13270: Why You Might Be Insulted By My Coaching

Raw transcript:

Okay. So,
bottom line, you need to get over
yourself. You You just need to get over
your bad self. You especially if you’re
watching this and you’re an adult
performer. I do have some kids watching
this and maybe they’ll understand what
I’m saying. But for those of you that
are over the age of seven,
you need to get over yourself when it
comes to learning new skills. And we’ll
talk about that in this episode of the
VO Heroes podcast.
I believe the last name is pronounced
simply SAS.
But Thomas Saz was a
a psychiatrist who in his later years
began to doubt some of the tenets of his
area of expertise of psychiatry. And he
wrote a book called Words to the Wise.
And in that book, there was a very
specific quote that I want to share with
you that may explain some of the terror
that you feel when you go to start
learning something new. What he said
was, “Every act of conscious learning
requires the willingness to suffer an
injury to one’s self-esteem.
That is why young children before they
are aware of their own self-importance
learn so easily and why older persons
especially if vain or important
cannot learn at all.
Now, I don’t know about the absolutism
of that because I’ve got plenty of
clients and students who are, you know,
senior citizens, oxytogenarians,
nanogenarians. Um, I’ve got older people
who are able to do this. But it’s a very
common thing especially because as we
get older we are rewarded both
monetarily socially emotionally
uh intellectually by knowing things by
being capable by knowing what not to do.
Right? And so when we go to learn
something
and we’re told, “Yeah, what you did
there wasn’t good enough. Let’s try it
again.”
That can be a little insulting. That can
be like, “Well, wait a minute. You’re
don’t talk to me that way. That’s
disrespectful.” But it’s not
disrespectful.
It’s not disrespectful.
When I first started taking acting
lessons, I was 46, I think.
And it was very clearly stated in the
orientation at Howard Fine. When you’re
given feedback, when you’re given uh
notes on your performance,
don’t argue. Don’t tell me why. Don’t
defend your choices.
Just say thank you. Later, you can
decide whether you think I was full of
crap or not. But don’t don’t argue
during that moment. This is me giving
you advice that you’ve prepaid for by
giving me money. You’ve paid for this,
so just let me get it out. And you can
go off on your own and wonder whether or
not I meant it with ill will, which I
won’t. I don’t I never mean my voiceover
storytelling coaching with ill will.
I’ll say, “Hey, let’s try this a
different way. Um, I don’t think you
heard what I was saying, or uh, consider
this.” I have nicer ways of saying
things than some coaches do. But the
fact of the matter is is that it’s on us
as human beings to remember
that when we’re kids,
we don’t know what we don’t know. And we
don’t care that we don’t know. And it’s
not an insult to us when somebody
corrects us.
You know, we hear no as a child and it
might be uh, you know, negative as
opposed to positive and we might even
cry over it, but it’s not it doesn’t hit
us the same way as it hits us when
somebody says that wasn’t good enough as
an adult. That wasn’t correct as an
adult. Like, imagine what how you feel
when you’re pulled over
for a driving infraction. All these
emotions come up. All these social
things come up. There are whole websites
dedicated to how to speak to a cop who
pulls you over, you know, like we we
have this whole all this emotional
baggage around criticism.
And it’s because we’re advanced. We’re
we’re supposed to know better. We’re
supposed to be more accomplished. And in
our world, writing, voice over, acting,
performance in general, if we go to
learn something
and we don’t execute it as well as we
could and our coach gives us
corrections, it can land in a way that
is sometimes hard to deal with.
All I ask you to share with yourself is
in the grand scheme of things, being
corrected about an acting choice or
being guided by a voiceover choice or
getting criticism about something you’ve
written, not a big deal.
Leave your pride at the door when you go
to learn something new, right?
Allow yourself to have an open mind. Be
an open book that can be written in very
easily. Really take a moment and
remember you’re learning something.
You’re not being uh, you know, chastised
and it’s going on your permanent record.
You know, you’re learning something.
You’re trying something. Did it work?
No. All right, let’s try something else
or let’s try something a little
different. Be like a kid. Have fun with
it. Enjoy the process of learning how to
do something better from somebody who
knows what they’re doing, from somebody
who’s got your success in mind. All
right,
listen to the words of Thomas. Rewind it
if you want to listen to it again. If
this is something that you’ve heard
other actors complain about, I went to
class the other day and my coach was
like, you what a jerk he was. Maybe you
want to forward this to them and let
them know it’s their adultness that
might be getting in the way. Hit the
like button if you like what you’re
hearing. You can subscribe to the
channel and you can even hit the
notification bell if you want to and
we’ll let you know when the next episode
comes out. Uh, and again, I’d like to
know what you think in the comments
below. Tell me what you think about if
this rings a bell for you uh to how you
receive
uh criticism, guidance, adjustments,
etc. from the people who are teaching
you how to be a great creative talent.
Let me know in the comments below on
vioheres.com. That’s where the
conversation is saying. and I’d love to
hear what you have to say. I’m David H.
Lawrence the 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)