time management, self-development type book.

And is there any other books you recommend that focus more on time management or acting or anything like that? Yeah. I recommend the one thing is really good book on, on how to figure out what to do. Yes. Have you read that one yet? Oh, that's what it's called. The one good thing to do. Uh, no, the one thing, the one thing. No, I never heard of that actually.

Yeah. So get that book. It's by Gary Keller and it's, it's a pretty good book, but I really liked the concept behind it. It's something that I've been living by for a while now, which is do the one thing right now. That's essentially it. What's the one thing I could do right now that would make my life better, easier. I wouldn't have to do other things. What's the one thing I could do that would be, that would take my life to the next level. Just, just one thing and one thing only. Mm-hmm. And that's kind of like a non-negotiable.

No, not really. This is more, this is more along the lines of prioritizing. So, so for instance, it, it, it, it affects all areas of your life. So I know you've got a family that you care about. Let's, let's just say your sister or something. Sometimes you'll be with your sister and you think to yourself, what's the one thing I could do right now with her that would be the most impactful for our relationship.

Mm. Okay. So it's not, it's not just, it's not just being with her. It might be asking her a particular question or doing something for her or just intentionally spending time is different than just being with somebody. So, so it's the idea of like, what's the one thing. Mm-hmm. Just something that could just make her feel better. Just something that could just make her happy. Yeah. And, and what happens is by doing the one thing, it, everything else tends to get better.

Mm-hmm. And then you said the author was Gary Keller? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. Thank you so much. Absolutely. All right. What else you got for me? they have a lot of webinars and seminars and workshops, um, all across. And these websites offer some pricey, um, classes. And I was just wondering, um, I want to improve my craft every day and be trained by professionals, but I don't know which one's worth the price. And how do I know that, um, it's worth the value?

Again, that's a tough question. So my take on learning is if you, if you can learn one thing, just literally one thing from a class, it's worth it. Sometimes that's not the case. I look for, I look for teachers normally who don't talk about themselves, who get right in there and want to find a way to actually help me. So I think that's what you're looking for. And Price is relative to you. You have to remember that. So for, for some people, a hundred dollars is a lot of money. And for other people, a thousand dollars is a lot of money.

And for some people it's not, I mean, that's, that's just the world we live in. So I, I, what I would do is I would, I would try to get away from price and I would just think to myself, why am I taking the class? Am I, am I taking the class because why, uh, is, is it because I need somebody to help me with the discipline of getting these things done or going through these, this process, or is this particular teacher, somebody that I really want to learn from? And, and I, you know, there's something there that that's going to push me or whatever. Cause that's at the end of the day, I think you want to, you want to think of an acting class, just like a, a personal trainer gym where you're going to go, okay, I could do all this on my own, but I want the trainer who's going to be there to push me to go that extra rep, who's going to hold me extra accountable for, for doing Yes.

So I can't tell you what's worth the money and not worth the money without looking at particular classes, who's teaching them and then how they execute. You know, I can't, I can't answer those questions. I know for us, my dedication to 10 X, I believe 100% that no matter what we give, I'm always trying to go 10 times value, 10 times. That's what I, that's what I believe in. I'm committed to. And, and that's how our prices have come about because it was a waiting list system. So essentially we would give 10 times our value till that's till that became our value. And then we'd give 10 times that, and there, there's a huge waiting list. So it's supply and demand price goes up. That's how it works. So my, my private lessons used to be 25 bucks an hour. Now they're $400 an hour and it's because of supply and demand. That's, that's how we do prices. But now if I give a private lesson at $400, I am committed to giving a $4,000 lesson every single time. So, so that's the way, that's the way you want to think about it. And, and, you know, even back to that same concept, we had some issues with one of the, one of the kids classes, there was probably about 10 minutes worth of technical issues. We were trying to get things figured out. It was mainly the kids' parents were having a hard time getting onto the class. And so I jumped on. I said, Hey, we're going to have a great rest of your class. Sorry. You guys had some struggle there. I'm going to give a private lesson to each, each and every one of you. And that's what we did. We scheduled that in to make sure guarantee that you're going to get 10 times your value when you, when you plug in. So not everyone's going to do that, but you can do that for yourself. You know what I mean? That's, that's the type of mentality you can have, where you're just going to say, I'm going to give everything I have here.

And from doing that, you know, you know, it's going to turn out well for you. So just really take it as much as you can from the lesson. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's really what you can do. And then you're, you're looking for, you know, this, this process can be hard. So, I mean, I'm not going to say I didn't run into this when I was younger too, because I did. I, I, I even trained in New York and I was so disappointed when I was out there because I thought all the actors are going to be so good and they're going to be so much better than me and I'm going to grow so much. And I got out there and they weren't.

And I was really bummed about it. I wanted them to be better than me and they were not better than me, but the actors on Broadway were extraordinarily better than me, but I couldn't get to them. I couldn't train with them. There was this huge gap in the middle. So all I could do is go to the class I was in, be my best me I could be and listen and extract nuggets of knowledge and go, Oh, there's, there's a good one. Boom. I'm going to write that down. I'm going to take that with me. I'm going to apply that in my life. Yeah. So it's almost you discipline yourself again, just to find what works for you and then just hone on that and then make it into your own lesson. And I guess totally. And if you go into every lesson with the mindset of what can I learn, how can I get better? And it's hard.

Sometimes some teachers aren't great, so it can be difficult, but you go in there and you go, okay, instead of me trying to pick apart what's wrong with this teacher, I may not come back to their class again, but I'm here now and I paid for it. So instead of picking apart what's wrong, why don't I just look for where are they extraordinary? How can I take something from this? Even if it's, even if the one thing you take from the class is going back and looking at why you chose the course and then learning not to choose that course again, you know, maybe I got suckered into it by some sort of a good advertising, you know, ploy. And then I'm like, okay, so I see where I got suckered. I'm going to make sure I don't do that again because this money and that money and this money could have been applied to this other thing, which would have actually benefited me more in the future. I want to make that choice instead of these three choices. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely.

I truly appreciate that. Well, good. Is that, is that all the questions you have for me? There's one more. It's just goes back to getting on the daily schedule. It's also just like with affirmations, just kind of sticking to them and just, um, how you really just make sure that you are living your best self and that you are still very happy, very positive and very motivated.

How do we do that? Um, it's a choice. Every day is a choice. So I can, I can tell you right now today, you woke up ready to kill the day. You look amazing. You get the right frame here. I mean, everything for you right now, it's like looking good, looking up. How can you do that for yourself tomorrow? How can you put yourself in this frame of mind tomorrow?

And it starts the night before. Yes. So there's a, there's a reason why you're up and ready and going and all that's because you had this show to do and you were excited about it. So how do you create this, this essence for yourself? And then you believe it so that every day becomes important, just as important as the last. And that, that's really the goal. And of course you're going to fail sometimes. I mean, that's a part of life, but the goal is to, I call it, pack your bags. You want to pack your bags the night before and be just totally ready. And then by repetition and repetition and repetition, the things like your affirmations and different things, those become habitual. So it's just, it's just like brushing my teeth. I get up and this just happens automatically.

Yes. And that, and that's the goal. And then you also want to, you don't want to become a robot either. You want to always be checking in with those affirmations and make sure that you're saying the things that you really want because they need to be adapted as you, as you grow and develop, they need to change. Yes. And with being a robot and everything, even when I'm going through the schedule, how long do you think it will take till I truly feel like I'm, this is automatic for me, but I'm getting something out of it.

That makes sense. Yeah. It, it'll, it'll probably take you three to four months before something becomes just automatic that you don't think about it anymore. But, but even then it is a choice. I mean, it really is. If you think about it, when you're really tired, just super tired and you're coming home late at night or something like that, you, it, it does cross your mind not to brush your teeth or not to take your makeup off and you have to choose to do it. You have to make the choice and, and we tend to do it. And I, I think it's because maybe the fear of having bad teeth or the fear of, you know, having to go to the dentist or something, there's something locked in there that goes, and now I'll just get up and do it.

And so you, you realize that everything's a fight. You just have made certain things important to you and other things not important to you. And once you come to that realization, you just find a way to make the things that are the most important that you really want to accomplish. You try to just fast forward the feeling of excitement. So for instance, for any actor, it would be super easy to get up early in the morning and be on their a game. If they had a 6am call time to be on set.

Absolutely. They'd be up at four every, like almost every actor I know would be up at four, would be showered, would be dressed, would have gone through their lines, would have, I mean, everything set would be feeling great by five, five 30, depending on when they had to leave to get to set. And it would be easy for them because they'd be so excited about the gig, but they're not willing to do that when they don't have a gig. And that's the problem. If you're not willing to get to create that own excitement for yourself before you have it, or not even excitement, just urgency, just the urgency that this has to get done, then you're not going to get the gig. So that's the problem.

It's the chicken, the chicken and the egg thing. You can't wait for somebody else to give you the opportunity. You have to give yourself the opportunity. You have to act as if. make mistakes. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I can tell you that I'm really proud of you and what you're doing and you're, you're never going to regret all the extra time and effort that you, that you've spent on yourself and, and the growth and development that you're going through right now. You're going to look thanks for being on the show today, Brianna. It was awesome talking to you.

Thanks. I had a blast being here. 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 a Dearing day, everyone.