Transmuting Fear: Finish Strong, Spread Love Instead of Fear, and Where Did You Train Again?

This is the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast, where we discuss the connection between life and acting. All right, welcome back everybody to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. I'm here with Mr. Joey Sweeney this afternoon. What's going down, Joe? Not much, man. It's been a good day. It has been an unbelievable day. What made it so great for you? Well, the grind today made it so great for me.

Learning new skills made it so great. Explain that. So, well, we're getting into this podcasting thing, and we're getting more and more serious about it, and it's becoming this exciting thing for our team, and we're learning new ways to incorporate it into our software. So, like, and Sling Studio and learning how to do links. You know what happened today? Yeah, right. Because we're still, we'll always be growing, but we're still learning just these new techniques and things that I believe we used to walk away from.

And now we're saying, hey, we're not good at this thing. Yeah. Let's go get it. Yep. And so, specifically today, we're going live. We're learning how to go live. That's the truth. So, this is a part of that process. And you ran into, what, like seven different roadblocks here and there? Oh, so many roadblocks. So, but what's interesting is now that we're on the microphone and you're talking to me, you're saying that you feel amazing.

Yeah, I feel great. The reason for that is because you focused in, you zoned in on one thing and fought through it and I believe whether you finished or didn't finish, actually, just the idea of being able to accomplish so much and move yourself in one direction is really, really great. Yeah. It's crazy because it's one of those things where, like, it feels like beating your head against a wall at certain points and then it's just, like, this was something that mattered so much to me where I was like, well, I have to figure it out to push us next level.

And so, getting to the other end of that, like you said, and focusing down, it's so worth it. Like, we were supposed to do this podcast at 11 today and it is 3.57, so. And there's always an excuse to quit. 100% of the time, yeah. Always. And I think one of the hardest things, I'm studying this a lot right now, Joe, this idea of distraction, as you know, and it's because the chapter we're on is focus on the book.

And so, I'm just, I'm sort of obsessing over that thing. And what's funny is sometimes me researching about focus is pulling my focus away from what it should be. I mean, that's the funniest thing. But it's actually true because you can get yourself down these little wormholes and convince yourself that this thing, whatever it is, is important, but it's really, it's not really getting you closer to your goal.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. 100%. You tell yourself these little lies about anything, really, and that justifies what you're doing in your head, whether it is the right thing or not. Yeah. And that's something that I've definitely run into in the past where I would lie to myself all the time about things that I would do and giving my best effort and putting my best foot forward when really I wasn't.

I was just maybe even doing that every now and then, but not following all the way through. And that was one of the big lessons that you've taught me in the past couple months is the idea of finishing strong. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And it really is. It's a profound thing because when you learn how to finish strong, like you said at the beginning, it doesn't matter if you get to the other end of it or not because if you finish strong, you left yourself on this foundation of feeling good, whether it's done or not, because you focused in.

Yeah. Yeah. The, um, Napoleon Hill talks about it in his book and he calls that going the extra mile. And it's, it's one of the principles to guarantee life success and wealth and, and happiness is being willing to push through when you're tired and, and you, you're feeling sorry for yourself or, or, or, and just, you don't have to anymore. I mean, that's one of the, that's probably the hardest thing.

Yeah. Is like, I don't have to do this. So am I going to choose to go the extra mile or am I, or am I going to stop right now? And then, and that's my choice. And there are people, if you imagine that you're running this mile race, okay. And everybody gets to, to the mile mark and you're allowed to stop and take a drink of water.

Well, well, guess what? Some people go the extra mile and they run a little bit further. Yeah. And those are the people that every day are lapping everybody else, but it's so hard to do. Yeah. And, and it goes back to this idea that you talk about with our team a lot, which is our, our Valleywood movie camp in the summers. Right. Like the amount of hours that we put in over that one week time span is, is profound.

It's incredible. Like we're literally up almost all hours of the day for five days in a row to do this crazy thing. And we do it every year twice. And it doesn't feel that crazy when you're in it. Yeah. Because it's, it's, it's, uh, for me, it kind of goes back to the idea of selflessness. You know, you, you watch these kids come in and they really do feel like they're a movie star for a week.

Well, cause they are. Yeah. You know what's interesting? And, and this, this goes back to just my, my philosophy on acting in general is there really is very little difference between our acting camp and the full process and being in a real movie from beginning to end. The difference is hours happens in a week, excuse me. So it's condensed. So, so you get, you get that sort of whole process in one week.

That that's the first difference. And then, and the next difference is going to be the quality of cameras and the, and, and film crew and all that. I mean, everything can, can always expand bigger and bigger and bigger, but really at its core, they are movie stars. They're movie stars right inside of our studio. And, and, and it's, it's mind blowing. And that's why the kids cry.

You know, the teenagers thank their parents with tears rolling down their eyes because they actually realize, dang, like I'm a part of this thing that's so big and it's bigger than me. And thank you. Yeah. Thank you, mom. Thank you, dad, for, for helping me like be a part of this thing. It changed my life. Mm-hmm. And it's crazy. It's totally crazy. You know, um, it, it reminds me, uh, Brian and I watched this movie recently and normally we wouldn't like necessarily talk about a movie on a podcast, but it reminded me so much of what we do here.

It's called Motherless Brooklyn and it's like a film noir, right? And there, there's like, uh, so many big name actors in it. It's ridiculous. But there's only, the crew was probably under 30 or 35 people. It was, it was very much a passion project. And I watched that movie. And it was about, it's about the storyline. It's about the acting and it's just, it's, it's about, you know, it's not about all the frills.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not about all the explosions and the different effects. It's like, this is a, we're trying to tell a story right now. It was captivating. It was captivating. I, I, I wanted to watch it the next day. I got a comment after I finished. Thank you, Mr. Jack Francis. He, he writes here on the, on the, uh, Facebook live. He says that he's been to some different acting schools and Dearing is easily the best.

I don't know about easily, but thank you, Mr. Jack Francis. As a matter of fact, Jack, um, do you, if you have any questions for us directly, feel free to, to shoot a question over our way and we'll be happy to answer that. I'll keep an eye on it. So one of the things I was going to, um, talk about is, is earlier today, we, we started a new podcast with a friend of ours and, and we, um, it's called divine roots and is it up already or it's going to be up soon?

It'll be up tonight. Okay. So, so this new podcast is going to be up and we're, we're in that podcast. We're trying to help people raise their vibration and, um, and we come from a very Christian background yet we're open and we understand that, that everybody has their angle and everyone's trying to find their source, their, their inner power. And, and that's a big part of what we're trying to do here is help people listen at that high level.

And so we went over the topic of mercury being in retrograde today, you know, which is such a foreign concept to, to someone like me who grew up in a, in a Catholic home. I know you did too. And, and, and people judging those concepts and what, but it's not, it's, it's really a, a super deep concept. Concept. And the idea being everybody gets affected by, by the world.

We all affect one another. And so you take this idea of like, what is mercury in retrograde? And it was explained to me today and I'm going to do my best, uh, to explain it through my words, but you'll have to listen to divine roots and to really get this explanation. And that, uh, and that'll be, uh, through lighthouse theater. So that's our nonprofit. Good. Yeah. And it will be up on our website though, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So, so we take it like what, so I don't know. I, I really didn't know. I just was like open. So it was explained like this and, and even though it's, it's about the planet Mercury, but this, there was this idea of, um, what happens, uh, what is the moon control? And it was like, Oh, we're told that the moon controls all the water and the waves and the tides.

And, and so you think about if the, if the world is moving and the, in the, the whole universe is shifting and the moon can cause a tidal wave. Well, as things are shifting, uh, we are made up of primarily water. So if, if the waves are affected, we're affected at a molecular level. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, I get that. Like that makes sense. So we're all feeling a little uneasy.

And then you, you wrap your mind around this idea of being grateful for that moment and going into you and saying, what is being exposed to me? What, what is, what is the Lord? What, what is my spirit? What, what, what is the moon trying to tell me right now? And what am I supposed to work on? So rather than being scared, I want to get excited.

I want to get grateful and I want to slow myself down and move into grace, move into productivity, move into, um, you know, just trying to figure me out a little bit deeper. Yeah. Yeah. For me, the biggest thing about the podcast this morning was, um, the idea of, of how much perspective matters, right? Yeah. Right. And then, um, we talked about the perspective you can take going into that and going into it fearlessly.

Well, see, okay. Awesome. I'm so glad you brought up fear because right now in our world, there's a lot of fear going on and everyone's acting. Here's what happens. So, so when something happens in the world, it gets blown up usually by the media, but then it gets perpetuated everywhere and because now we all have access to wonderful tools like social media and just different ways of communicating, we can take a piece of knowledge and just spread it and we can choose to spread fear or we can choose to spread love and gratitude and, and prosperity.

And so a lot of times the fear is being pushed out. Yeah. You know? And so by finding that way to get through your fear and focus on something else, that's the only way you can listen at a super high level. And that's what we teach here. So for anyone listening who has not connected with us before, um, it is this whole studio, our concept is revolved around listening and it's so deep.

It's listening to environment, listening to each other, listening to yourself. Most importantly, listening to the spirit of God, these things are the most important, crucial concepts that we can teach and get across. And we are just so blessed really to have each other and to have the students that, that we're a part of. Um, I, I had, I was on, um, I was on set just yesterday and one of our, one of our students was on set with me and she hadn't been, um, she, she, she's just been working.

She'd been very successful recently. And so we haven't seen her at the studio and she was so kind. She said to everybody, she's like, Hey, if you've never been to a studio, you know, um, the Dearings are really great. And I was like, Oh, that's nice. You know, thank you. Um, but, but then she followed up with immediately. She said, she says, no, no, I'm serious. Matt changed my life.

And, and I, and I just, I just like, it stopped me for a second. And I was like, wow. Like that, that there's nothing, there's nothing we could hear that matters more in the entire world. I don't care about all her gigs. I don't care about all the stuff she does, but the idea that like your life was impacted in some way, um, that to me is, is so enormous.

I even had, uh, and I'll end here, Joey, cause I know we got to go, but I had this other email come through yesterday and I, and I'll just sort of read part of it, but this is like incredible this, I won't use her name cause I haven't, I don't have permission, but another one of our actors and she had to leave cause her, her husband is in the military.

So they went traveling and, and then she just, she just pulled to where she goes to. Yeah. And, uh, and she, she writes this and, uh, she says, you know, I just want, I wanted you to drop a line, let you know, I've been pursuing some voiceover because I, um, you know, I travel, I were traveling so much and whatnot. And she said, I've been taking classes, uh, on, on this thing just to get practice and do these different things, but I still absolutely must credit you guys for so much of what I learned.

I remember the little things that you said, the habits that you taught, et cetera, they're still helping me to move forward in this pursuit. And then she said she gave such a good read for this one big director who she got, I think I cast by recently. And, um, she was so good that he interrupted her and he goes, he goes, wait a minute, where did you train again?

And she goes Dearing Acting Studio. And, and the, the point there is this is, this is in some other state, potentially some other country. I don't actually don't know where the student is right now. All I know is that the impact is, is unfolding and unfolding and unfolding and people don't forget. Yeah. They don't forget where they started and how they got the mindset for success. And, and that's what it's all about for us.

It's not about, it's not about the result. I, we really just don't care about you, you know, like winning the monologue or, or being the best. Like, that's not the point. The point is for you to better you and get yourself on a path where just like this student said, where I have the right habits and the right techniques in place. And so that I can compete anywhere in the world.

And, and, and, and they're going to say, wait, where was this? Like, was this, was this London you were training at? Was this, you know, the Royal Academy of something? Was this New York? And, and, and she says it was, it was in Phoenix, Arizona Dearing Acting Studio. They're teaching truth. And, and that, if, if that gets spread around the world, man, that would be a very, very, you know, it is already.

It's, it's, it's a happy day for us to hear that because that is really, truly what we're all about and what we're trying to get across. Yeah, totally. And it's, it's, it's just, it's, it's beautiful. Truthfully, it's, uh, this idea that people come in here and we see it. And, and I was one of those people where I've been fully transformed by our program, by the coaching.

And it's, it's so not about acting. Me too, by the way. Yeah. You know, because it goes both ways when, when you, when you're fortunate enough to teach and if you do it from the right angle, you learn and grow at such an exponential rate because every person I get to be in front of, I use it as an opportunity for me to grow. Cause all I'm asking myself is how can I help?

What can I do? What, what do you need? And sometimes I don't have the tools, so I got to go get them and come back so that I can help. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's just, it's really, really incredible. So we talked a little bit about fear today. And we want you to just understand that you will be faced with trials. You will, it's going to happen.

And we, we just had, we just spoke with a lawyer today who was in here, a good friend of ours. And he was like, Hey, you guys are blown up, man. You know, we, we, we got, we got to make sure that cause he goes, things are going to go wrong and I want to protect you. And I'm like, dude, you're, you're so right. Like things are going to go wrong in your life.

Understand that. Yep. But that's what makes life worth living. It's interesting. So, so when you're like, as an actor, when you're out there looking at your character, don't, you don't need to make them right. You don't need to make them perfect. You need to go and find out what, what are their flaws and what have they grown through? Cause that's who they are. That's the core of a person.

And when you figure that out, you're going to figure your character out. And then, then you're going to tell an interesting story. Well, guess what? Your life is the same way. Yeah. Your life is not interesting. If you try to make everything perfect, if you try to win every event, what you need to do is you have to work through the grind. You have to seek the critique and only focus on the progress.

And if you're doing that, you actually can be very, very happy all the time, even when you get smacked in the face. Yep. Cause you're going to get smacked. A hundred percent of the time. Thank you for listening to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. For more information on classes, you can check out our website, www.dearingstudio.com. And appreciate Mr. Jack Francis today jumping on there. He, uh, he, he messaged us.

A big shout out to Jack. You can follow him at Jack Francis. Have a Dearing day, everyone.