mastery training I how to have ownership over your career
Updated: Sep 20, 2022
Here is your Virtual Mastery Training for the month of July! This month's topic is: 'How To Have Ownership Over Your Career'. Join your fearless leader, Christie Lee Manning, as she walks you through a posed definition of 'ownership', allows space for you to create your own definition, and helps you discover what you do and don't have ownership over in your own life, specifically in your career. We finish with some new habits and exercises to take on that will help shift that ownership to where you most want it. Enjoy!
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Blog Post #1
"One of my sisters is an artist. Like, an amazing artist. She now does it professionally, regularly receiving commissions and teaching courses. Thing is, we didn’t have a clue that she could do this until about five years ago and she is 50! She was an English teacher and we were all absolutely blown away when we first saw her work. She is so good, she finds it so easy. That girl has ownership! Just like you. Ownership is going to be a big theme for us in future. Everyone has ownership in at least one area, no matter how insignificant you may think it is. Even children. Think of when they are obsessed with a particular toy or cartoon have complete ownership over it. They are (A) confidently committed to it, they (B) fully enjoy it because they have given themselves permission and they (C) regularly engage with it (practice!). They talk about it with energy and intention. I have just described the three qualities of ownership, and you have ownership too! In what area I wonder? Have you considered what it feels like to have ownership and how it may feel if you transferred it to your acting?"
To you, the artist.
Blog Post #2
"Ownership. This is something you are gonna have to understand. Ownership is a quality that divides successful from non successful actors. Just to clarify, ‘successful’ doesn’t mean you're constantly working, none of us are. Success is obviously subjective and only you would really know what that means to to you but, I would certainly suggest it means you're ‘still in the game’.
Ownership blew my mind when I discovered it. I suddenly found a name for that ‘thing’, that quality that my favourite actors have. And they aren’t necessarily famous actors, they may be completely unknown. They may never be ‘names’ but they are just so damn good! The best bit about all this is, you can learn to have ownership!
For now, think of ownership as a river that runs throughout your acting life and nourishes everything around it; your wellbeing mentally, your motivation, your skillset, your audition approach and perhaps most importantly, your ability to stay on course when you are out of work. So what exactly is it?"
Ownership is a confident commitment to what you are doing. It comes from permission and practice. It manifests itself in energy and intention.
To you, the artist.
Blog Post #3
Sometimes, it’s actually useful to look at the negative state of something in order to understand it properly, do you know what I mean? We can learn how something should be, by looking at what it should not. So, with ownership, let’s look at an imaginary actor who doesn’t have it. Our imaginary actor (without ownership) behaves in the following ways:
• She doesn’t practice • She doesn't read plays or books about acting • She goes to a lot of classes but never volunteers or steps out boldly
• She has an agent but doesn’t communicate • She has no toolkit and doesn't prepare the text • In rehearsal she makes no clear offers but waits to be told what to do • After a period of time out of work she gives up • She doesn’t talk about herself as an actor but rather apologises for her goals See what not having ownership looks like? Is any of that familiar? If it is familiar to you, do not panic. Realising is the best thing because then we can (and will) tackle it.
Try the following exercise:
Sit with a pen and paper for ten minutes.
Write (without judgement) the areas in your career that you don't have ownership.
Look back over the list and choose the top five.
Label them in order of urgency/importance.
Commit to tackling them one by one as you move forward.
To you, the artist.
Thanks for tuning in!
Christie Lee Manning
House Of Jazz Company
@houseofjazzcompany