Life is a Play Podcast
Samuel Hatton
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Top 10 Life is a Play Podcast Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Life is a Play Podcast episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Life is a Play Podcast for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Life is a Play Podcast episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
How Motivating Thoughts Increase Willpower – Find Your Motivating Force
Life is a Play Podcast
05/14/14 • -1 min
Before we get into how motivating thoughts increase willpower, let me start with discussing a bit of news. I have been busy collecting feedback, and I’m pleased with all the feedback I have received from listeners so far.
But before we dive into the feedback, I am happy to say these show notes should read like an article. Enjoy!
Top Feedback from Listeners
1) Over-all people look forward to hearing more
2) The majority of listeners do not consider themselves as actors, and felt left out
3) People want to know more about Willpower
Response to feedback
The friends and family who agreed to give me feedback after the first podcast were not necessarily excited about acting techniques. Surprisingly though, they did receive some value out of the podcast’s content. With that, I am going to be sure that this podcast is speaking to the professional who is looking to improve their professionalism, presentation skills, work performance, and much more through many of the best practices that great actors use.
This episode covers the following:
- Why willpower is important
- How motivation fuels willpower
- An acting technique that helps you understand motivation: Motivating Force
- How to gain control of that motivation and ultimately control yourself
- 4 steps to gain willpower breakthrough
One sentence summary:
You can experience breakthrough in willpower by knowing the purpose behind your goals, and aligning your actions with that purpose.
References and resources mentioned:
Definition of “willpower” – noun. ability to control yourself – From Merriam-Webster.
Acting Technique: Motivating Force from Acting Stanislavski
Why willpower is important
Willpower is important because it gives you control over yourself. Whatever goals or objectives you have, you can achieve them with willpower.
How motivating thoughts increase willpower
In order for you to begin to control yourself, you must understand yourself. You must understand what makes you tick. What makes you tick is your motivating force. Motivating force is a fancy way of saying “motivation” or “will.” Essentially they are motivating thoughts. Motivation ALWAYS comes from within. Motivation is unlike inspiration, which comes from external forces: people, ideas, environments. This is actually your reason for doing what you do. Everyone listening to this podcast has a “reason.” If you know your reason and keep that reason top of mind, you will have a much easier time controlling yourself.
Example: A woman wants to quit smoking because she doesn’t want her cigarette addiction to affect her pregnancy in the three following ways, (1) the baby’s health is at risk during pregnancy, (2) the baby may pick up the habit if the baby is around it at a young age, and (3) the mother may get lung cancer and not be around long enough to watch her child grow up.
Can you imagine how much more difficult it would be for her to have willpower if her motivating force was more trivial?
Your motivation is your reason.
An acting technique that helps you understand motivation
First off, I want to debunk a myth that a lot of people have regarding acting. Most people think that acting only consists of facial expressions, walking from what side of the stage to another, picking up an object, and saying a line. I am here to tell you that this is not true acting. True acting is when an actor is able to fully embody the character he is playing. The actor can do that by discovering the character’s motivating force or motivating thoughts..
Actors are omniscient (know everything) because they know the whole story. Sometimes a script doesn’t give you a motivating force and an actor has to make it up. That’s okay. The motivating force is what gives a character depth.
For characters in a story, their motivating force can be good or it can be bad. Good motivation drives them toward their desires. Bad motivation will drive them toward their fears and away from their desires.
Example: The character, Willy Wonka, in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” has goals to hold a contest, do a factory tour for the winners, and give someone a job. These objectives are not his motivating force. His motivating force is his reason for holding the contest in the first place. This motivating force goes beyond his goals. I believe his motivating force to be this: Willy Wonka wants a sustainable chocolate factory. That is why he is holding the contest in the first place. He wants to hold a contest, hold a factory tour, choose a winner, offer a job to the best candidate, and all this results in a...
Write Your Destiny by Using the Power of Story
Life is a Play Podcast
09/02/14 • -1 min
Every single person’s life is a story in itself. I’ve said before that you are the main character of your own story. If this concept is taken further, you can use the power of story to write your destiny. If you allow the dreams that you have for your future to influence your decisions, you have a shot at reaching your destiny. Your destiny can be defined as the future that you choose for yourself. We each have a lot of dreams about where our life can go. It’s the actions that we take toward those dreams that help us to define our destiny.
Write Your Destiny with Opportunity
If we keep our dreams at the forefront of our minds and hearts, our eyes will see the opportunities toward those dreams. Essentially we will see opportunities we need to use to be able to write our destiny.
Life is a Play Podcast Episode 006 Covers the Following:
- News about shutting down the Life is a Play Podcast
- Using story to shape your destiny
- Taking ownership of your destiny
- How to see more opportunities
References Mentioned
ASI Peak Adventures – The job I had in college on Sacramento State University campus where I lead several groups of youth, college students, and organizations through team-building programs. I also spent time as an outdoor leader and went through raft guide training.
Concluding thoughts
Opportunity is all around us. Knowing what you want for your life helps you to see those opportunities. Another way to say that is if you keep your dreams and thoughts about your destiny in the forefront of your mind, you will see opportunities for that destiny to come into fruition. Without a destined future, opportunities pass on by, without us even knowing it.
What are some of your dreams?
What are some things that you can see yourself doing in the future AND that you would enjoy? I’d love to hear about some of the dreams that you have for your life. It’s acknowledging your dreams that allow opportunities to come. Share in the comments below.
Who knows, just by posting a comment online, opportunities may begin to open up.
If I were to answer that question for myself I would say that my dreams are to be a public speaker, an actor, an owner of a profitable business, a millionaire, a philanthropist, a teacher who trains up future generations in ethical business.
The post Write Your Destiny by Using the Power of Story appeared first on Life is a Play - Professional Development Through Acting Techniques | Take Your Career and Professional Development to the Next Level.
Fake It Till You Make It – The Remedy for Impostor Syndrome
Life is a Play Podcast
08/18/14 • -1 min
Impostor syndrome strikes at the heart, releasing feelings of inadequacy and falsehood. Someone with impostor syndrome feels as though they are an impostor in some shape or form. They feel as though they do not deserve to do whatever they are doing. They feel like they do not deserve to be whoever they are. Impostor syndrome can happen when someone gets hired for a job that they may not feel qualified for. Or it can happen after a brand new life change.
Everyone deals with impostor syndrome at some point in their lives or another, including me. Though impostor syndrome is very real and causes people to have mental breakdowns and stress and fear, these things are NOT grounded in reality. Just because I may experience feelings of inadequacy or just because I feel as though I’m “faking it,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m an impostor.
My solution to this problem is to focus on a phrase that I’ve come to love. It comes from the world of theatre stage acting:
Fake it till you make it
The key to “fake it till you make it” is focus on the “make it.” After all if you just stay in “fake it” land and never move into a long term vision of “make it” then you are indeed an impostor. It’s the “make it” that redeems the feelings of falsehood.
Life is a Play Podcast Episode 005 Covers the Following:
- How to defeat impostor syndrome and related fears
- Fake it till you make it concept
- Gaining consistency in archiving your dreams and goals
- Power of choice within your life
References Mentioned
Cliff Ravenscraft from Podcast Answerman
A virtual mentor of mine, who has inspired this podcast episode.
“What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”
Concluding thoughts
There is something that is extremely freeing about claiming who you are and why you do what you do if you are feeling inadequate in any way. Remember that even just taking action toward owning something (new job, new role, new goals, etc.) is extremely powerful for combating impostor syndrome. This is essentially faking it till you make it. It’s claiming your stake in everything you are and everything you do.
Are you facing impostor syndrome?
If you are facing impostor syndrome in any way, I’d love to hear about it. Share about WHY you are completely qualified in who you are or what you are doing.
Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your feedback.
Best,
Samuel
The post Fake It Till You Make It – The Remedy for Impostor Syndrome appeared first on Life is a Play - Professional Development Through Acting Techniques | Take Your Career and Professional Development to the Next Level.
Acting Techniques Applied to Life – Willpower from Acting
Life is a Play Podcast
04/26/14 • -1 min
Welcome to the very first episode of Life is a Play Podcast. This episode introduces the topic of the podcast, which can be boiled down to the following phrase: Acting Techniques Applied to Life.
Here I share my insights about how having a mindset of acting is one of the fastest ways to improve your performance at work, in presentations, customer service, and much more. The acting stage is a reflection of life and therefore acting is the best practice for life.
This episode covers the following:
- Introduction to the concept of Life is a Play
- What you can expect out of this podcast
- The type of people I will be interviewing on the show
- My own experience with acting techniques
- Brief thoughts on willpower, one of the many things the acting stage teaches us
It’s time to empower everything we do and improve our authentic self through acting. And though that may seem like an oxymoron, it really isn’t. Authentic acting is not being fake, authentic acting is creating yourself into the person you are destined to be on your terms.
Resources/References mentioned
Reference #1The Three Laws of Performance by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan
Concepts that are discussed by me are as follows:
The first act is the past.
The second act is the present.
And the final act is the future.
The past cannot be changed. However, the present and future can.
Because you have control over your choices in the present and the future acts, you have control over your destiny. You are like an author of your own life. You are the main character in your own play. And you write the script. Of course you can’t write the script of your entire environment, but you do have much more control than you might originally think.
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey
Quote taken directly from the book. “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness.”
Reference #3Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney
The case study that I mentioned when discussing willpower about the marshmallow experiment came from this book. You can also find more immediate information regarding it on Wikipedia.
Some pre-show notes
(These are some of the notes that I wrote down prior to recording the podcast.)
The stage can be a powerful and beautiful teacher if we allow it to teach.
There is so much that I have learned from the stage. I conquered my fear of public speaking and learned how to memorize and use my imagination better. My will power increased and I also learned for the first time what it really meant to strive for excellence. These were just benefits.
From the exercises I performed in my very first acting class, I realized that I loved acting. The theatre stage and movies are a reflection of reality, and unless we are talking about non-fiction, all of that reflection comes from imagination. Who creates that imagination? You do.
Please leave a comment
This is the very first episode of Life is a Play. It would be greatly appreciated to hear back from you. If you are unable to come up with any comment(s) then please let us know how you heard about Life is a Play.
Best,
Samuel Hatton
The post Acting Techniques Applied to Life – Willpower from Acting appeared first on Life is a Play - Professional Development Through Acting Techniques | Take Your Career and Professional Development to the Next Level.
Life Beyond World of Warcraft Addiction
Life is a Play Podcast
07/16/14 • 43 min
I’m going be vulnerable today by discussing my World of Warcraft addiction. I used to be very addicted to role-playing video games due to the nature of them. They allowed me to control fictional characters, go on quests, build fictional skills, and gain fictional levels, without a lot of risk. However, this was just an assumption. I had forgotten about the risk of time.
There was a point when I realized that I was spending more time playing video games like World of Warcraft than I was working on my own goals, personal skills, and milestones within my own life. This was a game-changing moment that ended up motivating me to the point where I was able to overcome my World of Warcraft addiction. I swung out of playing World of Warcraft and reflected. After reflection I saw that there were skills that carried over into my daily life: perseverance, specialization strategy, teamwork, need for seeing progress, etc.
This episode is about how I took something that was dominating my life, World of Warcraft and other role-playing video games, and pulled valuable lessons from them.
For the first time ever we have a guest on the show. Colin Smith joins us. He’s a computer engineer and co-worker of mine from Endsight. Both of us have a lot of experience playing video games.
This episode covers the following:
- Practical learning from video games
- Concepts of character development
- Specialization
- Strategy
- Why I have my Twitter name
- Team building lessons from video games
Colin and I both share various other insights as well. The interview with Colin is a casual conversation that stretches the limits that we as a society normally put on video games.
References mentioned
Reference #1World of Warcraft (WoW) is a mass multiplayer online role-playing video game created in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment.
Reference #2Twitter account name: @pallysam [UPDATE 4-29-2015] I changed my Twitter handle to @SamuelPHatton.
Pally = Paladin. My twitter account name gives me motivation. It reminds me that I should aim to be like a paladin.
Reference #3
If you are currently suffering from video game addiction, World of Warcraft addiction or any addiction, this is a great resource about breaking habits.
What about you?
Have you ever learned something from a videogame that you were able to apply to your life? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. What game was it? What did you learn?
You are welcome to leave a comment on this blog post or let me know on Twitter (use #lifeisaplay). Thanks for reading and listening!
Best,
Samuel
The post Life Beyond World of Warcraft Addiction appeared first on Life is a Play - Professional Development Through Acting Techniques | Take Your Career and Professional Development to the Next Level.
How to Make a Presentation or Difficult Conversation Go Well
Life is a Play Podcast
06/13/14 • -1 min
The best way I know how to make a presentation or difficult conversation go well is to prepare for it well. It may seem strange to lump both presentations and difficult conversations together, but both presentations and difficult conversations have much in common. Both require you to communicate your ideas and perform for a live audience.
Another way to look at this is to pretend that you are performing in a life scene. I use the term “life scene” to encompass speeches, sales appointments, interviews, customer service interactions, price negotiations, employee reviews, company meeting presentations, etc. A great actor does not perform a scene with a mediocre performance and neither should you.
About this Podcast Episode
If you have come across this article, this also a podcast episode. I’ve created two ways to digest this information, by listening to audio and by reading the article. Enjoy.
Funding my trip to Australia – a difficult conversation that shaped my future
It was Spring of 2008 and I had been preparing for a difficult conversation with my parents. I didn’t know it at the time but this conversation would determine my entire future. I was going to ask my parents for a loan of $15,000. This loan would allow me to study abroad to Australia for one semester. I prepared for the conversation and presented it to both of my parents. They said yes. Before I knew it I was in Australia, the country where I rediscovered my true self, an entrepreneur. The preparation for that difficult conversation completely follows the five points I outline here.
How to make a presentation or difficult conversation go well – PREPARE
1) Take care of your physical needs
Eat food. Drink water. Use the restroom. Cool off. Wear a jacket. Hug a friend. Get your physical needs taken care of. To some, this point seems extremely elementary. For the rest of us, we need to remind ourselves to eat food. I know for myself, when I have a difficult conversation or a big presentation coming up, I can think of everything besides food. It is during these stressful times when I need to remind myself to take care of my basic needs and eat.
It is difficult to focus on ideas and concepts when basic physical needs are not taken care of. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a model that explains this in more detail. To some extent, physical needs are at the core of every human being. When those needs are taking care of we can start thinking about more important needs. Needs that come into play when communicating with someone else.
2) Limit possible interruptions
Turn your cell phone off or put it in airplane mode. Turn off cell phone alarms. Your cell phone going off can be a huge distraction and will either draw attention away from your message or blatantly sabotage your presentation. Sometimes a cell phone going off can speak volumes of disrespect. Either way, I wouldn’t risk it. It’s better to get into the habit of turning the cell phone off.
Another part of this is knowing your environment before hand. If you can, arrive early to where you will be performing your life scene and take care of possible interruptions. Look around for anything that may detract YOU or your audience from the message you will be delivering. This could be: window glare, awful banners hanging behind you, a tiny stage, or any number of other things. Just knowing what you are up against can help you prepare better.
3) Be present
Audiences are not stupid. They know if you are there or not. The key here is to be present 100%. Movie stars, super models, and professional athletes all have one thing in common directly tied to performance. They are 100% there. They are giving whatever they do best their full attention. A professional basketball player is not thinking about what he is going to have for dinner while he is dribbling the ball up the court. A great actress is not thinking about what outfit she will be wearing to the party later while she is delivering a line. No, they are performing their talents with full immersion.
One of my favorite ways to get present is through meditation. If your mind is prone to drift into the past, future, or to daydream, with the few minutes you have before entering your life scene, meditate. The word meditation used to scare me but it’s actually not scary. I used to think that meditation meant 30 minutes to several hours of wasting time. I used to think it was completely boring. However, it doesn’t have to be that long at all. Spend one minute meditating. Get into a comfortable position sitting up straight or standing and open your hands outward or up as if you are receiving something, close your eyes, and breath deeply. Think of nothing except your breathing. Doing this ...
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FAQ
How many episodes does Life is a Play Podcast have?
Life is a Play Podcast currently has 6 episodes available.
What topics does Life is a Play Podcast cover?
The podcast is about Actor, Show, Speaker, Acting, Motivation, Skills, Career, Lifestyle, Performance, Professional, Motivational, Development, Growth, Podcasts, Shows, Sales, Arts, Business, Theatre, Tips, Careers and Performing Arts.
What is the most popular episode on Life is a Play Podcast?
The episode title 'Write Your Destiny by Using the Power of Story' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Life is a Play Podcast?
The average episode length on Life is a Play Podcast is 44 minutes.
How often are episodes of Life is a Play Podcast released?
Episodes of Life is a Play Podcast are typically released every 29 days, 10 hours.
When was the first episode of Life is a Play Podcast?
The first episode of Life is a Play Podcast was released on Apr 26, 2014.
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