I was lunching with one of my very favorite people (a publicist I met nearly 20 years ago — we both knew the night we met, at a Talent Managers Association event — that we were gonna be lifers for one another) and we started chatting about you.

Not *you* specifically, but you in general: brilliant, creative, talented showbiz storytellers.

See, I refer quite a few actors, writers, directors, producers, fellow casting directors, authors, coaches and such to Deb for PR services and I was talking up the most recent of my clients whom I’m bringing into Deb’s world. (This is an actor/content creator who has some pretty impressive heat turning up and it’s time to up her profile in the eyes of her buyers. Publicists can do this. Easily.)

As we chatted about some of our favorite shared clients and how their careers are progressing, Deb said that sometimes her work is all about helping people align with the opportunities she’s getting them.

“Why do you think that is?” she asked me. “Why do they have such a hard time believing what they’re doing is publicist-worthy?”

It’s all about the gap.

See, creatives spend so much of their lives in that copy-credit-meals tier, that working-on-spec tier, that I’ll-do-anything-to-get-footage tier that when the first substantial bookings and screenings and tier jumps start happening, they have a VERY strong muscle for believing all they *can* get are scraps. There’s this gap between the struggling artist mindset and the I have a fancy publicist mindset.

You’re not the only ones who go through this, of course. I’m about to head off the grid for a writing retreat on a private island with Liz Gilbert and I’ve spent the six months since I booked the trip narrowing that gap. Like… even typing those words just now, I felt uneasy. There’s a wee voice — even with these six months of gap-narrowing work — going, “Who are YOU to travel to a private island to write and learn from the author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love?” and, “Who do you think you are, taking time away to invest in your next book?” and then comes the, “You do know no one cares about your next book, right? It’s already a flop before you’ve even written it.”

Ugh.

I have way more practice with the “Who do you think you are?” thoughts than with the, “OMG! I’m totally going to a private island and immersing myself in all this creative inspiration! OF COURSE I AM!”

But the only way I get the most out of this amazing experience is to narrow the gap that exists in my brain about it all. And that’s why these past six months have included sometimes daily mindset work to condition myself to be able to fully receive everything that’s laid out for me there.

Same is true for you. If you were to suddenly get not only an invitation to a red carpet screening but have a publicist introducing you all along the pressline, photos going up at all the media outlets, and a PR-friendly blurb about you running with these photos, thereby getting your name on a few new lists in casting offices around town and possibly an immediate call to come in and test for a new role in a pilot this week, ARE YOU READY?

I don’t mean “Are you ready for the audition?” because from a craft perspective, of course you’re always ready for the audition! But if there’s a place in your brain that would cause you to psych yourself out just because the stakes are suddenly way higher than you’re used to, you have work to do. Today.

Because the time to narrow the gap between the more-practiced level of life you’re used to and the next-tier life of your dreams is NOT the day you get invited to the table.

Part of how we GET invited to the table — and with everyone fully expecting we’ll be a phenomenal fit for exactly that next-tier opportunity — is by cleaning up the mindset about what is aligned for us to experience.

Your enoughness work is something you can be doing daily — just like I have been doing since booking my trip. My tactic includes saying, “There’s a future me who feels right at home on that private island. There’s a future me who is comfortable in seat 2B of that 12-hour flight. There’s a future me who effortlessly has convos with a New York Times bestselling author about my next book. There’s a future me for whom this population of retreat attendees is my peer group. Heck, there’s a future me whose life and business is #goals for some of those other ladies!” (Often, I say these things while EFT-tapping.)

Look, I know mantras and affirmations aren’t for everyone, but at some point, the thoughts that go on loop in our brains ARE wiring our beliefs into behaviors and all of this gets together to create the experiences that show us who we are.

If you’re not building the muscle for feeling at home in the reality that *will be* lived out daily by future you, you run the risk of being exposed to next-tier opportunities but never being able to take full advantage of them.

What can you do to narrow the gap today? Comments are open just below! I’d love to hear from you.

PS — You may have clicked through on that link above about the EFT-tapping method I use while clearing old beliefs and narrowing the gap for myself. If this type of mindset work is intriguing to you, please check out my friend Dana Middleton’s amazing offerings for The Aligned Artist. Working with Dana has been so beneficial for me that it’s a no-brainer for me to enthusiastically share her resources with you.

All my love,

Enoughness is an inside job… and sometimes you need a guide to find your way there. Let Bonnie Gillespie get you started.