I did a podcast interview with the awesome guys from Inside Acting a few weeks back and one of the things we talked about was the concept of trying, and how no one wants to see you engaged in the act of trying. (I recommend you check out that podcast — and not just my fabulous episodes — as they’re all pretty dang informative and entertaining. And free!)

Okay, so about that one little segment of the interview: Trying.

Of course, Yoda said it best: “Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

But naturally, we do try. We try all the time. It’s how we get good at the doing, over time. We try. We fail. We improve our abilities. We try again. We tier jump. We do.

The point is, most people don’t enjoy watching others try. Teachers do. Parents do. Those really good, good people who are inspired by the attempts and failures and inspiring tiny bits of progress do enjoy the trying others do.

Your potential buyers, however, do not generally fall into that category of people. Or if they do, it’s with their own children or students or mentees. It’s not with potential clients or actors who may be up for a series regular gig. The people with whom they’re hoping to do business fall into a different category. Those folks are their peers, their clients, their business partners. And those folks needn’t be trying in front of anyone. To instill confidence, those folks need to be doing. And doing well.

An actor I was working with (yes, in a mentoring situation; see above) told me that someone else advised her to get some sexy headshots. Like, “go in and be sexy. Think sexy. Exude sexy. Get some sexy headshots.”

Ick.

This actor, by the way, idles at sexy. She just sits there and the world sees sexy. You know the type. Even without makeup or fancy clothes or any sort of attempt at being sexy, she just is. Lucky her.

The last thing she needed to do was go try to shoot sexy headshots. And that’s exactly what she did, under the advice of this other person. So, as I looked at these fancy new headshots she’d had taken — with the direction of being sexy, getting sexy headshots — looked not like this gal, sexy, but instead like this gal trying to be sexy. Again, ick.

The analogy I like to use is a sports analogy. Use whichever sporting event you’re most turned on by and go with me. I’m going to go with Olympic figure skating.

So, there’s this amazing athlete on the ice. He’s been training for years. He’s worked with a choreographer, a personal trainer, a nutritionist, a stylist, you name it. This is a well-prepared moment we’re about to witness, as he’s heading into what we all know is his most difficult jump. The commentators are talking about what’s happening. We’re watching it. Even if we do not understand fully at a physiological level what is happening, we’re watching this and get that the stakes are high.

There are two types of jumps we’ll witness next. One comes from the athlete who jumps while visualizing the approach, the jump, and the landing. He’s trained so well and prepared himself so fully for how it’s going to feel to be in the jump that he’s already in it and landing it upon approach. We’re feeling it right along with him. Our hearts are racing. We’re excited not only because the stakes are high, but because we are confident in what’s about to happen. This is someone showing us how it feels to DO.

The other type of jump comes from someone we see trying. They’re less confident they can land it. The stakes are high and you never forget that, watching, because you can see it on the athlete’s face. They’re not thinking three steps ahead and nailing the landing; they’re thinking about how this could go wrong, how it has gone wrong in practice, how important it is that it not go wrong this time. They’re trying.

And when the sports announcers go back and replay over and over again that moment when the skater’s butt meets the ice, they’ll talk about how you could see right there on the skater’s face that he knew he wasn’t ready to make this jump; he knew he couldn’t feel the ice. The thing they’ll point to is the trying.

No one wants to see you try.

When you’re auditioning, when you’re shooting headshots, when you’re shaking someone’s hand at a networking event — it’s not the trying anyone wants to experience. It’s the doing. Just be. Be yourself. Be in the moment. Don’t try. Do.

(And of course, I really do mean that you should try, but try in private. Try with your coach. Try with your trusted circle. Get confident. And then get out there and do. We’ll love to watch that!)

Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!

Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001202.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.