Celebrate Your Isolation!

Hey there!

Doing what we do can be a very lonely situation: auditioning, study, rehearsal and so much more is done by ourselves in our artist’s garrett.

So is our ideation, and we often wish we had more support: a team that could help us get our ideas from concept to reality.

Be careful what you wish for. And be happy you have some privacy to dream.


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Hope this helps!

David

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hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and in a previous video I had talked
about the idea of perfection in
isolation you know in our business we do
an awful lot of things by ourselves
nobody else around we keep our
rehearsing private and ourself taped
auditions private and our study
sometimes very private myapp rehearsal
pro people until soon which I’m going to
show you with you in an upcoming video
have used the app by themselves in a
room you know in our artist garret you
know eating our gruel and pursuing our
success as an actor and in that we
sometimes yearn to have a big group
around us to support us and to share
ideas with and to get consensus with
I’ve got something that I think might
help there and that is as recently
reading the New York Times and there was
an article about a study that showed if
you want to get an idea from the idea to
execution the best thing to do is avoid
large groups more ideas come out of
smaller groups or solo practitioners
people by themselves in their artists
garret just thinkin and dreaming and
wandering and and I da ting right they
tend to yield more and better results so
more ideas better execution better
results in smaller groups and the reason
is kind of weird but it’s it’s what this
study found and that is that the larger
the group there is the more chance
somebody’s gonna go yeah I don’t agree
with that I you know know if you’ve got
a crazy wack idea it’s great if somebody
kind of calls you on it but how many
times have we said to people oh I’d like
to be an actor or oh I’d like to be a
voice-over talent and they’re like what
that’s never gonna work what do you I
remember when I moved out here from from
Washington DC I’d done radio for 35
years which in and of itself was filled
with people saying
that’s a crazy idea what are you doing
yeah we go get a job as a you know
whatever and when I moved out here to be
on camera oh my god the the laughter was
deafening wait wait what you’re gonna do
what you know and then you know once I
got booked on a couple of shows
especially some of the bigger shows it
was like ah they’re tuned change it come
be on the radio show let’s talk about it
hey you’re really successful Bubba but
the point is when you get a lot of
people together in a group dissension
can happen for a number of reasons
number one everybody’s got a different
opinion you’re just adding a number of
opinions to the mix that’s pretty
obvious but people also have the desire
to be heard and sometimes that means
being devil’s advocate or
contraindicated just to be a devil’s
advocate or be contraindicated let me
just give you another perspective um you
know sometimes that’s great but most of
the time what it does is it stops the
forward progress of what could be a
really great idea and when you’re in a
small group you know you got one person
you’re gonna bounce things off of your
best friend or your your your favorite
you know fellow actor that you rehearse
with or whatever or you’re by yourself
simply dreaming thinking of things
exploring all the avenues being your own
devil’s advocate you’ll find that the
ideas flow and are supported more often
than they are in a big huge group and
this idea of groupthink in big
corporations let’s get everybody’s
opinion let’s get everybody together
everybody has an idea everybody has a
you know big companies like Amazon and
Apple they have an approach to this that
is very much in line with this study
they tend to make sure that the group’s
involved with the decision making on
things are smaller and manageable rather
than sort of an all-hands thing but the
good news is for you you’re by yourself
you’re by yourself a lot I mean you’re
by yourself most of the day you’re
you’re in a very weird situation unless
you’re working all the
time when you’re actually on set or in a
studio with other people or you know at
a at a at a workshop or at a class it’s
not the norm and my admonition to you is
that’s great
because you can really let your freak
flag fly and come up with great ideas
weird ideas awesome ideas you know if
you there’s a small group of really good
friends around you you can talk about
these things with great if it’s just you
that’s great too you don’t have to put
up with all the crap of being in a huge
meeting with 10 or 15 or 50 people who
all have this idea that they need to put
the stops on this or they need to at
least give you their version of what
should happen everybody has their own
agendas who knows if they’re in your
favor or not but when you’re by yourself
you get to dream
it’s just it’s just one of the most
satisfying things for me ever and I hope
it is for you I wonder if it is do you
find yourself in a situation we’re like
yeah ok good that’s that’s great I’m by
myself that’s awesome let me just sit
down and think about this and maybe who
do you share things with do you share
things with your friend you have a close
ally and associate do you have someone
on your team that on your day job or I
don’t know I’d love to know in the
comments below let me know wherever
you’re seeing this video if you’re
seeing it anywhere but vo to go go comm
head on over there because there’s a lot
more videos and a lot more great stuff
there for you if you’d like to join my
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for you cuz they’re good about that I’m
David H Lawrence xvii all alone in my
artists garret I thank you so much for
watching and I will talk to you tomorrow.

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  1. These stories are fantastic – especially your personal stories! I love that you stuck with the student (in this particular circumstance) AND that a new door opened for you later. It must have been a tough call, and I respect your integrity. Thanks for sharing these videos!

  2. This article is interesting to me. One of my pet peeves in my day job is that whole idea of getting everyone’s opinion. Like you say, everyone has an agenda, and often times they conflict. One thing you didn’t touch on is folks who are jealous that you are going for your goals and in the interest of “keeping it real” speak negatively over what you are going for. What do folks think about these people?

  3. I’m naturally very curious……. You wrote above “so much more is done by ourselves in our artist’s garrett.”

    I have never seen the word garret in this sentence form. I know Garrett is a name so can you educate me.. what is an artist’s garret ?

    DB

  4. David! You read my mind! This could not have come at a better time. I’ve been complaining about all of my isolation lately. Thank you for this!!! Just what I needed. Question though! What about the phrase “nothing is created in a vacuum?” I’ve had people tell me that, but I guess just remember that when you need a break?