 So let's just get to becoming an actor in 2023. Yes, I believe you can do it. Are you going to get paid as much as you want to? Probably not. I know in this time of year, especially, a lot of people are thinking about actually doing something with their life that they want to be doing, something that's going to make them happy. I'm not a casting director. I'm not an acting coach. I'm not an acting consultant, any of that. But I just want you to know that I am an actor who is still striving to get into a position that I make more income from acting because this is my career. I do it because I love it, but I also do it because this is where I want to make my money from. I'm going to be making a series of videos of things I would say to my best friend if they were to come up to me and say, hey, Bélgica, I want to try acting. Can you please help me through every single step? Can you just tell me what to do? Tell me what things to research? What can I do to go for it? Like try a career in acting. The examples that I'm going to be using is generally like my goals because I don't necessarily know your specific goals, but I'm going to, for the most part, assume that you're either a full-time student, you have a full-time job, and that your goals are similar to mine. So this is my advice. And what works for me might not work for you. The first thing you want to do when you are figuring out what you want to do in acting is 100% research what kind of acting you want to do and what opportunities of those sorts are near you. Within four hours, driving of where you live or about an hour flight, I think that's reasonable because that's something that's workable. Anything more than that is going to cause a lot of stress. And if you live in a very, very small town, you have to be willing to do one of two things. One, create your own work and post it online or share it however you can to get noticed and then potentially have an opportunity to move or create more where you are already. Or number two, be willing to move to a place where you do have those opportunities. And for example, if you're moving to California, do not move to San Francisco, do not move to Sacramento. Like those places are great. I love those places. But if you are an actor wanting to act, there's far, far more opportunities in LA than I have experienced anywhere else. Make sure you do your research before you move and that there's actually gonna be opportunities there that set you up for success. And as part of this research phase, please, I have a couple of books that I really, really want you to read. An Actors Life, A Survival Guide by Jenna Fisher gives a really good perspective of not only her experience of like working for, I think six or seven years in LA before she landed the office job. She was like about to quit, interviews other actors and other actors talk about their success. And there are actors who worked their entire life and they are able to fund their life through acting, but they never reached a place of fame, which I'm totally fine with. It's very likely that you are never going to be famous or that you're never going to be in a big TV show. And I think that's the same thing with anything else. Like if you are a plastic surgeon, it doesn't mean that you're going to be the most rich and famous plastic surgeon ever. Like it's just like any other career. And then partnered with that, I really want you to read Atomic Habits, a really great book in helping you create good new habits and leave behind habits that you don't enjoy. Like life is all about enjoying your life, right? And even if you use this book, not only for acting and also for your personal life, it's, I love it so much. I think it's really great and giving you a little boost of like, come on, you can do it, we can do this. I don't have a book recommendation but you need to start getting better at your finances even if you are already amazing at finances. You need to start learning how to live below your means and just have some savings. Have like a pathway of where eventually you are going to do acting full time. And this is coming from somebody who I'm still working on my finances. I'm still not as diligent and disciplined as I want to be but I have all of these spreadsheets for auditions and my finances and all of these things. So I really have been working for a long time at getting better at finances and that's something that you have to do right now. There is a chance that you aren't going to be successful in it or at least not successful in your timeline. And if you're married or have a partner, having that conversation with them of how your finances can look like in the future, you potentially being intimate with people on set and how that would look like and what you guys want to have an agreement around that. So there's a lot of conversations and preparation you have to do now before you start and also along the way to make sure you're happy and successful in this career. And it's most definitely not for everyone. How do you know if you should actually go for this? First of all, I don't think you should see this as like an on off switch. Along the way I found that, yes, acting is for me because I'll tell you my personal reason. I have to act because I am highly emotional and I don't like to suppress it. Just like always been so dramatic and I've had to pour my feelings out or else I'm not okay. Like if I'm not allowed to feel and really show my emotions and cry, cry about happy things, sad things, uncomfortable, like whatever, crying is a reaction that I have to so many things and feeling is something that I have like all of the time. So I feel that I have to be an actor because it's the only career where that's what I'm getting paid for. I'm getting paid for feeling. If I was at a nine to five job and I have been at office jobs before, like I fit in because I love people and I love to get to know them and better their lives in whatever ways I can. But I've also like stood out because I was highly emotional and I was very passionate about like making sure that people were happy and people were taking care of. I just feel that I have to act because it's the only place where I truly belong in that I can feel so much. And it'd be like, cool. That's exactly what you're here to do. I believe that you have to try it. Take it easy, see what works good for you right now and have a goal of like a short-term goal, like what do you want to do this month for the next six months, for the next six years? Like have a long-term goal and see what's realistic for you and your situation because truly every actor's journey is so different. So don't feel bad if you quit acting and same goes for me, like I also have to tell myself, don't feel bad if I ever quit acting. But if you do quit, who cares? It's your life and you should do what makes you happy as long as you're not hurting anybody else. I mean, duh. Audrey helps actors. The podcast is also really great to listen to other people's perspectives. I think if you are just starting out and you're brand new, you could start listening to that podcast, but some of the interviews, some of the things that she talks about on the podcast are a little bit more high level than a beginner actor that hasn't done any acting before, no experience, no anything. If you do have the time, go ahead and listen to it. And then as you grow, you'll be like, oh wait, I think I heard this on Audrey's podcast. Let me go back to that episode because now I can actually comprehend what the heck she was talking about. If you don't have a Facebook, this is your year to get Facebook because there are a ton of Facebook groups that were created years and years ago that now have something like 50,000 members. And a lot of the time, there's really great resources within that because you meet people that are sometimes older than you, same age as you, whatever. Cause I mean, Facebook was like started, I think 2007 or eight or something. So there's people that have been there for a long time and really created these communities and Facebook groups. You can search on Facebook, your city filmmakers, actors, producers, like that kind of thing. And you will find so many groups, especially in places like LA, start being active in them and meeting people and paying attention to what other people are doing. There's like meetup.com where you can also do meetups in person, event bright, just join as many groups of you as you can and research them and get the vibe of them. Some of them are not gonna be great and you can just exit. But some of them are really great and giving you resources in events to go to or auditions or opportunities to work for free if you are brand new. So after all of that, if you still are thinking, yes, I wanna continue on to the next step. So, you know, took your notes about researching in the books that I want you to read. If you're ready to get started to actually work and act, you're gonna watch this video next. I'm gonna talk about training, getting training and acting, experience education and starting to audition. Yes, already, or at least practice your auditions.