One of the key elements to my work is making challenging concepts more palatable. I call it “hiding medicine in the ice cream.” I’ll write a column that — on its surface — is about tools and tactics for navigating show business, but there will be a healthy dose of mindset in there for those who know what to look for. And for those who don’t, there’s residual impact despite their lack of awareness that the mindset component ever existed.

I’ll never forget when I first started getting emails from readers saying, “Ooh. I see what you did there. Sneaky!” It was years after I had first started hiding medicine in the ice cream, but eventually, the emails came. And now it’s so OKAY that I do it that I don’t have to do it. I’ll flat-out write a woo-woo mindset column… and maybe tweak a tool in there just for old time’s sake.

Well, I’ve recently begun hearing from actors things like this: “I did all the ninja work. I identified my brand and marketed it correctly. I identified my target shows and got booked before I even had rep. I identified my target rep and got the meeting, in which I used my brandprov skills to charm and delight the team. Then in the meeting — thinking it would be useful for my new team to use — I pulled out all my tracking spreadsheets, my bullseye brand cloud, my ninja tools… and was told, ‘Oh, no. Don’t do that. Let us take care of submitting you. We don’t believe in any of this stuff.’ What happened?!?”

I’ll tell you what happened: You used all the tools of Self-Management for Actors to GET TO the place where you could hand over the keys to your career to a hell-yes rep, and then you showed them your tools. You pulled back the curtain on the Great and Powerful Oz. You revealed the medicine that you had hidden in the ice cream.

What got you to that tier may not be what the team needs to get you to the next tier. They have different tools, and your tools helped you *get* to that tier but may not serve you as well *at* that next tier. But if those same tools *would* help them do their job, you’re gonna have to deal with a Popeye-sized muscle they have for dealing with actors who don’t come packin’. A Popeye-sized muscle they have for saying, “Nah. You don’t need to create content. That’s a fad.” A Popeye-sized muscle they have for getting things done a very particular way.

If you’re gonna try to feed ’em your ninja tools, you’re gonna have to hide the medicine in the ice cream.

So, this is just a suggestion that you get good at reading the room before opening your toolbox and showing off all the things you’ve done that have absolutely gotten you moving forward faster in a career that not only feels great but that also gives you more control than you ever had before. Let it be their great idea when they discover something that works for you (but that you’ve known works all along). When they have the brilliant notion to get you in front of someone who casts your target show, praise them for being so dang smart. Don’t say “DUH!” and whip out the map you drew to that point two years ago.

There’s a reason we call all this stuff “ninja.” It’s not overt. It’s not noisy. It’s not begging to be given credit for having made a difference. It’s just suddenly exactly where it’s meant to be at the exact right moment, READY for that exact opportunity. Ah… so good.

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/001922.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.