I grew up in Hawaii, and since I lived near the beach, it was fairly common to go surfing after school.

Well...everyone else would surf.  I mostly just got bounced around in the shore break.

But one day as I was riding towards shore, a cross-current wave sideswiped my board and tossed me into the air. I did some sort of flip and – inexplicably – landed, feet first, unscathed, back on my board like nothing had happened.   

I got new headshots recently and I was terrified. Headshots are one of those things that, as an actor, you KNOW you have to do but it’s so freaking stressful because “what will I wear” and “how many looks do I need?” and “what if my hair doesn’t cooperate?”

All the things that make you say no.

I’d actually needed new headshots for a while. But I kept putting it off.

Then...I started a trial run with a new manager and the first thing she asked me was whether or not I would consider new headshots.

Ugh. But I believe in kismet, so I knew it was time.

When I was younger I was a bit of a  daredevil. I don’t know if it was actually me, or if it was just that the Oahu terrain practically required it.

There were countless deep mountain pools and waterfall cliffs to be jumped from. Lots of skinny-ridged hikes with plateaus in the clouds, and dark caves and deep jungles begging to be explored.  

And if I’m being really honest, my most harrowing cliff jump happened only because my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend jumped first.  

I was not going to be outdone. 😬 #competitive

Have you ever had that horrible dream when you’re trying to make an emergency phone call but you keep hitting the wrong numbers? Or the one when you arrive at a posh wedding or high school reunion and realize you forgot to shower and are still in your sweaty workout clothes

Frustrating, right?

It’s a bit how I felt after I drove to my first audition in LA only to find out, after the fact, that they decided to go non-union.  

Luckily, there was a HUGE bright side to my 14-hour drive.

Podcasts.

I walked by a house the other day that still had its Christmas lights up.  I get it, those perpetually tangled strings are a complete pain in the butt to put up and take down every year.

But this house also had a giant snowman on the front porch, surrounded by fake presents and oversized ornaments. I didn’t see a garage, which means the owners walk by these decorations every day.

And every day, they choose NOT to take them down.  

It’s all about choices.

If you read my blog post, “The power of being naive”,  several weeks back, then you know that I went to the University of Michigan and that I’m pretty much obsessed with it.  #goblue.

I wish the Wolverines had won the NCAA tournament, but I was still blown away by the way the team played.

It was incredible.

But that's not what impressed me.

I stole this blog from my Dad.  

Kind of.

His “blog” was actually a hand-written letter he wrote to my brother who was about to start college as a pre-med student.

The anniversary of my dad’s death is on April 29th, and it's always comforting to read this letter. I love reading his words and “hearing” his voice, even though the letter wasn’t meant for me.  

I was 8 when my brother was born.

I’m pretty sure I thought my parents had him because I’d asked them to.  And this *might* actually be true.

Every Christmas I asked for two things. A  miniature, real car (why??) and a Baby Alive doll.

I never got either.

I think we can all agree there’s not enough time in a day.

So in an effort to “add more time” to my own day, I decided to get up at an hour earlier, at 5:45,  to exercise. I know, I know, 5:45 a.m. is NOT that early...and especially since I spent 18 years getting up at 3:45am when I worked in the bond market. But, times change (no pun intended).

One of my friends was just diagnosed with cancer.  

Actually, she got the diagnosis a month ago, but she's still waiting to find out what kind of cancer it is so they can start treatment.

One month!

Can you imagine sitting with the knowledge that you have cancer, even just for one day, and not being able to attack it?

My friend and her family’s whole world came crashing down when they got that news. 

And I expect a lot of the insignificant things they'd been worrying about dissolved at the same time.

Do you watch Scandal?

If not, you should.  And you’re lucky. Lucky because you can binge on all 6 seasons of one of the juiciest, sexiest, and most gorgeous shows out there, ALL.AT.ONCE.  Sigh.

I’m not just talking about Jake Ballard.  

Okay fine, I am.

One of the best gifts in my life happened because I was too naive to know that I was being naive.  

As I reflect back on it, it was part my expectation for others to do the right thing, a little about ‘you don’t get what you don’t ask for’ and even more about knowing I had nothing to lose.

This is definitely true for us actors who are fighting so hard for our dreams.

You can’t expect to make your dreams come true if you don’t go after them, right?  We all know that.  Our passion for acting is the fire that gets us out of bed every day to keep going for it, even though so many voices (sometimes even our own) are screaming, “no” and “it’s too hard”. 

Because regret is insidious.

I’m new to the entrepreneur lifestyle and it has been a huge learning curve with many highs and many lows. And lots of ‘What the hell have I done?’.

It has felt a bit like getting a ticket for a 2018 Simon & Garfunkel Nostalgia Tour (someone please make this happen) but then finding out it’s in London and I forgot to renew my passport.  

I’m being dramatic, but I had a recent wake-up call that turned my business on its head

Here’s what happened.

I recently had a commercial audition where I was asked to tell a story about the importance of family.  

That was it. The whole audition was just a little, lighthearted, fun story.  

Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, it was, except I committed one major commercial auditioning faux pas.

I cried!

For a commercial!  

Social Media is kind of a pain in the ass. 

You wish it was easier to use. You wish it was fun. You wish that attracting gobs of followers with your witty banter and interesting posts was a no-brainer.

You make excuses not to do it like, “I’m too old”, or “I wouldn’t know what to post”, but deep down you’re actually afraid that no one will like your stuff, follow you back, or that you might get blasted for saying something dumb, amiright?

And then a new kind of fear creeps in.  It’s called FOMO and it sounds like, “What’s a meme?” or  “Whose abs are they talking about?”

As most of you know, I’ve spent a lot of time blogging about the guts of my business, how I’m feeeeeeling about it all, and how crazy-cool it is when an acting client tells me about all of their “aha moments”.

You know who else talks a lot about her feelings?  Oprah.  And you wanna know who happens to be a pretty freaking incredible actor? Yup, right again.  Oprah...with two Oscar noms to prove it.  

No surprises there.

She is the queen of getting things done and she’s pretty extraordinary to boot.

The Sunday New York Times business section recently ran an article called, “Reese Witherspoon’s Second Act”.  

And it had me cheering.

Not only because Reese wants to create television for other woman – actresses, directors, and writers – but because she's absolutely killing it as a producer (case in point, Meryl Streep signed on for Big Little Lies, Season 2. Are you kidding me???)  which means Reese has figured out a way to take back control in the industry.

A role model for us all, for sure.  

My daughter recently turned 13.

And I know this will mean many, many changes in our house– terrifying changes that are sure to keep me up at night wondering what happened to my baby girl.   But, for now, there’s  one thing I know I can count on for sure – her birthday meal requests.

Her menu looks like this, every year:

She doesn’t know it (yet, because I just figured it out for myself)  but my mom is the inspiration behind the Magnetic Actor Method (which is now shut down but it’s a business I started that I’m still REALLY proud of).

But not in the, “Hi, it’s me, your mom. I just called to say I have this great idea for a business you should start” kind of inspiration.

That’s not even close.

Booking the job isn’t just about a stellar audition. We all know that. Yet, there are soooo many things that actors do, every day, that destroy their chances of booking the job.

There are 7 that I think are the worst – The Seven Deadly Sins.  

Are you guilty of any of these? Let’s find out.