Are You Being Humble? Or Just Negative?

It took me a year, but I finally did it: I accomplished my goal of booking a commercial in my hometown of Boston. I did a celebratory dance in my studio apartment…quietly, of course. I still have neighbors. And a creaky floor…

This would be the first “crazy awesome” story I’d get to take back home with me.

“Yeah! I have booked some cool projects lately…”

“Actually – you might see me in this one!”

“Hey! Remember that cool audition I told you about from last week?”

Now for the facts: This wasn’t a life changing gig. It was a non union commercial. There wouldn’t be residuals. Next thing I knew, I was sharing news to my peers in Chicago about it…with a negative twist.

In fact, I also found myself stressing out more when I learned more details about the gig and how I’d be getting to set.

What happened here?

I recently learned from Darren Hardy (free daily videos at www.darrendaily.com) that we all enjoy heightened emotions. This is why we enjoy things like roller coasters or horror films. (Unless your name is Tony Rossi – in which case, you ask your friends if they’d rather watch a gushy, feel good romantic comedy instead….) At the same time, we get attached to emotions such as stress because they too are heightened emotions.

After learning this, I realized there was a familiar pattern with a lot of my stories lately: All of my career related stories I had been telling my friends had a negative twist to them!

“Yeah, I booked a commercial….but it’s just a non union one.” 

“Yeah, I’m living in Chicago as an actor….but I also have several day jobs.”

“Yeah I got to fly home for a week…but I pretty much stayed with my parents the whole time. (Hey, shut up….I got so much free food!)

Since I learned this, I recognized that I wasn’t being humble. I wasn’t being “honest.” I was just putting a negative spin on the story in order to feed my ego and keep my body in stress mode. I don’t even want to think about what this was doing to my overall health…

So I set the intention to change things. When I checked in with my accountability partner, I told her I was going to go back home and share news with my friends in a more positive light.

And you know what? It worked.

And you know what else? It felt good!

And you really wanna know something? All those things that we think people care about – union vs non union, usage rates, and national vs local gigs….no one cares about. Except maybe you.

But that’s a story for another blog.

All this is to say you can relax and embrace your wins, without putting a “realistic” (aka negative) twist on them.

“You can’t build on success you can’t acknowledge” – Dallas Travers \

Let’s go get ‘em friends.

And a happy belated #OneBoston day to all my friends back home 

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Email me!  tony.rossi@gmail.com. Let me know how I can help.

Same goes for questions – you can ask those for free 😉 

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Thanks for reading!

By the way, I’m Tony. I live in Chicago. (Duh.) I’m an actor and blogger living right up the street from Wrigley Field. 

My blog is here to help others take control and live a more authentically positive life on their terms. Since working with a coach and learning more about personal development, I’ve started sharing my learnings with others. (I have a lot…)

If we’ve never meet – shoot me a tweet!  Would love to hear how you found this 🙂You can also find me on facebook, instagram, YouTube, or check out my actor website.