When it’s time for Team Cricket Feet meetings, we surround ourselves with folks who “give good sandbox.” This is my way of describing people who share their toys, who “yes, and…” the conversation, who enjoy the play of the creative process, and with whom we love to collaborate. It’s like a good writers’ room: loads of laughs, lots of back-and-forth, and eventually a fantastic product a bunch of people helped build. It doesn’t feel like work when it’s so much fun to jam.

But every now and then, I get emails from actors who aren’t sandbox types. Or, worse, they want to be, but they can’t seem to find the right group with which to create. They attract idea hoarders. They connect with actors a tier above who say, “It was hard for me to get where I am, so I’m not going to share any tips with you. It was hard for me, so it should be hard for you too. You’ll appreciate it more. Besides, if I share my toys with you, you’ll steal my work and that’s why I keep my secrets to success shielded from others.”

Gross.

That type of personality is one I find most repellant (truly, in this creative pursuit, it’s the people who wall off their process out of fear that their opportunities will be stolen if they’re to be open about how they got somewhere whose company I simply cannot endure) and it’s one I’m grateful to see very little of, the longer I’m in this business. My theory on that is that there are more of us who love a fun sandbox in the game these days than there are those who gather all their toys into a pile and guard them with shouts of: “Mine! Mine! Mine!”

Cool.

I always think about how successful some of those idea hoarders are and wonder whether they realize they could be SO much more successful if they collaborated, if they gave back, if they relished in the love of the righteous jam. Of course, if you ask them, it’s because of their “Mine! Mine! Mine!” attitude that they’ve gotten where they are. I’m gonna disagree, but that’s not just because I think I’m right; it’s because I think it’s a better life, when joy is multiplied through sharing.

There’s enough fear-based living out there as it is. When everyone started posting that damn article about how episodic television is leaving Los Angeles for other markets and work is drying up, here, I said, “Of course statistics can be manipulated to show a drop in percentage without reflecting an actual increase in numbers overall, if there’s an agenda to feed, by reporting things that way.” Get everybody in the “chicken little” headspace about anything and you find people all stirred up, frantic, in a panic, and hopefully more passionate about finding ways to keep production HERE.

I say you can also get people motivated to keep production here with more positive tactics. No need to lead off with, “The sky is falling!” I remember the fear mongering that permeated during the writers’ strike a few years back, and it made me so very happy that a huge part of the coursework in Journalism School is about media literacy, spin, and understanding manipulation of facts presented as NEWS.

So what if more movie stars are doing television? That doesn’t mean there’s less work for the midlevel TV actor! It means there’s different work for the midlevel TV actor. And it certainly doesn’t mean there’s less work for the actor trying to get his first network co-star. Yet the people who are “yes, and…”-ing the fear mongering with, “Yeah! This is why we can’t get work,” are just happy to find anything to blame (other than their own hustle, their willingness to create work, their off-brand marketing materials, their spaghetti-slinging rep, their attempt to be all things rather than specializing). Whenever I hear, “There’s less work,” I say, “You’re on crack. There’s more work than ever, and even better, you can — affordably — create your own work rather than waiting for it, these days. How lucky are we!”

But maybe that’s because I surround myself with good sandbox-givers. The “idea file” is infinite and it’s a blast to decide WHAT PROJECT IS NEXT because there are so dang many projects on the list! Shortage of ideas should never be your problem. You’re a creative critter! Create! 🙂

When I got an email from a wannabe agent considering the UTA agent trainee program, I was struck by her choice to focus on some statistic about how only 3% get promoted after going through the grueling program and that there’s all this yelling, attacking, and cruelty built into the experience. For me, I say focus on the fact that the JOB looks cool and worth trying out, not the odds or any stories about how people are treated (because people who attract violent mistreatment will do so even in the most docile environments; those who are focused on the joy of the work somehow deflect that vitriol in a manner like water drips off a duck’s back).

Just like with acting, you can focus on the tiny fraction of a percentage of those who attempt the profession actually making it to name actor status and all the people who try and keep newer actors from learning how to join the unions or how to get an agent or how to meet people or you can say, “Wow, this JOB looks cool to me. I think I would enjoy it.” Then you charge in and learn the job. Have fun. Screw the odds. Because, truly, any career in the creative arts is one for which the odds are NOT with you. Period. Don’t WORRY about whether anyone out there will (unintentionally or intentionally) make it harder for you than it needs to be. That’s on THEM.

Have fun with the journey. Surround yourself with the best people you can find. Give good sandbox and insist that those in your world share their toys (or not be invited back to play). Fear, hoarding, and chicken-little-ing will not serve a creative genius. It will, instead, just kill a creative person’s ability to create with grace. It’ll amp up neediness (and that reads in the audition room). That energy stinks and repels. Remember: It’s not about the odds. The odds always suck. Celebrating the sucky odds is just crazy!

I said “share your toys” in the very first installment of The Actors Voice and I say it in every class I teach, at every speaking engagement on the road, and even in my personal life, as we are all better when we “yes, and…” one another’s brilliant ideas, enjoying the creative process and building the Hollywood we want to be a part of, long-term.

My Hollywood? It’s a really badass playground with a swingset, all sorts of cool toys, room to joyfully run around, and a really lovely sandbox, populated by folks who celebrate getting to build on one another’s ideas to make the end result collectively more brilliant. Yay! Let’s play!

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/001553.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.