My phone blew up.
I mean, if I hadn’t already been eagerly watching the Television Academy livestream of the Creative Arts Emmys, there was no way I wouldn’t know the news.
Kim Estes — actor, friend, ninja, phenomenal human being — won. The Emmy. That we talked about here. He won it.
And everyone who knows Kim and who knows me and who was also watching the Television Academy livestream of the Creative Arts Emmys (and that’s more than a few people in this business) reached out to me at once to let me know “we won.”
Let me clarify on that.
When Kim called me — still vibrating from it all — of course, I answered the phone in *almost* the same way I answered it the last time he called me, “Is this Emmy-winner Kim Estes?” (Last time he called me, I answered, “Is this Emmy-nominee Kim Estes?” of course.)
“We did it!” he said, his smile so audible, I can still hear and feel it.
First… what a class act. He certainly has a billiondy people blowing up *his* phone and he calls me hours after the big win to let me know “we did it.”
Second… that pronoun. It’s because of the way Kim is wired — and you’ll recall I talked about this when he shared the process of his first run at an Emmy while he was in the thick of it — to be of service. To see the world through the lens of how to give back. To connect lives. To heal through art.
Third… inclusion. Kim isn’t just saying thank you to me for all the years of love and support, unconditional unwavering faith, friendship. He’s inviting every single creative I work with to believe it’s possible.
Because it is.
Back up to that phonecall before this most recent one (this most recent one being one in which we quickly discussed some of the insider things he’s already experiencing that will go on to help scores of ninjas I work with when creating the gameplan for *their* Emmy journeys)… that previous call included a bit about certainty.
Kim said, “You know, Bonnie, I think I’ve got this,” about his chances of winning. And seeing as we’d been down this road before, it was fascinating to hear him speak with such KNOWING of what was to come.
This is where I had to make more of a leap than my dear friend did.
Because I like data. And I’ve only been a member of the Television Academy for a few years at this point. I don’t *know* whether the voters are those active at the FYC events where Kim is ever-present (even when not campaigning), “shaking hands and kissing babies” always or if they’re the folks who don’t turn out to the events but just select famous faces or are swayed by the highest budget when it comes to taking out massive ads; providing excessive online access; or sending over screeners (so many screeners), riddles, and swag.
But Kim knew.
When we had that talk before this most recent one, he said it was almost unsettling to know so fully that he would win. I said, “Oh! I know what you need. I’ll text it to you.” It was this, from A Course in Miracles.
“Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait and wait without anxiety.”
The unsettling feeling was due to a certainty most of us don’t walk around with. It’s not often we idle at “I am enough” (no matter how much I try to help get us all there). Big ol’ 5 doesn’t come easy sometimes.
Except when it does.
And that knowing? It’s everything.
It can make miracles happen. It *does* make dreams come true.
I’ve spent so much time in the hours since Kim’s win saying, “Okay, universe, I hear you,” and leaning in — WAY in — on my KNOWING. On my CERTAINTY. Into my ENOUGHNESS.
And — as I said to my masterminders last week — “The universe is NOT subtle.” It responds QUICKLY to our unshakable sense of knowing.
Just ask Kim!
But let’s say you’re not as practiced as Kim is or as I’m becoming and — as you learned from my piece on fixing your money anxiety (OMG, y’all, thanks for the feedback on that one! You’re welcome!!) — a sudden 180 is not possible. Ever. Okay, then that means we can’t expect you to go from wondering if you’re ever gonna get cast again to suddenly sitting in deep knowing that you’re about to hold up something gold and shiny.
What do we do instead?
We use the brilliant Colleen Wainwright’s words from when she was up against a challenge she wasn’t sure she could meet… but she had to find a way to believe in herself. She couldn’t get to a place of deep knowing about it sometimes, but she could sure as shit lean toward certainty… with one phrase.
Kim and I were actually together at the event during which she first shared this phrase (revealing she had raised $111K for WriteGirl in 50 days).
“Are you SURE it’s impossible?”
That phrase was enough to keep her going.
Because unless we’re SURE it’s impossible, we keep going.
(BTW, keeping going is what builds a muscle that creates the momentum for the accomplishment we’re actually sometimes doubting. It’s that whole “discipline comes from doing it” thing I told you about recently.)
So, I ask you: Are you SURE it’s impossible?
Good. Of course you know better than to think it’s impossible or you wouldn’t have put this much time, effort, energy, money, faith in your dreams so far. You wouldn’t be reading anything I’ve ever written for you.
Keep going.
Let me help if you want to spend the last 100 days of 2017 immersed in the kind of support that helps you find that KNOWING for yourself. Heck, enter the scholarship contest if money’s the only thing holding you back from involving me in your journey this way.
Get in Gear for the Next Tier SCHOLARSHIP Contest!
As my awesome robotic Self-Management for Actors Twitter account said today — as if *it* knew Kim would hold up something gold and shiny just hours before — “That’s one of the coolest parts about this business. It’s based on a whole lot of dreams — some of which happen to come true.”
Congratulations to ALL the ninjas whose dreams come true every freakin’ day, one NOT impossible meeting, one NOT impossible audition, one NOT impossible gold and shiny at a time.
Congratulations Kim! Thank you for being a role model for us all… showing us the grace, style, and heart with which it can be done. You’re a lighthouse. You are enough. You are forever Emmy-winner Kim Estes.
Who’s next?
Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!