The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 301 - Smoke, Mirrors, Action!

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: Well, I did it. I recently ran my teacher and coaches training retreat weekend. It was amazing.

Pete: I'm clapping over here. I hope the listeners can hear. This is worthy of a round of applause. You've been working your ass off on this for a long time, so I'm so happy to hear it went.

Jen: I'd say twenty years, to be exact. And I have so many things I want to share about the experience. But for today, it occurred to me that I have this little list in my notes of sentences I wanted to make sure to say to the teachers, and that I want to just read you the list of my personal tenets, and you let me know if any of them can turn into an episode.

Pete: Jen's personal tenets, oh my gosh. It sounds like the table of contents for your book, and I haven't even heard it yet. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Alright, I've got my pen handy.

Jen: Okay. First of all, these are in no particular order. I just collected these and wrote them down. But then, during the actual live two-day training, at least three times this many came out of my mouth. So I recorded that, and I've got to go back and extract all of those. So, maybe we'll do a follow up episode where I read you the rest of them.

Pete: But isn't that the truth? When you're in the moment and you're like, "Actually, I've got seven more things I want to say."

Jen: Ahh. But here are ten that I wanted to make sure to include during the training. We do not have to dig into all ten. Maybe you could pick like one or two that you want to unpack.

Pete: Alright. You're communicating these, at the moment, in the context of acting coaches. Is that right?

Jen: Correct, or performance coaches. Some of them were voice teachers, some were acting teachers, some were acting coaches.

Pete: I'm preempting this as a classic, "These only apply to acting coaches," and then we go, "Actually, no, these apply to everybody."

Jen: Correct.

Pete: Alright, hit me.

Jen: Okay. So the first one we've actually already done an episode about, and that is: Assume genius. I'll link to that episode in the Box O' Goodies for people who want to hear more about that. But here are the other nine: Keep it positive. Tell the truth. Avoid generalizations. Keep it actionable. Always correct wrong notes and rhythms. "Make it organic," is not a note. Type is a distraction. A great audition is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. And finally: Personalization is a tool, it is not a technique.

Pete: Oh my god, these are...I feel like you just outlined nine new episodes.

Jen: Possibly.

Pete: Okay, so my task is to pick a couple for us to talk about?

Jen: Sure. Well, start with one.

Pete: Alright. "Great auditions are nothing but smoke and mirrors." Let's start there. This is good. I love this already.

Jen: Oh my gosh, okay. So when I say this (and I say it a lot, by the way), people get extremely uncomfortable for a of couple reasons. One: They're uncomfortable on my behalf, because they're like, "Oh my gosh. I hope nobody ever hears you say that."

Pete: "You're in trouble."

Jen: And two: They're like, "Wait a minute, what do you mean? I am an actor. I am an artiste." (This is me putting words in their mouth.) "My auditions, when they're great, are deep and profound. They are not smoke and mirrors." And once I explain it, I find that people are so relieved because, "A great audition is nothing more than smoke and mirrors," essentially means that if you are chasing an epiphany, if you are chasing an aha moment, if you're chasing the greatest work you've ever done in your life in the context of an audition, which is a hostile environment...and I don't mean a nasty environment. But I mean it's like a hard environment to survive in, therefore hostile. And you have never had a conversation with the director about the piece. You don't know what they're looking for. You're acting with a reader who you've never met, who you've never heard speak before. You haven't been given direction. You haven't been offered a concept. You haven't been assigned any details or notes. And yet, you have to make us believe that you have everything you need to succeed. You must project the confidence that you would have if you had been given notes in rehearsal, and adjustments, and direction, and a scene partner who's cast correctly and who you have great chemistry with. So, "A great audition is nothing more than smoke and mirrors," essentially means, "You are free to make it up if you need to. And then, you can find it for realsies in rehearsal."

Pete: Yeah. I mean, 150%. It's funny, the reason I picked this one is because it's not surprising to me. Like hearing you articulate that, I don't have that shock that your clients have, maybe because I'm external to your world, your industry a lot more than you are. But I just hear that and go, "Yep, that makes total sense. It's so logical." That, I would equate this to a job interview in the corporate world.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: That it's such a specific thing. It's actually a game that is separate to doing the thing itself. So it's not that I need to or will, in most job interviews, demonstrate exactly how I'm going to show up and do this job every single day. It's actually that this is a certain room with a certain series of rules and criterias (a checkpoint, if you like) that I need to get through, and there are certain ways to do that. And it is smoke and mirrors. It isn't warts and all, and it isn't a complete picture of how you're going to perform the job that you are applying for / auditioning for. So, I agree with that. And I was thinking about it through the lens of the person recruiting.

Jen: Mmm, that's so funny.

Pete: To be aware of the fact that it is smoke and mirrors.

Jen: Huh.

Pete: So, someone could project that they are really awesome at this job that you are seeking to recruit for. How do you ask a question or get an insight that gives you a little more than just smoke and mirrors? But what you're describing is, if you're the person auditioning or the person being interviewed, is that a freeing tool or a permission to not have to put so much pressure on yourself to perform every single thing that you want to perform or have some incredible aha moment, like you described, in this one small window of context?

Jen: And the thing is, sometimes you may have an aha moment.

Pete: Right.

Jen: That is icing on the cake. It is not the actual cake.

Pete: Yeah. Okay, here's something I was thinking about. Is it possible to be really good at auditioning and not that good at performing?

Jen: Yes. And it is absolutely possible to be incredible at performing and terrible at auditioning.

Pete: Right.

Jen: So I am typically more concerned with the latter, because I have some extraordinary clients who really struggle in the audition room. And a lot of time, it's because the work they do is so nuanced and detailed and deep and connected, and without a great scene partner to be bouncing off of or without direction, they really feel lost in the wilderness.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And so, I say to them, "This doesn't have to be the work that you're expert at. They'll get that when you get into the rehearsal room. But this is a different art form than the one you're auditioning for. Like, the audition is its own form of art. And you're auditioning to get a job that is a different form of art."

Pete: Exactly. Exactly, exactly. I have so many tangents off this. One is, I remember my two best friends and I, way back in university...and in Australia, I don't know if it's the same in the States, but in Australia, in your last year of university, usually what you do is you start to apply for graduate jobs or jobs that will happen once you finish your degree. And these are highly competitive, with thousands of people usually going for very, very, very few spots. And so in order to do that, there's these crazy processes, often these really crazy recruitment processes. And the first step of this is usually you submit your CV and you submit your resume, and it goes into some database. Who knows what they do? They review it somehow. Hopefully, you get shortlisted. Then there's usually like this cognitive test, which is like a quiz thing that you have to do online that's meant to measure your cognitive ability. And so basically what I'm saying is, there's all these hoops for you to get through before you even get to walk into an audition, i.e. a job interview. And I used to always say to my friends, and we agreed (because the three of us, we lived together and we used to talk about this a lot) that all you need to do is get into the room. And then, the three of us are relatively good with people. We're pretty confident we'll be able to have a conversation and engage in a way that will give them confidence that, "Oh, this is the kind of person that will be able to help us with our organization." And so for us, there was this like game before the actual other game, which was a job interview (which is actually another game before the actual job itself), and it was these like quizzes. And so, we used to like brainstorm and talk about, "How do you approach those? Like, this is not me demonstrating how I'm going to be able to do the job. This is me trying to pass a cognitive test, so I can get to the next hoop, so that I can go into the room."

Jen: Right.

Pete: So that was one thing, just to think about. I agree with you. It's a separate skill set. It's a separate art form. I love that, thinking about it as an art form. And the other thing I was thinking about was, really randomly, do you know those videos of those world record holders that shoot the most number of free throws in a row without missing? Have you ever seen these?

Jen: Yes.

Pete: I'll put them in the Box O' Goodies. There's like some dude that no one has ever heard of that shot like, I don't know, tens of thousands of free throws in a row without missing. This person is not in the NBA. This person is not good at basketball. They're just really good at free throws. And so, I was thinking about that as like a metaphor, that you could be awesome at the free throw but terrible at basketball, or you could be really awesome at basketball, i.e. Shaq, and not that good at free throws. Like, both can be true. So, I don't know. I was thinking about that as maybe a useful metaphor.

Jen: Yes. Oh, I love that.

Pete: Alright. I feel...that one, I was particularly passionate about. Should we move on to another one?

Jen: Sure. Let's do one more.

Pete: Okay. "Keep it actionable," was another one I really like the sound of. Tell me what you mean by this.

Jen: Okay, I mean a couple different things by this. The first is: When you, coach or teacher, are offering notes or adjustments, theories are a lot less helpful than actions. So you want to always give someone the kind of note that they could take action on, rather than stew about. So what was interesting when I was watching the other coaches coach is they really did have actionable notes, but sometimes they prefaced them with all of their thinking around the actionable note, which made the action much more cloudy to the person on the receiving end. So, just cut all the theory and get to the note.

Pete: I love this so much. I mean, selfishly, I find this really helpful. Because it is a source of imposter syndrome for me that I oversimplify certain things in workshop settings or in coaching settings, and I don't necessarily come to the table with, "Here's all the theory as to why I'm about to ask you this question. And these are seven scientific papers that you should review, peer-reviewed, that demonstrate how you know psychological safety is so important, and for these twelve reasons." I don't come to the table with that. I go to like, "Okay, what's the question or the exercise that I can ask that has a bunch of that behind it? But I don't need to elaborate on it." And I often tell myself a story that that's like not enough, and I'm not bringing enough intellectual rigor to the conversation. So, I find this one helpful for my own imposter. And for me, that's usually something like, "Why don't we do an exercise where you're only allowed to ask questions with one another? That's it. I'm not going to tell you why. I'm not going to tell you all of the reasons that I think it's a really powerful exercise. I just want you to do that and to see what happens." And invariably, people come back like, "Oh my god. It was really hard not to add my two cents. I found myself forced to listen. Wild. Oh my god, I feel so much more heard. I actually feel more trusted and connected to these people." So all of the things that I could have intellectualized or theories that we could have talked about are there, but it's through this really simple action. Does that make sense? Does that feel like it's a parallel?

Jen: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely

Pete: I feel like I just needed to coach myself through that little moment.

Jen: No, I'm just...I'm over here thinking like, in many ways, we share a brain, and everything that you just said might as well have come out of my mouth. So, thank you for that.

Pete: That's okay. I mean, it's also one of the reasons I...look, slide decks have a time and they have a place.

Jen: Sure.

Pete: I'm not anti-slide deck, ever. However, I think we (I say the collective we) have over-indexed as humans on the need to have a slide deck. And I think it's some sort of equivalent, maybe there's a parallel, to focusing too much on theory and not enough on action.

Jen: Mmm-hmm.

Pete: It's, "Let me just like show you how smart I am with my forty-eight page slide deck. And then maybe, maybe at the end of this, we'll get to an action." And so, I'm just like, "What if we didn't do the forty-eight slide dance show and just get to the action straight away?" How do we do that?

Jen: That's right.

Pete: Hmm. "Keep it actionable."

Jen: Okay, I want to offer one other way I use, "Keep it actionable." And so, this is something I use with the actors that I coach, but I found myself teaching it to the coaches I was coaching. Which, it was such a cool experience.

Pete: Love this.

Jen: So sometimes, an actor will get a note that is quality based or emotion based, like, "Try it again, but can you make her happier? Or can you make her younger?" Or every female actress's favorite note, "Can you make her sexier?"

Pete: Oh, god.

Jen: I know.

Pete: Come on.

Jen: And the eyes roll.

Pete: The eyes do roll.

Jen: And I have personally been in classes with acting teachers who, when they hear that kind of a note given, are reluctant to explain how to use it and instead state this idea that, "That's not playable. That's a quality, and you can't play a quality." Which I get, but you still are going to get notes from people that are quality based. So one of the tools I use with my actors is when they get a quality based note, I ask them how to make it actionable. So if you get the note, "Make her younger," I will ask the question, "What does a person have to do in order to earn the word 'younger'? What do they physically have to do? What do they vocally have to do? What behaviors do they need to demonstrate?" So that's another, "Keep it actionable." When you're getting lost again in the theory, you know, "My theory is that she's younger," how can you put it into practice? What actions can you take in order to satisfy this thing that you're being asked, which is essentially like, "Create this outcome for me."

Pete: Oh my god, that's so good. It's like, "What's the outcome you're seeking? And then, what actions can you take to drive towards that outcome?"

Jen: Exactly.

Pete: Yes, please. Well, I mean, I feel I could keep going about these ten.

Jen: I feel future episodes coming on.

Pete: Totally. I want to unpack every single one of them with you. I'm fascinated by so many of them. "Tell the truth," in particular, was my next one I wanted to talk about. But we can save that. We can save that for another episode, because we're coming up on time. And to keep this actionable, I guess, one of the things that I'm noodling on off the back of this is, how do we help distinguish free throws from basketball, or auditions from performing, or job interviews from the job itself? (Fill in the blank for anything else that you're thinking about.) And/or what does it look like to always prioritize action over theory?

Jen: Mmm-hmm.

Pete: Those are the other questions you've got me noodling on, Jen. I can only imagine the people in the room, how much value they would have gotten out of just those two, let alone the other eight.

Jen: Well, I look forward to sharing more with you all in the future. And that is The Long and The Short Of It.