13304: The Automatic Choice From Your Personal Menu

Raw transcript:

What if I told you that if you’re
worried about doing your very best when
creating your art, doing your on camera
work, your voiceover work, your writing,
what if I told you it’s already taken
care of
by your personal menu?
What? All right, I I got some things to
unpack in this episode of the VO Heroes
podcast.
So I
uh was trained in uh neural linguistic
programming. Not to the extent that some
people have been trained in it. There
are people who are really masterful at
it. But I took uh three levels of uh
neural linguistic programming. And there
was one particular concept that really
stuck out for me
because of its automatic nature and it’s
called the personal menu.
And how it can work for us as creative
types, as actors, performers, writers,
is that it’s automatic
and it always seeks the very best
option. So let me let me help you
understand as humans one of the concepts
of neural linguistic programming is that
as humans
we have a body of experience
and we have a
situation that presents itself in the
moment that we are asked to do something
to react to something or to create
something or to respond to something.
And we have options, but they are in a
hierarchical order on what’s called your
personal menu.
And always, without fail,
however those things are stacked in
whatever order they’re stacked, you’re
going to respond with the number one
item on that menu.
So, if you’re in a situation where
you’re being attacked in a fight and you
see a punch coming towards your face and
the number one item on your menu is to
move your head out of the way of the
fist, that’s what you’re going to do
automatically. Uh, if you’re uh in an
acting situation, let’s bring it around
to what we do uh uh for a living. uh
you’re in an acting situation and the
character is presented with a threat or
with a promise or with an enticement.
Whatever the reaction would be of that
character in that moment is the number
one thing that you’re going to go for
your personal menu. You’re always going
to go for that number one top item
without even thinking about it. Now the
cool thing is
throughout your life as you gain more
experience as you encounter more options
that number one item may change. And I
remember the example that was given in
class is it’s the number one item for
everyone. Even if you’re not like a
normal person, even if you’re like a
serial killer. Oh, I’m going to have to
kill this person and cut them up into
little tiny pieces and bury them out
behind the boat house with a lot of
quick lime. Whatever. If that’s the
number one item on your list, you will
make that choice without fail and
automatically.
So, if you’re worried that you’re not
doing your very best, know that you are.
You’re doing your very best in that
moment. Now, it might not be your
lifetime best,
but it’s the top of the top, the top of
the charts, the number one item on your
list at that moment in time.
So, feel free to pursue getting better
at things. Feel free to pursue at honing
and refining your skills, but know that
you don’t have to worry or ever regret
that you didn’t do your best in the
moment. You did. It was automatic.
it was the number one item on your
personal menu and it’s automatically
there for you and you select it without
hesitation without hm I wonder how I’m
going to respond here. No, no, you just
do. That’s what happens. That’s because
of how we operate as human beings, how
our mind and our body interact with
others and the situation.
It’s it’s such a wonderful mechanism and
it can remove pressure from you from
going ah why why can’t I just do better
you you did the best you could just
relax enjoy and sometimes
the best you can do is so utterly
stunning
sometimes others around you don’t find
it so much but it’s the number one item
on your list I just it’s a concept that
when you start to think about it can
remove a bunch of the pressure from you
in terms of, you know, looking at our
our careers as competition with others
who might be better than we are or even
having a false sense of superiority over
others who maybe don’t do as well or
aren’t as good as we are. It’s not
that’s not we’re we’re working with that
number one item on our menu
automatically without hesitation,
without thought.
Let yourself be at peace with the notion
that you will always do the very best
you can
at the moment that you’re doing whatever
you’re doing.
Thoughts, questions, comments?
little weird to bring in the serial
killer notion. I don’t know. Let me know
in the comments below if you’re on
vioherooes.com. I’d love to hear what
you have to say about this. Hit the like
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I’d be thrilled if you did that. I’m
David H. Lawrence 17th. I thank you so
much for watching and for listening and
I will see you in the next episode of
the VO Heroes podcast.

(from YouTube)