Finding My Way

I always knew what I wanted to do with my life.

Until I didn’t.

I was going to be an Actor. From my first curtain call in our church musical, to uttering my first lines of Shakespeare in the high school play, I knew I wanted to perform. I took every drama class that was offered and spent my weekends watching movies from AFI’s Top 100 list. I earned a fellowship at the Folger Library in Washington D.C. and spent half of my senior year taking my father to the train station at 5:00 am so I could have his car to drive to the classes after school. I saw every movie that played at the local AMC and even a few at the smaller art houses in the city.

Majoring in Theatre at Virginia Commonwealth University, I chose a program that taught me dance and set construction as well as acting and reading plays, so that I could be more employable. I used my electives to take classes in film history, play writing, directing, and even interpersonal relationships so I could better understand character interaction. I spent my summers doing renaissance fairs and outdoor dramas in Virginia, Ohio, and Florida.

After graduation I auditioned for everything I could. I worked in dinner theatres, shot commercials, acted in several educational videos, and even performed as multiple witnesses, crooks, and victims for the FBI and local police training programs. In my  last show in Washington D.C., I performed for the President of the United States, and even though I only had four lines, I still look back on that moment as one of the highlights of my career as a thespian.

Shortly after that show, I moved to Los Angeles, ready to take on the City of Angels with a modest resume, a decent reel that showcased my abilities, and whole lot of wide-eyed enthusiasm. I did everything by the book: studio apartment in Hollywood and a job waiting tables. I signed with a small but successful talent agency, and the first commercial I booked made me eligible to join the union. I landed more commercial work after that for companies like Heineken, Visa, and Office Depot. I was making enough money to quit my “day job” when I  landed a role in one of Oscar nominated director Jason Reitman’s early short films that went on to show at Sundance. Everything was going wonderfully.

Until it didn’t.

The work just stopped coming in. I was still auditioning, but I wasn’t booking jobs. Although my look was the same, and my performances were still strong (or at least I think they were), I just couldn’t seem to land any of the roles I went out for. As the residual checks started getting smaller and smaller, I had to pick up part time work again, and I was starting to put way too much on my credit cards.  Suddenly, I realized I didn’t want to be an actor any more.

It was a jolting revelation, but it came swiftly and without doubt. I had learned my craft, focused all of my thought and energy on pursuing this one goal, but when it became obvious that no amount of effort could guarantee that the success would continue, that my future could change so dramatically in such a short amount of time, well, I knew that I did not want to live that way for the rest of my life. The problem was that I didn’t know what to do instead.

Almost half of my life to that point had been focused on one pursuit, but suddenly I was directionless. Needing an income, I went to work for my friend’s engineering firm, teaching test preparation classes for Navy reservists, which was a challenge since I had never taught anything before. Staying only a day or two ahead of the class as I developed each days lesson plans, I managed to successfully make it through that first two week assignment which led to me teaching for them for the next 6 months.

Seeing my potential, my friend began to challenge me with work that moved exceedingly more and more out of my comfort zone. They sent me to gather data from container cranes at the ports in Long Beach and to help install electronic sensors and computers on assembly lines. Not all the work was a fit for me. However, I learned that there were many things I could do and, in many cases, do well. One of those things was the company’s communications and marketing.

It was coordinating and managing those classes, trade shows, client presentations, and video content that gave me a new direction for a new career. I was lucky enough to get PR projects that combined my former entertainment skills with my newly developing corporate sensibilities. I worked as a freelance producer for many years, production managing and field producing projects that gave me many wonderful learning experiences (and some pretty interesting stories as well). As my skill sets grew, so did the variety of projects and employment opportunities. Now, I finally have a job I love and am passionate about; the job of my new goals, if not the job of my original dreams.

Finding my path and boldly beginning my journey down it, I still know that not all things work out the way we plan. This is why I continually strive to educate and prepare myself,  so that I can continue to grow in my career, no matter what life may throw at me. Because you never know which way you might end up heading.

Until you do.