Steal the show in 2019 Amazing Stories!

I just knocked on my coworker’s door, got a slight noise that sounded like “come in”, and opened the door to find him laying on his small couch, completely disabled by a migraine. In my head I was like “Okay, so its not just me who’s been feeling some kind of way about this week.” Which is slightly comforting, I guess.

I started reading a book called “Steal The Show” last night. It’s made for shy, quiet types (like myself) to learn how to build confidence and effectively “steal the show” in certain areas of life like job interviews, public speaking, sales pitches, and even dating. It was written by a former actor for non-actors.

So far it is pretty easy to read and follow. Its not preachy at all, which I appreciate. Sometimes when I read a self-help book, I feel like they are too “You must do this this way” and “my way or the high way” and not all that helpful in the end.

I’m only about a third of the way through it. I’m reading this to gain self confidence for job interviews. I’m noticing small bits here and there in the reading that are capturing my attention. He mentions that there is always an why and an objective. For me the “why” is “I’m interviewing for this job because I want the job” but the objective once at the job interview has always been “escape unscathed, don’t freeze, don’t stutter, give smart and intelligent sounding answers.” But the objective SHOULD be “get the job”. I’m focusing on the wrong objective once there and its derailing me.

He also speaks about more technical things like tone & connection. He gives an example of how 10 mothers could be reading the same story to their kids, but the mother who uses the right tone, engages her child and forms THE connection, is the mom who is going to “steal the show” with her kid. I should really read more stories to my niece and nephew when I visit Wisconsin.

The third point he mentioned (which was actually like the first he mentioned in the book…I’m going backwards, but whatevs) is channeling and fighting back the “inner critic” that many of us have. My inner critic is HUGE. He states most of our inner criticism derives from childhood experience where a parent or teacher or other mentor told us what we did or accomplished was not “good enough” in some way. i’m over here sitting on my bed reading with my hand raised like “me! me! me!” But I need to find a way to ignore that inner critic and focus on the objective which is “get the job”.

Oh and be authentic. Don’t tell them what you think they want to hear. Just because you’re acting doesn’t mean you need to be fake. Its about exposing the strengths and highlighting the shit out of them and expressing how they need your strengths enough that they can’t operate without you. He makes an analogy, and he explains it probably way better than I will, that being fake is like going on a crash diet. Its a temporary fix, but it rarely accomplishes long term goals and you’re typically worse off in the end than when you started. For the crash diet, its losing a few pounds but then eventually gaining all of the back plus a few. For the fake acting, it might start you out strong in the interview, but you’re going to lose steam when what you’re saying doesn’t feel natural and/or the interview challenges your answers. Remember, the book is for non-actors. Actors can do the “fake it till you make it” well enough to make it through the interview and get the job, but us non-actors can’t. We have to rely on and highlight the shit out of our strengths.

I’m really looking forward to the chapter about improvising! I am terrible at on-the-spot thinking/topic changes. I still have 2/3 of the book left and will probably have it finished by this weekend. We are supposed to get dumped on with snow again <3