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Unknown
Welcome to Film on Tape, a free audio library for creatives in film and television. My name is Misha Calvert, and I've worked as an actor, writer, director and producer for many decades. I had so many questions when I was first getting started in New York, and I just wanted fast, free answers. That is what this library is for.
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Unknown
The work that you do as a creative is so important. I really hope that this library is going to help get your work out there. Film on tape is sponsored by Vermilion, a coaching and educational company for creatives. You can learn more at clubvermilion.com.
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Unknown
I've been on a journey the past three years. As I discover the difference between seeking devotion and seeking validation. This has been a transformational occurrence that has really changed the way I approach art, and to a certain degree, the way I approach life and all of my relationships. I'm going to take you through a comparison of devotion versus validation.
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Unknown
And because you're an artist, I'm really hoping that it's going to resonate for you. So I'm going to reveal some truths about myself as an artist and as a person that are kind of vulnerable. But I'm hoping that it will help to illustrate the differences between devotion and validation, and how you can become more devoted to your art and basically more fulfilled, like have a better experience as an artist.
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Unknown
Let's start with the definition of devotion. Devotion means love, loyalty, or enthusiasm. So when you think of your career as an artist, do you feel love? Do you feel loyalty? Do you feel enthusiasm? Maybe the answer's yes. But if the answer's no to even one of those things, what do you feel instead? The gap between love, loyalty, and enthusiasm in your art, I believe, is the exact size and shape of your absent devotion.
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Unknown
I talk to a lot of actors. I talk to actors every day of my life, and I email with hundreds of them every month, and I have dozens of them who are a part of Vermilion now, my Vermilion people. This doesn't apply to you, of course, but I can tell you that in the thousands of conversations that I've had with actors, most actors are not devoted to acting.
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Unknown
They think that they are, but they're actually devoted to something else. We'll get back to that. It's hard being an actor, and the rejection really wears you down. And a lot of actors have been grinding for so long chasing validation.
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Unknown
that their devotion isn't even really in the mix anymore. It used to be
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Unknown
beautiful flowering garden,
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Unknown
but now the flowers are of dried.
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Unknown
They've dried up and they're turning to dust on the floor.
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Unknown
I find it so sad when someone's devotion to the creative process that we have so naturally as children,
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Unknown
when it's been replaced by seeking validation because it’s actually hard for them to coexist. Seeking validation
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Unknown
and being devoted to your art,
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Unknown
I think they're actually very different things, and it's hard for them to occupy the same space.
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Unknown
40 hours a week, when you're devoted to your creative mission and your expression as an artist, it feels
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Unknown
like inspiration, confidence. Joy. Excitement, power.
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Unknown
40 hours a week
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Unknown
when you're seeking validation feels heavy, boring, exhausting, sad, and full of despair.
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Unknown
So I think of it like validation is hot, well-dressed, abusive partner who teaches you that you're never going to be anyone or anything without them.
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Unknown
They're very sexy, they're very loud,
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Unknown
and they're pretty unkind.
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Unknown
Whereas devotion is the loving spiritual master in a robe and sandals who teaches you that you have all you need right now.
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Unknown
They're not very sexy, and they're kind of quiet.
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Unknown
I would invite you to break up with validation.
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Unknown
Go up into the mountains and spend some time with devotion.
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Unknown
And see if you don't feel a whole lot better about your career as an artist on the other side.
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Unknown
All right. Get your pen and paper.
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Unknown
I'd like you to make a list of everything that you don't like about the acting business,
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Unknown
or whatever
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Unknown
industry that you are an artist in.
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Unknown
Could be the film industry, could be visual arts, could be dance, could be
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Unknown
music, whatever. Just make a list about what you don't like about it.
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Unknown
Is there a way that you can still create work
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Unknown
and not have to engage with the things that you don't like that are on this list?
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Unknown
Okay, now make a list of everything you love about the art that you're pursuing.
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Unknown
And ask yourself, is there a way to increase and amplify these elements that you love
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Unknown
as you create the work?
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Unknown
Is it possible to shift your view of the acting business, or whatever art form,
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Unknown
to see the business side as a creative act?
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Unknown
Have you considered that how you run your business
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Unknown
is just another opportunity to express yourself as an artist? And let me give you some concrete examples.
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Unknown
Marketing. “Ugh, blegh, marketing, I don’t want to do marketing.”
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Unknown
Well, what if it is an arts and craft project? What if you can do
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Unknown
photo collages for your marketing?
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Unknown
What if you only market through the written word and you love writing?
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Unknown
What if you only market to taking pictures and you love taking pictures?
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Unknown
What if you only market through word of mouth and you make it your pilgrimage
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Unknown
to
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Unknown
have five new meetings a week and that is your marketing. It’s with face to face marketing, which is, by the way, one of the most effective forms of marketing is,
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Unknown
is word of mouth or face to face.
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Unknown
So you get to do marketing on your terms,
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Unknown
and you get to run your business on your terms. Every company that I've started
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Unknown
has been a creative act,
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Unknown
and the advertising and the marketing
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Unknown
and the product and the service,
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Unknown
they have all been very creative.
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Unknown
And is it as creative as like,
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Unknown
being in the middle of a movie set in,
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Unknown
you know, telling the actors how to play a scene?
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Unknown
Well, no. But even most directors
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Unknown
usually aren't spending
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Unknown
most of their days on set. There's a whole lot of other stuff that has to happen before you get on set. So
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Unknown
I think just starting to look for ways that
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Unknown
the everything else can be creative.
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Unknown
It's just going to make it a lot more fun. So give it a try.
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Unknown
Now, I do want to talk about anger for a second because
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Unknown
if you consider breaking up with validation, like you're just no longer going to chase validation,
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Unknown
is there any anger around the people and places that have denied you validation?
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Unknown
When you think about the schools that you didn't get into,
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Unknown
when you think about the auditions that you didn't get,
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Unknown
when you think about the job that you had and that - suddenly because someone changed their mind or put in a bad word, you don't have that job anymore -
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Unknown
the offer that was extended
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Unknown
and then unextended?
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Unknown
Are you angry now?
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Unknown
Have you considered, instead of trying to be not angry,
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Unknown
just saying “f you” to the industry?
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Unknown
I am so excited to tell you that I'm launching a brand new slate of classes that are incredibly helpful on my website. Some of the classes include on camera acting technique and how to self produce your own film actor self-care, which is something that nobody talks about and how to write a feature film in ten days, which I'm going to teach you how I did it and how you can do it too.
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Unknown
And believe me when I say I poured my heart into these courses. Go to Club vermilion.com. I am so excited about this website. I can't wait to work with you.
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Unknown
What would it look like to say “f you” to the industry?
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Unknown
And I'm speaking specifically to artists right now, although that could apply to a lot of industries.
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Unknown
If you consider making work in spite of being rejected by all these people that you looked up to,
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Unknown
how does that feel? You make the work no matter what, you make the work, in spite of them saying no and not seeing you and not caring.
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Unknown
How does that feel?
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Unknown
Because there's probably some real freedom in embracing the anger and letting it be a fire that lights you up
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Unknown
and blasts you off into the action.
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Unknown
If being angry is what it takes for you to finally make the work that you
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Unknown
love and approve of, then
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Unknown
be angry.
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Unknown
Let that be the motivator.
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Unknown
Because
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Unknown
I
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Unknown
don't care what it takes. I want you to get to a place where
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Unknown
you know your voice, you know
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Unknown
your heart, and you are unafraid to share that with the world,
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Unknown
knowing that it's not about how much you sell. It's not about how many fans you pick up. It's not about who
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Unknown
likes you more. It's not a popularity contest. That's boring. It's about how unique and strange and specific can this artist be?
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Unknown
And in order to do that, you're going to be disliked.
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Unknown
You're going to be rejected because
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Unknown
most people are playing the popularity game
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Unknown
and you're playing the authenticity game.
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Unknown
So it's okay to be pissed off that they're playing a different game that is much stupider than yours. I give you full permission to be angry about that.
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Unknown
All right, so here's some questions. What would it look like if you released all expectation of results for your work?
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Unknown
How would you spend your day?
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Unknown
If you didn't care about succeeding, quote unquote.
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Unknown
How would you spend your week?
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Unknown
What projects would you work on? Who would you collaborate with or talk with, and what would you do together?
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Unknown
What would bring you the most joy?
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Unknown
What is it that validation has been promising you?
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Unknown
What about that is important to you?
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Unknown
Can you give it to yourself?
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Unknown
That thing that
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Unknown
validation has been promising -
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Unknown
acceptance,
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Unknown
credibility, security, worthiness
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Unknown
if
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Unknown
you were able to give those things to yourself, would that decrease your need for validation?
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Unknown
Okay, here's the biggest question of all how can you create a practice of devotion
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Unknown
to yourself and to your creative process
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Unknown
so that you never need anything from validation ever again?
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Unknown
This started looking like, for me
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Unknown
because I was writing a bunch of films, and I realized I was writing them for other people. I was writing them for some phantom audience thinking,
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Unknown
well, what are they going to find good? How do I make a good movie? How do I be good enough and make a good movie so that other people think it's good?
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Unknown
And that was just terrible. It was a terrible
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Unknown
way to go about it.
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Unknown
And I slowly - this was inner work. This was therapy, this was somatic movement. This was a lot of stuff.
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Unknown
I slowly started to value my own emotional experience.
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Unknown
That’s so wild to say that out loud,
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Unknown
because the emotional experience of an artist is the crux of their art, it's the whole thing.
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Unknown
Step one becoming aware of your own emotional experience. That's step one of making art.
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Unknown
And step two is transmuting
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Unknown
that emotional experience
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Unknown
into another medium.
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Unknown
So as a filmmaker, that usually starts with transmuting it into a literary form.
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Unknown
So I'll take my emotional experience. I'll understand it.
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Unknown
I'll get really intimate with it,
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Unknown
and then I'll turn it into a written form of that same emotional experience, aka an outline or screenplay or even a diary entry.
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Unknown
And then the next form of that after the screenplay
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Unknown
is a visual form. My emotional experience
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Unknown
is on the screen in a visual form, with pictures,
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Unknown
and then the music is also another form, another layer of my emotional experience
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Unknown
and the press campaign,
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Unknown
that's another layer of my emotional experience being expressed.
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Unknown
So with whatever art form you have,
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Unknown
give yourself the attention.
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Unknown
Let your emotional experience be the most important thing in the room. Because if you're not letting your experience be the most important thing in the room,
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Unknown
sure as hell no one else is.
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Unknown
No one else is going to care if you don't care.
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Unknown
If you don't let yourself be big, no one else will let yourself be big.
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Unknown
So please, please
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Unknown
Try on this practice of devotion
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Unknown
to yourself
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Unknown
and devotion to your own experience,
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Unknown
and see if you can really chase that and
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Unknown
create,
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Unknown
a sacred space for it,
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Unknown
if a need for validation doesn't just slowly fade away.
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Unknown
Because I can tell you, having
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Unknown
lived on both sides the majority of my life chasing validation.
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Unknown
It's not pleasant,
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Unknown
it's not relaxing,
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Unknown
and it's not really fun.
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Unknown
being at peace and just knowing that my work,
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Unknown
my work is the work and I'm devoted to that, that that feels better than,
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Unknown
than almost anything else.
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Unknown
I've really, really enjoyed this topic and I hope that
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Unknown
this conversation was valuable to you in some way.
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Unknown
All right, guys, thank you so much and I will see you next week.
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Unknown
Thank you so much for listening to Film On Tape. If you like the way that I approach the industry, check out our other classes, consulting and mentorship at clubvermilion.com. Vermilion is a home for artists and those looking to expand creatively. Whether you're an actor, film professional, an entrepreneur, or a CEO, we'll help you find your voice and hone your skills to thrive in any market at any scale.
00:16:01:22 - 00:16:13:15
Unknown
You can schedule a free phone consultation at clubvermilion.com.
