In Search Of Excellence - Danielle Vasinova: Making It in Hollywood: Ups, Downs, and Lessons Learned | E104

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Welcome to In Search of Excellence! You're listening to part two of my awesome conversation with Danielle Vasinova, an actor, producer, entrepreneur, avid equestrian, and drummer. If you haven't yet listened to part one yet, be sure to check it out first.Danielle is talking about the realities of pursuing a career in Hollywood, the life of aspiring actor and their struggles, her personal near-death experience, and the importance of preparation and creating your own destiny.Tune in for now to listen to this amazing and inspiring conversation!Time stamps:01:02 After The Young and the RestlessReality check and finding an agentWorked in the restaurant to pay billsBroke a foot and worked as an extra 04:20 A Pivotal moment in Danielle’s careerPassed an audition and went to film in South AfricaOne of the most magical, crazy experiences of her lifeAlso scary and lonelyAfter that had jobs on and off 08:54 Saying No to moviesSaid No to Danica Patrick’s movieRefused to play a jockeyAgreed to work on her other movieThe whole movie ended up falling apart 11:33 Three minutes of deathDanielle’s near-death experienceFelt like having a flueLater on, felt like she was going to dieWent to the hospitalLost her heartbeat for 3 minutesDoctors induced coma to avoid organ failureDischarged after a monthShe was one of the first COVID cases in the US 18:48 After the hospitalAlmost had to relearn everythingDidn’t know what she was going to do or how to make moneyGreater sense of purposeNot taking anything for granted 21:35 The life of an actorThe reality is different than what people thinkMany auditions to get 1 jobWorking many hoursHow are actors memorizing the text? 26:26 What are the elements of success?DisciplineDrivePunctualityConsistency 28:21 The importance of extreme preparationThe impact of luck on successYou need luck, but you also have to create itA letter to 300 CEOsIt’s not hard, you just got to be willing to do the work 35:25 Randall as a mentorRandall’s relationship with his guestMike Tyson and his Instagram postRandall’s love for mentoring and coaching 40:02 Goals in her career and lifeThe Improv Group - don't think, just jumpYou've got to create your own destinyA list of directors she would like to work withWould love to get marriedA show with Joe Russo 44:29 Fill in the blank to excellenceMy number one professional goalTo be in the Marvel UniverseMy number one personal goalTo get married and have a familyAnd moreSponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

I find it very hard to watch myself on screen. Although, like, I force myself to because sometimes I feel like I learn from it. So I use it as, you know, a training ground in a way. A lot of times you don't get paid for what you do because it takes so many auditions to even book a single job. But there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears that go into it. And you're working long hours. You can't even remember your name, let alone your lines.

Sometimes you're working in inclement weather. It's not as sexy as people think. You know, they look at the outside and they think it's bright and it's shiny, but there's a lot beneath the surface. You're listening to part two of my awesome conversation with Danielle Vassanova, an actor, producer, entrepreneur, avid equestrian, and drummer. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first. Without further ado, here's part two with the amazing Danielle Vassanova. So you talk about spiraling, right? One thing leads to the next.

So Young and Restless, boom, you know, dream. This shit never happens, but it happened to you. Great role. What happened next? I had to find an agent and find a manager. And then reality hit, you know? So it wasn't just, you boom boom boom everything is gravy everything is puppy dogs and ice cream it's like no now the work starts right now I've really got to figure

this out and and if I want to do this I need to get a good team and start auditioning and bump the grind well you had the young and the Restless on your resume right out of the gate. Yeah, so I got tapped highly like you did. Right. I mean, that show, for those people who don't know, started in 1973, had been on the air now 50 years exactly, 15,000 shows, and for 32 years, it was the number one soap opera in the United States consecutively.

Not too shabby. It's crazy. Yeah. And that's your first building block on your resume. Yeah. So was it easy to get it? It's kind of like working with Sharon Stone, you know? Not quite.

You're a schooler. Well, you actually got paid for yours. I did. Did you get paid? Oh, I did. I made whatever the Taft harley was i think it was 700 or something yeah like scale for the day yeah yeah and i get uh residual checks i'm not exaggerating and i'm not i'm not bragging about this but my last residual check 21 cents

oh yeah i think i've literally gotten a one cent check before i, why? You have to deposit it just on principle. It caused them more to send it. Yeah. Yeah. You have to, right? Right. So, okay. Reality sets in. I mean, you had the big show, but was it super easy to get an agent? No. And I went through a series of managers and a series of agents after that. You know, I didn't know. Like, I thought that you get an agent and get your manager and that's who you work with and that's your team. I didn't know that, you know, you kind of roll through it. How long was it before you got your next role? And what were you doing during that time to keep yourself busy

and keep your mental sanity? Exactly. No, I got a job. There was a restaurant in Sunset Plaza called Clefloutis. Okay. It's a French restaurant. Yeah. And I got a job there.

But when I was living in Van Nuys, I tripped and I fell down the stairs and I broke my toe. And so then I couldn't work at Cleflutie anymore and so I got a job just like being an extra and wearing shoes on my one foot that were two sizes too big for me just so that my my toe would fit in it and I just told the AD I'm like look just can you put me in the back like reading a book or something because I can't I can't do these crosses I can't do these passes you know and so that's how because I needed to make money can't do these passes you know and so that's how because I needed to make money I needed to pay pay the bills and so that's how um that's how I paid my rent for a little while and and if I could you know if they would send me out for an audition

I'd have to go and you know miss work and go audition and try to juggle so sometimes things come up very quickly we got to act super quickly. Yeah. You got to be ready. So tell us about this call you got at, I think it was from your agent, Jeannie Baccarat, if I have the, if I have the name right, getting your passport together. No, you're funny that you knew that. Yeah, no, I got a call. I think it was on a Friday and it was a last minute audition. And I hustled through traffic. I went to this casting. I decided to play this character just like kind of off the wall. And I put a piece of gum in my mouth and she was real edgy and she kind of I could see

her kind of clock me like she liked what I did and then she's like okay do this go back for a second because you're you're way past the story of let's slow-mo the story okay you had never seen the script you had never read for the script and you had to it was audition and then it was an nbc show they sent me the sides but it was same day audition same day audition right yeah so i didn't have a lot of time to prep it okay you know so i was kind of just flying by the seat in my pants okay and your hair was blonde so talk to us about that my My hair was blonde. Yeah, I was going through some, you know, quarter-life crisis and I was like, I'm dying my hair blonde, like, you know, screw it, da-da-da. And so, yeah, they dyed it bleach blonde.

Actually, that was for a job and then, but my hair was fried. It was so fried. It looked horrible. Anyway, and so, yeah, I just like put it up in a ponytail and I put a piece of gum in my mouth and I created this character. And so I kind of did a cold read. She gave me an adjustment. I did it again. She's like, OK, now lose the gum.

And then I did it again. She's like, OK, that was it. Left the room. They call me at like my manager calls me at like six o'clock. He's like, your passport's up to date, right? And I said, yeah. He goes, you Left the room. They call me at like, my manager calls me at like six o'clock. He's like, your passport's up to date, right? And I said, yeah. He goes, you got the job. You're going to South Africa on Sunday. I was like, oh, what? That's the day after tomorrow. He's like, pack your bags. You're going. And it was one of the most magical, crazy, cool experiences of my

life. And I totally thought that that was it, you know? And then I was off to the races and I went to the airport and I remember Paolo, I can never say his name right, Paolo Coelho from The Alchemist. I saw this book on the Barnes & Noble bookshelf at the airport and it said, The stands alone and I remember feeling like that I remember feeling like wow I'm on this NBC show going to you know a foreign land and I'm by myself and what's gonna happen and I felt so grateful and so excited but also like very lonely because I didn't know anybody and

I didn't know what I was walking into. So it was kind of scary. It was cool, but it was very scary for me. So the fright was you're going to a movie set, you don't know anybody and you don't, you're afraid of being alone and you're afraid of being isolated? Yeah. I mean, excited, but also kind of scared. You know, I just felt like that book, The Winner Stands Alone. I felt like, wow, this is a great triumph for me. But I'm like, where is everyone? You know, it's just me.

So that was a pivotal moment in your career. Yeah. And then from there, you worked on and off for a while. I thought I would just be back to back. I thought the offers would be coming in and it was just going to go crazy. And then I think I didn't work for almost four or five months after I got back. Just crickets. And that's how it is. It just kind of ebbs and flows.

Nothing is guaranteed. So how do you plan your life? Exactly. My question exactly. I mean, financially. Exactly. Right. I mean, did you buy a house at this point or were you thinking of just keeping the expenses low, just saving for a rainy day? I mean, yeah, I've always, I mean, I grew up with nothing. And so I've always kind of been like a little squirrel and so I'm used to living pretty close to the vest and so I just kept my nose to the grindstone and just kept on you you've you had jobs on and off and you want to

continue to act continue to make money continue to make money, continue to build your career. I remember a friend of my wife's was an actress. The only parts she could get were parts in her husband's movies. Then she had a chance to be on Melrose Place. The first Melrose Place. The one that was super popular. Erin Spelling, biggest producer. Who did she play

she had a chance and didn't take it because it was too lowbrow for her she was a real actress and wasn't and what and didn't want to be on the show i mean erin spelling at that point was i mean that one that show went on forever forever residuals yeah famous could get lots of roles but she was worried about not getting roles and not being treated seriously as an actress and was just high on her horse. She couldn't recognize, by the way, that the only part she got were her husband's movies, but it was a huge opportunity. It wasn't him. And she said no. And so they offered her the part? They offered her the part and she turned it down. Wow. Did she regret that?

I haven't talked to her, and I don't know. I mean, I can't imagine she didn't regret it. But sometimes you say no to movies. You said no to the Danica Patrick movie, and the answer is why? Tell us about the movie. Why did you say no? Yeah, it's weird. Danica Patrick has come up a couple times in my life.

They wanted to groom me to be a jockey, actually, before I got into acting. And they said to me, oh, we're going to make you like the Danica Patrick of horse racing. I didn't do that because, you know, when I went to the barn and I talked to some of the other jockeys and some of the trainers, it's not if you're going to get hurt, it's when. And you have to be 106 strips, you're about 20 with the tack, and you have to make weight, and it's a lot of pressure. And so I said no to being a jockey and being kind of the Danica Patrick of horse racing because of that.

And maybe I would want to go on and have a family one day, and I figured, you know, I don't't know maybe that wasn't the best career path but there was another Danica Patrick movie that I did want to do and the whole movie ended up falling apart I don't know if if it was because she didn't win this one of the races and so they wouldn't have this you know climactic end to the movie I think they wanted her to be a little bit further on in her career and so that in the development phase it just fell fell apart but I would have I would have done that so let's switch gears talk about challenges we've all had challenges in our life we talked about I've been talking about the challenges okay okay

more more serious challenges right I told you about my health scare. Yes. And how you come out of there and I'm grateful. So you could have died. You could not be here right now. The crazy thing about that is a woman that I knew that I was friends with, that we worked together when I was a lawyer way back at the beginning of my career, I got out of the hospital and she died five days later. I went to her funeral and I thought, oh my God, like this could be my funeral. And I learned later that she died of myocarditis, you know? Yeah. She'd gone running and it was rare. It was weird. And I remember being at her funeral and she

had five-year-old twins and her husband just you know couldn't even speak how quickly did does it escalate does it does it come on fast or does it take years she went on a run and came back and didn't wake up she said she was really tired and she came came back and you didn't wake up. She said she was really tired, and she came back, and she didn't wake up. In my case, it just felt like the flu that was getting worse and worse and worse, where, you know, shit, something's seriously wrong. But you had something seriously wrong with you as well. Tell us the story about how you died for three minutes.

12-12-2019. Died. Three minutes. 12-12-2019. Died. Three minutes. The doctors couldn't tell. My mom flew in from New York. They couldn't tell her that I was going to live. I went to downtown LA.

I went to urgent care because I kind of was feeling like I had a cold. And so they did a bunch of tests and they said that I had strep and sent me home with a Z-Pak. And then cut to the next day, I was supposed to go to Vegas to do a commercial for MGM. And I had actually asked my uncle Rob to, my brother lives in Vegas, and I had asked my uncle Rob to come out and take care of him because he has kidney stones and he needed to get his kidney stones blasted. so he needed help and I wasn't there because I was here in LA and anyway long story short I woke up the next morning I couldn't I felt like I couldn't walk and my uncle Rob left Vegas flew to me drove my car back and I was like very sick the whole way vomiting all the way back to Vegas. Got there, they put me on an IV drip.

In the middle of the night, it was like 2 o'clock in the morning and I woke my brother up and I said, we need to go to the hospital. I think I'm going to die. And he was like, okay, put your boots on, put your coat on. And I'm like, you don't understand, we've got to go. And he took me to the hospital, this one called St. Rose. And he let me out, went around to park the car and he came back in and he said it was like a scene out of a movie.

This one light at the end of the hallway was illuminated and everybody was just rushing to this room. And then he saw, you know, the machine and all of these people around talking. This one girl, later on he found out her name was Ruby and she got on top of me and she was like pumping, pumping, pumping away, trying to get a heartbeat going. And he saw the thing go to three minutes. Finally, she got a heartbeat back. They transferred me from St. Rose to San Martin and they had to induce coma. They had to, I had complete organ failure. They've cut my sides, put lung tubes in, cut a pericardial window. And my mom flew in from New York. They couldn't tell her anything if I was going to pull through or not. They didn't know what was wrong with me.

And this went on for almost a month. I was there until New Year's 2020 when I finally got discharged. And they must have taken me off of whatever drugs they had had me on. I was on the ventilator and I was on all these whatever they had me on. And I guess I started, I like movies, right? And so the one guy came in to do all of the brain tests. And they're like, what's your name? And how old are you? And who's the president of the United States and they're like you know what's your name and and you know how old are you and you know who's the president of the united states all of this and and when he asked me how

old i was i i was like i'm 97 but i look a lot younger and it's a scene it's a um quote from benjamin button so i thought that i was being so funny and that i was rattling off this you know something from the Benjamin Button the movie but the guy did not think it was funny the doctor and he was like looking like oh god this is this is not good she might be gone um anyway that last that lasted for like a couple days and I was talking like a child and i thought everything was so funny it was bizarre but i ended up i came out of that those drugs flushed themselves through my system and then soon after that i was discharged but i was very very very very lucky one of the first

cases of covert in the united states came on so hard and so fast and so strong. Did they tell you you had COVID or no one really knew what it was? They were baffled at what it was. And the only thing I had done differently that week was go to a rock climbing gym, like an indoor rock climbing gym. I had never been to one before. My friend took me and I don't,

they probably don't really clean too much in those nooks. And that's, I don't know. I don't know where else it would have come from. clean too much in those nooks. And that's, I don't know. I don't know where else it would have come from. But yeah. Did your outlook on life change when you got out? You were 90 pounds when you got out of the hospital.

Yeah, I had to relearn how to walk. I couldn't work because my brain was so cloudy and I just, everything was new to me again, you know? And I didn't have an NDE, but they say that that can come back later in life. Which is, who knows? Maybe I will, maybe I won't, I don't know. But yeah, I mean, I had over a million dollars in medical bills. I had lost my SAG insurance that year because I had a really bad year. And if you don't make it one year, they kick you off.

It's not like, oh you had two years, three years in a row that weren't good. It's like no, you don't make the cut one year, you don't have insurance. And so I was switching over from SAG to Blue Cross Blue Shield. Anyway, so I was looking at stacks of bills. I was seeing medical bills of over $500,000, $70,000, $200,000. I mean, just coming in. And it was so stressful. And I was just lucky to be alive.

And I had to basically start over again. Film Courageous, Did you have a completely new outlook on life when you got home and said I'm going to live? And how did that experience change your outlook? I don't even think at that time that I was even you know really thinking I was so grateful to be alive 100% but I was literally trying to get up the first stair to get in my apartment you know I couldn't even walk up a whole set of stairs without getting winded so it was it was like wow here I am and I almost have to relearn everything as a child would in a way

and I didn't know where I was going to go or what I was going to do or how I was going to make money or anything when I got out of the hospital I got home I thought gosh you know I have a new outlook on life and I just got on my friend's funeral And I said shit like all the aggravating stuff that happens In our lives is irrelevant. It's irrelevant Right. My life's gonna change And then three months later you go back to what you were doing and you kind of forget Some of the lessons there But then you think okay, you know

He brought me back for a reason right and what's my purpose like did you have a greater found sense of purpose after that it was more of a I'm grateful um yeah you know it's it's I had same I I was living my dream. I started a successful company. You take no day for granted, right? No. No hour for granted because you don't know when it's going to go. No. I was living in my dream house.

I made a bunch of money. I had a wonderful family. I had three young kids at the time. Just kind of appreciate what you have. Sometimes you're just so far in the rat race and I work long hours and very long hours. Today even, 70 hours a week, usually minimum. And it's sometimes... But that's your choice. That is a choice. It's for sure a choice, but it helps bring things back to reality and helps you focus on what's really important in life. And my family was the most important, and I just needed to slow down for a while.

I did slow down for a while, but then I turned it back up in the fifth year. Maybe a few months later, that's just... That's just who you are, right? But it makes you appreciate the little things, and it makes you appreciate the people around you. Completely. And that's what really means, you know, that's truly what life is. Love and family and experiences and helping other people, right?

For sure. Let's talk about the life of being an actor. Everyone dreams at some point in their life or thinks about what it's like to be famous. And you go to the movies, you see yourself on the big screen and you say gosh one day I'd love to do that they think it's sexy they think you make a lot of money and they think it's easy what's the reality none of those I find it very hard to watch myself on screen. Although I force myself to because sometimes I feel like I learn from it. So I use it as a training ground in a way.

But it's uncomfortable. A lot of times you don't get paid for what you do because it takes so many auditions to even book a single job. So say you're working for scale for the day, so you're working for a thousand bucks, right? Just under a thousand bucks. But maybe you've done twenty auditions, right? And put in twenty hours before that.

So you're really not making any money until you start to become a series regular and one thing leads to the next and the next and you test for network and then your rate starts to go up. But there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears that go into it. And you're working long hours as you know. I think I did one day. I think we worked like it was golden hour. I mean we went into like 22 hours all through the night. You're tired.

You can't even remember your name let alone your lines. Sometimes you're working in inclement weather. All different things. It's not as sexy as people think. They look at the outside and they think it's bright and it's shiny, but there's a lot beneath the surface. So how many takes do you do in a movie? I mean, you're part of a scene, right?

Let's say there's five people in the scene. How many times do people fuck up and it's not you and you've got to recut the whole thing? Oh, yeah. I mean, it depends on the director director some directors move quick and they figure out a way to cut around it or you know whatever but they still have to get coverage and it depends on how many cameras they're they're using but I mean you could do you could do you know five takes you could do 17 takes it depends

on it depends you can be there for a long time. I'm going to be doing some paid corporate speaking on the topic of extreme preparation, which we're going to talk about in a couple minutes. Okay. And it's, my speech is 39 pages. Wow. And I'm, it's an hour. You wrote it? Yep, I wrote it.

It's an hour in. Are you memorized or do you have a prompter? Well, I'm, no, I'm memorizing it. It's an hour in. Are you memorizing or do you have a prompter? Well, no. I'm memorizing it. Okay. And it's taken me months. Months. Maybe six months. I'm almost.

How do you even memorize that much? Well, my question to you is going to be how do actors memorize so many lines so quickly, especially when they're doing weekly shoots? I mean, I can see a movie where you've got months to prepare, but... So soap opera actors, usually they shoot over 100 pages a day. So series regulars on soaps usually do about 20, 25 pages a day. On big action movies... Wait, they're memorizing that... Every day. How? I don't know that? Every day. How? I don't know.

It becomes like a muscle. You just do it. There's no teleprompter anywhere on the set? Nope. Nope. I mean, some of these scenes are... And they're shooting with a lot of different cameras, so they're getting every angle so they can move quick.

So how do you do it? Repetition. I am not a good... I'm not good at memorizing. For me, it's... it depends because if it's good writing, it's a lot easier to memorize than if it's, you know, not. Or if you're in a show where there's a lot of medical jargon or things like that, you don't know these terms, right? If it doesn't make sense in your brain you're just you're just repetition repetition repetition that's the only way I mean I went and shot a sizzle reel for my speaking website that we're going to do and maybe I did 20 minutes of the sizzle

reel and my colleague Matt and I is over there, one of the producers of my show, who's awesome. We rented a stage in Santa Monica, the Santa Monica Theater. I'd go there and I would practice. Not only do you have to memorize it, but you have to make it seem natural. You've got to give the inflection points. It's not just memorizing it, which is still difficult, but it's actually you're performing something with different people. It's hard. But you can memorize it by, think of it like a story, right?

And so you can visualize what's going on. You can kind of remember those bullet points of how it transitioned and then start to go back and fill in the gaps, right? So what does it take to be successful to be an actor and are the elements the same to be successful in life yeah I mean it's funny because I even still I work but I still don't feel like I've reached the level that I would like to get to so I think it's this constant you know almost state of like dissatisfaction with myself that fuels the drive because I think I can do better I want to you know work with this director or work at this you know this actor or I never feel I feel like it like it's about the climb, right?

It's not the destination, it's the journey. And so I think a lot of those crossover into life because I also have a very curious soul. I think you're kind of like that too. I think, you know, that fuels your entrepreneurial spirit and I think there is a lot of crossover there. What are the elements that it takes to be successful as an actor? And then...

I mean, discipline. Discipline? A lot of discipline. Drive. Punctuality. If you're not early, you're late. Or if you're on time, you're late. If're late or if you're on time you're late if you're early you're on time if you're early you're on time that's what i meant yeah if you're on time

kicking in yeah you know what i mean yeah uh what else i think consistency i mentioned I think, consistency. I mentioned earlier in the show today that one of the ingredients or characteristics that's contributed to my success, probably the most important thing, is preparation, but not the kind of preparation most people think about. Something they call extreme preparation. I'm writing a book by the same title, and that's going to be the topic of my paid corporate speaking. And I also do one-on-one coaching on it as well. I coach professional athletes. I've coached young professionals, wealth managers, investment bankers.

And what do you tell all of them? It's when someone prepares one hour for something, I'll probably prepare 20. My goal is to be the most prepared person who's ever walked into that room with somebody. I'm 99% successful. When you do that, you'll be able to achieve dramatically faster results, results that would not have been possible and which people think are impossible. Do you believe you're lucky? You create your own luck. Well, number one, yes. Of course I've been lucky.

Mark Cuban was on my show and he said, you can't be a billionaire if you're not lucky. But I think every successful person has had luck. I mean, I've had a lot of people on my show. Most of them are incredibly humble. And most of them attribute some degree of luck to their success. Now, the flip side of that is you create your own luck. I mean... Yeah, if you didn't reach out to those people, if you didn't, you know, send those crazy presents.

I sent crazy presents. I sent letters to 300 CEOs, got meetings with Sumner Redstone, Michael Eisner, the head of every studio, cold letters because my letter was different than any letter they'd ever received. And what did you write in your letter that was different? It was a crazy letter. It started with a quote that the CEO had given at some point in their career.

It was big cursive letters. The key to Disney is how we hire. Michael Eisner, Time Magazine, I still remember June 21st, 1996, that was the cover. It had a plastic cover. It had, I went on LexisNexis, there was no Google back then. And I created a list of 300 people. So Michael Eisner, Sumner Redstone, Mark Platt, Stacey Snyder, these people all ran the studio at the time. Mike Medivoy, who I've since become friends with. You've probably met him.

He's a great guy. Yeah, I've never met him. And I incorporated every job they had ever had in their career into a single paragraph. And I basically said, you've done X, Y, I mean, A, B, C, D. And sometimes it went to W, but it was every job. I mean, every promotion, every this, every that. And then said, I want an informational interview, not a job interview where a letter would find a shredder to talk about getting advice for how to transition from a legal to a business related career. My letter had tabs. It had my single-space, three-page letter.

It had my transcripts from college. I did very well academically. I graduated top 1% of my class at Michigan. At Northwestern, I also did very well. I had letters of recommendations. Then I had this newspaper piece that had been written about me in college for a TV show, a weekly TV show. We were one and done, but there was a nice write-up. And then it had a cellophane cover and was wrapped

in one of those three, those small plastic spiral binders. Wow. And I got, and people said... Are you human? When I grow up, can I be like you? But these are all things, by the way, that I teach, and they're simple. They're easy. You can do it. I've told you how to do it right now, and it's very easy. You create a spreadsheet of people you want to meet. You do your research. Now it's easy. You've got Google. It's so easy to do it right now and nobody does it. I got a letter three days ago from this guy named Miguel Perez. I haven't met him yet. And he did a me. He sent me a letter and a cellophane cover that was tabbed that had everything I had in my letter. By the way, I've talked about it, but not a lot. Not the details. So he was stopping you a little bit.

This is more detailed than I've ever gone into on my show. Wow. Period. But he did it. And he FedExed it, and he said, which it... So this is easy, too. You have a meeting. You want to send a thank you note, right?

I'm going to send an easy email. It's easy, right? Why go easy? Do a handwritten thank you note. And yeah, we're on a Zoom when they're in New York. FedEx the thank you note. You spend all that time preparing for the interview or the meeting. It's 20 bucks. For 20 bucks, you'll be the only person who's ever sent someone a FedEx thank you note. That person is going to remember you forever. There's a hundred people for that job. You know, my daughter worked at a CIA last summer. I think they had like 6,000 applications for the summer for something like 40 jobs. You know, you got to do people things that people don't do, right? FedEx, the thank you letter. But you know, it know, I tell you about the letter writing campaign. It's easy.

You just got to be willing to do the work. That's it. And so you asked me about extreme preparation. I mean, each letter took five hours. Yeah. So you got so many people doing spray and pray, right? You send the same cover letter, you change the name, you change the company. And they say, oh, my God, I spent so much time, and no one responds to my application.

Of course they don't. Who would respond to that application, right, versus someone sends a crazy letter like that? You know, I called a guy yesterday, Miguel, and it went to voicemail. So texted him I you know doesn't have my number and he texted me back oh my gosh you know Mr. Kaplan I didn't think you would respond I text him back how could anyone in the world not respond yeah right it's a no-brainer so my question to you is flipping it around how has extreme preparation played a role in the success in your life i don't think that i would have been able to climb a ladder so to speak if i hadn't done that work i don't think i would have been able to you know attract that team

or get in the rooms with those casting directors to then get those jobs if I didn't do that work. Give me an example of a time where you used extreme preparation, just went so far above and beyond anybody else, and you had a successful outcome. I have to think about that. We'll come back to it. We'll come back to that one. I have to think about that. That's a good to it. We'll come back to that one. I have to think about that.

That's a good question. I like that. Are you going to be my mentor? Are you my mentor now? One of the great things about my show that I love is a lot of people like you, who I didn't know, Sharon Stone, and the Tysons, Mike and Kiki, his wife, I've become close to and friends with. And they've done so many nice things for me and I like doing nice things for them. So I've mentored a lot of my

guests. They mentor me and they teach me about things that I know nothing about. They're doing me huge favors by being on my show, helping me grow my show. They do super nice things like posts. Mike Tyson put up a permanent post on his Instagram, not a story, but a permanent post. I mean, he's got 40 million followers. I mean, that's incredible. Oh yeah. You know, it doesn't have to do that. And there's nothing for the Tysons that I wouldn't do. Yep. That's amazing. And it's, it's been, it's been fun, but I love mentoring people. I love coaching people. Oh, I love it. Live for it. Really? Which is one of the goals of my show. Yeah, and you can see the results, right? You can see them grow. Immediate. Immediate. It's immediate.

Wow. We have some guy, Christian, I'm not going to mention your last name, reached out to me on Instagram. He said, I listen to your show. He's a dentist in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He's making mid-six figures, comfortable, pediatric dentist, international violinist at age 14. Wow. From Brazil. Full ride to Yale, full ride to Harvard, and then full ride to Tufts Dentistry. And he said, I've listened to your show, and I want you to coach me.

And I first thought. You seem like you have it kind of. Well, I. You're doing all right there. I'm sitting there thinking, you should coach me. Your resume is pretty awesome. And we got on the phone, and I'd never done paid coaching before. I've been very generous with my time, but also I just want to give more than I get.

So if someone is doing me a favor being on my show, and it's not being on my show, someone does something nice for my kids, I mean, that's the ultimate, right? There's nothing I wouldn't do for that person. And I always want to give more than I get. But in some cases, I am incredibly busy. I don't have a lot of time for myself. I have five kids, an amazing wife.

How do you manage it all? You know, I work seven days a week and not full days. Not full days. I'm up early. When my wife goes to bed, I'll sometimes go down to my office. You know, but I'm lucky. I love what I do. But Chris didn't, and I didn't even know what to price it at.

So I set it extremely high. I'm not going to tell you. Because i don't want to be a lawyer it's like if he was gonna if he's if he want to do it want to do it if he doesn't want to do it yeah i i don't need it right yeah he's like okay i'll take i'll do it well i i i threw it out there like and he's like okay done i said all right send me the check five sessions and and i'll i'll say it this way. He's going to do a promo reel for my website, which we're going to send the film crew out there, and he's grateful. But the truth is, and I say this in a very humble way,

he said, you know, when I met you, I had no net worth. I was making $500,000 a year, $450,000 to be exact. And a year and a half, I'm now worth $10 million. And it was just a few little tweaks and advice about his business and what he should do and starting a new practice that was very helpful to him. So I take joy in it. And the results of extreme preparation are 99% successful. That's incredible. 99%. And you're still his mentor to this day?

Yeah. I mean, he's had a lot of success. My team, Matt, Ricky, who also I work with, who's one of my mentees, and now he's mentoring me in a lot of things, was a former intern. We all met with them, and they're going to help me with my show, help me with my coaching business, and some other things that I'm doing. So tell us about the improv group and what your motto is. Don't think. I went to Upright Citizens Brigade UCB and that is the motto. Don't think,

you know, just jump, go for it. So it doesn't make sense to analyze the situation, just jump right in and kind of put your blinders on? I think it's a mix. I think the way that you work is very detailed and very admirable and I respect that so much and I think sometimes as an artist to be able to prepare but then let it all go, I think there's freedom in that So I think a combination I

Would say what are your goals with your career and in your life? Oh? There's a lot how much time do we have I? Mean I would love I I I met Taylor Sheridan at a Cowboys game a couple months ago and I had read this…I went up to him and I said, I read that article, I think it was in Variety or the Hollywood Reporter or something and he was a broke actor living in his car and he went from that to building this empire of Yellowstone and because of my Christian background and whatnot I'm very interested in

Yellowstone or 1920 or 18 what is it 1883 1920 all the whole Yellowstone series but he said I learned pretty pretty quick that you've got to create your own destiny and so that's what he did. But to be a series regular in a show like Yellowstone or to be in the Marvel universe, to do any of those big tentpole movies would be incredible. I've got a laundry list of directors that I want to work with. Tarantino, Spielberg, Aronofsky, Woody Allen, there's a ton. Family life, I'd love to get married

and have a family. What else? You're single? Yeah, seeing somebody right now. Okay. Not married. Okay. So some, I don't have a lot of famous friends it's hard to crack into you know they're not gonna call your manager and they have your phone number but no offense to the guy that you're dating the way that people will meet people is DM yeah yeah so Joe Russo is going to do my show so I'm very grateful for for Joe to do it I'm very excited he did all the Marvel movies oh nice um second most successful director in history behind Spielberg the Russo brothers so he he's I'm excited to have him on my show that's gonna be to be a great one. How did you guys meet? We're neighbors up in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Okay. And there's a group. Oh, it's beautiful up there. It's so nice. There's a group table at a restaurant on our, in our residential complex. And they seat you with people at picnic tables. I mean, it's, it's a nice picnic table. Yeah.

Random. They seat you. Okay. That's cool. I'm sitting next to him and, and, um, to them, and people don't really talk about work there. I mean, no one does. I mean, people there are generally where we live. It's a nice place.

They're well-to-do, and you've got the Kardashians are in the neighborhood and Bieber's in the neighborhood. But beyond them, it's like people are just regular people. They're regular people up there, right? No one's taking photos. And we're sitting there, and Jesse's with his kids, and I'm with Madison, my wife, and we're just talking. And he said, you know, what do you do?

And there was a guy next to him from Nashville who was a friend of his who was in town, and they said something about a movie. They said, oh, are you? He's like, yeah, I'm a director. And I said, oh, you know, have you done anything i would know when i asked him i mean i felt like an idiot uh when i went back and he googled him but um i i googled him because he he told me what he had done okay uh and i said oh my gosh you know that's so he was so humble so i thought it was great so you like want to be in the show?

I didn't ask him and he didn't ask me. We're going to conclude here. I always end my podcast with something I call fill in the blank to excellence. Are you ready to play? Ready to play. The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is? Be kind. My number one professional goal is?

There's so many. To be in the marvel universe my number one personal goal is to get married have a family my biggest regret is i don't have any regrets the thing in my life that i'm most proud of is my relationships relationships with people. If I could land any part in a TV or movie today, the part would be? James Bond. The one thing I've dreamt of doing for a long time but haven't is? Winning an Oscar. If you could go back and tell your 21-year-old self one piece of advice, would it be be nicer to yourself the one question you wish i'd asked you but didn't is wait what the one question you wish i had asked you but didn't is uh i don't know um you are the most prepared person I've ever met in my life.

And you are amazing. And I am blown away. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you. you