Weaknesses Versus Challenges

well hey there hero it’s David H
Lawrence the 17th and here we are five
videos to go before the end of the year
we did the one a day things so far so
good just a little bit more before we
get to the finish line and in this
particular video I want to talk about
the differences between weaknesses and
challenges I did a video a couple months
ago on the idea of not concentrating on
rounding yourself out but rather
concentrating on working with your
strengths and making them even stronger
there’s this notion especially here in
America where everybody has to be like
uber capable and very diverse and
especially for actors and performers we
can do anything you want me to play a
young asian girl fine I can do it right
I mean that’s what we’re trained to do
so I was talking about the idea of
strengths and strengths finder and the
notion that they have that it’s better
to work on strengthening even further
the things that you have as strengths
rather than trying to uplevel those
things that you’ve identified as your
weaknesses just concentrate on the
strengths and you’ll be better off
rather than rounding yourself out so
once that came out Robin left a comment
which I think is really wonderful and
that is question the people we can’t
repetitively say no to is our agents if
they send us auditions to record on mp3s
how do we keep saying no to our
weaknesses before they stop wanting to
take chances on us or sending us any
more auditions I have booked some that I
never thought I’d get and didn’t booked
some that I was certain I would so how
do you ever know and I think that’s a
great question I think it illustrates
what I think is the difference between
weaknesses and challenges right
weaknesses to me are threads of
operation that we’re just not all that
adept at and yeah we can spend a lot of
time trying to figure out how to become
more adept to things that we’re not very
good at or we can look at the things
that we are very good at
and make those even better and that way
we can instantly put them into use when
we need to but for both ourselves and
for others but I think when it comes to
auditioning for certain types of roles
or certain voice work or certain
on-camera jobs weaknesses
you know there’s a self-selecting group
that happens when it comes to auditions
when you’re asked to audition there is a
couple of sort of filters that you have
to get past with a casting office to
even get the opportunity to audition
even if you submit yourself and that
kind of keeps us away from that area
where we’re just not appropriate for a
particular role that whole you know
four-year-old asian girl thing that I
talked about before but the challenges
of doing a role that we may not see
ourselves as doing but others see us
doing is I think very different from
something that we’re weak at and I also
think that performance techniques is a
thing that we can improve and we don’t
persist in being weak at certain things
if we go and study how to do you know my
more how to do commedia dell’arte or if
we go and learn how to do swordplay or
all those things those are learned
techniques and we may end up saying you
know I’m not very good at that and
letting it go by the wayside and
concentrate on things that aren’t but
when it comes to actual styles of roles
like are we not so good at being angry I
don’t think any of us can can say that I
think we’re all pretty good at being
angry or being coquettish or being
seductive or being imperious or all of
those different things that may come
into play when you’re being asked to
play particular roles I think those are
more challenges and temporary challenges
things that are only for that role that
we can look at so maybe a good way of
looking at this is weaknesses are more
general weaknesses are bigger pieces of
our existence and challenges are those
little things that we take a look at we
go okay how do I do this how do I go
look back in my history
to my prior moments into my emotional
recall and to my muscle memory and try
and figure out how to put this
particular role which I don’t get all
the time but thankfully my agent sends
them to me and see if we can tackle
those things it’s not an ongoing thing
it’s a once once in a while thing and I
think again those are better described
as challenges than weaknesses and I also
think that agents never quite want to
undersell you we think they do we sit
there we go why didn’t they put me up
for that particular roles again can’t
they see this and yet they ask us to do
things that we even we didn’t think we’d
be capable of doing so know that your
agent makes money when you book things
and who knows if you’re able to book
things especially in voiceover when an
agent will send a script out to anyone
of his or her clients that has a pulse
and has a possibility of actually doing
some work with the script because then
they decide whether or not they’re going
to submit them so a couple things a lot
of they actually more than a couple of
things to unpack in that question that’s
why I thought it was such a good one
Thank You Robin I appreciate it
how would you have answered Robin what
are your reactions to what I came up
with I’d love to know just leave me a
comment below this video I’d love to
have you on the list we are now four
videos away from wrapping up for the
year and the 365 day challenge one a day
we managed to do it so far let’s see if
we can get those last four in and then
we’ll start with once a week in the new
year and if you’re watching this sort of
ad-hoc you’re like what what are you
talking about yeah there’s a lot of
videos on the channel that you can see
and in the article base on vo heroes
calm but let me know your comments I
appreciate it I appreciate it so much
when you leave those comments I’m David
H Lawrence the 17th I thank you so much
for watching and I will talk to you
tomorrow.