Latest / Lydia Nicole's Acting Smarter Now Podcast / Why Every Actor Needs a Website: Build Your Brand & Get More Auditions

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Why Every Actor Needs a Website: Build Your Brand & Get More Auditions · Lydia Nicole's Acting Smarter Now Podcast

• 1:17
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• 1:23
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• 1:25
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• 1:28
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• 1:36
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• 1:43
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• 1:44
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• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Perfectionism will halt you more than anything else.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying don't follow up, but don't chase.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Following up is very different.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, listen, that's the first law of business.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you can make it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Acting Smarter Now.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Lydia Nicole, actor, producer, and your acting career coach here to help you transform your career from undiscovered to unstoppable.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to grab something good to drink, get your notebook, and pull up a chair because today we are talking business.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about why you need a website with the one and only Mr.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oye Tola Oyewomi himself, website master and digital agency owner.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he's laying down the case for why we should own our very own website.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know why, but do you?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's go to the interview and find out.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: What is a website and why do actors need it?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: The simplest way to understand websites are they are your digital online presence, right?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the thing is, most people don't realize that you can have two types of websites.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: One is a brochure websites, which is what essentially most websites were before the client attraction website or higher performance websites, which is what most people actually need.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: The difference is a brochure is essentially just that.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's just to prove that you are real or legitimate or you do actually exist online, whereas a client attraction website is the one that you've actually crafted to attract the type of client that you want to you and your business.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: So when you are actually building a website, that is one thing to take into account.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the second thing, back to your question, why do we need a website so that the whole world can know about you and your services and your business and your products and what you have to offer?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, as an actor, I would need a client attraction website as opposed to a brochure because of what reason?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna get slightly technical, but I'm gonna keep it simple.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: When we are looking at the actors, what we're looking now is a brand amplification website because what the client is, so say it was an actor that came to me and said, Hey, I need to have a website for so so purposes because I need to get more bookings.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to get make it in the industry and all these sorts of things.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say, okay, we need to craft a website that's gonna attract those certain types of clients, but it also amplifies your brand and your online reputation.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: What that then does is it positions them as the go-to in whatever genre they want to be in.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: So say it was horror, say it was comedy, say it was action, everything would be crafted around that specific genre they wanted to get into, or say they wanted to leave it open so they're universal and they didn't want to be pigeonholed into one particular type of character.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: We would craft it in that way instead.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: But the whole point is still it amplifies their brand, but it attracts the clients who are looking for them.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: For instance, let's just say they wanted to get acting gigs for a particular type of thing, they would have that portrayed on their site, and on the back end, the search engine optimization would help to make sure that they came up for those certain types of keywords.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, say, for instance, a runner on the film or in set was looking for those, or whoever does the booking types in um, say action actors, and then their website came up as well as whatever IMDB shows, they now have a comparable positioning to be first in line for who they see first.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because when they search Google, yes, IMDB actors came up, but your website also came up for that action actor keyword.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that is how you kind of make sure that you position yourself and you also get ahead of your competition.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I get a lot of pushback from actors sometimes who tell me they are on social media and they don't need a website.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Give us the argument of why they do need a website and not just social media pages.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to actors, I can say just from experience because I have been in that world.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: It goes back to your personal brand.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Personal brand is what's gonna set you apart from anyone else because whether your thing is you're an athletic or for the romance or rom com genres, you need to position you like that.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you can have that portrayed on your Instagram, but those are short bites or short visuals, usually 30 to 60 seconds long.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: If someone wanted to watch your actual showreel, they would need it to either be on your IMDB profile, which is a website, or you had your own website.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the benefit on your own website, you can curate it how you want it to be seen.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, say your name was XYZ, and you put in your Instagram profile, action, comedy, leading man in XYZ type of films, cool.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then you had your link to your website, they would look at your Instagram that would give them a sort of trailer of who you are and what you're able to do.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Then they'd click on your link to say, okay, let's go deeper.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now they would go on that and you would have a curated version that you'd want them to see.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So whether it was your very best thing first, without them having to scroll through your Instagram to find the best things, you could have as many of the best things highlighted first, who you are, what you do, the type of things you've done, all of those things.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: You can create your own picture.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I say your personal brand, you can curate that through your own website because you own that and you own that real estate.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing I'd also say is this on your Instagram, they're having to scroll through to get that picture.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So if your best stuff is at the bottom, or you have more than six things, which are your best things, you can only pin three at a time.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas on your website, you can actually own what they see, and then on the back end, you can track who's come to your website and what pages they've been to, and you can actually run ads to those people who've been to your website.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you get that double benefit of okay, this booker from this agency came to my website.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: I am gonna make sure that they see me all day, every day, top of mind.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: I run ads because my website says they came in.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's tracked them.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm only running my best ads to those people, and you can run that for a dollar a day.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: You just made a point.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: IMDB, you have no control over it.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: You put up your picture, you can put up your reel, you don't have any control what reel they're gonna keep up on the page.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: There might be stuff that you did if you are a veteran actor, and let's say you did some pieces 20 years ago, that production company has that clip up on their site.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot get rid of it on your page.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: How do I know this?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because it has happened.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is very difficult to add and subtract stuff on IMDb Pro.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: As an actor, you must have an IMDB Pro page.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: You must have a subscription, but you do not own that space.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Also, you do not own anything on social media.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: If they go down, you've lost everything.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: The power of having your own website seems to me, not only can you curate, but you can also collect emails on that site.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can also update it as much as you want to, and really have it as the go-to place for the industry to get your picture, your resume, your current clips.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not going to hinder you in any way, you know, as an actor, even though you have the casting site that you have your stuff on.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you want, you know, every time you put stuff on a casting site as far as a picture or a clip, they charge you for it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: But once you have a website, you can manage that on your own.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Websites used to be really, really expensive, and they've gotten better that we have access to many different companies that do websites.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking of Squarespace, which will give you a site for about$20 to$30 a month.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's pretty easy to drop and drag and just take a template and just recreate it for your benefit.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just starting out, what kind of website should you have?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you're just starting out, and the the couple points that you raised there, which I do also want to go back to, particularly you owning your assets, like you said with Instagram.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: If your Instagram gets shut down, whatever you've built up there, you don't own.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: So any assets that you think you may own there, if your Instagram gets shut down or for some reason you lose control of it, whoever then takes control of it is now owning whatever you've built up over there.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas on your site, that's a lot harder for that to be achieved because, like I said, you own it, you've got a hosting company behind it, you've got all these things, and hopefully you have a good web designer who's built it.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: So everything is safe and secure.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now, going back to your question, what I would say when it comes to you having clips or anything that is just on the website, if you're just starting out, what should you have first?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give you like three different versions.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Say you're new to industry or you're new to Hollywood, you only have Dollar and a Dream.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: I would say, I would say to begin with, you just need to have an online presence, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that online presence, I would try and curate as many things as possible: a YouTube, a an Instagram, because those are free.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if you didn't have a budget to actually build something out, I would say get something like cards with C-A-R-R-D.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because last time I checked, I think it was like$12 for the year, and that will allow you to create a brochure website.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: So just to know that you have an online presence online, and yes, you can use the templates and build it out.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're literally just starting out with the doll in a dream, that's what I would recommend, right?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: If say you've done a few things and maybe you have a slightly bigger budget, and when I say bigger budget, let me still keep it realistic.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Say you're around a$500 mark, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I would say go for the do-it-yourself type of guys.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So the square, the Shopify, the Wix.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: I would probably say out of all of them, Shopify is probably the best one.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And Shopify isn't only for e-commerce, that's what a lot of people know it as.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's only for if you sell products, you can use it for services as well.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing is this when you use any of those DIY guys, you don't own anything, you're essentially renting.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: So once you stop paying rent, you lose the site, right?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's$30 a month,$50 a month, if you stop paying that, anything you've built up, you've lost.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you have something that you've built out yourself, you actually own that.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: So again, if your budget is around$500, I would probably say either go with a Shopify guys or get a decent person on Fiverr to actually build something out for you.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: It may not be the best, but you will own it, right?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing again is with the templates, which would be used on the DIY, guys, the only problem with that is you may look like everybody else.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because if everybody uses the actor template, then you and everybody else who's gone down that route will look the same.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you can have a high performance website, say you've got a budget of say five grand to ten grand, that's where you actually get the major benefits.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: If it's a case of you want to be able to collect leads, so lead generation of the people who are coming to your website.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So in exchange for something, you say, Hey, get access to my highlight rail, and then the enter name, email, phone number to get access to that.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, really, what you would want to discuss with whoever's building your site is what I can create as a good gateway in between me being able to collect the information of the people who've come to my site and them getting this thing because at the end of the day, the reverse is the case.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: You want them to book you, and basically you want them to reach out to you, so not necessarily gatekeeping information, i.e., you want them to say, hey, we want to book you onto XY and Z um show or XY and Z thing.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it might be a good thing to discuss with whoever's building your site for you.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: What can I put here as a lead magnet that I can give to them so that they give me their details?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Hector, are you tired of being tired of being tired of being tired?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Your pictures aren't working, you're not getting into auditions, your agents aren't calling you back, or worse off, you can't even get an agent.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if that sounds like you, if it sounds like you are at your wit's end, that you just feel like all is lost, you don't know what to do, come and join us at the Acting Smarter Circle, where we are a community of actors who help other actors.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I am your guide and your coach to help you with a plan, a strategy, and your branding.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are interested and you're tired of being tired and ready for change, come and join us at ActingSmarterCircle.com.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're waiting for you now.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about what a lead magnet is, because maybe there are actors that are watching that have no clue what a lead magnet is and how they would use it.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: A lead magnet is anything that you use to attract a lead.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's the simplest version.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: In our case, it'd be something like the five secrets to building a million-dollar website.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you use these five things, these five checklists, you'd be able to build a million-dollar website, right?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So as an actor, I could say here are five mistakes not to make on a self-tape audition.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but that would be if you're trying to get people to coach.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if as an actor, I'm trying to get fans, what would you think a lead magnet would look like?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you were doing it for fans, you need to think what does a fan want?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: So stuff like autographs, memorabilia, stuff which is kind of what would we say, fan-based.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: So sign merch, sign t-shirts, sign posters, those sort of things.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: That would be what you could keep as a lead magnet, right?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Or you could actually have those as products that you sell.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you wanted it solely as a lead magnet, specifically, it could be my daily conversations with my fans, or my daily words of encouragement to all my fans, which I film every day.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're a part of this community, so that's why I would build, I'd build a community of my fans, and every day I would post a video saying, Hey guys, today I'm about to go do this, this, and this, and this.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna see this on my Instagram because that's public.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is only for you guys, so that's what I would do.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'd build a community of those fans and have them give me the info, and they would get those videos daily.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: How can an actor market themselves through their website?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it kind of depends on what it is you are trying to do.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: What is the end goal that you are trying to market yourself to get?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Is it to get more roles or something else?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking two separate things.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: One could be to market to get, let's say, more comedy roles.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do comedy, or I want to get you to come see my show.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, that could be a really good leading magnet.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Free tickets to my show.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Just thinking about it now.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: That could be a good lead magnet.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: If I was in comedy and I had stand up at an event, how I would market myself would be I would create funny clips, funny jokes, right?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Meme skits, which depending on what I have available, whether I'm just doing it me on camera or me out in um an environment and doing different, say, characters that I've become.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I get a wig, maybe I get a cap, maybe I whatever.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: But that content would be what I would create first to show people that I am funny.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of it, I would then say, Hey, if you want to come to one of my shows, click link in bio, enter your details, and I will send you a ticket.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: First 50 tickets are free, so after that, there are no more tickets.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's one way I would market myself to get people to come to my show.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Another way could be you do that, but whichever video does the best, you take that, you run it as an ad so more people see it.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Say you're doing it in a particular city, you just do it to everyone in that city because it's a good um video that's already done well.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you got 5,000 views when normally all your videos get 100 or 200 views.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: I want 5,000.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'd run it as an ad and it will have the same call to action at the end.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Come to my show, 50 tickets available for the first 50 people.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody else, unfortunately, you won't be able to get it.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: But first 50, first come, first serve, sort of thing.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's one idea.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: There are many other ones, but that's a very simple one that anyone can run.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, where am I gonna run these ads on?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I would probably say because it's social, I would run it on Facebook and Instagram because it's a social type of business.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: So social ads would work better than running Google ads for this sort of thing, I would say.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: So go on your Facebook, you'd have to set up your Facebook backend or your meta suite, a meta business suite, set that up.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's not difficult.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: You just follow the prompts, set it up, and then have the image or the video that you want to use as the ad.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Set the city, set your budget daily budget to maybe five dollars or whatever, a dollar, anything from five dollars to ten dollars should be fine for this city specific focus.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Run that ad, have the link on it so that when they click buy or get tickets, it takes them to that page on your website, enter name, email, phone number, and then on the end they get a ticket number.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: You said Facebook and Instagram.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Would TikTok be included in this or no?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, you can run TikTok ads as well because TikTok is social.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Any social.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I could even do it maybe on LinkedIn.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you could do it on LinkedIn.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Depending on the audience I'm trying to get a hold of.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but the thing which I always say to people is this everyone who you think is on TikTok is also on Instagram.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone who you think is on LinkedIn is also on Instagram.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: So people are always on usually all platforms.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: What I usually say is don't try to spread yourself thing, especially if your budget is low.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got a big budget to spend, say you've got three grand a month to spend, cool, then by all means, let's test all three.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: But if I was to say to start off as a safe option, that's a good hybrid of everyone, I'd say go to Instagram and Facebook to begin with.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I would say.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Just so people understand, you are a website designer and you have a digital agency.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Cubs Group Media.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: How did that come about, especially when you were going to school to be a lawyer?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: You've done your research.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, the backstory is this.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was supposed to be a lawyer, both my parents were lawyers, so that's what I thought I was going to be because I had the conversation with my dad.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Look, I don't really know what I want to become.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And looking back on it, when you're age 16, 17, you don't really know that.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: What I did know was I wanted to make money.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: So my very first business I started at the age of 14.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just there's some chocolates that it didn't sell in the school talk shop.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I bought them and I saw them doing break and made a killing from that.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: I really thought that I didn't need to do anything after this.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a business.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: I heard that story.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I fell out only because in fourth grade we used to get like a little recess and they would give us milk and cookies.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I used to, I don't know if you have this in Manchester, but in the States they have Nestle's chocolate powder that you put to make chocolate milk.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: I would take a scoop and a half, put it in aluminum four, wrap it up, and I would take maybe about 10 of them, 15 of them to school, and I would sell it for a nickel apiece.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I could go get my candy.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I loved your story because it I said, wait a minute, I did the same thing.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we're entrepreneurs.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I understand you completely.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you were selling chocolate at school, and you you spoke to your dad about what maybe you wanted to do.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so secondary school was where I did that.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was that was my first business selling chocolates, penguin chocolates to be precise.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out to Penguin.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just because I didn't like them.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, I don't like these, but everybody else liked them.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, here's an opportunity.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's not sold in school.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: People like it.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Demand.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's go.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's the first anyone listen, that's the first law of business.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a demand for it?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: If there is, you're good.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: So when I was going to uni, that's when I had that conversation with my dad.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, look, I don't reino what I want to do.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: But this was A levels.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: The A levels was where I got into the tech space.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And this was probably the perfect business at the time.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Where I had a friend abroad in America, actually.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: He sold Timberlands, but he had he got them at a cheap price because he had like a concession.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, and just literally reached out to him via the internet.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like we were friends before.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: I said, hey, here's what I'm trying to do.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to sell these.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my first intro into drop shipping.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I would get the orders.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: I used eBay back then.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'd get the orders on eBay.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: He would ship them directly where he needed to go.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Back then, nobody needed it next day or within a week.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if it took like 10 days or 14 days, that was already expressed to people online and they saw it and then they got the orders and it was great.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my second business.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: But then I was like, okay, cool.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: This was a couple years later.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Said eBay is taking a lot of fees.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: How do I actually create my own eBay?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I thought.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then people can just buy directly from me.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I learned how to build a blog site back then.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was blog posts, I believe, with uh or blog spot with Google.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Built that up.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: That was very, very difficult.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Then got into Dreamweaver, but I picked up the skills on how to build a site.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Then I realized just because you have a site doesn't mean you're gonna get customers because nobody was able to see it.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I then had to learn search engine optimization, which meant to build a site, had the keywords necessarily to optimize it.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: So when people typed in on Google, my site came up for whatever keyword that was.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that was how I got into actually having those skills.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: When I then graduated from uni, when I was going to be what I thought I was gonna be, a lawyer, it was in the heart of the recession.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: So the whole legal landscape was changing, it was in turmoil.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um law firms were either getting merged with other law firms, others were getting acquired, and others were just going under.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you would apply for like jobs like 500 a week, and you just get a we're really sorry, we're really this.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was just like, There's gotta be a better way.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, let me go back to what I was doing before, see if I can make money doing that.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I got into it.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings me to adapting.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you seem to be really good at adapting, and and that is a skill set that I think actors all need to be able to do to uh pivot and adapt.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, especially now because of how the world is changing post-COVID.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's changing as far as you have so many sites, you you have so many streaming services, you got Google, you got YouTube, you have all these things.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the same as it used to be, where you had a few places to go and get work.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's the Wild Wild West.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And with the Wild Wild West, a lot of places are not paying.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: They want your services, but they're not paying you.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I think is important for actors is that they either create their own projects, create content that they then can sell so that they have their own empire and it and are not waiting for that small role that's not gonna pay them enough to buy a sandwich.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because one of the things that I've seen over the years, having been in in Hollywood for over 45 years, is that as an actor, you also have to be your own boss.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: You are your CEO, you've got to figure things out.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, as an entrepreneur, what are some of the things that you have found that you think is good for the entrepreneur, and some of the things that you think is bad for the entrepreneur?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things, and going back to your point about being able to adapt, you need to be able to adapt, you need to be able to have resilience because inasmuch as there has been some level of success, it was never, it wasn't overnight, it wasn't within the first year, it wasn't within the second, it wasn't in the third or fourth or fifth year with my business.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that was because I didn't have a particular guide or mentor.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: If there's one thing I would say to myself, if I could speak to myself back then, I'd say, find a mentor who's already done what it is you're trying to achieve and just follow what they're doing.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can do two ways.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: You can do mentorship from a distance where you just watch all their YouTube stuff for free and let that guide you because you will get to a point.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: It will take you so far to a point where you should be able to go back and say, okay, cool, I want to now work with you, or you'd be able to pay them.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are the things that I would say are good?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely say you need to have those characteristics because with us, when AI happened, we had to adapt to that.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: I took a whole two years out to go and adapt to AI and spent one whole year learning everything to do with AI.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: So the business was paused, i.e., there wasn't any new income coming in.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was what we already had, so there weren't any new customers because I had to make sure I'm leading from the front.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: I have to make sure that we are able to deal with this and we're able to provide this as a service.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then came back in 2026 and said, right, we've got this, let's go.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: So being able to adapt, have that resilience, being able to get a mentor, those are things I definitely say would help anyone, right?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: The problems that I would also say, which are bad, are stop thinking you need to do everything yourself.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Have the ability to delegate.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Just because it's not the way you do it, doesn't mean it has to be done the way you do it.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Perfectionism will halt you more than anything else because you feel, oh, no one else can do it as good as I do, no one else can da da da.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: I had the same mindset, and the first time I delegated a task, I realized that that was a real limiting belief.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: So limiting beliefs, thinking it has to be perfect, no, progress over perfection every day of the week will get you forward because you can always come back and perfect it later on.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: One other thing which I will also say that could hinder people is thinking a lack of resources will stop you from getting what it is you need to get.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, if you don't have the resources, you have to then be resourceful.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I say this from experience.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: We had to be resourceful because it was only me at the start when I started, and I had to figure it out, and I got resourceful to be able to get to the point where I was able to start getting some clients in.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it wasn't, hey, we've made it.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was stepping stone, stepping stone, stepping stone.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: But now that AI is here, everybody has a new advantage that they can use, and it doesn't have to take as long as it took for us.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a lot I want to talk about AI, but before I get to that, I heard you talking about failing, how failing is an opportunity, not necessarily a problem.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I know for myself as well as other actors that thing of going into an audition or you know, or having a job and and you don't do it right, or you go home defeated and you don't feel like, you know, you'll never work again.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's you know, that's the actor's thing.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never work again.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: I it was terrible, I bombed.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't talk about how failing are gifts.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: So can you talk about that?
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I loved what you had to say about it, and not many people will talk about the importance of failing.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Failure.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is more a human thing, and it's the way we've been taught to comprehend failure.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: When you're in entrepreneurship, it is part of the process because entrepreneurship, starting a business, any of those things are going to require you to actually fail.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Unless, like I said, you have a mentor who's done most of it already, and you can just follow them.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: But even still, then you're still gonna get things wrong, you're still gonna make mistakes, the text aren't gonna work the way you expect it to do.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: The client may go through, the invoice may not have been sent, the emails may not go through.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many things that can go wrong, but each one of them is a learning step for the next time you do it.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: You may get on a sales call thing, hey, this is all said and done, we just need to agree price, and then they're like, No, actually, we're not going to go forward with it.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then you were banking on that to go through, so you can then pay rents and pay your employees, but it doesn't happen.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can't stop at that and say, This doesn't work.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: You have to say, Okay, this was a lesson, what can I learn from it, and then go forward.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, unfortunately, if you look at failure as a downfall as opposed to leverage, it will stop you.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: But if you flip it and say, Okay, this thing has happened, but this is gonna make me better because it's either working for me or it's working on me.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's the mindset.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the first thing is to switch the mindset of how you understand failure and see it as a stepping stone and a lesson first.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Use that to then level yourself up because once you've sorted that issue out the first time, that's a skill you have forever.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: The first time you have a client who ghosted you and you were able to either bring them back or you're able to read the signs.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: You now know the next time when you see those signs, you don't waste your time with that person.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: You just say, Cool, this is gonna be a similar scenario.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: I go forward.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: So now you have that skill to identify.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's not for me.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let me adjust and go right or go left or go straight instead.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: So the skills you learn from failure are very important to get you to the next step you're trying to get to.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: The next thing I want to talk about that I've heard you speak on is you want to get somewhere.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Start with reverse engineering in mind.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: And how can someone who's not trained in that start doing that?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: So actually, you know what?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another thought just came to my head.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna answer that reverse engineering, but there's one other point I want to touch on on the failure, because I think this might be really good for your particular audience.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was fortunate to have a modeling career, right?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: And my first taste of that world was not by accident.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I got scouted with a friend who he was going for his modeling interview.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: I happened to be with him.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: The lady came out.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: We were gonna go by FIFA.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was literally we're gonna go by a video game and go back to Union Play.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we were on the same bus at the same time.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Hey, I'm going to this, come with me, and then we'll go by FIFA, and I'll go.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: And when we get back, we'll I'll kick your ass.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: I said, All right, cool, let's do this.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we went to that interview.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: The lady came out and she said, Is this your friend?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want to sign him too.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: That was it.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I never expected to be a model.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: However, that allowed me to try and go into other agencies, and with that, I did face rejection, a lot of rejection.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: But and I didn't let it get to me.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Okay, cool, these guys don't want me.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: All I need to do is get better, understand the poses, understand the environments, understand angles, and all these sort of things.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then I ended up after going through that process, being on TV, working with Nike, working with guys at Ronaldo, working with Javi and like so many things, so many things, Hollywood actors, a lot of things.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just because I didn't let the first rejection, second, third, or even the hundredth one stop me.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that failure, I went through the process and I stepped out of it to the point where I was successful in that world.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, coming back to the other question of reverse engineering.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Before you go there, because you just you just said something, not to let it stop you and not to let mistakes, not to let poor choices, or just learning.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes we see learning as a failure and it's not.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have to be able to discern, was this a failure or am I learning something?
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes learning feels so hard.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like you want to know it and you want to be brilliant at it, but it takes step by step by step, you know, doing it over and over again.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not a natural-born dancer, it takes a lot of time with the repetition before you get good at it.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same with acting.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: And to see it as I'm learning, I'm growing.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: And even failure is the learning and growing because you have mentioned when you are successful, when you have success, you don't know what you did to get there.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: But when you have failure, it gives you the opportunity to figure it out in a different way.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think that, especially for actors and creatives of all types, you know, we are so emotion based and we are so hard on ourselves that we don't understand, hey, this is normal.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're learning something.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's the process.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Denzel didn't become Denzel Washington overnight.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: It took him many years to become Denzel Washington.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't hear of the work that goes on behind the scenes in order to become Tom Cruise, you know, in order to become Idris Alba.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was looking at some of Idris Alba's earlier work and I was like, I didn't realize he was in that.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, he did that.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: He did some duds.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: He did some bad work.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not not to say anything bad about him, but everybody's got that portfolio that is the learning portfolio.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the award-winning portfolio.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're learning, we're growing, we're developing, we're evolving.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: I heard you talk about faking it till you make it.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's really about evolving.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as creatives, we are evolving, we're learning.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're interested in being a painter, you're learning about the technique, you're learning about color, you're learning about what canvases are best for what type of paint.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a process.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: And as an actor, you're learning.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do I do stand-up?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Am I do I like voiceover better?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do I uh am I a commercial actor?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: Am I a theatrical actor?
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do I just want to be on stage?
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: All of that is a learning process.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can't go, oh, I'm I'm doing this, I'm, you know, so therefore I'm this.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm going back to Denzel, when Denzel started, he was doing television, he was a regular on a television show.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: But every time they went on break, Denzel was doing theater.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Denzel's passion is theater.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Even though he does movies and he, you know, that's where he makes his money, where he thrives as an artist, is on the stage.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's all about the process, all about the process.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: So when it comes to reverse engineering, you have to.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: I always say this because this is how we've worked things out and how it's worked for me.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I can only speak from my personal experience and for the clients that it's worked for.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever we are trying to understand our offer, we need to understand it first from who we're trying to attract.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: So the person at the end.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: So say we have like one of our offers is like a 35k offer.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: We need to understand, okay, the person who has 35 grand to say, yes, this is a problem I need solving, and yes, I'm willing to pay for this straight away because this is an issue.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: You need to think, what does that person have?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Who is that person at the end, and then reverse-engineer that process of his problems or her problems within their business and what the services can do to actually alleviate those problems.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: I learned this from my mentor, Myron.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: You want the person who is speaking to you to feel like you've been thinking about their problems way longer than they have.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the way I internalize that is I want them to feel like I know the problems they're going through, I know the problems they've been through, I know the problems that they're going to face ahead.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: So when I provide that solution, I've thought about it 360 and a 720 back and 360 again to the fact that everything they could face, the stuff which they do know they'll face, I've already thought about that.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: The stuff which they don't know, they've already thought about that.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that reverse engineering is how we do it to get to that point where we know this person and this solution is what they need.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when they hear it, they would never they would have never heard someone else explain it to them in that way.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: So they will probably have no other choice but to say, yep, that is exactly what I need.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how we reverse engineer.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: We identify the person at the end we want to work with, and then we say what are all their problems that they're going to face, and we solve it all the way to the end, and then decide up until this point is a particular offer, up until this point is another particular offer, and all the way to the end is another offer.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how we reverse engineer what we're trying to do.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: Using an example with, say, an actor.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: If they were say starting off and they wanted to have some sort of income at the same time as whilst they were trying to make it in Hollywood again, doll in a dream.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: Everything they've learned up until that point would be for the person who is right behind them, so who they were five years ago.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because that person five years ago is trying to get to the point that they're at now where maybe they're going for additions, they don't even know what editions to go to.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't even know about IMDb.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't even know, oh, we could have this type of agent who could help us, or we need to go to theater first.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: They may not know any of that.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you create in some sort of product for that person.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: You identify me five years ago.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was here, and these are the problems I faced when I moved to Hollywood.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know where to live, I needed to speak to this person to get to this.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: All of those things are things that you've lived through and you solved.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: That is a whole product that you can create for people, and you can have that being sold as you are documenting your journey.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, as an actor, today I'm going to this audition.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also working over here, but I'm documenting the process.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: I also have a product for you to get to the point where you can start going for auditions and documenting your process.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: Click the link in my bio and you can go buy it, and I will keep you guys updated on how I'm going through it.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that right there, it's a it's a business on its own that can sustain you whilst you are building your acting portfolio.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: You talked about repelling people who aren't for you and attract the people who are for you.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love how you put that in that you don't have to have been in the business forever, but just long enough to know that there are people that are coming behind you who need things you've already experienced.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and the idea of documenting it, maybe having a YouTube channel or or going live on Instagram.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: Tabitha Brown is a great example of somebody who was pursuing her acting and her stand-up and she was having a difficult time and she just started going live.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: Her daughter said, Why don't you just start going live on Instagram?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: Started going live on Instagram and was Uber driving, went into Whole Foods to buy a vegan sandwich because she was starting to go vegan and shared the sandwich with people and how delicious it was.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it just went viral.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: The video went viral.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: And from that, she's now a big name because she used the platform to alert people of what she was doing.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes as actors or as artists, we don't think we can do that small thing.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares that I'm doing this, right?
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of going, well, this is what I'm going through, maybe somebody needs to hear this.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because somebody does need to hear this.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: You talked about imposter syndrome and how you can't have imposter syndrome if you've created overwhelming evidence of you doing a thing that you're trying to do.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Break that down.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: You really have researched me.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, and this is this is going back to mindset.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: And again, for anyone watching, it's not that this is how my mindset started out.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, I worked through it to get to this point of me having this mindset of being highly teachable, which is one of the most important things you should definitely have for anyone who's trying to get success.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're you need to have um a high teachability index, HTI.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: So just Google Teachability Index.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the best things you can do for yourself.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, coming back to this level of mindset, right?
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because I didn't know about imposter syndrome.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: Until I heard it externally from someone say, Oh, I've got imp imposter syndrome.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: I said, What is that?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: They said, See, I don't feel like I could do it.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Oh, I think it's because, and I I said it's a good thing.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's because you care about what happens for whatever your services or whatever your product is.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: You care about it working.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's why you feel like this.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: Also, you can have it where you feel like, oh, I'm not good enough, I'm not the expert.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I get something similar where I'm like, Did we just get this?
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: Just was it a fluke, or is this something like it it happens, and that's just your nervous system working the way it's opposed to how it's being wired.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: But you get the opportunity to rewire it, right?
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can create overwhelming evidence of the thing that you were trying to achieve by doing stuff that shows you you can achieve it.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say that, do it for yourself first.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: We do AI, we do web design.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have clients.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm take taking it back to 2012, 2013.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have clients.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just say AI was around in 2013.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it for ourselves first, right?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: We build our own website, which I did back in 2006.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: We build our own website, we see that it works, we see that we get some traffic.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let's now get SEO on top of it.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: We see that that works to get a couple of sales, okay.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let's learn this AI stuff.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: We see that it's working.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: When you've done that for yourself and you've seen a little bit of success, it doesn't need to you don't need to make a million bucks, you just make ten dollars.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: You see that it works.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: That is you creating that overwhelming evidence for yourself to prove to yourself that you can do this.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because if it works for you, you can make it work for somebody else.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you taught yourself how to do this, you can and it's working, you can definitely teach it to somebody else and show them how to do it as well.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that mindset of not letting any negatives, because yes, they will come in.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's that's just how life is.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: You may get things where you have doubt or you're unsure of yourself, but there is a solution.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: Nighttime affirmations is one of them, and creating overwhelming evidence for yourself is a very practical way to get that as well.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: Since you brought it up, AI is moving so fast, and for actors, AI has been a thorn in our side, in that the studios and the unions have been at odds because studios want to use AI.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: The actors and the creatives are saying, hey, it's gonna take away our jobs.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a believer that AI has some advantages to help actors.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I love AI.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: I am uh, I mean, I I would not use uh Hey Jen or something that's gonna take away my position to perform, but I am gonna use it for research.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I love Chat GPT, I love um perplexity, that's my jam.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm and I am falling in love with Claude AI.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: I am, I didn't like it a couple years ago because it was such a prostitute, but I'm liking it now.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm liking Claude.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Claude wouldn't give me anything unless I gave him money.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, what's up with that?
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: You don't remember me.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: We had a night together, and you just I come back to you, you don't know me.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: What that is not right, but now Claude has redeemed itself with me.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you being in that sphere of AI and having to learn for your business, what are some of the things that you've learned because of adapting to AI?
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the first thing I will say, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about how actors can use the AI, but I'm also gonna give a foundation.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: Foundation is this, and it goes back to mindset and being teachable.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Once upon a time, people were using candles, and electricity was the next thing.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: And people said we don't want electricity because we feel like it's gonna bring bad spirits into the house.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the true story.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: Had everyone decided, okay, cool, let's leave this electricity thing behind and let's stick to candles, we would even be having this conversation because candles are not gonna power this conversation, right?
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, same thing with Henry Ford.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: People are like, no, dude, we just need a faster horse.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need cars, we just need a faster horse.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: Get us a faster horse, we do with that.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: Technology is going to happen and it has to happen.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: People and things have to evolve and make things better, easier, more efficient.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, that is the mindset I want people to go with when they are looking at new things coming in.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's very possible.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can go down the this is a threat, or you can go down this is an opportunity.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go down the opportunity route.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: AI has four different strands.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: The LLM strand is like where you said Chat GPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're talking to an AI model, you're asking it stuff, it's giving you back answers.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's one strand of AI.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: The next strand of AI is where you use it to create stuff, so you use it to create videos or you use it to create images, so media creation, right?
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: That is a level up, so Hicksfield, nano banana, all those sort of things, right?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: C dance.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that is where we're going to come to for showing how actives can use AI.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: But let's go through all the other strands.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: We then have agentic AI, which is where you have an AI agent, and you say to that AI agent, hey, I need you to do this.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Can you please go and do this?
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it will go away and do it for you.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's where Claude comes in, and ClaudeButt also comes in.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: Lindy AI, Manus, and GenSpark.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: Those are AI agents.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: They go and do stuff autonomously.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then the last part is when you code with AI.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: So vibe coding tools that allow you to create apps, web apps, actual apps, those sort of things.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: So coding with AI.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the four strands that anyone can go into and pick what they like and go down that rabbit hole with AI.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Vetting coaches and mentors.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there are a lot of scammers out here.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: Facts.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: Many, many, many scammers.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you don't know, you go with somebody who sounds good, right?
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: They sound good, they they've got a good-looking website.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I know this because I've gotten scammed by some.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like, oh, they've done this, they've done this, and I've been doing this a long time.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, how would you vet a coach?
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: So earlier in this conversation, I talked about this mentorship from a distance.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you have someone, again, let's say you've only got a doll in a dream, you're trying to figure something out, you find someone online who says they know about this, you follow them on Instagram, you go on their YouTube.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: Their YouTube will have more content about this.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: Usually it should.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing is, you'll probably find a couple of people, let's say you find three or four, you will get to a point where one of them resonates with you the most.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now, here's how you try and vet the free stuff that they give out, is it actually helping you make money or improve your service or anything you're trying to do?
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: That to me is always step one.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm getting some sort of actual value from their free stuff, I call that mentorship from a distance.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've not paid them, they don't know who I am.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: Their free stuff is just giving me value.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: And interestingly enough, that's a very big function of business as a business owner.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: You have to give out free stuff, public community service stuff that helps people that you may never ever meet, right?
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if that is actually helping you, that's a good first step.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's step one.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: Step two now is can you actually find reviews about them that are verifiable?
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you can, cool.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: Good step two.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: Step three, do you want to now work with this person?
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: You've done a bit of vetting with step one and step two.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: Step three is do you now want to work with this person?
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: I would always say if you do go ahead with it, go with their cheapest thing first, or the thing that is the low barrier to entry, investment first.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: Also, if they allow you to pay with PayPal, that's also tends to be a good sign because PayPal allows you to have if there's any issues, allows your disputes, allows you to actually say, Hey, this didn't happen, or they didn't provide what they said they were gonna provide.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: So if they've actually said you can pay with PayPal or any of those things, that tends to be a good sign because usually your money is safe.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: However, I always say this don't abuse it and go and get something for free to then use it and say it didn't work.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get bad karma for that 100%.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: So don't do that now.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you've gone through that level of vetting in stage one, level of vetting in stage two, before you get to stage three, you've done, you've tried to get referrals or get people who you know who may have gone through it because there'll be Facebook groups, there'll be LinkedIn groups, there'll be stuff on Reddit that you can go in and actually find.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if not, you can start it yourself.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: Start a Facebook group, a Reddit group, a LinkedIn group.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I want to join this mastermind.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: Has anyone been in it?
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: What was your experience?
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: Da da da da.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you will see a common thread between people say, Yeah, it was really good, but I didn't really get it, or it's amazing, or don't go for it.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I would vet and then decide.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: And in looking for a mentor, what should I look for?
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: And how do I find a mentor?
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: The process is pretty much the same.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: You really want to see, and this is something that I think is key.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: You want to see someone who's done what it is you're trying to achieve, and you can verify that they've done it.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not, oh, they're posting Lamborghinis that they've rented or Airbnbs that they've rented for the week.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: Don't fall for the hype stuff because that is not really the essence of it.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: You need to actually go through those steps and then use your own discernment as well and be like, I think this could work, or I'm not too sure.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not too sure, go back and get more evidence to make you sure.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: Or if not, you'll be like, actually, no, this ain't right, and you will find somebody else.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, you have to go through the process.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to be like, oh, it's a silver bullet, definitely it's gonna be the thing, and I'm gonna go for it.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, go through that process, be patient, because that's usually the thing, is the patience.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: Go through the process of verifying and vetting them, and then you'll be like, okay, cool.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: This mentor has actually done the thing that I'm trying to do, even better if they've gone back and taken people to get to that same result.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: Third better if they've taken someone like you to get that result, right?
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if they've done those things and you go through that vetting process, I would probably say you're in a very good chance of getting to the result you're trying to get to or the transformation you're looking to achieve.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_00: That brings me to stop chasing and start attracting.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: Actors spend a lot of time chasing, chasing, chasing instead of attracting.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can tell us what it looks like to chase and what it looks like to attract.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about it.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can say that's gonna get you canceled here.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_01: This might hurt some feeling.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: So when it comes to, and I've said this before, I think I said this, yeah, it was another interview when I said like business and marketing is very similar to dating, right?
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: The better you are in being able to communicate, the more likely you are to be successful.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when it comes to chasing, I'm using the example of let's say there's a guy and he's sending text messages to this girl, she's not responding.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: He's trying to book dates, she's not responding.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: In my head, I'd be like, dude, what are you doing?
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why are you why are you still expending any energy on the situation?
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: I sent her, you sent her a text, she didn't respond, or she ghosted me, or she she didn't um she left my message in red.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why are you still doing anything?
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: The first time should have been enough for you because what I say is this the girl who likes you wants to speak to you, she's not looking to play any of these games.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: The girl who doesn't like you or isn't interested will play those games.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: So why are you chasing, right?
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, position yourself where you are able to attract the type of person you are interested in to come to you from how you look to how you present yourself to how you speak to your charisma to the stuff that you know, the things that you've done, these are all things within your control.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: Position yourself like that, and then you will attract the person because the one thing I say about ladies is this they have a very good sense of who is who and who isn't.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: So do that, and you will be able to attract the type of person you're looking to get to, regardless of your height, regardless of how you look.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you go to the gym, you learn stuff that people don't, you read books about stuff that people don't know about, you will increase your market value a lot higher.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now, let's bring that back into business.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: You will have situations where you may think, I need to chase this client.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they're not a client because they haven't paid.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: I need to chase this lead.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: I sent them the invoice, they didn't respond.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_01: We had a two-hour conversation, I thought it was all done, they haven't responded.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay, you need to have an abundance mindset.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: There are many more other potential clients out there, many more other leads.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: Go back and keep doing the things that you did that got that first one, and be able to have more to come in.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: When you have an abundance mindset of people coming in, booking you to speak to you, you wouldn't be stressed over that one or those two, or even those five over there who may have ghosted you.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, one position yourself like the authority as a business or as an actor in whatever niche it is that you are.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: Two, you put yourself in that position where those people are able to come to you as opposed to you going to chase them.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: Again, like I said, social media, your YouTube, all these things, your content can be used to position you as that authority, whether you're in business or you're an actor.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: And three, have a way for those people to come into your world and work with you, whether it's through your lead magnet, your booking system, whatever it is, because each business is different.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: That is, you build your infrastructure, you're not positioning, you made yourself into the person that can attract, you put in our content to bring them into your ecosystem and your world, and you let them convert.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if they don't convert, have the abundance mindset to say there are 8 billion people on earth.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: Even if a thousand of them came into my world, I wouldn't be able to handle all of them.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: So me losing five or even ten is okay.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's still another eight billion out there that I could work with, so that's the attraction side, and the chasing side is I'd say the inverse.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: You understand this part, which is the attraction, you then apply it, and you have to keep that energy the same.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: Understand that what's for you will come to you.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to chase it because anything that's interested in working with you, you have given them your solution.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: You said this is what will work for you, for you to achieve what it is you're trying to get in your business.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_01: Here's my price, and leave it at that.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_01: You need to trust that people are able to make the best decisions for themselves.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying don't follow up, but don't chase.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: Following up is very different.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: A follow-up could just be an email that goes to them about new content you've created, right?
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: Something about a particular thing that you've just made in your business that applies to them.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_01: They're on your mailing list, it goes to them as normal.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: A YouTube video you've created, it goes to them as normal.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: Not that you're hey, I just wanted to double check.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get the email?
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I know I asked you last week, but I'm just chasing up again.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: Did you that I don't think gives you good energy, it just makes your nervous system edgy and anxious.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: Focus on repeating the activities that got that first one in and get 20 more in.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I would say.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: So attract, don't chase.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hey actor, where are you gonna be in 90 days from now?
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna be with that same old headshot that is not getting you anywhere?
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: That same old story that it's everybody else's fault while you're not booking, or even worse, depression.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because nothing is happening for your career.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me help you.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because in 90 days from now, you can have a whole new set of pictures that are built on your brand.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can have a list of agents that actually would fit what it is that you sell and a plan to have a more prosperous career.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I cannot book you, but I can make you bookable.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are ready, willing, and excited to change your circumstances, come and join us at ActingSmarterCircle.com, sign up and get started.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're a weekly community that helps actors get in gear and get the career that they deserve.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_00: But also goes back to what we were talking about earlier: repelling and attracting.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to be able to not bring in people who are not your people.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're chasing people, you're bringing all kinds of people who aren't your people.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like, okay, are you just about numbers or do you want quality numbers?
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's instead of the quantity, it's the quality number, right?
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'd rather have 10 people who are my tribe's people than have 100 people who are gonna make me pull my hair out.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're so conditioned that more is better instead of quality is better.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I didn't go on 12 auditions, I only went on two.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you booked both of them.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: Both of those auditions you booked.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_00: So would I want 12 that I don't book or two that I booked?
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: One of the two that I booked.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, 100%.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because those two are gonna bring in other bookings because instead they are bookable.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_00: These people are bookable instead of I'm auditioning, I'm auditioning, I'm auditioning, I'm doing all these self tapes and I'm not getting anywhere.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes back to being trainable, educating yourself.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you got those 12 auditions and you didn't get a callback, then you need to go back to the drawing board.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_00: You need to see what you need to do to improve.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say this: whether someone hires you or not is not up to you.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_00: But whether you are prepared or not is up to you.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're going up on all these things and you're not booking or you're you're submitting and nothing's happening, then there's something wrong with how you are presenting.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's being that that person who's chasing, chasing, chasing, and you don't have the goods yet.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have the goods, and now you're you're feeling like uh an imposter.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: You feel like, why am I doing this?
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: But you haven't taken that time to stop and go, wait a minute, what do I need to do here to make corrections?
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I need coaching, maybe I need a coach, maybe I need some, maybe I don't know the material well enough.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm not selling my brand properly.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to the website, you know that as an actor, your website should represent your brand.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_00: It should say, I sell this, this is what I do, not I'm an actor.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_00: There are a hundred million actors, man.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's none that's gonna you can be an actor, but it's not gonna sell you.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's just you're one of many.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the goal is to be at the top.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_00: Be the one that everybody wants, be the actor everyone wants to book.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love your stuff, and I love your your focus and your concentration and your podcast.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_00: The Trust Thyself Podcaster.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_00: What made you decide that you, first of all, that you wanted to do a podcast having a company, but you wanted to do a podcast and you wanted to talk about trusting yourself, because that's really what creatives have to do.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta trust yourself, your instinct, your gift, your special thoughts.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_00: Has what you have.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was so taken by the title of the Trust Thyself Podcast.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me about it.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you appreciate that.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_01: So with the Trust Thyself Podcast, and I think this is actually a really good example of going through the process.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: When I had the idea for that, it was because I understood distribution is key to business as well as your personal brand.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it's interesting that these things are interchangeable.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: An actor's personal brand is probably one of their biggest assets.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_01: A business's personal brand is probably one of its biggest assets.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll give you an example.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: The reason why people believe Apple is better than Samsung is one reason.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: Steve Jobs.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_01: Steve Jobs was a great marketer, great brander, great creative, and all of that stuff.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he marketed Apple to be a premium luxury product because Apple was the first, they were the first guys to get that price point of I think it was like$700 for a phone when normally that was never the yes it was.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it was.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time, an Apple computer went for about$4,500.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that didn't include all the accessories.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know because I I bought one of those early.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I need that computer.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I need that.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then you couldn't even find the software for Apple.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was like you got a computer and you have no software.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of use it.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_00: But it cost half the price of a car, and I was so happy to have it.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And even to the point that people keep the boxes.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Stop! Oh yeah.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're in my closet.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I got all the boxes.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_01: But that again, it came from Apple having the strongest brand or personal brand in that space.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Till this day, Samsung has still Android as a whole has not yet recovered because there's never been a particular actor or personal brand in the Android space that has been able to compare to what Steve Jobs did, right?
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And all he's done.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that's still going.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_01: So now, when you look at it that way, as an actor, you realize your personal brand is super key, right?
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because who I am, what my interests are, what I'm working towards, what I've achieved, what I'm doing, what my business is about, what my acting career is about, all of those things add to your personal brand, right?
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_01: In my case, the stuff that I like, my mindset stuff, health, all all those things are the things that make me unique in my own particular essence and add to my personal brand.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, How do we distribute this?
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because business is also part of distribution.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Let's start a podcast.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_01: However, here's the key thing, and this goes back to failure at my point.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_01: There is a video on that podcast, and I think I titled it episode one or something.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_01: I filmed that back in like 2018 or 2019.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And basically, I'm saying, hey guys, today is day one of this podcast.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what we're gonna call it, I don't know what it's gonna really be about or the structure or anything, but I'm gonna film this and we will figure it out as we go along because I was going by my own medicine, progress over perfection.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I say this to anyone you can go back and check.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_01: You'll see all the first like 10-15 videos are very wonky.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like you see the zoom, it doesn't focus, it goes in and out.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_01: You can't like the voices is muffled, the audio, but it got better, it got better, it got better, the thumbnails got better, the audio got better, the editing got better.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it's because we started, we got a name.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't start off with the trust thyself podcast, that was what came afterwards, right?
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's now got to the point where it's at today, but it was the decision to start first, fail through the process because you will get better through it and you will improve on top of that.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that now allows me to have a personal brand that is online that people can go and see at any point in time, whether they've seen me on Instagram, they've heard about me somewhere else, they've seen me on stage, wherever it is.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And they can Google, they'll find it, they'll understand who I am, my personality, and that I hope shines through.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how they'll get to know, like, and possibly trust me to the point where they're like, okay, I want to ask him and his team about this problem I have and see if they can solve it.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: As an actor, you want that exact same thing, you want people to already know you, like you, and trust you so that your reputation has already preceded you before you actually speak.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would probably say the best thing an actor can have is hey, we saw your stuff online and we saw your YouTube.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we want to ask you to come in for a particular edition, and it's only you to read.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can you come in?
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_01: So no one else is reading.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, we just want you because we saw the stuff that you've done online, so yeah, we want you.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_01: That I would probably say would be the best thing, and you can have that if you have a strong personal brand that you've created, and it's not a difficult thing, just be yourself because it's only you, everybody else is already taken.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_01: So a strong personal brand and distributing it to the world, especially the fact that we're able to do that for free with YouTube, social media, free podcast.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Whilst it's still free, please abuse it as much as possible.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's mostly free.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Mostly free.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you're doing a podcast and you really want, you know, you really want to do it, it is gonna cost you a little bit too much.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, to get the equipment, to get the editors and all those things.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's gonna cost you.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_00: But you can go live and then upload it to YouTube once you're done, and then it lives forever.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about how important process is, and we we as artists want always the finished product.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not looking at the process.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like if if you're writing something, your first uh draft is just you vomiting a lot of rewrites in order to get it.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that I want to bring up in the writing, when you pitch a script to a studio, you may have rewritten it let's say 20 times.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: But when you get it to them, they consider it the first draft.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_00: First draft.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_00: You may have written it 20 times, but they're looking at it first draft, and then they go, okay, what writers can we bring in to help you?
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a process, and having that process and you starting your podcast just hitting the record button and saying, okay, I don't know what this is gonna be, but I'm gonna do it.
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of the process.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I have a thousand plus videos up now.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's 13 years of being diligent, being committed, being determined, and crying a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, because I understood the finished piece, but I didn't understand the process.
• 1:16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when I started, I had a light that I had gotten out of the trash bin.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I had a bed sheet, and I had just bought a DSLR camera.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I had two interns and my daughter helping me with the pod, with the video.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't even a podcast yet, we were, it was a YouTube video.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_00: It took a long time to figure out what it was that I was doing because I was all over the place.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I had a lot of information.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I could talk to comedians because I was a comedian.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I could talk to actors because I'm an actor.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_00: I could talk to music people because I was in the music uh world for 14 years.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a lot to say, but it wasn't really getting the traction.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm doing it every week.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to be better.
• 1:17:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I went from a makeshift softbox that my daughter did out of a cardboard box and wax paper.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, eventually we got real, a real light kit, and then we got an audio system and a mic.
• 1:17:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a process, it's been a process, it's still a process.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Even with a thousand videos, it's like, okay, what can I do better?
• 1:17:46
  SPEAKER_00: How can I make this season better?
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_00: What who do I need to bring in to be more effective for the actors?
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the process is the gold that we don't um, you know, being in an acting class, the process makes you stronger.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the gym.
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_00: You want that, you want that body, you want those abs, you want to let it fly.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a process.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta go to the gym and work out.
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta have days where you work on the upper body, days where you work on cardio.
• 1:18:18
  SPEAKER_00: You have, you gotta give yourself that time and that space.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I love talking to real people about real problems because we are sold a bill of goods that so-and-so went viral on their first time.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but so-and-so doesn't have a track record.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_00: They just went viral on one thing.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Where's their track record?
• 1:18:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're so we become so accustomed to overnight success.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you, I've heard you say this.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_00: There is no overnight success.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_00: It comes working, working, working, working, working, working, and then people get to know who you are.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to talk about tribes because we are part of a tribe.
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_00: We are part of uh morning meetup, uh um and social proof.
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And um, for me, that has been an incredible tribe to be around entrepreneurs of all types.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're in Manchester, England.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in Los Angeles, California.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Our our leader, our fearless leader, David Cance, is in Atlanta.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we come together every morning, Monday through Friday, to learn, to connect, to share.
• 1:19:33
  SPEAKER_01: How important is that in a process of becoming having your tribe, like my mom used to say this thing when I was younger, I did understand that as I got older I did.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_01: She used to say, um, no man is an island.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think because I understand it now, she doesn't need to say it as much.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_01: But and I think that was because I was always like, I could I'll figure it out on my own, sort of thing.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like that was always my kind of mindset.
• 1:20:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'll figure this out on my own.
• 1:20:01
  SPEAKER_01: I still have that, but I do, I think when I got to that point of understanding delegation was when I understood I need to have other people around me who can do it just as well.
• 1:20:12
  SPEAKER_01: If I do a 10 out of 10 and they do a seven or eight out of ten, that is good enough for us to move on and progress.
• 1:20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Having a tribe of people who are who have similar values, similar interests, similar culture, similar understanding, similar goals as you allows you to create a very good tribe for yourself.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's the exact same thing that people like Donald Trump has.
• 1:20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump has his tribe, um, Jay-Z has his tribe, like everyone has a tribe.
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Michael Jackson has his tribe, Steve Jobs has his tribe, still existent.
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_01: So building your tribe, um, David Sands has his, and we're in it, is a very key thing.
• 1:20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't have to be you have to have hundreds and thousands of people.
• 1:21:00
  SPEAKER_01: A tribe of 10 people is more than enough for you to begin with or even start off.
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_01: A tribe of 10 minds focused on one goal can achieve almost anything, right?
• 1:21:12
  SPEAKER_01: So having and building that tribe is very key.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I like with me again, and it starts with the personal brand.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who's seen my stuff will see, oh, he's Manchester United is his team, Boston Celtics is his team, he's into wellness, he's into health, fitness, he's into the tech world, he's got a background and law, like all those things will be my personal brand.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_01: People who resonate with those sort of things, the mindset and all those things, or even want to achieve that, would be people who come into my tribe and say, Yep, we want to.
• 1:21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And again, the other thing with tribe is just because people are in it doesn't mean they need to be there forever.
• 1:21:51
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a stepping stone or a level that they need to get through to get to their own next level.
• 1:21:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it doesn't need to be anything that's taken any type of way, or you need to feel oh, this is a personal affront.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, your tribe are people who are either still with you or people who pass through to get to the next level on their journey, but still it's a journey that you must respect.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_01: So building your tribe is something which is really key and really helpful because when you may feel like you're down, your tribe can lift you up.
• 1:22:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as Jay-Z said, none of us um how do you say every everyone within everyone if everyone in your everyone in your clique is rich, your your clique is rugged because no one will be broke because everyone is each other's crutches, right?
• 1:22:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that was what he said, and it's true, that's essentially your tribe.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_00: How has studying law, even though you pivoted, how has that training helped you in your business as a web designer and as a digital agency?
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's very interesting because going back, this is a whole full circle moment.
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Going back to that conversation with me and my dad, what made me actually uh agree to do law wasn't because they did it, because I was like, That's you guys.
• 1:23:15
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean I want to do it.
• 1:23:16
  SPEAKER_01: But my dad said, with law, you have the ability to adapt to anything else.
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a law degree, you can go into anything else.
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Okay, so essentially, it gives me the ability to adapt to anything else that I could work with.
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, going through the law, wow, that was a process because learning dates, understanding judgments, and all those sort of things trains your brain to be very analytical and to see solutions, problems before they happen, solutions and opportunities, it helps you create a good SWOT analysis that becomes your second nature without a shadow of a doubt.
• 1:23:57
  SPEAKER_01: It also allows you to be very proactive.
• 1:24:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a contract that most people are not able to read and understand, although now we have AI, you can read it and understand it in a very different angle and dynamic than most people will, right?
• 1:24:11
  SPEAKER_01: I remember those days and this came in handy on a modeling shoe where we had, and we were all meant to sign a release form.
• 1:24:18
  SPEAKER_01: We had gone overtime, right?
• 1:24:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we've gone overtime significantly.
• 1:24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there was, oh yeah, don't worry, guys, we'll send it to your agency and da da da.
• 1:24:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they gave us the release forms.
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at it, I said, You guys haven't put anything about the overtime on this.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, we had fun, no doubt, but we we stayed way more.
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think we did an extra six hours.
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_01: If we sign this, essentially we're committed to everything we did before the six hours.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the guy goes, Ha.
• 1:24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if everybody else wants to sign, I'm not gonna sign because I'd rather have that in the contract first.
• 1:24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then literally everyone was like, put our pens down.
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_01: What he said.
• 1:25:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the guy took it back, went to it, and then they got new release forms that had everything in, and then we were happy to sign at that point.
• 1:25:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that they would have not um honored the agreement.
• 1:25:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, they would not have.
• 1:25:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, they would not have.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 1:25:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, they would not have.
• 1:25:19
  SPEAKER_00: And since you're talking about that, for every actor, it is so important for you to read the contracts because they will tell you something, but if it's not on the paper, it's not it's not in your paycheck.
• 1:25:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's in the air.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking from experience of that happening to me, and them say, oh no, no, don't worry about it.
• 1:25:41
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be and then getting my paycheck and seeing it's not in my paycheck and telling my agent and him telling me I'm being a troublemaker.
• 1:25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Being a troublemaker for the work that you've done.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because I said, Hey, I was supposed to get XYZ and and the the contract is not doesn't reflect the XYZ.
• 1:26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
• 1:26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And having an agent, because agents don't want to be on the bad side of the studio.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if you as an actor don't read your contracts or your agreements, you know, you get you get an agreement that says, hey, you agreed to do this in perpetuity, not understanding perpetuity is forever and ever and ever.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and you can't say, oh man, I had too much weed that day.
• 1:26:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I didn't understand what you will get screwed.
• 1:26:45
  SPEAKER_00: You must know the contract.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not sure, don't sign it.
• 1:26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Say, hey, I need to run this by my lawyer or my agent or my chat GPT.
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're my chat GPT 100.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_01: For every actor, do that.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:27:00
  SPEAKER_01: For every actor, if you're not sure, now you have Chat GPT.
• 1:27:04
  SPEAKER_01: That situation, it was lucky I was there, otherwise, everybody would have signed, right?
• 1:27:09
  SPEAKER_01: But when I said that, it was like, actually, what he said, so we're not signing too.
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if Chat GPT was back then, just take a photo of it.
• 1:27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Chat GPT, I want you to understand this.
• 1:27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Looking at it from my point of view as an actor, does this help me?
• 1:27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes or no?
• 1:27:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Chat GPT would have said, nope, your six hours are not in this, I would not sign until they've put the extra six hours and they've actually committed to it.
• 1:27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then you sign.
• 1:27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure Chat GPT would have said that those exact same words to me.
• 1:27:38
  SPEAKER_01: So if anyone's not sure, if you want to know how can AI be a friend, that's the best way.
• 1:27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Say Chat GPT, I'm in this situation.
• 1:27:46
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to act as an expert lawyer in my corner, an expert acting lawyer.
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_00: As one of the top entertainment lawyers, and tell me what this contract means.
• 1:27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a fabulous tool that we have now that I didn't have access to back then.
• 1:28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I just had access to my mouth saying, hey, this is wrong.
• 1:28:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not signing that, and then getting uh not understanding my rights.
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not under, you know, and and it's important to understand your rights.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, what do you want your legacy to be?
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_01: My legacy, I don't know if I've thought that far ahead.
• 1:28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think with this, is I think it keeps evolving, but I do want to have, I don't know if I call it legacy yet, or a reputation of he helps people to get to wherever it is they're trying to get to, right?
• 1:28:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's one thing I've always wanted to always have, and to have an approachable personality where if anyone is in a situation that I can help with with my business, or if it's just stuff I know, I'm happy to share it with them.
• 1:28:55
  SPEAKER_01: So those are things that I know I've always wanted to have, and I think I do intentionally and just naturally do that because that's just how I am.
• 1:29:07
  SPEAKER_01: As far as legacy, I would probably say one of the principles behind my business and what I do is to have people who are important to me have the ability to choose whether they want to work for somebody else or they want to work for themselves.
• 1:29:26
  SPEAKER_01: I want to have the ability to say to them, hey, if you don't like this, I can show you how to do this other thing.
• 1:29:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can still be doing this, but you will be able to get to where you're trying to get to if you follow and listen to everything I say within two years.
• 1:29:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you have the opportunity to choose.
• 1:29:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that when we go back to what I said about lore giving me the opportunity to do other things, I think that is if I was to say legacy, that is one of the things I would want to be able to do.
• 1:30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Where I could say to someone, whether it's a loved one or someone really important to me, I say, Hey, you don't like this?
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Cool, let's create an opportunity instead.
• 1:30:10
  SPEAKER_01: So now you can decide what which path you want to go down.
• 1:30:14
  SPEAKER_01: So when I have kids, I want to be able to say, Hey, I built a business for you, I can show you how to build your own business, or if you do want to go down working for somebody else, you can do that.
• 1:30:25
  SPEAKER_01: But whatever the case, you have options because that is what will allow you to live life without limits.
• 1:30:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:30:33
  SPEAKER_00: So being tri coastal.
• 1:30:36
  SPEAKER_01: I like that word, tri coastal.
• 1:30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nigeria, Manchester, the United States.
• 1:30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that it has affected in how you?
• 1:30:47
  SPEAKER_00: See the world?
• 1:30:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you really are a global citizen in that you can see from different vantage points.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:30:58
  SPEAKER_01: And here is where we bring in the reality of the world and the worldview.
• 1:31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Nigel is my heritage, that's my culture, and super proud of it.
• 1:31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Growing up, we didn't understand how important your heritage and your culture was.
• 1:31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Especially because when you grew up, say in Nigel, you don't necessarily understand racial tensions because we're all the same.
• 1:31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you were lighter skinned or you were mixed race, we're all the same.
• 1:31:31
  SPEAKER_01: So there was never a no, you're over there, or you're over there.
• 1:31:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, yo, we're all peeps.
• 1:31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's all go play football, sort of thing.
• 1:31:39
  SPEAKER_01: You move to a different country, you may not see it at first because it depends on the environment that you're in, but you will eventually have different experiences.
• 1:31:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, me having that heritage, that culture, that anchored me internally to know who I was.
• 1:32:00
  SPEAKER_01: So no matter the scenario that I may come into, I don't doubt myself or who I am or have any sort of confidence issues of oh, I need to shrink myself to blend in.
• 1:32:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's not me.
• 1:32:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna get that from me.
• 1:32:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I am loud, I will tell you my opinion, you know, and you as because if I believe I'm right in the scenario objectively, I will speak out.
• 1:32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like my cousins used to call me the Avenger.
• 1:32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like we used to call Mr.
• 1:32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Avenger, because like, especially when it came to bullies, like I would stand to a bully and say, Do you know what you may be able to beat me, but I promise you you will break something in the same time.
• 1:32:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that was always kind of like my sort of mindset, but having that heritage and that culture allowed me to adapt in again, different scenarios without feeling like I had to shrink myself to conform or blend in or dim my light because I don't want to overshine or overshadow.
• 1:33:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, I will do my thing how I'm going to do it because my culture, my parents, they've taught me to strive for being the best and do execute to the best of my capabilities, but also to understand that confidence is good, but also gratitude and prayer is also very important.
• 1:33:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just, oh, you just did it on your own.
• 1:33:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, there is a higher power also protecting you and helping you as long as you understand that your humbleness and your confidence will always be a good balance, and you will also understand that you don't need to feel like you have to go through things alone because you can always pray or meditate about a situation.
• 1:33:52
  SPEAKER_01: So having that has definitely given me a lot of tools to be able to navigate different scenarios in different countries, so 100%, and especially because I'm melanin rich, so the world will look at me in a very different way to a non-melanin-rich individual.
• 1:34:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting because you carry your culture very well, very strong, but you also have a lot of American sensibility, and you also glean from a lot of Americans.
• 1:34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:34:29
  SPEAKER_00: How does that inform you?
• 1:34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because right now, our value has gone down the toilet.
• 1:34:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just curious to see how that presents itself for you.
• 1:34:41
  SPEAKER_01: So Myron said uh Myra Golden, he said something throughout my process with learning from him.
• 1:34:47
  SPEAKER_01: He actually said a lot of wise things, but this thing was very important.
• 1:34:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is relevant here.
• 1:34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Not everyone I agree with is right about everything, and not everyone I disagree with is wrong about everything, right?
• 1:34:59
  SPEAKER_01: When we take that comment and shift it to apply to the scenario, you have to again be teachable and you have to be able to understand through different experiences the context that you're in, right?
• 1:35:14
  SPEAKER_01: My sister is American.
• 1:35:17
  SPEAKER_01: So when she was born, we lived out there.
• 1:35:19
  SPEAKER_01: So between Washington and Boston, those were years of living and understanding, or that was a period of living and understanding and appreciating American culture a lot more.
• 1:35:31
  SPEAKER_01: I got into basketball, got into the Boston Celtics, loved crisscross, like those are those that was a very important part of my childhood growing up as well.
• 1:35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as I'm older, those foundations are still part of me.
• 1:35:47
  SPEAKER_01: And again, understanding the global citizenship and also understanding my roots, because in Nigel as well, we do get a lot of influence from American culture as well as British culture, because that is what the media portrays, and that's what you get.
• 1:36:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you do get to understand it from that point of view, and also from an admiration point of view.
• 1:36:10
  SPEAKER_01: That brings me to this point of me not understanding the fake beef that was always tried to be portrayed between Africans and African Americans.
• 1:36:21
  SPEAKER_01: That was something I never understood.
• 1:36:23
  SPEAKER_01: And anytime I got an opportunity to be involved in it, I say, hey, what you've been told is not true.
• 1:36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody actually believes that.
• 1:36:30
  SPEAKER_01: You may get some idiots, true, but their worldview is not the worldview, and I'm an example.
• 1:36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So are my friends, so the people within my sphere of stuff, and through that, it's allowed me to be able to change some attitudes between that fake beef, which is what I call it.
• 1:36:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that foundation led to me understanding those levels of context to be able to, in those scenarios, communicate effectively to create a more positive resolution between both parties.
• 1:37:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a very good example that I would say the roots enable the transformation in that scenario.
• 1:37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you want to be in five years?
• 1:37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Where do I want to be?
• 1:37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in your career, in your life.
• 1:37:23
  SPEAKER_01: In five years' time, where do I want to be?
• 1:37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Possibly I would probably say at that point I'll definitely want to have the mini OAs in the building and me actually giving them the game that I've learned to help mold them and shape them into the individuals I know they want to be, just based on the examples that I've been able to um set for myself and hopefully set for them.
• 1:37:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that will probably be part of the five-year plan.
• 1:37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Also, will be the way I see it is that happens, and I'm also in a place where my time freedom and financial freedom are at such a point that I can afford to not have to be in the business for it to still be able to work without me, to the point where, say, my son may say, Dad, I'm not having a good day of school.
• 1:38:20
  SPEAKER_01: Can we go get ice cream?
• 1:38:21
  SPEAKER_01: And this could be in the middle of the day.
• 1:38:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll say, Okay, today we can go do that, but tomorrow you're going back to school and you're learning everything.
• 1:38:29
  SPEAKER_01: Deal, deal, and I can leave the business and they're not gonna be fires, like you know, so that is probably what I would say is the next goal to get to in terms of business and personal.
• 1:38:43
  SPEAKER_01: I would also say at that point, I would be at that point where, like I said, people around me, I'll say, you know what?
• 1:38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Give it two years, me and you together, we will get to that point where you have opportunities and you don't have to necessarily be in a nine to five that you don't like, or you can have a business, or you can have the skills now that you can get a different nine to five that appreciates you more, sort of thing, but you're not coming from a place of lack or fear or um limits, you're coming from a mindset of abundance, not scarcity.
• 1:39:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I think that's where I'd be to be a very to be valuable to that level.
• 1:39:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:39:26
  SPEAKER_00: What does scarcity look like to you?
• 1:39:29
  SPEAKER_01: I would say scarcity is it comes in, most people know financial scarcity.
• 1:39:36
  SPEAKER_01: I also say there's opportunity scarcity as well, and that is when you don't you're not able to see, like when I have certain conversations, right?
• 1:39:46
  SPEAKER_01: The way that I speak is very my vernacular and my lexical and my vocabulary is very particular to me.
• 1:39:53
  SPEAKER_01: You say good things to yourself and you speak good things to yourself because your subconscious takes it in, it doesn't know the difference between what's real and what isn't.
• 1:40:02
  SPEAKER_01: So when you have scarcity of opportunity, you say stuff like, Oh, we can't afford that, or where am I gonna get the money for that?
• 1:40:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or I don't know how that's gonna be possible.
• 1:40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't we just keep our head down and lower our expectations?
• 1:40:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, you can't afford that.
• 1:40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Change that to how do we create the opportunities to get this?
• 1:40:24
  SPEAKER_01: How do we see the opportunities within the scenario to level up?
• 1:40:29
  SPEAKER_01: How are you feeling?
• 1:40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Not too bad.
• 1:40:32
  SPEAKER_01: The moment like that was one thing which really used to confuse me.
• 1:40:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you say not too bad, you're essentially saying you're bad, but not too bad.
• 1:40:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why would you say that?
• 1:40:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and that's why I've always said I'm excellent on purpose.
• 1:40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's my how you doing?
• 1:40:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm good, G, I'm excellent on purpose.
• 1:40:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, even if I'm not in a position where like maybe something has happened and I'm not on that level of energy, I'll say, yo, we're good and we're leveling up.
• 1:40:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my part two.
• 1:41:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're good and we're leveling up.
• 1:41:02
  SPEAKER_01: So if there's a and I don't say, oh, there's a problem, I say we have an we have a challenge that we're trying to get over, we have an obstacle that we're trying to get around.
• 1:41:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because the way you speak to yourself shapes your mindset, and that's why I say you have the financial scarcity, but you also have the opportunity scarcity.
• 1:41:20
  SPEAKER_01: When AI came around, it could have been a case of yo, I think, I think this is it.
• 1:41:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think, but no, we're like, oh, I said this is an opportunity because we learned this, we now have a way to be way more efficient, deliver more, create more for people, and we can charge more because our value has increased.
• 1:41:41
  SPEAKER_01: So look at it that way: a value increase and a value add, not a this is gonna take our jobs, or this is a threat to this, or this is uh we need to we need to make the most of the time because our time is compressed.
• 1:41:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, look at the opportunities within it, and now that's we're we're living living the the proof of what we said.
• 1:42:02
  SPEAKER_00: So what does abundance look like to you?
• 1:42:06
  SPEAKER_01: Abundance looks like to me when anything that you face, first of all, the way you look at it is and I'm not saying that everything is you get you sugarcoated in uh positive energy always.
• 1:42:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, people are real.
• 1:42:26
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to have there are gonna be situations that like this, why why me?
• 1:42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Why does this have to be why am I the one dealing with this?
• 1:42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Those situations are gonna come, and that's unfortunately that's just how life is.
• 1:42:41
  SPEAKER_01: We hope it doesn't, but if it does, having the mindset to tackle it with a positive attitude that we will get over this.
• 1:42:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's the glass you have the glass half full and the glass half empty, guys, and then you have the glasses almost full.
• 1:43:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the glasses almost full type of person.
• 1:43:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that to me is where the abundance mindset comes from.
• 1:43:08
  SPEAKER_01: Understanding what I say to myself impacts how I deal with things myself, and understanding in situations that may not be to my liking, that there is an opportunity to switch it around or look at it from a different angle, and understanding that once that's done, that's a skill you now have to help anyone else who's ever in a similar situation, or even if you're in a similar situation, and that I would definitely say has been a great survival skill because there've been a lot of things that have gone wrong, and to the point where it's not even in your control where it's gone wrong.
• 1:43:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's just been like bruh, like why, man?
• 1:43:51
  SPEAKER_01: But you're like, okay, cool, but we'll deal with this.
• 1:43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Pray, deal with this, we get through it, and here we are.
• 1:44:00
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I've learned, and this is only recently, is surrendering.
• 1:44:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you put stuff out and then you surrender.
• 1:44:10
  SPEAKER_00: Allow the process to be the process, but not take ownership of it didn't work this way or you couldn't do it this way.
• 1:44:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, something else is gonna show up.
• 1:44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, what how else can I do it?
• 1:44:24
  SPEAKER_00: How else can I get it done?
• 1:44:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love the Bible, I love what God says, and the more I hear what God says, the less I am looking to the negative.
• 1:44:36
  SPEAKER_00: In the Bible, it says, as a man thinketh, so is he.
• 1:44:40
  SPEAKER_00: So how am I thinking?
• 1:44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Am I thinking that there's doom and gloom?
• 1:44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Am I thinking there's opportunity?
• 1:44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Something that I learned a long time ago was every day is new.
• 1:44:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm never in the same place.
• 1:44:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's always a new adventure, it's always new.
• 1:44:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I get to decide how I'm gonna show up for it.
• 1:45:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, am I gonna just go lally gag around like, oh, this is horrible.
• 1:45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Am I gonna go, oh, it's a new day.
• 1:45:09
  SPEAKER_00: What can I do today?
• 1:45:10
  SPEAKER_00: How can I find my happy place?
• 1:45:13
  SPEAKER_00: What is so I am walking in my happy place.
• 1:45:19
  SPEAKER_00: It it may not be your happy place, but it it fits me, it suits me.
• 1:45:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's that courage in the book of Joshua, chapter one, it says, you know, don't be afraid, don't be discouraged, don't be dismayed, because I, your God, go before you.
• 1:45:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm with you wherever you go.
• 1:45:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm walking with God, how can I see negative?
• 1:45:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not that it's not there, but I'm protected.
• 1:45:49
  SPEAKER_00: I have a covering over me.
• 1:45:51
  SPEAKER_00: So even though I'm walking through something, I'm not I'm not setting camp in it.
• 1:45:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people die, people get sick, um, people lose money, they lose their their home.
• 1:46:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh last year we had, you know, incredible fires that wiped out large portions of Los Angeles.
• 1:46:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I live in the basin in the valley, and we had smoke and fire coming from all sides.
• 1:46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the left, the right, the south, the north, the east, and the west.
• 1:46:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, God, you got this.
• 1:46:29
  SPEAKER_00: You got this, Lord.
• 1:46:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're just, we're walking.
• 1:46:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know what you what can you do?
• 1:46:35
  SPEAKER_00: You you just walk, and and I'm not to belittle any of it because I have friends who lost everything.
• 1:46:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing that I'm mindful of is you you still have life, you still have opportunity to do it, you know, do something else, try something else.
• 1:46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know.
• 1:46:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I I love your definitions of lack and abundance because we can do anything, but we can't do anything if we don't believe we can.
• 1:47:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if every hurdle becomes I'm not gonna make it, instead of making every hurdle an opportunity to think differently.
• 1:47:24
  SPEAKER_00: You said earlier that lack of resources doesn't you can use it.
• 1:47:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm paraphrasing what you said, but you said lack of resources is an opportunity to be resourceful.
• 1:47:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:47:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if we think not about money, but how can I be resourceful here?
• 1:47:43
  SPEAKER_00: What can I do with what I have?
• 1:47:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I got this.
• 1:47:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, what can I do with this?
• 1:47:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I got a can of tuna, I got I got some bread, I got some cheese.
• 1:47:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'ma make me a grilled tuna sandwich.
• 1:48:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like looking at what are the options.
• 1:48:03
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many options, but we are so stuck in doing it one way that we don't see all the other ways.
• 1:48:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like going back to what you said, there are eight eight billion people on the planet.
• 1:48:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you why are you focusing on people who don't want you?
• 1:48:21
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go where you are tolerated, go where you're celebrating.
• 1:48:24
  SPEAKER_01: Celebrated 100%.
• 1:48:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, you gotta you gotta find that thing of where am I celebrating?
• 1:48:31
  SPEAKER_00: Who is the tribe that loves me?
• 1:48:33
  SPEAKER_00: Who is the tribe that is going to um fill me up and and and just give me um the support?
• 1:48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because we we gotta be where we're supported.
• 1:48:45
  SPEAKER_00: We can't be where people keep trashing us and diminishing us.
• 1:48:49
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta get the hell out of there.
• 1:48:52
  SPEAKER_00: Get out of there right now.
• 1:48:54
  SPEAKER_00: Get out.
• 1:48:55
  SPEAKER_00: Where am I to celebrate?
• 1:48:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's better, my mother says it's better to be by yourself than to be with people who just hurt you.
• 1:49:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so finding that, you know, maybe you gotta be by yourself for a period of time until you know what it is that you want so you can find that tribe.
• 1:49:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because it does take time.
• 1:49:15
  SPEAKER_00: It took me 64 years to find MMU.
• 1:49:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think it is probably the most amazing tribe on the planet, you know, because everybody is different.
• 1:49:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we all we are we all have our businesses, but everybody is different.
• 1:49:33
  SPEAKER_00: They bring a different sensibility to the table.
• 1:49:37
  SPEAKER_00: They, you know, um it going back to what you said earlier, if they're if somebody's out of sorts, everybody can pull together.
• 1:49:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what a tribe does.
• 1:49:47
  SPEAKER_00: It it embraces you, it tells you you're good.
• 1:49:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're in a tribe where they're saying, Yeah, you know, you're not good, you're not good, get out, run, run for us, run, get out of there.
• 1:50:01
  SPEAKER_01: To your point, when you said the um, and this again will take this back to the dating.
• 1:50:06
  SPEAKER_01: When you said um, go where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated.
• 1:50:10
  SPEAKER_01: I also have another saying to that.
• 1:50:12
  SPEAKER_01: And again, this applies both in dating and in business.
• 1:50:15
  SPEAKER_01: You teach people how to treat you by what you tolerate, and that's that to me is a fact.
• 1:50:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you tolerate nonsense, unfortunately, people will start will keep giving you that nonsense.
• 1:50:26
  SPEAKER_01: You make a stand, you have your own standards, you don't have to deal with that.
• 1:50:30
  SPEAKER_01: That that applies both to business and in your dating life.
• 1:50:34
  SPEAKER_01: So 100%, and building your tribe.
• 1:50:37
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you.
• 1:50:39
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate everything that you bring to MMU.
• 1:50:42
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate the interview.
• 1:50:44
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate your courage and your strength.
• 1:50:48
  SPEAKER_00: You are so strong.
• 1:50:50
  SPEAKER_00: You you you come in the mornings, I know it's your afternoon, but for me, it's the middle of the night.
• 1:50:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you just come with with good with with good um intentions and good love.
• 1:51:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to say thank you, Oye.
• 1:51:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait to see everything that you're you're getting ready to just uh take and just make even better.
• 1:51:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:51:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're we're excited, like yeah, 2026.
• 1:51:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're locked in and making stuff happen and bringing those transformations.
• 1:51:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 1:51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, was fire, Mr.
• 1:51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oye Tola, Oye Womi.
• 1:51:32
  SPEAKER_00: I love his name.
• 1:51:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a great name.
• 1:51:35
  SPEAKER_00: He was great, and I love how he broke down why actors need websites.
• 1:51:40
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to know your comments below.
• 1:51:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a website?
• 1:51:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know how important it is to have your very own website?
• 1:51:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is.
• 1:51:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't already done so, could you subscribe to my channel?
• 1:51:52
  SPEAKER_00: I need all the support I can get so we can keep this channel going and share it with your friends.
• 1:51:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let them know what's happening here at Acting Smarter Now.
• 1:52:01
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go anywhere because we got another great interview coming up just for you to help you so you can take your career from undiscovered to unstoppable.