Do Not Let Your Small Talk Ruin Your Big Screen Career. Chapter 2 (inspired by Keith Ferrazzi's

If you've read my previous post on redefining small talk in order for you to connect to people, you might wonder what separates a small talk, that so many actors and other network professionals make mistake being victims of, from a real talk that so many successful people are being engaged in. The answer is very simple: an Intention. If you are a trained actor, you probably heard that word many many times from your acting teacher; if your teacher is a legit acting teacher and not some fake drama guru who learned his/her acting skills by simply hanging as an extra in a few productions. Your intention should be simple and genuine. It also should motivate you to actively participate in your activity which in this case is to get to know this person, because you both can benefit from each other's experiences, knowledge, and expertise. The mistake that most of actors can make is to think that their lives and souls are so interesting and rich that people love listening to their never ending stories about their experiences. That is just selfish. As an actor, you should be asking genuine questions about this person's life and listening so you can figure out if you have any positive piece of information to share with your new friend that he/she can benefit from. Even by kindly suggesting your new friend who just told you that she/he has been having some headaches recently to try to hydrate more and maybe pay more attention to her/his sleep quality, you can win the heart of this person. And this new friend of yours might one day mention your name to someone who will be genuinely surprised by your desire to help people and ask your friend to arrange a meeting with you because this person is currently casting people for a new TV show for a part of a nurse or even a doctor :) We often think that a real talk has to be very long. That is not true. Being sincere and curious will make your communication way more efficient and productive which will require way less time to get to know someone. On the other hand, if you keep talking small because your intention is not motivating you to genuinely learn something about this person, you will leave that event just like you entered it: with a lot of things to say about yourself but very little information about others. Unfortunately, no matter how interesting your life is, it will not help anyone to deal with the headache caused by dehydration or poor sleep quality, which also will cause them to forget to mention your name to a casting director who is looking for people with interesting life experience and some knowledge about basic healthy habits for his/her new HBO show.

Have a right intention and act as a trained actor:

CARE.