Acting Advice: Leap

“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.”

W.H. Murray (often misattributed to Goethe)

I felt the need today to speak to several of my students, friends, and readers that have been experiencing a crisis in their life of late.  Maybe it will speak to you too. 

You are at a crossroads. You have been doing something for a while. And then suddenly everything changes. There is something new in your life and it makes you shine brightly like a lightbulb, more than anything or anyone in your life, and it shocks and surprises you, and it’s all you want. Some of us call it acting, or a business idea, or a purpose.

I know the feeling myself, I discovered my purpose at the age of 32, I had directed, I had taught acting, but I had no purpose. 

I too was unhappy in a job, being very well paid, and at the same time running a financially successful company on the side, and doing a bit of extra teaching where I could. But it was the bit of extra teaching that was my joy, my bliss, doing it for myself was the real purpose.

But the business and the full-time job were just making me miserable.

I worried about security, about whether building up our own studio would be a mistake, leaving the security of being an employees behind, my friends and family tried to talk me down, tried to get me to be realistic and safe. And they were well intentioned, but I knew, that if I wanted to be happy, I had to pursue my own idea of success…

…and in a moment of madness, I leapt. Five years later, we have four staff at Acting Coach Scotland, I have coached Oscar and BAFTA winners, I have taught almost 1000 people, published a book, had 30000 people a month read this blog every month (of which there are almost 800 pages), and a blog last week was shared by almost one thousand people on Facebook,  I am 2/3 of the way through my second book, I have returned to professional directing and have created my own evolution of an acting technique, and I am fulfilled by my job, on a day to day basis.

And all it took was that I definitely committed, and it all started happening…

But I understand that you’re worried, Worried about the decision, worried about the consequences, worried about what other people will say and think or disapprove, worried about the feeling you know in your heart is right, but it scares the shit out of you.

But you can do it. You can quit whatever it is you’re in, and you can change direction. You can change direction, go with your heart, and you can still be loved, still be successful and still be happy.

It won’t be easy, I won’t pretend that it is. Sometimes we have to end relationships, move country, borrow money, beg favours, re-train, give up luxury, but in the end it’s all the same – you will need to put in a lot of work to make the change.

And it will hurt for a while. But all you need to have is the bravery to commit to the decision and make it, and live with the consequences. Because if you’re willing as Seth Godin says to own the consequences, then you also get to own the success too. Fully.

Your friends, colleagues and family will speak to you about sense, and sensible, what makes sense and what’s sensible. They say this to protect you from failure, from risk, and from pain.

Everyone wants to protect you from failure, and they are very well intentioned. But all they end up doing is insulating you from success. They want to protect you from bad things happening, but they end up protecting you from good things happening too.

They are aware of the risks, and they try to prevent you from failing, and they actively promote the biggest failure of all, the failure to be true to yourself, the failure to live your life fully and fulfil your potential. And if they don’t understand that, they love you, but they don’t understand you.

Doing the sensible thing means never taking risks, and people that never take risks, they don’t achieve much in the world.

Every. Single. Successful. Person. You. Admire – Took Risks To Get Where They Are Now.

I told that to a bunch of undergrads once, and my boss told me that what I had said was dangerous. Because not all of them could be successful.

That cowardice made me white hot, it still does.

Your friends, family, colleagues and my boss, what they were doing was not really protecting you, that’s the external action, and they do really mean it. But what they are subconsciously doing is protecting themselves.

Themselves?

Because they don’t have the guts to follow their bliss. Yes. If you follow your heart, follow your bliss as Joseph Campbell once said, if you have the guts to f*ck safe and leap, you will make them feel bad about themselves. Why?

Because they have played it safe. Because they don’t have the guts.

Successful people, who followed their bliss, they will always advise you to do it, unfulfilled people, people that are too scared, lazy and distracted to commit to follow their heart, they would prefer that you didn’t remind them of their own cowardice. They are well-intentioned, but they shouldn’t hold your dreams hostage to their own fears.

You are not scared.

You are brave.

Now. 

Fuck safe.

And Leap.