Seth Panitch- Why Changing Careers at Fifty Isn't Starting Over

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Welcome, fellow adventurer, to Gamify Business Tavern Tales, a place to discover the roads less traveled on your creative journey.
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Welcome back to the Tavern, fellow adventurers.
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I'm Paul Pape, your barkeep and game master.
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So tonight's guest went into college wanting to be a writer.
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Thirty years later, he finally started.
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In the world of gamified business, every adventurer builds a character.
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You choose your skills, invest your experience points, master your disciplines.
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And over time you become something recognizable, something with a reputation, a build that works.
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And then sometimes the quest changes.
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Tonight's guest is a bard, but not just a bar, a storied bar.
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Someone who spent 30 years building one of the richest multiclass builds this tavern has ever seen.
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Actor, director, playwright, filmmaker, professor of theater, each class master.
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Each skill earned through genuine practice, real failure, and hard-won excuse.
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And every one of those class levels was quietly building towards something he didn't yet know he needed.
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Seth Panich went into acting in college because he thought it would help with his creative writing.
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Beautiful doors opened.
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And he walked through them for 30 years.
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Theater, film, academia, award-winning work, a career that any reasonable person would call a success.
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But a mentor's voice never quite left him.
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She had told him years ago that he would only hear the next grand sweep of his life when things got silent.
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Then COVID arrived and everything got silent.
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And in that silence, Seth hurt it.
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Not a new direction, the original one, but the novel he had always meant to write.
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And when he finally sat down to write it, something remarkable happened.
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He didn't have to start over.
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The actor's ear came with him, the playwright's instinct, the director's eye, the professor's understanding of narrative.
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Thirty years of multi-class mastery, all of it transferring into a new build.
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The novel is called Antique.
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His protagonist Grace is asking the same question Seth faces entering his fifties.
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How do you define yourself as you begin to age?
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The book isn't separate from his journey.
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It is his journey.
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Now he's making the full leap, trading a comfortable, well-paying career for a question mark.
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I walked a version of this road myself not too long ago, and I can tell you, the skills do carry forward.
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The storied Bard proves it.
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Tonight is Seth is here to share what 30 years of multiclass building taught him, what it actually cost to change your build at 50, and what you hear in the silence when you finally stop long enough to listen.
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Seth, welcome to the tavern.
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So when did you first realize the build you'd spent 30 years on was actually preparation for one that you were about to start?
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Well, first I want to say my life has never sounded as exciting as when you speak it.
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So I want to go back and live through my life now.
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You know, I've been avoiding it for so long.
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Um, you know, when did I when did I want to when did I realize that there was a no build a new build there?
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I think that it wasn't something that happened all of a sudden, Paul.
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I I think it was something that happened over years, and it may have been your experience as well.
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Um I had a great mentor, and it was the same mentor who told me to wait for the silences, and he said, you've got to seek things that are new and challenging, and things which you may or may not be successful in rather than repeating past successes.
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And I think what happened over time is that it's not that I lost my joy of directing, and I'll never lose my joy of teaching.
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That that's aside.
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I love to teach.
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Um, but I think acting, playwriting, theater itself started to feel um like I was on a plateau.
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Uh the work was good, and even if my directing improved, Paul, I didn't feel like I was getting the same thing out of it that I got when I was younger.
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And I thought, well, maybe that's just age, but it wasn't.
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You know, it's it's inertia, and it's you know, it's all the way back to La Morte de Arthur, you know, um uh we, you know, the the old order changeth, yielding place to new, and and we fulfill ourselves in many ways.
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And and I think that that that that was sort of happening to me.
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And I was at this crossroads where I thought, well, I can spend the next 20 years doing theater, or I'm young enough, if you can say that, right, when you're 50, but young enough that that I can do something completely new.
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And like you said, it was completely old.
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It's always been a dream to write the novel.
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It always seemed like that marathon that I'd never run.
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And I thought that I ain't getting no younger.
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And and if there was a time to do it, it was now.
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I get I get nervous, Paul, when when I get inertial.
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Um and and I think I, you know, again, everything was going well, but just because things are going well doesn't mean you do them.
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And and I I think that that I was seeking that challenge, and that's why I started writing.
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I think that there's a place where creativity kind of falls asleep in the comfort of something that we are very comfortable with.
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You know, it's like when we do something long enough, we're like we start it starts going through the motions.
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And I find this a lot with with professors who are tenured track and like nearing that retirement age where it's like they're just I hate to say phoning it in, but they've done it.
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They're just collecting a paycheck.
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Yeah, you're right.
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You're right.
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And and I I don't like you don't, I don't ever want to end up someone like that.
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But man, like you said, it's tough to do that.
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You it you have to be prepared for failure.
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Yeah, you you have to plan for failure.
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And and on the other hand, and I'm sure you've experienced this too, having that failure is good.
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It makes you feel young because you remember all the screw-ups you made.
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Um, and I had a good amount of failure writing.
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You know, who the hell am I to all of a sudden write a novel at 50, whatever?
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So, you know, the I I wrote a novel initially just to teach myself how to write one.
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It took me about a year and a half, and it was off of a screenplay of a film of mine that just released called The Coming, so it was a horror piece.
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And I knew the it so well, and I'd acted the lead as well, so I knew the story.
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So I knew I could get through 400 pages somehow.
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And I thought it was brilliant, Paul.
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I thought that this thing's gonna sell, it's gonna make me a million dollars.
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And I sent it to 106 agents, and I got 106 rejections, and they were kind, and about half of them said, let me see your next book, which was great to hear.
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But after about 10 to 20, I'm like, oh yeah, this is what it was like when I was an actor.
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I got it, I got it.
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And um, and and so uh so to make a short story long, uh I think it was it had been building over time.
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And I think any of your listeners, when they reach a pinnacle of success, it is a pinnacle, and there's another side to it.
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And the question is, are you just gonna grab on to that the way we would try to grab on to our youth, which is impossible, or do you find that next chapter for yourself?
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And and I really wanted to write that.
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I and I think that's a it's a beautiful way of of of putting that journey.
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It's like because life is a journey and it's a constant series of of quests that you go on.
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And you know, we always we're we're told from a young age, okay, have a five or ten year plan, and then have that thing, that goal that you're trying to get at.
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But what they're gonna tell you is that once you get there, unless you die, there's there's still debt.
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Yeah, there's a lot more that you've got to try to accomplish, and you've got to set another goal, right?
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But we get very comfortable with what we're doing.
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I was actually, I just literally came from a meeting with a guy who just literally turned 40 and said 50, but he's in the exact same place.
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He's like, I've done this service career for so long, but I feel like I've got the the knowledge and power to do it on my own, but I'm scared.
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And to be an adult, and I hate to say an adult male, especially to admit that you have a fear of something is difficult, especially in this country.
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And so to have to have that, but I want to jump into something really quickly.
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It's completely off books of what I have.
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Okay, good, but good, good.
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It's about theater.
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I I think that theater, like a training in theater, any exposure to theater, prepares you for the the possibility of everything, and it lets you know that failure is a constant and it isn't a stop, it's a step.
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Because when you do a show, show goes up, show goes down, whether it's ready to or not, and that you know, all this all the soft skills that we learn in theater are play into all of this.
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And and we're used to, if you're an actor, you're used to rejection.
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If you're a designer, you're used to getting bad reviews, or you're used to the things not turning out the way you want.
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If you're a director, it's you know the same thing over and over and over again.
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And it it really helps us.
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And so I'm curious as to what your take on theater has been for your career and your journey and where you're seeing it at.
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Yeah, no, and first I want to address what you were saying because I think you're absolutely right.
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The theater preparation for failure.
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So, what I do with my advanced actors, because I I don't want to see them until they're sophomores, and I don't think they want to see me either.
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But but it and I do the same thing with my MFA program as I do in the BFA, which is the first day everybody fails.
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I have a list of things guaranteed to make people fail in front of the class.
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Not to humiliate people, but afterwards I say, you know, how do you feel what's different now?
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And they say, There's no difference.
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I'm like, that's it.
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I mean, in any art, there is no difference to you when you fail.
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You know, we we are you talked about criticism, and when we get bad reviews, those don't affect us.
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We affect ourselves when we read those bad reviews.
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That review cannot affect you.
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And today, the sad thing is it doesn't affect your book sales either, unless it's New York Times, right?
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It's not going to affect your book, it doesn't matter.
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In terms of how theater has helped me, um, theater saved my life as a young man.
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I mean, I mean, if I'm going very young as a child, I acted out a lot.
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I I was hyperactive.
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I couldn't focus.
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My parents put me in a private school, which was really strict.
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I still couldn't focus.
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My best friend at the time forced me to audition for Charlotte's Webb in fourth grade, and I got cast as Templeton the Fat Rat.
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They barely had to pad my suit.
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Uh and my grades from there on out, Paul, were never less than a B.
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So the challenge of failure and success, as you say, when you get up in front of an audience, that challenge focused me.
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It happened again in college when I transferred back into theater, I think second semester, junior year.
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Um, I was seeking again that challenge.
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And what acting and writing, I think, I think when you find renaissance theater people, designers who also act, directors who also write, and I've I've been able to do everything but design because I can't design.
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Um what it's helped me doing when I've I really worried about writing um prose.
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Uh because I I was I'm used to screenplays and plays, and in screenplays, of course, it's led by the visual, and in plays, it's led by the text.
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The text is the action in a play, as you know.
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And in a novel, it's completely different.
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You have to transport the reader into a space where the reader can create the world.
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But what I found was that everything, and you said this in the intro, everything that I'd learned comes into play.
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So my acting is what helps me connect with the characters when I write and know what they're going to do next.
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The playwriting, of course, is, and the screenwriting is the structure.
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You know, and I really believe strongly in three-acts structure, whether you have six acts or eight acts, it's still three acts.
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Yep.
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Because we think in three acts.
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And as Joseph Campbell, Hero of a Thousand Faces, like the greatest book ever on mythology, says everything's in three acts, you know, every world religion and you know that stuff.
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Um, and my directing helps me understand where to direct the reader's eyes on the, you know, um as they think through a scene.
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So all of that preparation, I didn't realize this at the time, but once I once I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb and and was about 30, 40 pages in, um, all those other techniques took over.
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And and obviously I still need to learn a lot about the musculature of novel, but it it transported me.
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Um and I think theater is is, as you were intimating, is is is important for everything.
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My father used to do the UCLA uh interviews for their medical school, because he had done his um internship at UCLA Med.
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And after biology and chemistry, the number one major that UCLA wanted to see was theater.
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Because people know how to communicate, they know how to empathize and not um judge, right?
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You can't judge your characters because every character, villain, or hero thinks they're the hell the hero of the of the piece.
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Um, and so theater prepares you for any number of things.
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I mean, graduates, I've been here for 21 years.
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Yeah, I have a lot on Broadway, I have a lot in film and TV and all that, and I love that.
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But there's also some that are doctors and nurses and lawyers and are in business, and and you know, they write me all the time about how their their theater training has helped them in that.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And it's my wife is a costume designer, set designer myself, so we're all about the theater world here.
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And we we shout it out as much as we possibly can.
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It's like if you want to get better at anything, go get go do some theater, go do some theater, go get get that aspect of it because and I love and I love that you you know you you talked about the the failure aspect of it and that it doesn't really have an effect on you, and you do have to kind of build that skin, but the reality is is somebody just has to give you that permission to know that that failure is not a stop and that you're no worse off than you were before.
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I think that's beautiful.
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Yeah, and it's tough for people to understand that too, but physically it makes perfect sense, right?
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If you're gonna build a muscle, the building of muscle means you tear it, yeah, you eat a pizza, and then you build it back up, right?
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Or or one of the drinks uh behind you, right?
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And you build that back.
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And I think the same thing's true with any art form, and I think any hero, right?
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In you talk about quests.
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Every hero in every quest has to go through the death reversal, right?
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Has to go through those moments um um when they're they're reimagining themselves.
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And and to reimagine means something else has to break, something else has to tear because it worked.
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You've you you know, your character has succeeded for certain reasons, but they've come up against something in that quest that they've never seen before.
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Therefore, they're not enough for it.
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Therefore, they have to be torn apart or die and be reborn.
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And rebirth can be any number of different things, just like you and I have been through rebirths.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And I I love the fact that you said to have success, you have to encounter failure.
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Yeah, because everybody thinks that success, like our career path, is a is a straight line up, and it's like it is not, it's an EKG, kids.
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It's it's doing this.
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Yeah because you can't appreciate your successes unless you've known what the opposite side of that is.
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Absolutely, absolutely agreed.
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Excellent.
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So you went into acting in college to become a better writer, and then spent 30 years washing through beautiful doors that took you somewhere else entirely.
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In gaming terms, you built an extraordinary multi-class character, actor, director, playwright, filmmaker, professor.
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Looking back, do you think those were detours or do you see them now as deliberate class choices that your character needed before the real quest could begin?
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I don't think they were deliberate choices that my character needed, but I think they were choices my character needed to make, if that makes sense.
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I think I I I would say pro and not even subconsciously, you know, sometimes we're not aware of what we need.
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There's a great book that I have the actors read called The Inner Game of Tennis.
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I don't know if you ever read this.
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It's short.
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You get through in a in like less than a day.
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Okay.
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And he was trying to teach people how to change their swings.
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It's just about, it's a little zen, yeah?
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How to change your swing.
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And people said, that's exactly what I'm doing.
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I'm doing what you're telling me to do.
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And so he'd show them like he'd film them, and then they'd look at it and say, Oh, that's not what I'm doing at all.
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So we're not even aware sometimes of what we're doing or what we need.
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And and someone else can tell us that.
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But um, and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.
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But there that journey that I took to build all of those aspects, you know, if you're gonna say I'm a you know 12-sided die or whatever, to build all those those faces that now I can roll around as I wish.
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Um I don't think that they're a detour at all.
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And I think it was completely necessary.
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I'll tell you something else about um he's gonna tell something else too.
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Um uh I I could only have written antique at this age.
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Yeah.
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So so things sometimes come to us in their due.
00:17:03.519 --> 00:17:04.400
Sometimes they're late.
00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:15.440
Yeah, and you're right, and some and and there are detours, and I've taken a lot of detours in relationships, um, not necessarily in my professional life, but I've taken a lot of detours there.
00:17:15.759 --> 00:17:29.200
Um but but I and sometimes we look back at our life and we say, Ah, if I just could have, if I could have crossed that road differently, if I could have taken this tack instead, if I could have built this aspect of my character instead of that.
00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:41.839
The problem is you would also have to give up something that you are now, because you can't bet that the character you are now would retain everything else you like if that one thing wasn't there.
00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:48.480
So even those detours for me in my relationships were necessary for me to get into my marriage now.
00:17:48.720 --> 00:17:50.960
And this is a godsend for me.
00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:57.920
I mean, my marriage to me, and she hates when I say this, it's perfect, it's perfect for me, she must be saying, but but I needed all those relationships to get there.
00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:01.440
And I think I needed, I needed all those experiences.
00:18:01.519 --> 00:18:08.480
I needed to be an actor on stage in Shakespeare in front of an audience and have that anvil and see what that did.
00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:20.000
I needed to have, my God, my experience on my first play, Paul, was um uh I wrote it as a showcase because I was in Los Angeles and I'd done a lot of Shakespeare, and there's not a lot of Shakespeare in LA.
00:18:20.079 --> 00:18:21.920
There's some really good, but there's not a lot that pays.
00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:25.519
There are 99-seat houses at uh Equity Waiver.
00:18:25.759 --> 00:18:37.279
And so I wrote a play called Damn It Shakespeare, which was um a comedy about Shakespeare and Burbage, and instead of breaking into song like in a musical, they break into Shakespeare, whenever famous parts of Shakespeare to express things.
00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:42.799
So when Burbage isn't acting well, Shakespeare bursts into speak the speech, I pray as I pronounce it to you, et cetera.
00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:43.200
Yeah.
00:18:43.440 --> 00:18:48.799
And that got great LA Times review and somehow got picked up by a New York producer named Lily Turner.
00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:52.640
When she produced my play and took it to New York, she was 92.
00:18:53.119 --> 00:18:57.359
She had founded the Off-Broadway movement in the 40s.
00:18:57.599 --> 00:19:08.480
She built the Village Gate and the Village Cricket, which were also jazz clubs, but she turned them into theater spaces, discovered dozens of the most famous actors you've ever heard of.
00:19:08.559 --> 00:19:18.079
And my director was 76 at the time, Matt Conley, and he had acted with all of the great American Shakespearean actors in his.
00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:22.240
So, so that experience is is of course in me.
00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:25.440
And in fact, both of those characters are in my second book.
00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:34.880
Um and my education experience, you know, being a professor for 30 winds, of course, you you work all the time over the summers.
00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:36.720
You have to, or you don't get tenure, you don't get full.
00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:38.799
Um, I see you had your familiar with you right there.
00:19:39.039 --> 00:19:39.440
I do.
00:19:39.759 --> 00:19:50.480
Um but um but the my experience in education has been great as well because it's allowed me to act in festivals that I couldn't as a kid um just because I'm older.
00:19:50.640 --> 00:19:53.599
Uh, you know, I'm older and so they they need me in a different way.
00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:55.759
And also I I don't put any pressure on the festival.
00:19:55.839 --> 00:19:57.039
I don't care if I come back or not.
00:19:57.119 --> 00:19:57.839
I have a day job.
00:19:57.920 --> 00:20:02.160
And so so I I'm the guy every festival likes to have because I'm not in competition with anybody.
00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:04.079
I have a day job.
00:20:04.319 --> 00:20:10.160
Um, and um obviously my work in film I couldn't can consider a detour at all.
00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:15.680
It was, I mean, that that pushed me harder than anything I've ever done.
00:20:15.759 --> 00:20:22.960
Um, doing independent film, you know, stuff that I I I maybe didn't produce, but I acted and directed, wrote that that sort of thing.
00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:29.200
Um, tougher even than directing plays in Havana, Cuba, which I've done, which is incredibly difficult.
00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:31.440
Um, I I think film's the toughest thing.
00:20:31.519 --> 00:20:34.240
That's the most demanding thing that I've ever done.
00:20:34.480 --> 00:20:37.440
And and none of those were were sidecars.
00:20:37.599 --> 00:20:46.960
All of those are part of my experience every time I try to trans translate my experience onto the page when I write something.
00:20:47.200 --> 00:20:49.039
So those are all part of the character.
00:20:50.079 --> 00:20:59.359
And that's an aspect of it that I think a lot of people don't understand is like when you go through life, it doesn't matter if you spent you know five years flipping burgers and that's not at all what you wanted to do.
00:20:59.440 --> 00:21:03.200
Every single one of those is basically goes into your bag of holding.
00:21:03.279 --> 00:21:04.720
It's parts of your armor that you're putting on.
00:21:04.880 --> 00:21:07.920
It's all these things that you're building to create the character of you.
00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:29.519
And again, like Neil deGrasse Tyson, scientist, one of my favorite guys to listen to, very smart, but he says the only person that I really look up to is artists, because there's never been anyone in history who is that person, and there'll never be another person in history that will be that person because it's their lived experiences that allow them to give them the voice to tell other people how to be.
00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:36.720
And I love that because that's what makes creatives so damn interesting, is that they've had all of these ups and downs.
00:21:36.799 --> 00:21:39.359
And when you mentioned earlier with your relationships, this is the exact same thing.
00:21:39.839 --> 00:21:48.880
But to have the ability to look at that in retrospect and see that they were pieces of a puzzle that you were putting together is is very sage-like.
00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:53.119
It's very much, you know, retrospective knowledge that a lot of people don't carry.
00:21:53.440 --> 00:21:56.319
Yeah, well, artists are sacrificial beasts.
00:21:56.640 --> 00:21:57.519
I mean, that's that right.
00:21:57.759 --> 00:21:59.200
I mean, that's how tragedy started, right?
00:21:59.279 --> 00:21:59.759
Tragedy started.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:01.519
Starts with Oedipus, right?
00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:03.839
Doing shit so we don't do the same shit.
00:22:04.079 --> 00:22:04.319
Right.
00:22:04.480 --> 00:22:15.680
I mean, you know, and everybody, and and that ex I think that's why audiences kind of revere actors when maybe they shouldn't, because there's so much goes into a stage production, as as you know well.
00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:33.039
Um but I think it's because when someone sits in the dark and watches somebody else do something they wish they could and can't, when someone can just rip open their chest and show you the soul, the darkness of what they are, not where they're pretty, because that's tiring.
00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:33.440
Yeah.
00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:35.440
And everybody looks pretty in the same way, right?
00:22:35.599 --> 00:22:36.880
Pretty is as pretty does.
00:22:36.960 --> 00:22:38.880
But I think everybody's ugly in a different way.
00:22:39.039 --> 00:22:42.000
And that's what separates us, right?
00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:47.200
The you know, the the bends on us, the molds, those, those elbows, right?
00:22:47.359 --> 00:22:48.960
That's what makes us us.
00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:49.680
Right.
00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:58.559
Um, I think that there's a there's an intense power to do that in front of an audience to help the audience transform a little bit.
00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:04.960
And I think that's why that's why tragedy endorses comedy does as well, because comedy is doing the same thing, right?
00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:08.480
Right, the Marx brothers slip on the banana peel, so you don't have to, right?
00:23:08.559 --> 00:23:10.480
And so so we're laughing at ourselves.
00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:20.559
It's that great line from Gogol, uh, the inspector general at the end, when finally the the mayor breaks the fourth wall and he says to the audience, you're not laughing at us, you're laughing at yourselves.
00:23:20.799 --> 00:23:22.160
This is a really weird moment.
00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:24.640
It's his only Brechting moment in the play.
00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:32.079
But but um, but I I do think that artists, and of course we're we're society's fairweather friends, aren't we?
00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:38.400
You know, when anybody's feeling down, right, they don't crack open a book on geology.
00:23:38.640 --> 00:23:50.000
They right, they go to the theater, they go watch a movie, they go to an art show, uh, they listen to beat poetry if that's their thing, um, they go to jazz, you know, or ballet.
00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:52.640
But when they're feeling good, they don't need us.
00:23:52.799 --> 00:24:01.519
So so they actually come to us usually when they either just need to be entertained, which is a deep need, obviously, especially as you say, in this world that we live in.
00:24:01.599 --> 00:24:03.680
It's great to just be entertained, nothing wrong with that.
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:06.880
Um, or they're going there to fill something in themselves.
00:24:07.039 --> 00:24:11.680
And and so, so we as artists are in a service industry.
00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:23.279
And I know that it feels selfish when you do it, and that's why you've always got to have that larger sense of of what you talked about, what the end game is in art, you know, what is it?
00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:26.559
You talked about the show goes up and then the show's gone.
00:24:26.720 --> 00:24:36.319
So the end game of the show is the artist that leaves it, how you've changed yourself through the anvil and the challenge of that, uh, and how you've changed the audience.
00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:40.240
Those are the only two keepers from that experience.
00:24:41.680 --> 00:24:45.599
That's a really really fresh perspective on that one I hadn't heard before.
00:24:45.759 --> 00:24:55.440
And I think that that's because we often go into those as a performer, as a designer, or as a participant, as a as a viewer, and and we don't think about that outcome.
00:24:55.759 --> 00:25:07.599
But it's funny, like you know, I've been in theater for over 30 years, and so it's like to see you know people, you're like, oh, you did that show, and you can see the remnants of those shows still leave they leave a mark on people.
00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:18.160
Yeah, whether the show was good, bad, indifferent, doesn't matter, but you always come out of it with something like there's it's a scar, but not in a bad way, you know, it's like it just helps to build that metal.
00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:18.559
I love it.
00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:19.119
Oh, yeah.
00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:23.279
And every show that you've designed, you can't go back and do that same design again.
00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:23.920
No, right?
00:25:24.240 --> 00:25:27.279
I mean, I mean, some academics do, and that's why they stink.
00:25:27.519 --> 00:25:30.160
But but but so you you can't do that.
00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:36.240
But when you go up against into the woods or something, you have to deal with how am I gonna deal with woods and do this and that.
00:25:36.319 --> 00:25:45.599
Um, when you come out of that, that there's a there's a greater artistry in you because of the challenge, you have more musculature because you've beaten that challenge, right?
00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:55.839
You've built that rotating set, you know, and it and it and I did that once on I've had a few rotating sets on Sweeney Todd, where it rotated the wrong way opening night.
00:25:56.160 --> 00:26:15.599
Oh my poor actors, yeah, and they were great, they just adapted it, the audience couldn't tell, but um uh but but but you know, but the but the designer still leaves the product, is the designer is that leaves the show is different than the designer that began the show, and that's what keeps you from quitting.
00:26:15.920 --> 00:26:17.119
Yeah, yeah.
00:26:17.359 --> 00:26:21.359
And the people who don't grow from that become stale.
00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:21.759
Yeah.
00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:25.200
And that's really in in we're kind of dealing with that.
00:26:25.279 --> 00:26:32.960
I'm in Omaha, Nebraska, and we've got a very set amount of designers who can actually work in the theaters that we have here, and we're seeing that now.
00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:35.759
We're just seeing recycled over and over again same things.
00:26:35.839 --> 00:26:41.119
And it's like you guys need because they know they can be hired, because they have a lot of other options.
00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:46.880
And it's like, no, you need competition, you need some young blood in here to make you strive to be more than what you're doing.
00:26:47.039 --> 00:26:49.759
Because you know they can, you know they're capable of it.
00:26:49.839 --> 00:26:56.880
Um and it's just it just if we're doing this for a paycheck, man, we should all go, we should all go back to medical school and finish it.
00:26:57.200 --> 00:27:00.000
You know, because I mean if if that and I don't have a problem.
00:27:00.079 --> 00:27:03.440
If someone says my end game is to make money, I'm like, well, then do that.
00:27:03.599 --> 00:27:11.440
If that's if you want to die and look back at that life, and that's gonna bring you pleasure, because it might, then go do it.
00:27:11.680 --> 00:27:19.440
But but I always think of the fact of when I'm I'm on my own funeral pyre, right, and I'm going off to Avalon to be with Arthur.
00:27:19.599 --> 00:27:23.839
Uh, you know, what what view do I want to see behind me?
00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:25.839
And it's it's it's not money.
00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:34.720
I mean, I don't want to see starvation either, but it's but but that's I think that's the key thing for us as artists, you and I, as we continue to grow, is what do I want to look back on?
00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:35.759
Yeah, absolutely.
00:27:35.839 --> 00:27:38.640
Yeah, you don't want the pews filled with dollar bills, yeah.
00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:41.440
You want them filled with the faces of the people that whose lives you've affected.
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:42.160
Oh, yeah, of course.
00:27:42.319 --> 00:27:46.480
And I think there's something there about longevity and about leaving a legacy and all that they talk about.
00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:55.279
But uh again, you know, I think artists have this ability to I call us the souls of humanity because when you want to be human again, you reach for something artists have touched.
00:27:55.359 --> 00:27:55.759
Yeah.
00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:10.720
And I think that that is, and if you are an artist or a creative who's putting that out into the universe and you don't feel that you're leaving that mark, then that is a unfortunately a deep-seated fear of being irrelevant and that you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing.
00:28:10.880 --> 00:28:15.279
So you have to, you know, we push ourselves, we're constantly pushing ourselves until we get to that plateau.
00:28:15.359 --> 00:28:17.680
If you're one of those people who get comfortable, yeah.
00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:26.960
I think that there's something to be said about being a creative who's comfortable or a creative who's constantly fearing that the next thing is not going to happen, so they're pushing themselves to better themselves.
00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:28.319
That's a really good point, Paul.
00:28:28.400 --> 00:28:31.119
And I I heard the best advice on this from somebody once.
00:28:31.279 --> 00:28:37.279
He said, I was telling him, I said, Ah, you know, I really I want to keep doing this so I can be a writer.
00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:45.839
So I I can essentially retire from the university and and begin to take my university retirement, which I could almost live on, in two years.
00:28:46.079 --> 00:28:50.960
Um as long as I can keep selling books as I sold this one like every other year, right?
00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:52.640
So I only have to sell every other year and do it.
00:28:52.880 --> 00:28:56.799
So I was telling this guy, I said, Ah, you know, I gotta make sure I can do this, so I can do this, so I can do that.
00:28:56.960 --> 00:28:58.880
And he said, Well, what's the point of all that?
00:28:59.119 --> 00:29:02.400
Why are you I said, Well, the point of all that is so I can be a writer.
00:29:02.559 --> 00:29:04.559
And he said, How long did you write today?
00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:06.240
I said, I don't know, about four hours.
00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:07.920
She said, You're a writer.
00:29:08.079 --> 00:29:08.720
Yeah.
00:29:09.119 --> 00:29:13.200
He said, Whatever you're doing in your life right now, you're actually doing what you want.
00:29:13.359 --> 00:29:21.680
What you're talking about is putting all these things together for an intellectual um uh composition of what you think it's supposed to be.
00:29:21.920 --> 00:29:27.519
If you wrote for four hours today and what you really want to do is write, then you did it.
00:29:27.759 --> 00:29:28.960
You're doing it.
00:29:29.279 --> 00:29:34.720
And so uh, you know, the end game for us is that, you know, in that push to, oh, I always got to do more.
00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:47.039
And and when you talked, you know, about my intro about that, was Cornelius Carter, who used to head the dance program here, and he said, You're you're you're you're doing so many things, because I was acting and directing and Shakespeare and film.
00:29:47.200 --> 00:29:52.079
He said, and they're all good, but you're not doing what you really want to be doing.
00:29:52.160 --> 00:29:55.839
You're doing just what people are offering you.
00:29:55.920 --> 00:29:59.759
You know, come to my Shakespeare Festival and do this, and and hey, let's do this film together.
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:03.440
He said, You're it's not starting from, like you said, your soul.
00:30:03.519 --> 00:30:05.359
It's not starting from that really quiet place.
00:30:05.519 --> 00:30:07.119
He said it's gonna have to be quiet.
00:30:07.279 --> 00:30:09.279
It's gonna be really quiet.
00:30:09.680 --> 00:30:13.119
Um, and and I I didn't hear him at the time, man.
00:30:13.359 --> 00:30:18.880
I'd I'd love to tell you that right after that conversation, I went home and I just I did my Zen and I cooled off.
00:30:19.039 --> 00:30:28.640
I didn't, it took me probably still another year for me to remember what he said during COVID and just say, okay, what's next?
00:30:28.799 --> 00:30:30.480
What is that thing?
00:30:30.799 --> 00:30:33.599
And uh luckily it, you know, it came to me.
00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:35.920
So that actually leads me to my next question.
00:30:36.079 --> 00:30:41.759
So after COVID delivered that silence, what did it actually sound like when you finally heard it?
00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:48.799
And how did you know that this was the grand sweep, not just another restlessness or fear of wearing a different costume?
00:30:51.839 --> 00:30:54.000
Well, I had a few films cancelled.
00:30:54.079 --> 00:30:58.160
So, so so I was supposed to film The Coming and then wasn't coming.
00:30:58.319 --> 00:31:04.400
It was um uh uh an adaptation of a my last Off-Broadway play, which was called Separate and Equal.
00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:18.400
It was an interesting piece, and I I told it through basketball, um, which I then turned into modern dance in 1952 in Birmingham, Alabama, with a with a forbidden basketball game between white and black players because they couldn't do that in 52.
00:31:18.559 --> 00:31:22.960
They were they could be on the court at different times, and so I put them all at the same time together.
00:31:23.039 --> 00:31:24.000
And it did really well.
00:31:24.079 --> 00:31:26.960
It was off-Broadway, 590s, 5'9 theaters, great theater.
00:31:27.039 --> 00:31:28.160
So I adapted that into a film.
00:31:28.319 --> 00:31:32.480
I was gonna shoot that, and then the money ran out on that because during COVID we kept getting canceled.
00:31:32.640 --> 00:31:37.759
And then I had a musical I was gonna do at that same theater uh that I worked on with Billy Griffin.
00:31:37.839 --> 00:31:46.720
He was he worked with the miracles, he was he took over for Smokey Robinson with the miracles, and he wrote, I don't know if you remember the song Love Machine, it's big in the 70s, big disco song.
00:31:46.799 --> 00:31:49.440
Well, that was that's Billy Griffin's song, and then that got canceled.
00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:52.799
So I think it was all these things getting canceled over COVID.
00:31:53.359 --> 00:31:56.079
Then every it's like, well, you can't do anything.
00:31:56.480 --> 00:32:01.359
So, so I for a while, first I just said, Well, I can't do anything.
00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:05.200
And and and a frustration built in that.
00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:08.720
And then I thought, well, what can you do?
00:32:08.880 --> 00:32:14.720
Because you're not just gonna sit here like an idiot, you know, teaching teaching Shakespeare on your iPad, which is what I was doing.
00:32:15.039 --> 00:32:16.480
You know, what else are you gonna do?
00:32:16.640 --> 00:32:19.680
And I thought, well, what could I do alone?
00:32:20.079 --> 00:32:23.119
Um, that's G-rated in my office.
00:32:23.359 --> 00:32:37.680
Um, and uh and I thought, well, I could write a book, and it was like um a small distant star that thought.
00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:41.039
And then I said, Well, what would it be about?
00:32:41.119 --> 00:32:52.880
And then the star got just a little bit brighter in a very black night sky, and then I thought, well, I'll just I'll just adapt the script that I've already written, and then the star got bigger.
00:32:53.119 --> 00:33:03.279
The star didn't really explode, didn't say this is the next phase of you until I started writing.
00:33:03.759 --> 00:33:08.960
And once I got the experience of writing books, that's what it was.
00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:11.279
I I think I had to feel it, right?
00:33:11.359 --> 00:33:13.599
I had to get punched in the mouth, as they say, right?
00:33:13.759 --> 00:33:20.880
It was Mike Tyson who said you can have any game plan you want as a boxer, and it goes out the window when you get that first punch in the mouth.
00:33:21.039 --> 00:33:25.359
And that's true for any hero in you know, in any any mythical story, right?
00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:32.880
I mean, you you gotta Luke has to get punched in the mouth at literally in Moss Isley, um, uh, you know, to take the next step.
00:33:33.119 --> 00:33:36.960
And um, which is my issue with seven, eight, and nine, by the way.
00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:38.559
Um, there's no punch in the mouth.
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:54.400
Um, but uh but feeling going to the places that I got to go and writing antique, the second book, because I was still learning in the first one, that's when it really solidified for me that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
00:33:54.720 --> 00:34:04.559
Because the locations that I went to in my subconscious, though those vistas, I had never seen anything like that before.
00:34:04.799 --> 00:34:10.079
Not even in my best acting moments in Hamlet, right, which is the one we all want to play.
00:34:10.239 --> 00:34:16.480
Um, not my first off-Broadway play in New York, not a film, um, uh, you know, winning a bunch of best pictures.
00:34:16.559 --> 00:34:20.480
Uh, I have a film called Uh Service to Man, uh, which won a lot of awards.
00:34:20.639 --> 00:34:28.480
None of that did anything, not even teaching, like writing, because of the surprise.
00:34:28.719 --> 00:34:34.480
Because I when I when I work, you know, we talked about you know having your sheets for your characters.
00:34:34.719 --> 00:34:36.880
My characters have a beat sheet.
00:34:37.119 --> 00:34:42.719
So and every single character that's major has like eight different things about them.
00:34:42.880 --> 00:34:43.599
What do they want?
00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:44.480
What do they need?
00:34:44.639 --> 00:34:46.400
When do those things cross in the story?
00:34:46.559 --> 00:34:47.679
What are they afraid of?
00:34:47.840 --> 00:34:48.960
What do they love?
00:34:49.440 --> 00:34:51.440
What are they embarrassed by?
00:34:51.679 --> 00:34:53.840
What are they sexually attracted to?
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:55.679
And then a bio on them.
00:34:56.079 --> 00:34:59.119
So, and every single character, it's about 50 pages long of that thing.
00:34:59.280 --> 00:35:03.920
And I have a 50-page outline of the book, of every single scene, of everything that's going to happen.
00:35:04.079 --> 00:35:06.639
But when I write this scene, I don't look at the outline.
00:35:06.960 --> 00:35:10.320
The outline gives me the courage to improvise.
00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:13.519
Once I look at it, I'm like, okay, this needs to happen in the scene.
00:35:13.679 --> 00:35:16.960
Then I let the scene take me where it wants to take me.
00:35:17.199 --> 00:35:18.480
And it does.
00:35:19.119 --> 00:35:25.760
And I get surprised by things that characters I've been working on in prep for three, four months do.
00:35:26.639 --> 00:35:33.519
And and and that surprise for me feels like magic.
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:37.119
It really does feel like real life magic.
00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:38.559
I cannot explain it.
00:35:38.800 --> 00:35:41.199
I cannot, and and I've had people ask me, what is it like?
00:35:41.440 --> 00:35:42.960
I was like, I don't know.
00:35:43.119 --> 00:35:45.280
I don't know how I'm doing it.
00:35:46.079 --> 00:35:47.519
I can't put it into words.
00:35:47.679 --> 00:35:50.239
And that's what I love so much about writing.
00:35:51.039 --> 00:35:53.840
What you're describing is a lot like what a jazz musician does.
00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:56.960
It's like they're trained very much in classical music.
00:35:57.039 --> 00:36:00.639
Or even we could even say that like Picasso is trained as one of the masters.
00:36:00.719 --> 00:36:04.480
He could a real person like the man's business, or a jazz musician can play really well.
00:36:04.639 --> 00:36:11.119
But it's when they put all of that aside and they riff, yeah, that the that the true genius comes out.
00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:11.360
Yeah.
00:36:11.519 --> 00:36:12.960
Because but you need the fundamentals.
00:36:13.360 --> 00:36:14.000
Of course you have to.
00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:15.280
You can't riff without it.
00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:15.599
Right.
00:36:16.079 --> 00:36:20.159
I mean, they they they they know, I mean, jazz musicians know every single blues scale.
00:36:20.480 --> 00:36:23.760
Um, it's just it's become behavioral for them.
00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:36.159
Um, you know, the other way to talk about that and explain it is to talk about sports, someone like Michael Jordan, who had who had practiced a million different moves, and and when he went up at the top of the key, he didn't have anything planned.
00:36:36.480 --> 00:36:38.400
It's all these things would take over.
00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:39.920
And he said, I don't know what I was gonna do.
00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:42.159
I don't know, I was gonna do 360 or do this or do that.
00:36:42.239 --> 00:36:44.880
And he'd just launch up into the air, and that's what we do.
00:36:45.039 --> 00:36:48.079
We just launch out into the stratosphere and see.
00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:49.119
But I do agree with you.
00:36:49.440 --> 00:37:04.079
That's the problem with a lot of young artists is they think they see the improvisation and they don't respect the years that it took, the scales, the arduous scales that an actor has to go through.
00:37:04.159 --> 00:37:06.960
An actor has to go through scales, designers go through scales.
00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:07.920
My God.
00:37:08.320 --> 00:37:12.719
Um, and then they just see the finished product and they think, well, I'm just gonna improvise the finished product.
00:37:12.880 --> 00:37:16.000
And of course, our society with social media is trying to program everybody.
00:37:16.079 --> 00:37:17.199
No, you're already fixed.
00:37:17.360 --> 00:37:21.440
You don't need any training, you don't need any education, you're you're perfect the way you are.
00:37:21.599 --> 00:37:26.639
Everybody gets a everybody gets a medal, and there's no such thing as aesthetics.
00:37:26.719 --> 00:37:28.239
It's a dirty word now.
00:37:28.480 --> 00:37:38.239
Um, and and but real youth that are gonna go on and do something because I've seen those who fail and those who succeed, and the ones that succeed know I gotta do my scales.
00:37:38.559 --> 00:37:40.079
Yeah, I gotta do my scales.
00:37:40.320 --> 00:37:42.639
Yeah, there's absolutely something there about it.
00:37:42.800 --> 00:37:44.079
My my wife is dealing with this right now.
00:37:44.159 --> 00:37:57.519
Like I said, she's a costume designer, and she has a person who works in her shop who's a younger, he's in a I think he might have just turned 30, but he's like six, seven years into theater, and he sees what my wife does, and he's like, I can be a costume designer too, because I work in the costume shop, I'm around costumes all the time.
00:37:57.760 --> 00:38:01.199
And then he does a show, and my wife's like, You're missing so much.
00:38:01.360 --> 00:38:06.880
Yeah, but you can't explain to someone what they're missing because then they think that explanation is the past.
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:07.760
Oh, I got it now.
00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:10.159
It's like, no, no, no, you don't you don't know.
00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:13.519
Or they say, Well, that's how we used to do things.
00:38:13.679 --> 00:38:15.039
We're gonna try something new.
00:38:15.199 --> 00:38:18.320
And what I say to that is the wheel is round.
00:38:18.480 --> 00:38:21.920
Do you want a different shape wheel when your car's rolling out there?
00:38:22.239 --> 00:38:27.440
No, some things are round and and art is round.
00:38:27.599 --> 00:38:29.360
We can put a different dressing on it.
00:38:29.440 --> 00:38:33.440
It's it's my big my big issue with the way Shakespeare training is taught, right?
00:38:33.679 --> 00:38:36.960
Shakespeare wrote in verse, so blank verse.
00:38:37.039 --> 00:38:45.840
So so he it wasn't ibic pentameter, but 50-60% is iambic pentameter, but he fiddles with it to direct you, to show you the different expressions that the character is going through.
00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:48.800
But there's a lot of people that say, well, just it's gotta sound natural.
00:38:48.960 --> 00:38:50.960
Well, first of all, it's not, it's poetry, right?
00:38:51.119 --> 00:38:51.199
Right.
00:38:51.360 --> 00:38:53.840
It's got to sound so just throw out all of that stuff.
00:38:53.920 --> 00:38:56.400
That's the equivalent of doing a musical, right?
00:38:56.480 --> 00:38:58.000
And just throwing out the music.
00:38:58.239 --> 00:38:59.360
Just throw out the music.
00:38:59.440 --> 00:39:01.360
Isn't it just just sing whatever notes you want?
00:39:01.440 --> 00:39:02.800
It's i you know, it's inane.
00:39:02.960 --> 00:39:14.639
But again, our society, America, loves to shortcut, and we love to tell everybody, oh, you know, it's just a shortcut, and and this person just has talent, and there's I don't believe there's any such thing as talent.
00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:16.559
I believe the talent is trained.
00:39:16.719 --> 00:39:22.480
Whether you were trained as a youth because your parents were outgoing, therefore you're you're easy to act.
00:39:22.719 --> 00:39:29.440
It's easy for you because your parents were actors, they performed at the table, you know, they were very outgoing and enthusiastic.
00:39:29.599 --> 00:39:34.960
You know, your mother drew beautiful pictures, so you were trained young to draw, whatever that thing is.
00:39:35.199 --> 00:39:38.800
Um, uh, I I I don't think there's any anything is talent.
00:39:38.880 --> 00:39:41.440
I think anybody can do whatever they want if they train.
00:39:41.760 --> 00:39:46.960
Yeah, and but the the shortcut is that they don't want to train for 10, they don't want to train the 10,000 hours.
00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:47.360
Right.
00:39:47.519 --> 00:39:48.639
No, there is a shortcut.
00:39:49.039 --> 00:39:49.679
There's a shortcut.
00:39:49.920 --> 00:39:51.440
The shortcut's the long cut.
00:39:51.679 --> 00:39:52.000
Yeah.
00:39:52.400 --> 00:39:53.360
That's the shortcut.
00:39:53.840 --> 00:39:56.559
Interviewed somebody, they're like, yeah, it was a 10-year overnight success.
00:39:56.800 --> 00:39:56.960
Yeah.
00:39:57.760 --> 00:39:58.800
That's the best way to put it.
00:39:59.280 --> 00:39:59.920
Exactly.
00:40:00.639 --> 00:40:09.039
So you said that you didn't have to unlearn anything when you started writing fiction, that the acting, directing, playwriting, and filmmaking all flowed directly into the novel.
00:40:09.119 --> 00:40:15.119
So for creative entrepreneurs who are terrified that changing their build means going back to level one.
00:40:15.440 --> 00:40:17.199
Walk me through what actually transferred.
00:40:17.360 --> 00:40:23.920
What did 30 years of performance mastery give the novelist that a first level writer would never have?
00:40:24.559 --> 00:40:31.519
Well, the first thing is is the professional structure of how to how to how to how to accomplish a task, right?
00:40:31.920 --> 00:40:45.920
Um, you know, no matter what you do in life, if it's in business, if it's in art, if it's, you know, whatever it is, law, whatever you're doing, you're not just building the technique of that mystery, right?
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:50.320
That that's you know, that's what we call these things in Shakespearean language, right?
00:40:50.480 --> 00:40:52.000
Mysteries, the mysteries of them.
00:40:52.320 --> 00:40:56.239
You're building how you approach those.
00:40:57.119 --> 00:41:01.679
Not just what you do, but how you organize yourself to do those things.
00:41:01.840 --> 00:41:09.119
So, my experience in theater, because I worked a lot in regional theater where you don't have a lot of time to rehearse in Shakespeare festivals.
00:41:09.199 --> 00:41:18.480
And you know, in fact, the first season I worked at Colorado Shakespeare, we put those shows up so fast because the the festivals can't make money until there's butts in the seats.
00:41:18.639 --> 00:41:18.880
Right.
00:41:19.039 --> 00:41:24.960
So, and they gotta pay the actors and they gotta pay the designers, and you know, and we need big costumes if we're in Shakespeare, right?
00:41:25.039 --> 00:41:28.159
And we're outdoors in front of a thousand people, so we need big sets.
00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:30.880
Uh so you gotta work fast.
00:41:31.039 --> 00:41:40.800
So I think I think what I learned most of all through all of that is how to organize things, how I like to work, which is intense preparation, research.
00:41:40.880 --> 00:41:47.920
I spent four months researching antique, um, how I designed all those character sketches and those outlines.
00:41:48.079 --> 00:41:49.760
I didn't know how to do that before.
00:41:49.840 --> 00:41:51.599
I didn't do that for plays.
00:41:51.840 --> 00:42:02.320
I knew that I needed more history on these characters if I was going to write a novel, because I was gonna really open up their lives in ways that I don't in a 90-minute play.
00:42:02.400 --> 00:42:04.480
Um, that's you know, 60 pages.
00:42:04.639 --> 00:42:15.199
Um and so so I but because I knew that I needed to be structured in every aspect, that that in a way, let's talk about it as a painting.
00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:21.280
So I needed the frame to be absolutely set before I could paint inside of it.
00:42:21.519 --> 00:42:27.599
Every aspect of that frame needed to be finished before I could put the first paint drop in.
00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:42.480
And I think that's something that anybody who's going through business should be able to take into their next step, which is I've built how I deal with crisis, because everything is about crisis, right?
00:42:42.639 --> 00:42:45.840
Artists we want to put our characters in crisis.
00:42:45.920 --> 00:42:47.360
Um, that's when they're gonna learn.
00:42:47.599 --> 00:42:53.920
We as artists or as business people are gonna learn the most about ourselves when we're in crisis, not when things are going well.
00:42:54.239 --> 00:42:56.880
We're not gonna you're not gonna learn anything when you're successful.
00:42:57.039 --> 00:42:57.920
It's great to be successful.
00:42:58.000 --> 00:43:07.440
You're gonna learn your bank account's bigger, but you don't learn anything about yourself other than what an asshole you are to the people that helped you get there if you don't take it the right way, right?
00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:11.360
But but you only learn, you only learn from failure.
00:43:11.519 --> 00:43:11.840
Yep.
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:14.320
From that's the only place that you learn from.
00:43:14.480 --> 00:43:17.199
So I think that's something that I took from 30 years of this.
00:43:17.360 --> 00:43:21.440
The other thing I took from it, of course, is the ability to collaborate.
00:43:21.920 --> 00:43:28.159
So, as you know, in theater, theater is a very much a collaboration effort, and film is as well.
00:43:28.559 --> 00:43:35.440
Um, that that even as a director, and I have a bit of a Napoleon in me, and I think every I heard a Hollywood actor say this once.
00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:37.599
It was a big name too.
00:43:37.760 --> 00:43:45.119
I think it was Daniel Day-Lewis that said that every film director has to have a little Napoleon in him, um, uh, or her.
00:43:45.360 --> 00:43:55.360
Uh, but um, but I still understand how to be a general, which is everybody needs to feel that they that they are reflected in what we're doing.
00:43:55.519 --> 00:43:56.800
Everybody does.
00:43:57.039 --> 00:43:59.440
Um, how does that transfer into novel writing?
00:43:59.519 --> 00:44:02.320
Well, I I have to collaborate in that first draft.
00:44:02.400 --> 00:44:04.079
And so you don't have to collaborate with anybody.
00:44:04.159 --> 00:44:06.719
I have to collaborate with parts of myself that I've never used before.
00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:08.800
So there is a collaboration involved.
00:44:08.960 --> 00:44:16.000
And then once the first draft's done, and I did 15 drafts of Antique before it got sold, nine on my own.
00:44:16.239 --> 00:44:26.239
Sorry, seven on my own, two with my agent once I got him, and then the rest with Grand Central, you know, story editors, line editors, and um copy editors, right?
00:44:26.719 --> 00:44:30.000
Uh I take notes really well.
00:44:30.639 --> 00:44:36.719
I don't do what they exactly how they tell me to accomplish them because I need to make them my own.
00:44:36.880 --> 00:44:40.000
I translate them into terms that can make sense for me.
00:44:40.159 --> 00:44:47.679
But there hasn't been a single note that my editor, Jacqueline Young at Grand Central, ever gave me that I was not able to do something with.
00:44:47.840 --> 00:44:49.679
And she said, Oh, what a joy this is a joy.
00:44:49.840 --> 00:44:50.800
And I'm like, but this is theater.
00:44:50.880 --> 00:44:52.480
What what do you mean it's a joy?
00:44:52.639 --> 00:44:55.760
Don't give me an award for something I'm supposed to do, anyways.
00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:56.320
Right?
00:44:57.280 --> 00:44:58.639
This is what we're supposed to do.
00:44:58.800 --> 00:45:00.559
You're the editor, right?
00:45:00.719 --> 00:45:02.079
I'm supposed to listen to you.
00:45:02.159 --> 00:45:04.000
You've been in this business longer than I have.
00:45:04.079 --> 00:45:05.519
I better listen to you.
00:45:05.679 --> 00:45:14.960
Um, and I also, Paul, I always have learned in theater that I want to be in a room where I'm not the smartest person in it.
00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:16.320
I don't know.
00:45:16.639 --> 00:45:18.960
Once you are, yeah, you're not learning anything.
00:45:19.199 --> 00:45:19.440
Yeah.
00:45:19.599 --> 00:45:21.599
I don't want to, I can't steal from anybody.
00:45:21.760 --> 00:45:23.599
I can't I can't steal from anybody, right?
00:45:23.679 --> 00:45:26.159
And the only way I'm gonna get better is to steal from somebody, right?
00:45:26.480 --> 00:45:31.280
So I have to be in a room, and that's why I love Cornelius Carter, and it broke my heart when he retired.
00:45:31.519 --> 00:45:34.079
Um, he's doing dance now professionally in New York again.
00:45:34.159 --> 00:45:38.880
I mean, he's young, but but he was that that North Star for me.
00:45:39.039 --> 00:45:44.239
He was always smarter than me, and I used, I just used copied how he approached academia.
00:45:44.400 --> 00:45:53.519
I mean, I took his, we used to submit tenure and associate and all that stuff in these big binders, and I just took his binders and I looked how he did it, and I'm like, that's it.
00:45:53.599 --> 00:45:54.800
That's that's what I like to do.
00:45:54.880 --> 00:45:57.440
And that's what I did with learning, teaching myself how to write novels.
00:45:57.679 --> 00:46:04.800
I took all my favorite authors and I read the books not for joy, but what are they doing so I can steal it?
00:46:05.039 --> 00:46:08.800
And then I found what that bell curve is that they all did.
00:46:09.039 --> 00:46:19.519
And that's what I copied and then pushed through that mask, because I created a mask is what I like to call it, and pushed through until the latex split, and there I was, right?
00:46:19.599 --> 00:46:21.199
Uh, you know, newborn.
00:46:21.440 --> 00:46:31.280
Um, but but that's I think the other thing that that that 30 years taught me is is find someone who's smarter than you when you're working on something, always.
00:46:31.519 --> 00:46:40.719
Um and we talked about collaboration, and and the other thing that that I learned that's so important I've succeeded.
00:46:40.880 --> 00:46:53.519
I think it's important to remember that, especially when you're scared, because what's weird about us is when we when we succeed, we always think there's gonna be another success at some point, right?
00:46:54.320 --> 00:46:57.920
When we fail, we feel that same thing.
00:46:58.079 --> 00:46:59.199
We're always gonna fail.
00:46:59.360 --> 00:47:02.800
It's so funny how those two things don't often shift and change.
00:47:02.960 --> 00:47:07.760
That's why when we're successful and then we fail, it's so heartbreaking because we're like, how can I possibly fail?
00:47:07.920 --> 00:47:09.199
I just succeeded.
00:47:09.519 --> 00:47:15.039
But um, I think theater also taught me that you're gonna you're gonna go back and forth with those things all the time.
00:47:15.280 --> 00:47:22.079
Um, I don't think I ever, and I'm not trying to be obnoxious about that, I don't think I ever failed in theater.
00:47:22.480 --> 00:47:30.159
I there are performances that I'd like back, but I would never call them a failure because my heart's always been in the right place with them.
00:47:30.559 --> 00:47:36.800
Um theater has helped my ego, but it's never been about my ego, if that makes sense.
00:47:36.960 --> 00:47:38.559
Um that's never been my focus.
00:47:38.719 --> 00:47:51.119
There's nothing I love more in acting than being on the stage when I've got the costume and the set and I can believe that I'm there, and I see a great actor in front of me, and all I have to do is just listen to them and just respond to them.
00:47:51.280 --> 00:47:55.920
Um, or the audience, you know, and be in conversation with the audience is such a joy.
00:47:56.079 --> 00:48:00.239
Um and so and so I think that's that's what I was able to bring as well.
00:48:00.480 --> 00:48:06.079
Um, maturity, uh, although I'm still seeking that desperately, maturity.
00:48:06.320 --> 00:48:12.000
I think when I look back on my funeral pyre, I will not see maternity, uh maternity or maturity back there.
00:48:12.159 --> 00:48:15.679
I will not see either of those, um, which I'm fine with both.
00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:20.559
Uh uh so um, yeah, I think those are the things that I that I was able to transfer in.
00:48:20.880 --> 00:48:24.880
Yeah, I mean, I think every every single one of those like absolutely rings true.
00:48:24.960 --> 00:48:31.920
And and what I think is interesting is you you talked about something that like business has and entrepreneurship has as well.
00:48:32.079 --> 00:48:42.400
It's like all of these, like you're talking about it from the idea of being a writer, but it's also like this is the same thing if you're an entrepreneur, is the same thing if you design a product, this is the same thing if you're running uh just a regular business.
00:48:42.480 --> 00:48:44.960
And like it it crosses so many boundaries.
00:48:45.119 --> 00:48:51.119
You could just need to interchange, just like the mad lib of how to be a how to be a business, is just replace the specific words with yours.
00:48:51.360 --> 00:48:51.760
Oh yes.
00:48:51.920 --> 00:48:54.880
And and what a lot of business people don't understand is that they're artists.
00:48:55.039 --> 00:48:58.559
They because nobody treats them that way, they don't think of themselves that way.
00:48:58.719 --> 00:49:12.960
And my wife is the same way, so she works in business, so she works for a bank and and she's a product manager, so she deals with big businesses and how they organize payments and how they receive payments and how they communicate with all of their clients.
00:49:13.039 --> 00:49:15.119
And and she deals with some pretty big ones.
00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:19.360
And she comes down for dinner every night and we tell each other our day, and it takes about an hour.
00:49:19.440 --> 00:49:23.119
So I tell her mine, she tells her, and we swap every night so somebody can eat.
00:49:23.679 --> 00:49:28.320
And she always says, Well, well, you have the more interesting day, and yours is creative, and mine isn't.
00:49:28.480 --> 00:49:34.639
But it's but what she has to do to solve those problems goes to the same lake.
00:49:35.440 --> 00:49:41.920
It goes, it goes down to the same subconscious lake where great ideas come from.
00:49:42.079 --> 00:49:43.519
It's this pool that we all have.
00:49:43.679 --> 00:49:54.400
I I do believe in a um collective subconscious, like Jung's talks about, and and Zen talks about a collective spirit, right?
00:49:54.639 --> 00:50:09.280
I believe, and I think that's why stories such as Hamlet is translated into almost every language in the world, um, uh, and and that physical art, you know, is is universal, or Greek art, or whatever it is, you know, there's a universal connection.
00:50:09.360 --> 00:50:12.880
I think there is a universal universality to certain things.
00:50:12.960 --> 00:50:14.639
And I think creativity is one of those things.
00:50:14.880 --> 00:50:22.800
Business people are, and I think when they recognize that, they derive more pleasure from their work.
00:50:23.119 --> 00:50:34.800
Um, and I think that the work itself begins to have a sheen to it because it's coming from a different kind of soil than um I'm just a numbers person.
00:50:34.960 --> 00:50:35.920
You're you're not.
00:50:36.159 --> 00:50:40.880
Even numbers themselves, there's a mystery and a and a beauty and a magic to numbers.
00:50:41.039 --> 00:50:50.320
So, you know, I hope that that you know, a lot of business people that are listening to you are able to make all these connections with mythology and and art.
00:50:50.960 --> 00:50:51.920
Yeah, absolutely.
00:50:52.079 --> 00:50:55.760
And like I've done a TEDx talk and I've got another one coming up here in October.
00:50:55.920 --> 00:51:01.599
And what I found with that is it is every single TEDx, and I've helped people get other ones, I've probably been to like 12, 15 of them.
00:51:01.679 --> 00:51:09.440
And what I've realized is that every single TEDx is a theatrical production run by people in business who want to play it being theater.
00:51:09.760 --> 00:51:16.800
And it is such a weird thing to experience because coming from a theater background and being like behind the scenes, I'm like, okay, has everybody got their monologue ready?
00:51:16.880 --> 00:51:17.840
And they're like, what are you talking about?
00:51:17.920 --> 00:51:18.639
No, this is business.
00:51:18.800 --> 00:51:21.360
I'm like, you're going up there for seven minutes to do a monologue, dude.
00:51:21.599 --> 00:51:25.440
Like under stretchlights on a set, very specific with an audience in front of you.
00:51:25.519 --> 00:51:31.920
This is very much theater, but these people want to put this separate label on it to make it feel like it is something different.
00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:35.440
When the reality is, is no, we're going out there to perform something.
00:51:35.599 --> 00:51:38.320
We wrote the monologue, but there are plenty of actors who do that as well.
00:51:38.800 --> 00:51:51.280
Um, so I think that's it's it's just really interesting to think of like it's not like theater is uh a crux, but we we like this artistry, this creativity, we always want to like put it into a box.
00:51:51.440 --> 00:51:56.239
But the reality is that that box is a whole and it's leaking everywhere, and it touches every single person.
00:51:56.480 --> 00:52:05.199
Yeah, and I love the idea of that singular idea uh like the singularity of thought because it and we can see this when like movies come out in triplicate.
00:52:05.360 --> 00:52:10.159
Like sometimes like a movie will come out and you're like, oh, and then that that exact same movie with a like a slightly different perspective.
00:52:10.320 --> 00:52:12.719
It's like the universe is putting out ideas constantly.
00:52:12.880 --> 00:52:23.360
And this is one of the things that I like to tell my clients is like if you do not act on this idea that you have, it will go to someone else, and it will be a shadow of what it should have been if you would have done the work.
00:52:23.519 --> 00:52:25.599
So take the leap, you know, look yourself out there.
00:52:25.920 --> 00:52:27.360
Oh, that's great advice.
00:52:27.920 --> 00:52:34.559
So I made a significant build change myself not too long ago, going from Santa for nerds into this whole gamify business thing.
00:52:34.639 --> 00:52:38.559
So I traded in an established identity for something that was new and unproven.
00:52:38.639 --> 00:52:42.000
And there's a particular fear that lives at that threshold.
00:52:42.159 --> 00:52:50.559
The question of whether the skills transfer, whether the audience you build cares about what you're doing with your new work, whether you're just being brave or foolish.
00:52:50.800 --> 00:52:53.760
And so, what did that feel like, that fear feel like for you?
00:52:53.840 --> 00:52:57.199
And what got you across the threshold anyway?
00:52:57.599 --> 00:52:59.119
I'm not across it yet.
00:52:59.519 --> 00:52:59.760
Okay.
00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:05.599
Yeah, I I I I always uh function on a nice level of of fear and loathing.
00:53:05.840 --> 00:53:12.480
Um uh so so so I I I and I think fear is healthy because fear tells you that you care, right?
00:53:12.960 --> 00:53:28.880
Um yeah, the the transition, I think what I had to divorce myself of, um, aside from a few of those relationships we discussed earlier, what I needed to divorce myself from was how it's going to be received.
00:53:29.440 --> 00:53:32.239
That's that's what I needed to get shut of.
00:53:32.480 --> 00:53:37.280
Because every time I said, Oh, everyone's gonna look at this guy and say, Who the hell is he to write a book?
00:53:37.840 --> 00:53:50.320
Um whenever I thought about that or how it was going to sell, the work reflected that that desperation.
00:53:50.960 --> 00:53:55.760
And it it I wasn't able to transform myself into that collective unconscious.
00:53:55.840 --> 00:53:56.960
I wasn't able to go there.
00:53:57.119 --> 00:54:02.159
I was writing for it to sell, not for me to enjoy it.
00:54:03.039 --> 00:54:06.559
You know, an enjoyment is, you know, even in the sad scenes, not not to experience it.
00:54:06.639 --> 00:54:07.440
Let's put it that way.
00:54:07.519 --> 00:54:09.519
Not and and the experience is why we're after.
00:54:09.760 --> 00:54:23.760
Once I was able to divorce myself from that and say, I really enjoy what I'm doing and how I'm doing it, then then all then the fears went into the into the background.
00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:30.719
Um uh obviously the fears come back up again when the agent goes out with it and tries to sell it, but that's natural and that's going to happen.
00:54:30.800 --> 00:54:39.119
Um, but you always have to tell yourself the fight's in rounds, you know, life's in rounds, and and and you you might get knocked around a little bit on this one.
00:54:39.280 --> 00:54:44.960
Um, but uh, you know, I like the way you you you talk specifically about that transition because I mean that's that's what everybody's terrified.
00:54:45.280 --> 00:54:46.239
That's why they don't do it.
00:54:46.400 --> 00:54:51.920
It's not that they're not excited about what's on the other side of it, or that they're too afraid of what's on the other side of it.
00:54:52.079 --> 00:54:57.920
It is it is the undiscovered country from whose born no traveler returns puzzles the will, right?
00:54:58.480 --> 00:55:02.239
Um that's what's conscious does make cowards of us all.
00:55:02.880 --> 00:55:08.400
That's it's that line, it's that river that we don't want to cross.
00:55:08.719 --> 00:55:15.360
Um and I think what theater has helped me with is I've had to cross that river so many times.
00:55:15.519 --> 00:55:18.320
Every time you stand up as an actor, you have to cross that river.
00:55:18.559 --> 00:55:26.480
You talk about business people taking an acting class, it's so important because every day you get up there and you're nudie.
00:55:26.719 --> 00:55:28.559
You are nudie in front of these people.
00:55:28.639 --> 00:55:29.920
You there is no place to hide.
00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:33.840
I don't care how many parkas you're wearing, there is no place to hide up there.
00:55:34.079 --> 00:55:44.719
And I and I think then that does help you make that determination to to change your character into this new phase of what you're gonna do.
00:55:45.039 --> 00:55:46.880
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
00:55:47.039 --> 00:55:50.320
And it's it's yeah, and we could we could we could go around.
00:55:50.559 --> 00:55:55.679
I think it'd be an entire different episode of just talking about the realities of like the parallels of theater in real life.
00:55:55.760 --> 00:56:01.519
I mean, it's it and it's something obviously that really resonates with me as a person, which is why I keep bringing it up.
00:56:01.599 --> 00:56:05.039
Yeah, but it's it because it is it is absolutely a hundred percent true.
00:56:05.199 --> 00:56:06.559
But we'll get back on task here.
00:56:06.639 --> 00:56:12.400
So your protagonist, Grace, in your book, faces the same question that you face entering your 50s.
00:56:12.559 --> 00:56:15.280
How do you define yourself as you begin to age?
00:56:15.519 --> 00:56:21.920
How much of antique is an autobiography, and what can writing Greek Grace teach you about your own answers?
00:56:22.159 --> 00:56:24.559
Yeah, there's a lot of autobiography in there.
00:56:24.719 --> 00:56:27.599
Um, and it's not just Grace, it's some of the other characters as well.
00:56:27.760 --> 00:56:29.360
And I'd rather not tell you who.
00:56:30.719 --> 00:56:35.599
Uh uh, because there's obviously there's a lot of us, and there's a lot of you in in your design.
00:56:35.679 --> 00:56:37.920
It's just you know, it's it's where we are.
00:56:38.159 --> 00:56:40.480
Um, yeah, it's very autobiography.
00:56:40.559 --> 00:56:47.199
And and and I and I'm obsessed with characters that hit rock bottom and have to crawl their way out.
00:56:47.360 --> 00:56:48.480
I'm obsessed with that.
00:56:48.559 --> 00:57:02.320
And I don't know if it's because I love Joseph Campbell so much, um, but it's I think it's really ultimately because I have had to hit rock bottom, and I hit it once health-wise, and I've hit it once like emotionally in my life.
00:57:03.199 --> 00:57:13.599
And and the and and the person that came out of each of those pits is such a better person than the person that fell into them.
00:57:13.920 --> 00:57:21.039
Such a better person, such a better man, such a better partner, such a better teacher, such a better writer, all of those things.
00:57:21.119 --> 00:57:23.599
And so those characters really interest me.
00:57:23.760 --> 00:57:28.639
So, so writing grace, I was writing a lot about myself.
00:57:28.800 --> 00:57:35.920
I was also writing a little about my mother and my father in there, and my mother's parents, who I never got to meet.
00:57:36.000 --> 00:57:37.119
They died before I was born.
00:57:37.199 --> 00:57:41.039
So, so I got to conjure them a little bit in the piece.
00:57:41.280 --> 00:57:48.000
Um uh I did get to look back at some mistakes that I've made uh and and see them in a different light.
00:57:48.239 --> 00:57:55.360
Um and I noticed something about myself with one of those characters, with her ex-husband, uh uh Victor.
00:57:55.519 --> 00:58:06.400
Um Victor is the host of Antiques Roachho, and and and he acts out, and his reason is that there's he is afraid that there's nothing else to find.
00:58:07.280 --> 00:58:09.519
That there's no more surprises.
00:58:09.920 --> 00:58:13.280
You talk about we've you and I have talked about plateauing and feeling stale.
00:58:13.599 --> 00:58:16.239
He feels like there's nothing else to discover.
00:58:16.960 --> 00:58:21.280
And that that's why he does some pretty awful things in the piece.
00:58:21.519 --> 00:58:27.199
And I I think that you know that was maybe my fear before I wrote this book, is that is is this it?
00:58:27.679 --> 00:58:29.039
Is is theater it?
00:58:29.199 --> 00:58:32.639
And theater's beautiful, but but is theater it forever?
00:58:32.800 --> 00:58:36.000
Is this is this all I'm going to be?
00:58:36.480 --> 00:58:40.960
And I I don't want I don't want it to be all I'm and I love it.
00:58:41.039 --> 00:58:43.280
Again, I I don't want to diss Lady Theater.
00:58:43.519 --> 00:58:46.719
Um, I love her and I love my students.
00:58:46.960 --> 00:58:51.679
Um I don't know if I love directing, but I I like directing a bit.
00:58:51.920 --> 00:58:56.239
Uh but you know, uh you know, directing's tough, directing's brutal.
00:58:56.480 --> 00:59:00.480
Uh, you know, um, you don't get any of the credit, and if it fails, you get you get all the blame.
00:59:00.559 --> 00:59:01.840
It's directing's rough.
00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:08.960
Uh, but um, but it it it taught me that that's that I've that I'm worried about that too.
00:59:09.199 --> 00:59:13.039
About you've you talked on uh earlier about what am I?
00:59:13.280 --> 00:59:19.760
And my fear is if I my fear has always been if I stop doing projects, what am I?
00:59:20.239 --> 00:59:32.159
And that's actually what I explore in my second book, Harmony, uh, which is which is about the music of rock and roll and marriage and divorce and love and jealousy and infidelity.
00:59:32.320 --> 00:59:36.159
And it's about the music of all those things, um, mostly rock and roll.
00:59:36.400 --> 00:59:38.880
Um, but but uh I explore that there.
00:59:38.960 --> 00:59:41.280
So I I know that Grace taught me that.
00:59:41.360 --> 00:59:43.920
Um, and she taught me a lot about my mother's family.
00:59:44.079 --> 00:59:47.519
She taught me about the grandparents I never got to meet.
00:59:48.960 --> 00:59:50.480
Yeah, absolutely.
00:59:50.639 --> 00:59:56.000
And uh there's obviously a deep well that we could go into here, but unfortunately we have a time limit that we have to stick to.
00:59:56.400 --> 00:59:57.039
Of course, of course.
00:59:57.360 --> 01:00:05.280
So for adventurers listening who want to read Antique, uh follow your transition into this new build or connect with your work, where should they go?
01:00:05.679 --> 01:00:09.519
Well, they can get antique um if they want to go out to a store.
01:00:09.599 --> 01:00:17.360
It's at most Barnes Nobles, um, and it's in uh any good independent bookstore, because if they have me, they'd be a good independent bookstore.
01:00:17.679 --> 01:00:20.719
Uh um, but they can also, of course, get it online at Amazon.
01:00:20.800 --> 01:00:27.440
Um, I think the the price has dropped, I think it was 28, and now it's down to I think 20 or something, so it's it's there on Amazon.
01:00:27.599 --> 01:00:34.320
Um uh they can all also get it on BarnesandNoble.com and and um uh booksamillion.com.
01:00:34.480 --> 01:00:52.880
To follow me, the best way is to follow me on Instagram at Seth Panich Author, um, because my beautiful wife, who is is my uh marketing maven, she I write the updates, but she's the one that posts it because I I I'm technologically an infant, so she posts all that stuff.
01:00:52.960 --> 01:00:58.159
But I write everything and and it's all about my travels and where I'm gonna be at all these book signings and that sort of thing.
01:00:58.320 --> 01:01:02.480
Um uh Facebook is also a great way, which is Seth Panich-author.
01:01:02.960 --> 01:01:09.440
Um, not just Seth Panich, that's my university one, and and I I try not to you know mix those.
01:01:09.599 --> 01:01:13.760
Um and then my website is SethPanich.com, and I'm a bad boy.
01:01:13.920 --> 01:01:16.719
I don't update that very well because I've been on a lot of tours.
01:01:16.880 --> 01:01:19.599
So the best ways are Facebook and Instagram, I would say.
01:01:19.840 --> 01:01:20.639
Perfect, perfect.
01:01:20.719 --> 01:01:23.039
I'll have all of Seth's links in the show notes.
01:01:23.199 --> 01:01:30.719
So if you've been standing at the threshold of a build change and haven't crossed it yet, maybe tonight's conversation can be exactly what you needed to hear.
01:01:30.880 --> 01:01:38.880
So I want to thank Seth for pulling up a chair tonight and talking honestly about something most experienced creatives avoid the fear of the build change.
01:01:39.039 --> 01:01:44.159
The question of whether 30 years of mastery in one discipline means anything when you step into a new one.
01:01:44.480 --> 01:01:48.480
The vulnerability of being a beginner again after being a master.
01:01:48.800 --> 01:01:50.800
So here's what I want you to take away from tonight.
01:01:51.039 --> 01:01:52.719
The skills carry forward.
01:01:52.960 --> 01:02:00.800
Every class Seth built, the actor, the director, the playwright, the filmmaker, the professor, none of it was left at the door when he sat down to write his first novel.
01:02:01.039 --> 01:02:03.760
The storied bar draw everything with him.
01:02:03.920 --> 01:02:08.239
And the novel he wrote is richer for every one of those 30 years.
01:02:08.480 --> 01:02:12.000
Your multiclass journey isn't a detour, it's a build.
01:02:12.239 --> 01:02:24.000
And if you're standing at the threshold of a class change right now, wondering whether the skills transfer, whether the identity survives, whether the new path is worth the cost of the old one, Seth's gonna tell you the answer is yes.
01:02:24.320 --> 01:02:26.079
The build does carry forward.
01:02:26.239 --> 01:02:28.960
You just have to cross the threshold to find out.
01:02:29.199 --> 01:02:31.920
Antique is waiting for you in the show notes.
01:02:32.079 --> 01:02:40.480
But before I go, if tonight has you wondering what kind of adventurer you are, head over to gamifybusiness.com forward slash quiz and take the tavern personality quiz.
01:02:40.639 --> 01:02:43.679
Seth took it and he came back as a bard, the social architect.
01:02:44.000 --> 01:02:45.360
Unironically perfect.
01:02:45.679 --> 01:02:46.400
What are you doing?
01:02:46.719 --> 01:02:54.320
You'll get a free 11-page deep dive into your business personality at no cost and no cash, just clarity about the adventurer you already are.
01:02:54.480 --> 01:02:58.960
So until next time, remember business is an adventure, don't be an NPC.
01:02:59.199 --> 01:03:00.719
Thank you, and thank you, Seth.
01:03:01.199 --> 01:03:02.079
Thank you.