I was working with a private coaching client on her badass targeting list.

She's — like a lot of actors — spending a lot of time refining her agency target list using the Self-Management for Actors method because (as you know from your SMFA Hot Sheet on the Casting Calendar), drop season is coming and that means meeting season soon follows.

Welp, during our awesome session, she mentioned that one of the shows she had used in her targeting homework (y'know, to get to this highly-focused list of a dozen target agencies, each of which aligns perfectly with the casting rooms she's meant to enter) was wrapping up, not coming back, essentially cancelled when it didn't look like that was going to happen at the start of her research earlier this year.

"All that time, wasted!"

Oooh, honey. Hold up there.

Zero time updating your show bible with details about buyers who need to know you exist is ever wasted.

Because when one show is over, the players aren't run out of town by an angry mob wielding flaming pitchforks! Oh, no! In fact, every one of 'em heads on over to the next job (often several find themselves employed together on a new show) and the relationships you tracked between agents/managers and casting directors/showrunners are still there.

Here's the analogy to consider: Say your favorite Mexican restaurant closes. (Please, El Cholo, never close. Thank you.)

Suddenly you go from being a regular at this yummy place to being on the hunt for a new favorite Mexican restaurant. You may start by trying to find out where the head chef went. He's out there somewhere! And your hunger for amazingly authentic, fresh, yummy food doesn't disappear just because the restaurant closes! (Please, El Cholo, never close. Thank you.)

No! Of course not!

So when your primary target show is cancelled, its buyers and creators move on to other projects with a similar tone, similar style, similar needs. And what we're tracking are the relationships between buyers and sellers! (That'd be the agents who pick up the phone and pitch you as if their rent depended on it… because it does.)

How's your rep target list looking? Are you feeling great about your research? By now you should not only have your list slimming down to those top targets but be ready to shift gears into getting that cover letter looking its spiffiest! (I know this is stressful. It's why I've created a mini-course for you called “Bios and Cover Letters That Don’t Suck.” You're welcome!)

Wanna come jam in the SMFA Ninjas Facebook group about your list? Your tools? Your whole approach? That's why we're there! In a group where everyone comes from a place of service (two GIVES for every ASK, yo), there's loads of support and so many wonderful things to learn!

Before I close this puppy up, I wanna say a couple o' personal things: One, thank you for keeping Self-Management for Actors in the top spots in multiple categories for TEN DAYS this month so far! Holy crap, that's amazing and so are you, for telling your friends about the power in tracking patterns and pulling back the curtain on popular actor myths! Two, I've been working with my SMFA masterminders on issues of — well, everything involved in a creative career, of course, but recently in particular — money. Shifting your relationship with money can be one of the most powerful things you do for the prosperity and abundance in your creative career, ending the "struggle" altogether.

Okay, so in sharing some of the mantra work that has made a huge difference in my business recently (not sure if you've noticed, but it's been all sorts o' tier-jumpy up in here) with a group of leaders who inspire *me*, I was asked by none other than Denise Duffield-Thomas (of Get Rich, Lucky Bitch fame — you may recall the spectacular jam session we did for creatives about money mindset a while back) to appear in her new book! Yep! 

Here I am thinking I still have such a long way to go with my money mindset (and like with all practices, it IS a work in progress, daily, requiring mindfulness and focus and commitment) and a friend who just had *her* online program generate $750K in sales asks ME (whose flagship online program is wee by comparison [but still mighty as heck]) to share my wisdom about money mantras in her new book.

Dayum.

You never know when you're inspiring someone.

So, that's my message to you as I wrap up: Please keep doing what you're doing. Please keep sharing your voice in places you may not be confident to fully do so on some days. Because someone who needs YOU to make their production more awesome is watching. Do you see the flippin' parallels, y'all? On these new-tier legs, I nervously-yet-proudly shared something that was working for me in front of someone I never imagined would ask me to share that same story, much larger. That's what YOU want! So, be out there. Do theatre. Do improv. Do open mic. Do showcases. Post your short film. Launch your series. Enter that festival. Have a blast in front of people who show up to also have a blast while consuming the entertainment you create.

And be so freakin' awesome that they can't help but see the benefit to being in the YOU business.

Simple.

I for one am done complicating things. 😉 How 'bout you?

All my ninjaly love,

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