Whether you’re a manager, a parent, a salesman, a job seeker and more, so much of what we do depends on our ability to project the right emotion and feeling. Writer, director, producer, actor and acting coach Craig Archibald sits down with Rob and talks his new book, “The Actor’s Mindset: Acting as a Craft, Discipline, and Business,” and share some of the strategies for success used when training actors.
Originally Published: June 27, 2023
Episode Notes
In this Pocket Sized Pep Talk, you’ll learn:
- What inspired Craig to write his book, “The Actor’s Mindset.”
- The connection between an actor’s journey and those in business.
- How has the acting industry has changed since the start of Craig’s career.
- The relevance of acting for managers, parents, job seeker, and more.
- The mistake so many people make confusing a business relationship with friendships.
- Why it’s so hard to recognize betrayal in a professional relationship.
- The defining traits of a Strong Actors Mindset versus a Weak Actors Mindset.
- Some of the more memorable moments that Craig’s experienced within his acting and coaching career.
- Key mentors in Craig’s life.
To learn more about this guest:
EMAIL: Archibald.craig@gmail.com
GUEST WEBSITE: thearchibaldstudio.com
Rob Jolles (00:00):
Whatever your industry, the strengths of your success hinges on the strengths of your relationships. The secret is knowing whether they’re serving you well or not. Let’s have ourselves a pocket size pep talk and meet our guest who’s going to help us make sure your business relationships are serving you well.
Intro (00:19):
A pocket size pep talk, the podcast that can help energize your business and your life with a quick inspiring message. Now, here’s your host, Rob Jolles.
Rob Jolles (00:32):
Today’s guest, Craig Archibald is a writer, director, producer, actor, and coach whose professional career began at 15, includes some award-winning film and television productions, the founder of the Archibald Studio, he’s worked with countless actors, and yet his powerful strategies for success cross into every field. He’s the author of The Actor’s Mindset. Acting is a Craft, discipline and Business, and I’m glad to have him on the show. Welcome, Craig.
Craig Archibald (01:01):
Hi, Rob. Nice to see you.
Rob Jolles (01:03):
Nice to see you as well. Let’s start with the book. Let’s Get Busy and I like talking to authors, so let’s start there. And I always feel like we don’t find a book. It finds us. What inspired you to write this book?
Craig Archibald (01:17):
Well, I’m an actor originally and grew up a young actor and made my way into the industry, studied hard in London and in New York City at the Neighborhood Playhouse under a very important teacher named Sanford Meisner. I’m a member of the Actor Studio as well, and so I’ve been a professional actor my whole life. Basically, I turned pro at 15, so I put myself through college. So I was an actor all along, and when I finally got a little older and started to coach actors for auditions and my coaching seemed to help them and they seemed to book a little bit better and book a little more, my name got out there as a person that could help people get more work. And I became more and more known as a coach. Then I started to look at life as what would it be to be a full-time coach?
(02:02)
And it actually was very attractive in terms of being different from being an artist who’s always auditioning and always taking meetings with producers or trying to make the get that next gig going. So to be my own boss was a real attractive item. And once I did turn into a full-time coach, then I started to realize that there was a lot of nonsense out there in the industry around acting, and a lot of actors were being taken advantage of by maybe art or scam artists I’d call them, or people that were taking a advantage of young, innocent people that didn’t quite know how the industry ran. And so there’s a lot of classes and a lot of ways to make money for people off of young people who are naive. And there’s a lot of what I call the Purple Haze of Hollywood where actors don’t really know the right, wrong move to make.
(02:54)
And my group of young actors that I came up with, we all had to learn the hard way. And when I started coaching, seriously, I looked at my young actors and saw that a lot of them were asking the same questions that we had asked and nobody answered. So the books impetus really comes from the fact that I wanted to answer those questions honestly and early so that these young actors don’t have to go through the process of learning these long lessons the hard way and that they can find them through my reading my book. And by asking the questions and seeing that there’s simple answers to things, there’s a lot of people that don’t know how the industry works that are in the industry. There’s a lot of mystery because it’s a lot of hit and miss and there’s no guarantees in show business. And so understanding that and being able to embrace that and be confident within that and being able to adapt to situations that are coming your way by having a confidence underneath you from the information that just makes all the difference in the world. And since I started to give those secrets away, I realized that the book hadn’t been written that gave that those basic things away. So I wrote it, it took a few years, but on and off I put the pieces together and came up with the actors mindset.
Rob Jolles (04:06):
Well, that cues up a bunch of questions. First of all workshops, do you do workshops or is it all private?
Craig Archibald (04:12):
Oh, no, we do workshops. Yeah, we do group classes. I do seminars in New York City as well. I’ve done them minute, Atlanta Calgary, wherever people want me to come to. I’ll be happy to travel and work with actors and workshops. But I do private sessions here at the studio in Los Angeles and also group classes as well.
Rob Jolles (04:30):
Got it. And your story of people being taken advantage of sort of rings true to me as an author the fellow author there’s a lot of different scams and games being played out there for because people want to act and people want to write books and it, it’s just nice when those that have been there and done that kind of step in, because I don’t know about you, but I remember as a kid, I think I was five or six, I watched The Wizard of Oz, and I remember the watching Dorothy navigate this impossible situation. And at the end, good old Glenda comes bubbling on down to inform her that, oh, you could have gone home anytime <laugh>. You just didn’t and you just didn’t know yet. And I thought even as a five year old, well, that really stinks.
Craig Archibald (05:20):
Yeah,
Rob Jolles (05:21):
He was almost killed out there. They burned her friend, they pulled this one apart. Yeah, she could have gone home. What? This is nonsense. And the reason why I hold onto is I’m thinking, yeah, I get the part that our parents taught us about. I could have told you, but you wouldn’t have believed me, you know, had to learn the hard way. I’m with you. I’m thinking, yeah, there’s some lessons in life that I suppose have to be learned the hard way, but boy, it’s lazy when we just throw ’em all into a bucket and go, everything has to be learned the hard way. No, I want to learn from guys you who’ve been there who can spare me that trip <laugh> with flying monkeys coming at me.
Craig Archibald (05:58):
Exactly. Or 20 trips with flying, more daggers coming at you than just monkeys. There’s a lot that we go through. And so there’s an element of this that it feels great to be giving back, and I never even thought I was going to be that guy. I always thought I would just be the artist that was writing and creating and acting and doing those things. But once you start to give back and help people and you see the difference that it makes in their lives, then it just becomes just a beautiful place to work from.
Rob Jolles (06:28):
And I think from looking at your book, you’re sort of crossing into, Hey, I’ll talk to actors, but I’ll talk to people who have to be in front of customers as well. I’ll talk to the business community. So let’s kind of roll over there for a second. And I love something, a note I saw on you about college courses. So you got a big fan there. I’ll let you go first, but which college courses this again, that teaches us how to communicate and how to negotiate and how to actually handle ourselves some business. Which one is that again?
Craig Archibald (07:04):
Which one is that?
Rob Jolles (07:07):
Yeah, it gets lumped into the, well, I don’t know, but it’s somewhere in the soft skills area, which again folks, you can’t see me, but my eye is twitching <laugh> because I am on a crusade to rid the world of the word soft skills. I prefer to call it performance skills because we undervalue them. Talk to that a little bit, if you would, Craig.
Craig Archibald (07:30):
Wow, that’s a great question. I feel that the whole idea, well, college courses in the first place to address that, first of all, when we were young, there was absolutely no discussion about the business side of things, right? And so we came out and we were completely naive as to it being a business, which is why I called the book The Craft Discipline in Business of Being an Actor, the basics of it. Because I want to encourage my clients to be entrepreneurs, to lean into the idea that they run their own business inside a very big business called the entertainment or show business world. And so that’s in that mindset, that little mindset trick of saying, I own a company and I’m going to run this company the way I want to run the company, not the way I’m treated at the restaurant I work in.
(08:23)
I’m going to run it the way I want to be a professional. I want to be in integrity with myself and integrity with the other people that I work with. That mindset, nobody gave that to us from school. That was never even discussed. There was the art form that was discussed, there was a lot of energy behind the art form, but it wasn’t given to us in that important relevant, usable practical guide for making forward steps. If I knew then what I know now, I probably would’ve had a much different career because I would’ve been prepared for the side of the industry that I wasn’t prepared for. So entrepreneurialship is a really great starting point for young artists, and I really promote that a lot. And I wish the schools would do more of that. I know that I, I’m hearing more and more that the university programs and the conservatories are beginning to do that. So I’m glad to hear that because it’s very important mindset, empty mindset part from my experience, and something that I try to fill up and give them the guidance to
Rob Jolles (09:25):
See. I think what an actor does or tries to do, if in my own crude form, this is your topic, but I think it’s about authenticity and being believed. And when I watch a movie to this day, if I don’t believe a character, I’m not enjoying the movie. If I keep getting pulled out of the movie thinking somebody’s doing a line I’m not enjoying the movie. So I look at, that’s why I think acting and where you’re at, by the way, is a really interesting space for actors. Go get ’em. But so many people in sales, in management are having trouble being believed in customer service for goodness sakes. There’s the words and there’s the tune. Well, it comes naturally to some people, but not to everyone. So to be able to, whether we call it an acting class or an authenticity class, but something that really dissects how we say what we say. That to me, and I didn’t mean to put you on the spot, but that to me is, I think I’m giving you a nudge, but I think that’s where you’re heading, and it’s so sorely needed in the business community.
Craig Archibald (10:37):
Well, and I agree, and I think that there is a crossover point that my book can bring to people that are in the industry, in corporate America or in sales or wherever they are. There is a very interesting link to integrity and authenticity. And if people can be in the moment and be themselves and trust themselves, trust that their vulnerability is actually an asset, most of us are afraid of being vulnerable. We’re afraid of showing that, oh, I might not know the answer to that thing. Or, oh, I might not have the exact response. That’s going to be the right thing to say, well, that’s actually a golden zone of beauty because it’s human, right? And people respond to human behavior. That’s why you like a performance from an artist that is an actor that is working from their own vulnerability and being truthful under the imaginary circumstances, under the character that they’re playing, but they bring their own human vulnerabilities up that makes Hamlet become a vulnerable character, or ar Romeo or a Juliet.
(11:45)
They become vulnerable from the actor inside. And when they do, audience connect to that and they see that. So the same thing is true in sales. The best salespeople are the ones that can look a person in the eye and a admit their vulnerability and guide them through their knowledge that they have about the product or the information that they need to have for their corporate meeting, but also have the open vulnerability to say, Hey, I’m a human being. I make mistakes. I am open to learning something new. If you’ve got something that you can share with me that I can learn, even though I’m the professional, I’m happily going to learn from you, but I am the professional and I can guide you through this. I know you’re vulnerable. You’re a human being. There’s this thing about being tough and strong and having the answer and being the right guy and being the best seller.
(12:36)
And I think the best artists, the best musicians, the best athletes have, you know, look at someone like my hero, Rafa Nadal, right? Rafa is so aware of his vulnerability, and he has such a great mindset about it. He allows himself to make mistakes, and he doesn’t chastise himself about his mistakes. He says, well, here comes another point. I’ve got another chance to be my best. And if he’s not his best, he lets it go and focuses on the next one. And guess what? The guy has 21 majors under his belt best of all time, and he’s a real hero in that vein because he has the resilience of a champion in the champion mindset because he allows himself to be vulnerable. And that’s a large part of my book too, Rob, the idea of the mindset of being a victim or a champion. It’s so easy in our world to allow ourselves to be a victim.
(13:35)
It’s easy, and you get lots of love from mom and dad and your friends when you’re a victim, it’s very easy. Life becomes, oh, poor me. Yeah, isn’t it hard? It’s so hard. Yeah, everything’s so hard. And the champion mindset is so much more exciting and interesting and sexy and fun to be around. And that is really just the ability to take a negative and turn it into a positive. Wow. So when someone is in an entrepreneurial P position where there is a negative, if they have the ability, whether it’s in a sales moment or in a corporate moment in a meeting, if they can take a negative that’s going on and turn it into a positive and have the frame of mind, the mindset to be able to think clearly and calmly and don’t respond from your ego and just sit back and be strong in your integrity to yourself and to your job, and to the people that you want to help, that’s the center of it all right? And that’s the crossover point between artists and entrepreneurialship.
Rob Jolles (14:37):
Wow. That’s really good, Craig, I appreciate, that’s really interesting. I wrote a piece one time called The Pursuit of Imperfection and Perfect. I was talking about how we try and strive for perfection, and yet no one can really identify with it, and it tends to annoy those around us anyway. So for professional speakers, for instance, I try and remind them that not only will things happen that you don’t expect, but when you embrace them and you roll with it and you show the audience, oh, I’m human. I drop things too they can identify with that. And it’s an instinct versus logic. What we’re talking about now is very logical. It’s just not instinctive. Instinctive is, I can’t make any mistakes. I have to do this just right. I got to be perfect. Well, I don’t forget a business person. Now, I’m not so sure how an actor goes on stage with that mindset.
(15:33)
So it’s interesting where the place that you’re at, and I’ll tell you that I remember a story from Xerox, and I’ll very quickly, I remember I was learning this program and they were getting the curriculum to us late, and it was a two week class. I had to teach, and I was getting the curriculum a day before each day, and it just was sloppy, but I hustled and I was attentive and I was human. I taught that course for three years. I never told the class that was my first one. Death to any trainer, you don’t do that. But they gave me a blanc pen. They loved me. The smarter I got and the more tight I became around the curriculum, the less human I was to that audience. And I actually had to learn how to, I don’t want to say dummy it up a little bit, but I didn’t have to have every answer, even though I knew many of the answers. To be able to connect with that audience, connect with those people, I learned it the hard way.
Craig Archibald (16:34):
It’s being humble, it’s being human. It’s being, I say in my book that imperfect is perfect and perfect is imperfect. That feeling of, oh, I have to, for young actors, they have to go into the audition and I have to hit this beat and that beat, and then this beat, and I have to go through this scene and do it exactly the way the writer wrote it, and exactly the way the director wants it, and exactly the way the casting directors expect it. And so these young actors are putting themselves through this gauntlet that is making them inhuman, and they’re trying to be perfect. They’re trying to hit these perfect beats. And in fact, if you let that go and do your homework and do the deep dive that we have to do to make our work come up from our center, and then just allow yourself to just float through this.
(17:24)
I call it skiing through the scene. And when you ski, it’s imperfect. There’s going to be bumps. There’s going to be moguls. You don’t see, there’s going to be ice patches, and you’re going to slip a little bit here and slide a little bit there, but you’re going to make it down the mountain. And that’s an exci. That’s part of the excitement is living on that edge of, oh my gosh, something could go wrong. What will I do if it goes wrong? And you live through that. You get through that. You’re using the imperfection to be a perfect run. And we see it all the time at the Olympics, right? That you see it in almost every Olympic event, that gold medal number that they do, that gold medal run that they do. There’s always an element of living on the edge of imperfection. But because they live through that edge of imperfection, they hit it and they get the gold medal and are considered perfect.
(18:12)
It’s right there in sports all the time in front of us. We see it every day on every football, baseball, soccer game, anything you watch, there’s always that moment where something beautiful happens because the athlete or the performer, live musicians, whatever it is, they live on that edge and live through it and embrace it as part of the performance element. And when you do that, you’re not afraid of it. You can adapt in the moment, in the moment to what’s going on. And in the moment, part is important because if you’re in your head trying to make it perfect, you’re not alive in the moment. And the same thing in a sales pitch, Rob, if you are trying to do the sales pitch, the way your boss who’s standing behind you, listening to you is asking you to do the sales pitch, you’re worried about doing it right? And you’re not making a human connection in the eyes of the people that you’re trying to sail to. So there is a real crossover here, and it’s about that moment of being in the moment,
Rob Jolles (19:09):
Right? Well, we are, we’re really singing out of the same hem book. Don’t know if you know this, but I have a book out called Why People Don’t Believe You. And it was going to be called, it’s not the Words, it’s the Tune, but job Seekers, I want you to listen up, and I want you to play back what you just heard there, because it’s for salespeople. But I have a lot of people, a lot of job seekers listen to this show, and I’m always proud of the fact that they’re learning their elevator pitches and they’re learning all their words. They don’t really know the tune. And I’d be curious of your reaction to this, because my secret sauce has always been to think an actor to get into character rather than before we push that door open or before we hit that zoom link and try and cram all the words into our head, why don’t we just get into the moment?
(20:01)
Why don’t we as a method actor would rather than take ourselves too? Well, I’ve had eight straight nos, so I know how this one’s going to go. I don’t care if it was two years ago. Remember when you were on fire? Remember when everybody was saying yes, and then you picked up the phone? How did you sound that day? What did that feel like? And how hard was it to find the words? Yeah, you felt a little more articulate. You weren’t bundled all. Oh, I really think getting people to just be in the moment, as you say, and to me as an actor, figure out exactly who you are walking in there. Think that, eat your lunch like that, dress like that.
Craig Archibald (20:38):
Exactly.
Rob Jolles (20:39):
Walk in that way. Be that character. And you won’t have to worry about sitting there and trying to come up with the words or look authentic. You be, I really find that to be valuable.
Craig Archibald (20:51):
Well, you really just gave an acting lesson. I mean, that’s exactly what I tell my actors. You do the homework, you do the deep homework, and the same for your entrepreneurs, the same thing. This goes back and forth. If you do your deep homework, you ask yourself the questions, why you’re doing this? You know what you’re doing the intention behind it, and you’ve answered that question clearly, not just a vague idea, but a very clear set of words or script that you may have that works well for you. There might be certain slogans that come to mind that are easy for you, but there also can be the deep Y inside. You get inside the character. It’s the deep reason behind it. You answer all those questions. And in my book, I have 20 questions that are for actors to answer about the character that they’re playing. You answer those questions, you do that homework. But here’s the point. When that camera rolls, you forget everything. And I use an inappropriate word that I’m not going to use here, but you’ve got to tell yourself to get out, right? You’ve got to tell yourself to get lost. I put a little more raw, raw than that in my book. I
Rob Jolles (22:01):
Think I got the word, but keep going.
Craig Archibald (22:02):
But you tell yourself to get lost, right? And because if you are in the way, you are not going to be as good as you are. If you’re not in the way, if you’re free and you’re in the moment, all of that information that’s inside you is going to come out. It’s going to be available, it’s going to show up. And people get very afraid. They say, well, what happens if it doesn’t show up? And I say, well, if it doesn’t show up, something else will. If you’re in the middle of a scene and you’re supposed to have some emotional appointment, which is the death of acting, if you’re trying to cry, that’s where we usually don’t like actors because they’re trying to cry in a scene, and we can tell that they’re trying to be emotional, and therefore we don’t believe them. And then now we’re sitting on our couch again.
(22:45)
Whereas someone that’s really in it, they bring us into the movie, they bring us into the TV series, and we believe them. But if you’re in the middle of a moment and what you prepare doesn’t show up, something else will. And that is called humanity. That’s called vulnerability. And if you can then use that moment, as we’ve said earlier, you’re going to fly, you’re going to just be fine, because the people that you’re talking to are people that are also vulnerable. They’re human beings, and they understand that. And so there’s a mutual meeting of, oh, you’re just like me. That makes me feel like I can trust you more. Oh, you’re just like me. I’m, I’m more encouraged to buy this product from you because you’re just like me. Oh, I’m more encouraged to believe you are the character in this movie, because I can sense a vulnerability that’s in there. And then if the person that’s doing the pitch or doing the acting know how to take that energy, that flaw and turn it into something positive, then you’re just making everything make you better.
Rob Jolles (23:45):
Brilliant. Listen, I, I accidentally snuck in my book title, so shame on me. That gets you an extra plug. Tell me about the name of that book of yours again. And I’m assuming it’s on Amazon, right?
Craig Archibald (23:56):
You bet. It’s on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Anywhere you can get good books. Good. It’s called The Actor Actor’s Mindset.
Rob Jolles (24:02):
Excellent. And now, just as a penance, I’m telling everybody who’s listening, yeah, you’re going to get the book, but you’re because of Jo’s Little Fapa now going to not only get the book, but you’re going to give that book a rating. And because Craig’s not going to tell you this, but I’m going to tell you this, it means a lot to authors when you not only look at their book, but there is an algorithm, and this is a business, and it’s one of the kindest things you can do for another author. So please take a look at that book and take an extra minute or two. You don’t have to. I’m looking at Craig. He doesn’t look like he walks on water, so you don’t have to really load up. Just speak from your heart. Give that book a nice rating. Feel good about it. All right, and I’ll back to the show. All right, so when you,
Craig Archibald (24:49):
Thanks, Rob, I appreciate that.
Rob Jolles (24:50):
Yeah. Well, it’s funny, when I have a book launch and I, I’ve launched a bunch of them I’m not so subtle anymore. I used to be very polite and if, well, if you feel like it, if you don’t, I, last book launch, I was actually on a stage, I dropped to my hands and knees and I said, so that no one’s confused. This is how badly I want you to write a reveal for this book. And everyone went, okay, guys, taking it seriously. So we don’t need to be subtle about that. That’s really important in the life of a book. I wish it weren’t, but in the life of a book, it’s really important. So I know people are going to love the book. Just go the extra mile and know you just made an author feel really good when you did it. Okay, now let’s talk more about into this acting thing. Yours? Yeah. All right. Sure. When you first meet an actor and I’m curious because I’m coaching too, I’m meeting salespeople, I’m meeting job seekers, so I know when I meet them, I’m sizing ’em up pretty quickly. When you first meet an actor, what are some of the things that will trigger you to go strong right there, or weak right over here? How can you tell the difference? And I’m assuming you can do it fairly quickly,
Craig Archibald (26:02):
Almost immediate,
(26:04)
And it’s in the mindset. It’s in the way that they speak. It’s in the way that they hold themselves. And I call it champion or victim. That’s the line that I go, because it’s really what I found to be true. And the people that walk in the room and a champion mindset doesn’t mean that you’re an egotistical idiot that’s saying, Hey, I’m the best actor in the world, and I’m the cock of the walk. No, that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about knowing inside that you are in integrity and you’ve done the work. You’ve done your program at college, you’re in the conservatory. You’ve worked hard in classes, you’ve done the work and who you are, even if you’re a beginner actor, I can see the champion mentality right away because they’re ready to go and they’re willing to be flawed and learn from those flaws.
(26:53)
And that’s something anybody that can turn a negative into a positive is already on the road to success. So it’s just that little simple mind turn where you say, all right, this bad thing happened, but what can I do to take this bad thing and make it a positive? What can I positively any possibility of making this positive? Even the worst things in the world, I’m talking disasters. We can look at them and say, where’s the positivity? How can I turn it into something that is a learning moment? Or I can change my own behavior so that I never treat somebody that way again, or this doesn’t happen again. How can I be better at this? And just that thought is enough to change your brain waves into possibility and change of moving forward in a positive way. Victims are looking for reasons to not be responsible for their lives and to blame the circumstances that hit them, and that the world is difficult and life is hard, and oh, that person was mean to me. So that’s the number one thing that I see victim and victim and champion.
Rob Jolles (28:02):
You mean Hollywood is sometimes unfair? I, I’ve never heard of that before. Gosh, again, I think we are of the same mind on this, and I’m written about it. I’m not naming anything, but it’s out there. <laugh>, call it the 90 10 rule, just to help people. It’s a little bit different, but when people are in job transition as an example, they’re typically wounded just like somebody who’s battling in Hollywood and not imagine this not getting every role that they’re up for, but some of them kind of get hardened and they become what I call professional victims. So when I sit down and I say, listen, tell your story, but we get it all out at the end. I’ll ask them call it, I call the 90 10 rule. I said, let’s make that person 90% guilty here, give me your 10%. And when you hear the words, there was nothing I could have done differently.
(28:57)
I was all, I’m not a bad actor myself. I will actually gather my things physically and stand up. And I used to work for a volunteer group where there were other counselors and say, stay here. I’m going to get you another counselor. I can’t help you. And that’s when the eyes open up and I go, you would like to not repeat this for the rest of your life, <laugh>, right? We have to find that percentage that’s on you. We got to learn from it. We got to never make that mistake again, and then we evolve. But right when they get stuck in that, it’s all on them. Hollywood’s unfair every year. It’s who I’m like, well, okay, we the, that’s the playbook, so let’s play that. Some people are getting roles,
Craig Archibald (29:44):
<laugh> let’s do it. I have two solid answers. People might say, okay, it’s great. You guys are talking about this. Rob Craig. Yeah, you’re talking about it and you understand it, but how do I do it? How do I really do it? The person that’s listening to this podcast really take this information and do it. And I’ve got a couple of things that I give away at this level. One is your habits, right? Habits and the compounding interest effect of a good habit. So I was introduced to years ago that you should have a morning practice and an evening practice. And I thought, morning practice, evening practice. What does that mean? But to wake up in the right way, to find ways that start your day in a positive manner, to get a good rest, first of all to not stay up too late, to not distract yourself with whatever social media that you’re looking at or anything that distracts you to, first of all, get that good rest, and then to start your day in the right way.
(30:40)
Get that morning practice going, whether it’s breathing exercises, meditation, doing a workout, eating a wonderful breakfast, and getting yourself into the right frame of mind that starts your day off right away in a whole new way. And the same is true in an evening practice. How do you wind down your day? How do you let go of the day? How do you forgive your mistakes? How do you learn from them before you go to sleep? How do you look at your to-do list before you go to bed so that overnight your brain aligns what’s important to get done first the next morning and do those practices, that habit that you can get into. Those daily habits are really fundamentally important through your entire life. The more you do them, the more they come up and support you. The second thing I give people is a little formula that came to me over the years, a formula for success that gives them the step-by-step progress of what you can do.
(31:34)
So I start with discipline, and that discipline includes the habits that I just talked about, but staying in discipline with yourself, making sure that you set up for yourself what you want to do, and then discipline yourself to do that every day and give yourself the rest that you need on the weekends or the party that you need to have Saturday night. Go ahead, have fun and do that and take your time. But the rest of the week, if you’re really leaning into wanting to be successful, make a discipline for yourself. Set it out for yourself. And at first, you might not be able to do a hundred pushups. You might just be able to do five. We’ll start with five and then do six, and then do seven. And in a couple months, you’ll be at a hundred at that kind of discipline. When you take that discipline and you give it time, what you learn about yourself is that you’ve got integrity.
(32:21)
And when you take that integrity and you give yourself the perseverance to push through, that integrity gives you a solid standing so that you can push through with perseverance. What comes from that is quality. Once you have the quality underneath you, then all you need the opportunity. And once the opportunities come, you’re the guy that ha can have success. So if you’re looking for a job right now, think about it in those two tools that I’ve just said, because those things are the things that I can give my young actors that can actually make their careers happen.
Rob Jolles (32:56):
And I just want to remind you that you keep saying you’re young actors, but I keep hearing job seekers. It doesn’t have to be salespeople. That’s where I do a lot of my writing. People that need to present themselves in front of other people and be believed. Absolutely. You’re listening to somebody that teaches actors how to act. I’ll tell you, as a former Xerox guy, what’s interesting about what you just did, and I’m grateful, is you put a process on the table just now, and you are absolutely right when you transitioned to it and said, okay, well, Rob and Craig have done a nice job of telling you how important this is. <laugh> put some process behaviors that are repeatable and predictable and measurable on the table. The beauty of when you can measure something, you can fix it.
Craig Archibald (33:46):
Key performance Indicators.
Rob Jolles (33:47):
Bingo. And look how many times I want to hit the ball, 300 yards you off the tee. I’m not much of a golfer, but that’s, people keep saying, you got to hit it further. Love to <laugh>. We even, we’re love a process that I can rehearse and I might lose a little distance at first, but then I’m going to gain distance. If it’s a hobby, maybe I’ll just hit it back my own way. But if it’s my career, I don’t mind losing a little distance. In other words, being a little bit more consciously competent, thinking about what I’m doing until I move it to the unconscious competency that’s repeat and rehearse, right? That’s how we get there. Beautifully. All right. I got to come down to the home stretch, but I’m curious A couple of let’s, let’s do some celebrity hawking some of a couple of moments with some celebrities that you may have coached. And if you don’t n list their names, that’s okay too, but I’m just curious, the man who coaches the stars, what do you got for me?
Craig Archibald (34:43):
Oh, gosh. Well, what comes to mind is the story of two different celebrities. Okay? Okay. Two different celebrities that I coached on a Monday, and they both went in for their auditions on a Tuesday and both at about the same level of celebrity. And they were going in, they were called in at a higher level, and they were going in and to producers and network people. So it, both of them coached with me the day before. Both of them, talented actors, both of them, really smart, beautiful guys, while they both went into their auditions the next day, and they were both confronted with difficulties, and one acted one way, and one acted the other way. So one actor walked in and the casting director had a dog in the room, had her dog there under the table, and the dog started to whine. And as soon as my actor saw this dog, he immediately took it a negative, what the heck is a dog doing in here?
(35:39)
It’s going to bark, it’s going to whine, it’s going to scratch, it’s going to moan because a dog doesn’t know what’s going on in an audition, right? Right. A dog, a dog’s just a dog. So immediately he went into negative mind, into victim mindset and was anticipating a problem from the dog in a negative way as opposed to a positive way instead of using the positive. So of course, he gets into the audition and the negative happens, the dog starts to whine bark. And my actor, instead of using that to make him better, took a fit, got angry, was insulted that they even had the dog there in the first place. How dare you bring a dog in? I’m doing my work. I’ve brought my good work and stormed out, stormed out, left the lot, and got in his car and stormed away and yelled at his manager and yelled at his agent and yelled at everybody and lost that audition and probably has never been in invited back to that room because that casting director would have that negative association with him, my other actor.
(36:35)
But goes into the audition and he’s in the middle of his audition, and one of the producers very rudely pulls out his phone and starts texting. And so of course, my actor goes, oh, are you kidding me? In the middle of my work, you’re going to start texting somebody else. You’re not going to give me the honor of at least watching me and seeing what I’m up to. So instead of taking it as a negative, he felt the rage inside and the insult. And so instead of getting up and storming out, he just turned it around and put it right into the scene. And it was not a scene about rage, it was not a scene about anger, but because he was feeling it, he just said, I’m going to use this. And all of a sudden this anger came out and he said, this line that was supposed to be this sort of moderately funny line, really angry, and it got the biggest laugh from the room because nobody had done it that way. And so he got this big laugh, and all of a sudden the negative turned positive. And so that actor went on and booked the role. So two very good actors, two very similar stories, two very different outcomes,
Rob Jolles (37:44):
Two different mindsets as you write about, in a sense. Exactly. I actually thought you were going with it. The other guy, when he saw the dog, brought the dog into the scene with him,
Craig Archibald (37:55):
Well, that would’ve been fun, right? Yeah. That would’ve been the great idea that would’ve been use the dog and use the dog’s whining or scratching, and because it’s behavior that you can bounce off of, but it didn’t work that way. It was the other way around.
Rob Jolles (38:11):
Wow. Last question for you, a mentor or two that that’s been important to you in your life.
Craig Archibald (38:19):
Oh, boy. I have to say, because we’re talking about business, there’s a wonderful woman that is a business coach in San Diego named Mary Kay Durant, and there’s another guy that is a great business coach in Texas named Les McGee. I have worked with those two mentors, and I’m just, as an artist I was always, I didn’t care about, I didn’t think about taxes. I didn’t think about business. I was just reading plays and watching movies and being emotional. And so when I started my studio, I realized I’m not a businessman. I don’t know the first thing about business. I wasn’t an entrepreneur. So I found Mary Kay first, and she opened up this wide world of business to me, and was just wonderful and mentored me beautifully. I moved on with Les, and Les has taken me just the extra miles that I’m now having fun with Les and moving with him. And both of them together. They’re mentoring quality, their kindness, their understanding of things. And there was never a suggestion of, you’re an idiot. And I think both of them at times could have easily thought out loud, you’re an idiot, because I just was a naive, very naive to how business worked. And I would ask every question in the world, which often got them smiling, but both of them took me seriously and kindly and I, I’m very grateful to both of them.
Rob Jolles (39:42):
Right. Well, just so you know, no one’s going to call you an idiot to your face. Yeah, okay. So you didn’t really have to worry about that quite as much in any case. All right. So how do people get ahold of you? How do people connect with you?
Craig Archibald (39:57):
The best way is through my website, which is the archibald studio.com.
Rob Jolles (40:02):
Good. Okay. And so we’ve got the book, I forgot the name of the title of the booking one more time.
Craig Archibald (40:06):
The Actor’s Mindset.
Rob Jolles (40:08):
There it is. Okay. The Actor’s Mindset. We got Archibald Studio. I’ll have it up on the site here. Just a terrific conversation. Really enjoyed it and was curious as to where we were going to go and just learned a lot. One of the nicest things, I’ve been a guest on a lot of podcasts when I created the podcast, I thought, well, we’ll give it a try. One of the most wonderful things about running a podcast and meeting people like you, Craig, who really you just have a lot to offer. There’s a lot of process maneuver to inspire and motivate is lovely, but it wears off. So let’s inspire, motivate, and teach at the same time, and I can already tell that’s what you do. So thank you so much for being on the show. I’m really grateful.
Craig Archibald (40:57):
Right on. Rob. Thank you so much. The pleasure’s been mine. Thank you so much.
Rob Jolles (41:01):
Well, we’ll do it again as well as we can next time. Until then, stay safe.
Outro (41:10):
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoy today’s show, please rate and recommend it on iTunes, outcasts, wherever you get your podcast. You can also get more information on this show and rob@jolles.com.