Feedback on A Scientific Approach to Success in Hollywood

This week’s Your Turn is all about a recent column from David Harper at The Actors Voice: POV. Let’s dive in!

Really great stuff here! Thank you!

And of course David, in his inevitable way, gives us a practical answer: Just take his “silly” list and do the opposite. Genius I say!

For you creatives out there, don’t be afraid of the terms “scientific approach,” “Pareto Principle,” or “80/20 Rule.” It is an ironic fact that creative and so called “right-brained” people actually can adapt very quickly to the use of these tools in an organic and intuitive way.

How do I know? Cuz I are one! The only thing I would add is the now cliché-ish quote (but still oh so wise and true): “If one does the same things over and over in the same ways and expects different results, that person is insane.” (Sometimes attributed to Confucius.)

It is really, really important to make a determination of when what you are doing is not working and move on to something else. A guy named Tom Peters came up with a concept a couple decades ago called FAIL FAST, i.e., try something new and if it “fails” that’s okay, just try something else really fast (as David says in his article, don’t dwell on what is not working, try something new and move on).

I am one of those weird people that believes you cannot fail, i.e., if you try something and it doesn’t work, you didn’t fail, you just discovered something that didn’t work. So learn from it and move on to the next thing. You cannot fail by doing so, but you can learn. Wishing you continued success on the next steps of your journey.

Dan Knight

Outstanding feedback, Dan! Thank you! And thank you, again, David, for having written such a great POV.

NOTE: If any of you out there would like to contribute an essay to a future edition of The Actors Voice: POV, hit me back with an email (you’ve got the address, right below) and lemmeknow what you’d like to write about. I’ll get you the release, the specs, the deadline, and some paperwork to get you paid. Just like that! Thanks for sharing your POV!


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/001689.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.

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