We need to have a little conversation because I've seen too many talented actors just spinning their wheels, posting, waiting, hoping, and I'm not here for that. Mm-mm. If you've been wondering why your acting career feels stuck, why you're not booking, why you feel like you're doing everything right, but nothing is clicking, you're in the right space right now. So stay with me because I got some good stuff for you. Welcome to Acting Smarter Now. I am Lydia Nicole, your common sense mamita. I'm an acting career coach, actress, producer, and I have been in the industry for 50 years, and I've seen what works and I've seen what wastes your time and your money. So today I'm gonna be very direct with you. This live is for you. If you are a serious actor who wants to stop guessing and start booking, whether you are just starting out or you've been in the game for years and you feel like something is missing, this conversation is bada be. So before I share my stuff today, I want to hear from you because I am not here to talk at you. I'm here to have a real conversation. So I want to ask you some questions if you're game. We can have some questions here. Number one, what is the number one thing that is stopping you from having the acting career you want right now? And I would love for you to be specific. And if you can, type it in the chat for me. Tell me what is the one thing that's stopping you from having the acting career that you want? Don't be shy. Come on and tell me, tell me, tell me. What is it? What's keeping you from that career? Be honest with me. How many times in the last 30 days have you actually spent working on your acting career? Like a business, not dreaming about it, but really working on it, doing something, sending out your pictures and resumes, um, um, submitting, doing a uh self-tape? What have you done for your career in the last 30 days? Do you actually have a system, a real strategy for submitting, for following up, for marketing yourself, for building your brand as an actor? Do you? Or are you just kind of winging it? Like, I'm an actor, I can do everything because you can't. Sorry. Um, Rick Bell, thank you for sharing. Still learning, having crossed that line. I have a lot of work to do on my self tapes. I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it that you know where you are at, Rick. So, my question for you is what steps are you learning as you are as you are growing? What is it that where are you right now? What do you where are you in your learning? And you said you have to do a lot of work on yourself tapes. What do you have to do? What do you think you have to do? Let me know. Write it in the chat. I would love to know what you're doing. So I got another question for you. While you're writing that, Rick, I'm gonna ask another question. So, as an actor, I want to know who you have in your corner. Who is holding you accountable to what you say you want in your career? Is it a coach? Is it a community? Is it a mentor? Is it your peer? Is it your mama? Who is holding you accountable? And if you could wave that magic wand and fix one thing in your acting career right now, what would it be? Type it. Don't hold back. What would that be? Ah, Rick, I watch other actors while on set. Plus, I reach out to actor friends for coaching. Love it, love it, love it, love it. So, um that's that's really good. Now, have you um gotten a scene for yourself to start working on so that you can have you can make a tape of it and have it to show people on what it is that you do exactly, what your brand is, what it looks like. You love every minute on set, but what are you doing when you're not on set, that you can be able to use it to market yourself, to promote yourself, to get people to notice you. What is that that you're you're doing? I would like to know that. So, going back, if you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing about your acting career right now, what would it be? Tell me, tell me, tell me. I would love to know. Okay, here we go. So I want to give you something real right now, not fluff, not inspirational poster stuff, but I want to give you real strategy because in the acting smarter circle, we don't just dream about what we want, we actually do the work. So I have a few, but uh self-tapes that I share. I have a few self-tapes that I share. However, I need to practice leading into each scene. Okay, that's that is very good, very good. And you can also do the self-tapes, lean into it, and then just edit that little part out in the beginning that gets you in there, and and then just start from the stuff, give yourself a little improv in that self-tape that you could clip out and just give the scene. So um dive in, Rick. Dive in. So let's talk about treating your career like the CEO of your business. Because the number one mistake that I see actors make is that they are fans of the industry instead of business owners in the industry. You have to be the CEO of your acting career. That means you have to come up with a plan. You have to have daily revenue producing activities that you're working on. Track your submissions, your callbacks, your relationships. So when I say have daily revenue producing activities, that would be what um what television shows are you shooting for? What who are you submitting to? Are you submitting to streaming um services that have shows that you would be right for? Do you know what you would be right for? You know, it's not just about acting, but it if you're doing film and television, you have to be very, very specific in what it is that you want. You have to know what your type is, you have to know what it is that you sell, what is your genre, what are you good at. That is important if you want to have success in this business. Because it's not just about, you know, I take acting classes, that's important, but it's not the only thing you have to do in your career. You have to take the classes, but you have to know the business, you have to know what you sell. You can't just say, Well, you know, I'm taking acting classes, I'm doing self-tape classes, I'm doing scene study. That's part of it, but you got to do more. Um verticals are great. Verticals are great, but you still need to know what it is that you sell when you're doing verticals. You want to be very specific in what it is that you sell as an actor. Okay, so uh um you want to set aside dedicated business hours each week for your career. So is it uh two hours a day that you you know you are focused on on shows, the producers of the shows, the writers of the shows, the casting directors of the shows, so that you can um uh be intentional about sending them your information. Write a little note, do snail mail, you get a little postcard and say and and say who you are with your picture on the front and send it. And you can get their addresses from casting about, you can get their addresses on IMDb Pro. Um, but it's about you doing the work, not waiting for your agent, but you starting to do the work as well. So you gotta know your brand. I just spoke about that a minute ago. You got to know your brand. What is it that makes you uniquely bookable? And you want to track your submission. So if you submit it for five things this month, you want to know what it is. Someone said, I'm an actor and I want to book more gigs. How do I put myself out there? Again, um, you want to make sure that you know what you sell. So are you selling the doctor? Are you selling the lawyer? Are you selling the the uh FedEx guy? Are you selling the waitress? Are you selling the young ingenue? Are you selling the old Krabby guy? The more specific you can be about what it is that you sell and have it in your photo. So when they see your photo, they go, oh my god, there would be a perfect um uh P uh uh um uh PTA mom, they would be a perfect um uh public defender. You want to make those pictures very specific in what it is that you sell, right? So you gotta take the time not just to take your acting classes because we need you to take the classes, but we also need you to know your business. So, and and you have to invest in the craft, you gotta invest in what it is that you want, because I see a lot of actors they want everything for free. Then you're not gonna really have a career because, in order to have a career, you have to invest in great pictures, you gotta invest in a great acting class so that you can make relationships in these classes. This business is not just about how talented you are, but it's about who knows you and who you know. So, um, I you're welcome. So I want you to start being very specific in what you do. Um, oh, you're a law, uh a police officer. Okay, okay. Um, oh, you that those are the roles. Well, there's a lot of roles. So, what kind of police officer or law enforcement officer? Are you the good guy or the bad guy? Are you the crooked guy or the guy who wants to be the crusader and help everybody? Because they're specific, right? The more you can decide what kind of police officer or law enforcement officer you are, the better your chances of booking jobs. Um, so we we want to start tweaking what it is that we sell and be very specific. The more unique you are in what you sell, the more you're gonna get called in to do self-tapes, to audition. So you want to be able to do that. So I uh want to give you three pillars. So um I want if so at the end of this, I'm gonna invite you to join my community, um, Acting Smarter Circle, which will allow you to um really start to show up in a business way, in a more serious way, with strategy so that you can book better roles that fit you. And when I say fit you, it's like there are a lot of parts out there, but not all the parts fit you. Not all the parts look great on you. You you know, when you go to a department store to look for outfit, there there's some things you put on and it fits you like a glove. Well, those are the type of of roles that we want to go up, the ones that fit us like a glove, instead of one that you say, well, I could do that. Well, maybe if I did, I I you know, you have to tailor it, you gotta tweak it, you gotta that's not really they've got somebody who that part really fits. And and the more you know what fits you, the more successful you are gonna be in this business. So, strategy uh number two, I call them the three pillars to build yourself as a bookable actor. The first thing is craft. Are you training? Are you getting better? Do you have a reel that sells you? How are your skills? What's your range? The the other part is business. Do you understand how the industry works? Do you uh are you smart about marketing yourself, about submitting yourself, about having relationships in this industry so that people know who you are and know what it is that you do? And how are you at branding your stuff, which is what we are talking about. Branding your stuff, doing yourself. And then the third thing is faith, right? Do you believe that you belong in this industry? Because I've seen a lot of talented actors who don't believe that they belong in this industry, they feel like they're imposters, and you can't book work if you're coming in feeling like an ap an imposter or you're doing self-tapes, and in the back of your mind, you're like, Oh, I don't know if I'm good in this or not. That shows it. We we think we're covering stuff, but it shows it. You know, people who are experienced in this business can tell right away if you are centered and you believe you belong here. And so we need to have faith. We need to have a mindset that says, Yeah, I'm made for this. This is what I'm supposed to be doing, this is what I need. My contacts are what lands me the most jobs. Absolutely. But the more relationships you have, then you're gonna get better quality work. So then strategy number three is accountability. And accountability is the missing ingredient for a lot of actors that I find. You're doing it by yourself, you you know, you're like, well, you know, I'm working on this, I'm working on that. But when you have accountability, it it keeps you grounded, it makes you move further, and you're not lying to yourself. You know, if you're if you're doing it by yourself, there's a lot of things you don't know. So you want to be um connected with people who can say, hey, do this, hey, this would be good, who know what they're talking about, not just anybody, you know, not your friends. Oh, why don't you do this? Why don't you do that? And they never did it before, they can't help you. They they're just leading you astray. So you want to be able to have that accountability. Um, and and accountability is not luck, it's it's having people in your corner who say, Did you do what you said you were gonna do um and not leave it up to you? And I'll tell you a uh a story. I've been doing this, I've been in this business 50 years. I used to go through periods where I would say, Well, I'm gonna work on this, I'm gonna do that, but I didn't have accountability. So when I didn't have accountability, I would push it back. Well, I'll work on it tomorrow. Well, I'll work on it next week. Well, next week turned into next month, and then the month after, and then the month after, and then I looked up and the year would have passed, and I had not done anything I said I wanted to do. And what I have found over the years, throughout the 50 years that I've been doing it, is that when I am accountable to others, I work better. When it's left to my own devices, I'm a slippery person and I will not get it done, you know, because I have to feel like it. Well, when you're accountable, it's not about how you feel. It's like I gotta get this done. I told, I told my friend Blair I was gonna do it, so I'm gonna do it. Um, and it really does help to have accountability. And so that's what I want to talk to you about. Having a community that pushes you, that uh will help you when you need coaching, will challenge you, when you need a space where you can ask real questions without judgment and get answers that are gonna help you move your ball, help you move your career forward. So what I want to share with you is this is a business. This is not, you know, it's not like, oh, I wish or you know, one day maybe it's gonna happen. No, it's a business. If you were a plumber, you would have to take care of your business. You would have to uh do the marketing, the promotion, you would have to go and meet people so they would know who you are. Well, that's that's what it is with acting. Plumbers have their skill set, but the skill set is not enough. Actors have a skill set, but the skill set is not enough. You have to go out and meet people, you have to be ready, you have to have your your package uh ready so that when you show up, people want to work with you. So I want to introduce to you the Acting Smarter Circle. It is my private membership community for serious actors. If you're lazy, if you just want uh people to feed you and you just sit there, and this is not the group for you. This is not a Facebook, a Facebook group either. It's not a free group. Um this is not the uh free group dumping, giving you everything. No, this ain't that kind of group. You pay so you can pay attention. Um, if you want information, if you want uh tips, I do have that on my uh YouTube channel, Lydia Nicole Live, and I have a thousand videos, so you can go there and get whatever you need for free. This is a paid group, this is a dedicated, faith-grounded, strategy-driven community where we work your career together every single month, every single week, Mondays um from 6:30 p.m. until 8 p.m. And what you get is you get the month, the monthly live coaching, which is um we meet on Zoom. Um, you uh we will put an actor in the hot seat uh every every week so we could spotlight you and see where the holes are and how we can help you. Um we focus on craft, on the business, and on faith. So it it all goes together. You know, if you're an actor, you gotta walk in faith, you gotta trust that you are here and things are gonna open up for you. But the tricky part about faith is that faith can only take place when you do the work, you gotta do it together. So I I I will send you the information, but you can also go to actingsmartercircle.com and go ahead and sign up. That's acting smartercircle.com, and we are starting this coming Monday at 6 30. So you can either join right now. We have the founding members um the subscription. So if you join before the end of July, you can get a discount. So it's $67 a month, or you can join the um uh annual plan, which is uh $497 until the end of July, and then it goes to $9.97. So right now we are doing a spectacular sale. Um, let me tell you, I teach my ass off, and you will leave better than you came. You will have breakthroughs, and I'm not I'm not just talking talk. I have been doing this for 50 years. I've been acting, I've been producing, I've done stand up. I mean, I've done a whole lot of stuff. So um go to actingsmartercircle.com. Actingsmartercircle.com and join us. We start Monday, uh, June 22nd at 6 30. P.M. That's uh Pacific Standard Time. And this community is for actors who are serious about their career, may not know uh what steps you need to take, but you are willing to do the work. If you're willing to do the work, we got you. We got you. We, you know, we're not uh forcing you to do a hundred things, but and and we don't want you to do like everybody else does. The whole purpose of this community is to support you in being uniquely you. Uniquely you. We want you to be uniquely you because that's when you book the best work, the most work. If you're just if you're an actor out there and you're like, I just, you know, I'm gonna do a couple of lines here, a couple of lines there. There's nothing wrong with that. I know actors who are day players and they are happy with that. I'm not looking for you to be a day player, I'm looking for you to uh uh to move it up to get, you know, hopefully get a series, get a a lead in a movie, a lead in a play to start creating a name for yourself that the industry cannot deny you. I want to help you go from undiscovered to unstoppable. Now, the spots are limited because I want to make sure I take care of you. So if you are interested, go to actingsmartercircle.com and sign up and come join us. We start, like I said, Monday the 22nd at 6 30 p.m. And we are here to support you. We are here to help you move your career. And I'm not telling you it's gonna happen overnight because you may need some work, but I am here to tell you it will happen. It will happen. If you follow the directions, if you are doing um the if you are following the advice that we're giving you and you're showing up and you're doing it, it will happen. Um, it's like anything when you put work to it, it shows up. A lot of times actors think they put work to it because they're doing busy work, they're submitting for everything. Oh, you know, they see uh some uh some uh breakdown and they go, oh, I'm gonna submit for that. Well, but did you check to make sure that the role you're submitting for is something you could actually do, not well, I'm gonna submit and then go see my picture and they go, Well, we we wanted this person, but we're coming for you, Lydia, because you're fabulous. No, we want you to submit for work that you get called in for, that even if you don't get it, you came in at least the second person, which means if you came in and you did your work and you were solid, they're gonna put you on a list to have you come back again for something else because you have shown that you are castable, that they can use you in stuff. So that's what that's what I want to help you with. Not, you know, well, I didn't book this part. We don't have control of what we get booked in, but we do have control in how we show up, how we present ourselves, how our pictures look, how we are positioning our social media pages. Are we looking for um just any job or are we looking for the right fit? So if you want to be the right fit in this business, I welcome you to join us at Acting Smarter Circle because we got the goods and we will help you. Um, if if you want to know more about me, you can go to my YouTube channel, Lydia Nicole Live. I have uh about a thousand and twenty videos up. So I got videos on everything from how to get an agent to memorizing lines or not memorizing lines, uh, how to write your own pilot. Um there's just so much. I've been I I've had this channel for 13 years, so I've put up a lot of content to help other actors because being in the business for 50 years, being in front of the camera, being behind the camera, being on stage, I've done one-person shows, I've done theater, I've done uh stand-up. I had a stand-up uh comedy group that that for like seven years, I had another group for like four years. I've I've done a lot, a lot of stuff. And I didn't have um mentors, I didn't have people I could ask questions. That's why I'm doing this, because I am now your mentor. I am now the coach to help you because I've made all the mistakes. I've made every single mistake that that there is to make. I mean, I've done stupid stuff, I've also done stuff that has gotten me booked. I've gotten, you know, I I figured out about branding early on in my career. I figured out not to wait for agents, but to go out there and and you know, get the agent, but don't expect the agent to do everything for you. I've also learned that in order to um to have the agent work for you, you have to create a relationship with them. You have to talk to them regularly. You can't just sign with them and then you don't talk to them for like two years and go, Well, I don't know if I have an agent or not. Well, I don't know if you have an agent or not either because you are not communicating with them. Think of agents, they have maybe a minimum of like a hundred clients. You're just one of them. If you're just one of those clients and they don't know what you're doing, they don't know what's happening with you, you think you come to their mind. No, they're they're dealing with the clients who are getting called in, they're dealing with the clients who are uh reaching out to them and saying, Hey, I'm in so-and-so's acting class. Hey, I just I'm getting ready to take new pictures. Can you help me? You have to create a relationship with them. Having an agent is like being married. You gotta you gotta get together or dating, you got to communicate with your partner, and with agents, you gotta communicate with them. So, um, like I said, in the space, we will have um times when we do hot seats with actors and just walk through what it is that you are doing and how we can help you and and what it is that you need. You know, I want to know what you need specifically. So we will talk about uh we will have some general stuff like how to set up your IMDB Pro. You gotta have IMDB Pro. Um, what are the subscriptions that you must belong to? Um, how to get monies coming in to help you, and we're not talking about selling drugs or doing anything illicit, but what can you do to make money to um sponsor your career? Because you are the you are the CEO, you are the investor of your career. Nobody's gonna invest in you if they don't know you. You have to invest in yourself. That's how it works. You know, if you want to be a doctor, you gotta invest in your your um degree, you gotta invest in your residency. So as an actor, you have to make that investment and you have to allow yourself time to um really get established in the business. If you haven't, you know, you have to get in there and and and meet people and go to events and figure out, you know, what what uh circle of actors you want to be a part of and who uh uh who casts what shows that you would be right for. So um I want to uh again just offer to you to join acting smartercircle.com. Come join us at actingsmartercircle.com. Like I said, we will meet every Monday starting uh the 22nd of June. Every Monday we will meet from 6 30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time till about 8, 8.30, depending on on what's happening. But we want to create a community that's safe, a community that is fire, meaning you uh you come inspired. You come. I I belong to a couple of communities now, and I leave those communities so jazzed and ready to do stuff, and I'm about execution. So I'm bringing to you what I've learned in the last 50 years. I'm about creating content myself, help, and so I'm gonna push you to create content that will make you stand out, not just submit to you know, send this to you. No, this is your career. I I don't want you to be a victim in your career. I want you to be a I want you to be victorious in your career. I want you to win. I want you to kick some ass in your career. Okay, so I'm not trying to um I'm not like other people, I'm not like other coaches. Oh, that's nice. I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna give you a pow pow if you're messing up. I'm going to tell you now if you don't want somebody who's gonna hold you accountable, tell you the truth in love. I'm always gonna love on you like a good mama does, but I'm gonna give you a pow-pow if you're messing up. If you if you show up to the group and you aren't doing what you said you were gonna do, I'm not gonna be happy. Because the whole purpose of you being in this group is so that you can move forward, so that you can look back in two months, three months, and go, wow, I did all of that. Wow, look at what I've done. You know, when you're in a really good support group, you start to transform, you start to change, you see the progress. It's not about I wish I could do this, I wish this can happen. No, you are doing hi Germaine, you are doing what you need to be doing. So I want you to come if you're ready to win. I am here to help you win. And yes, yes, Amber, we will be bringing fire, we will be bringing fire, we will be giving you tips, we will be giving you um uh things to do that will really help you. So again, if you are interested in joining an acting community um uh where we support each other, where we come with strategy, where we hold each other accountable, then come sign up for acting smartercircle.com, sign up. We meet in the school app, and we will have Zoom calls that are live every Monday evening, 6 30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, and we will help you move your train, move your ball, do what it is you got to do to get you where you want to be. And it I'm I'm gonna tell you it's gonna be work, but if you are willing and able, you will get there. If you if you trust the process, you will get there. So again, please, if you are if you are an actor who needs uh some good vibes, you need to be around people that are moving forward and they're supportive and generous and they want to see each other win. Come join us. If you are about being in a group that is destructive, that is all about haters. Don't don't join us because that's not what we do. We we're not about the hate, we're not about the the shading other people, we're about supporting each other. We uh we are about family. You know, the the wonderful thing about um when you're on a project and when the actors are all aligned, it's like a family. It's like you become this family that's unstoppable. And that's what I want to create with Acting Smarter Circle. So if you want that kind of energy, come and join us at ActingSmarterCircle.com. If if you don't know what it is that you want, come over to YouTube and go to my channel, Lydia Nicole Live, and glean from all the amazing um episodes that I have where I'm interviewing teachers like Ivana Chubbick and um uh Judy Kane, where I um and and Michelle Danner and people who have been doing this for a long time and are giving really good information. If you're interested in stand-up, we got some great stand-ups that that I've interviewed that are friends of mine. Actually, probably 80% of the people that I've interviewed are all friends of mine because I know what they do, I know how hard they work, I know how they show up and they do their stuff. And so that's what I want to bring to you. I want to bring you the best. I want to bring you um the best of what I have to bring out the best in you. So go to acting smartercircle.com. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope to see you in the circle uh Monday, um uh Monday, June 22nd at 6 30. Go to acting smartercircle.com, join us.