Your Transformation Station - 124. That Guy From The Super Bowl Commercial

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Attorney, Actor, Film Producer and Dad on Chevy Super Bowl Commercial is Rob Sciglimpaglla, but Favazza decided to ventured into darker territories, examining the complexities of portraying morally ambiguous characters such as serial killers. Robert explained the significance of comprehending human nature and the emotional spectrum that these roles demand. EPISODE LINKS: Robert's X: https://twitter.com/robscig Robert's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robscig/ Robert's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robscig/ Robert's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/robscig Robert's Page: http://www.robpaglia.com/ IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2215197/ Best Business News Podcast of 2024: https://podcasts.feedspot.com/business_news_podcasts/ OUTLINE: The episode's timestamps are shown here. You should be able to jump to that time by clicking the timestamp on certain podcast players. (00:00) - Intigrating Law to Voice Acting (08:30) - Learning as an Actor (21:57) - Exploring Serial Killers and Acting Techniques (32:29) - Connecting With Audience and Marketing Strategies (40:10) - Copyright and Trademark Protection for Artists (45:34) - Overcoming Fear and Pursuing Passion   PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com⁠⁠⁠ Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/apple⁠⁠⁠ Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/spotify⁠⁠⁠ RSS: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/rss⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/youtube⁠⁠⁠ SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/facebook⁠⁠⁠ - Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/instagram⁠⁠⁠ - TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/tiktok⁠⁠⁠ - Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/x⁠⁠⁠ - Pinterest: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/pinterest⁠⁠⁠ - Linkedin: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/linkedin⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Like, I'm listening to this audiobook. It's called Green Lights with Matthew McConaughey, and he goes into his first, like, movie that, or production or film, that kind of set him off. And that was dazed and confused. And he didn't have any lines except just, I think there's maybe like a couple lines that he was talking about. And he had to fill the role of what he imagined the rule would be. And he used his older brother. for an example, like he was a popular guy. He would go to after girls and talked about drugs and having a nice car. So he's like, he's got all three, but he doesn't have a girl. So then I'm just going to go for it. And that mentality kind of set him up for success. Right. So what he did, I mean, what any actor does, what he did there is he internalized what

his brother does. Made it become part of him. Because if you're trying to imitate somebody, that's where, You have a huge risk that you're not going to look real. You're going to look fake. So you have to take those characteristics and you have to make them part of you. You're listening to a podcast that encourages you to embrace your vulnerabilities and authentic self. This is your transformation station.

And this is your host, Greg Favaza. Doing all right, Robert. How about you? Good. Nice. Nice. You have a cool background. Like, you've been all over.

Yeah, I've done a few things. Nice. I would love to be a sponge and just absorb everything you have learned throughout life and anything you can teach me on getting from the microphone or camera. Like I will absorb it and apply it in real time. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Be glad to.

Cool. Well, do you want to give me like a little snapshot about like your whole biography I'm looking at it? I'm like, whoa, there's a lot of shit. and I don't know how to convey the essence of how much you've accomplished. Do you have the short one of the long glugvers? I'm not sure what I said. It's best known as the dad on 2012. Yeah.

Yeah. That's, I think that's the short one actually. Holy cow. So, yeah, but I, that's my claim to fame from acting as I was in a Super Bowl commercial. I'm an attorney and I'm an actor and a voiceover artist and then I now I produce films so I've been I've done I've done like 35 films to know shit wow and I'm an author voiceover legal that's one of the things that launched me you know got me known and it was became a number one bestseller on Amazon working on the second edition right now as we speak about a third of the way through it. Okay. But yeah, I just kind of everything kind of complements the other.

And I, you know, I combine everything. I try to combine everything. A lot of it centers off legal issues. You know, like the production is very much legal business issues. I try to approach acting and voice over artists with business in mind. Okay. Because you can be the greatest actor in the world or the greatest voiceover artists in the world. But if you don't understand the business and don't understand where to go, you're not going anywhere.

Oh, okay. So when I was going for my bachelor's degree, I wanted to have a focus in mind. And the focus was incorporating my podcast. So with each course that I've taken, they would always ask us to analyze a business or a made-up business. and I always would put my LLC and just trying to understand every aspect of it as well as that's how like how I got my degree is focusing on how I can improve your transformation station. And I don't know. That is what helped me progress and accomplish the degree with something that I was most passionate about and incorporating what I'm learning new and applying that in real time to the current show. episodes. Right. Yeah. Everything's about transformation. So it's about, you know, if you're,

you're an attorney, or like me, you're an attorney, how do you transform those skills in other, other areas? How do you use them and transfer them in other areas? So, and that's what I've done my entire, my entire life, my entire career. You know, I've taken what I already know and incorporated into other areas. And I also was a DJ in college. So I was like, it was funny because when I was in college, I was unsure if I wanted to be a DJ on the radio or if I wanted to, you know, going to law. And I remember I had an internship at the local radio station in Stanford, Connecticut. But I was talking to the DJs and they're like, are you crazy?

Go in law. There's no money in radio. So that's kind of how I made my decision on where I wanted to go, even though I really liked, I really liked radio and I really like DJing. But I was able to incorporate that, even though skills I was able to incorporate. And that kind of what led me into voice acting, you know, because the boards. So you mean like a certain set of charisma when you do radio. And I feel like that would transfer over into law when you're, I mean, communicating with clients, but also in the courtroom.

Absolutely. And then the technical side, too. So, you know, voiceover, you're recording yourself all the time. And, you know, I learned how to use the big boards at the college radio stations, you know, and set up the cue up the records. And so that translates too. That transforms. So all of those skills and people, everyone has those skills.

And when I'm talking to people that want to become actors or want to become voice talent, I tell, that's what I stress to them. You know, like use, learn, use what you already know. and lean on that. Yes. First, I have, I have ADHD, so I saw a little floater go across the screen. Oh, did you? I wonder what it was.

I don't know what it was, but I tend to do that. I tend to, I guess that's when the audience like is my ADHD. I wonder what I wondered. I didn't see anything flying, so maybe it was the light or something weird. I don't know. But that's really cool, like with your background. And just going into radio voiceover, but then also kind of twisting towards law, was there something more towards that, like you deciding?

Like, was that like a reality moment? Like, I need to make fucking money. Or was there something else? Not really. I mean, I was just, I was really just trying to decide. You know, I liked, I really liked radio. I really like law. And I was just, you know, I was just trying to decide what was my best career path at that,

at that point in time. And, you know, it just seemed like, you know, I mean, I had a couple of people that were in the business telling me, like, your best career path is to go become a lawyer. And actually, they're right because then I circled back later in life. I came, I became a voiceover artist later on, 10 years later, 15 years later. That's what I broke into into voiceover at acting. And I really think that that's the best way to do it because I was more stable. You know, I had, I had income.

I wasn't waiting to have to wait tables. I didn't have to live in my car. So I was more financially stable. So I was able to take time and devote it toward learning the craft of voiceover, learning the craft of acting. And, you know, I had a, like I said, I already had the business knowledge about it because I was already representing musicians and filmmakers and voice artists. So I already knew the business.

So it was just a matter of getting out of that side of my brain. brain and going into the other side of my brain and becoming creative. And that was tough. It's still tough. Is it like a whisper that's telling you that you're not enough? Well, I mean, beside all the normal self-doubts that anyone has, I'm just talking about learning, trying to turn off that side of the brain from thinking and just learning to do what's in the moment and what you're feeling. Like that's a hard thing for many people to do, especially attorneys, because, you know, we're always thinking, always in control, but you have to kind of let go of that to be a good actor.

And I think it took me a long time to do it. I'm still, I mean, in a way, I'm still, that's what I'm still learning. I have new characters. I just need to learn it all over again, you know, to get into that character's head. Which is interesting, because I would like to go deeper into that. We are recording. And before we go any further, Robert, can you just share your last name for our audience? Sure. It's a Siglumpeglia.

Siglumpeglia. You didn't want to give a shot, did you? No, not at all. Sorry, no worries. Yeah, what is the, what's behind that, your last name? It's Italian. So, Shil and Pahlia, like if you go to Italy, Shilampalia, that's how they say it. Okay. Because, you know, the S, C is a she sound, and you don't say G's in Italy.

Sheelampalia. Yes. Well, I'm Italian as well. My last name. Favaza, so I feel like we kind of connected there just automatically. Yes. But with understanding, like, how actors become actors, it's essentially you have to understand the role, but also understand the person that you're trying to be based off the script

that's been handed to you. Like, could you go a little bit into that? Sure, sure. So that's where I'm talking about the thinking part. Right. So you analyze the character. and what you're trying to, when you're doing, you're analyzing you're trying to figure out the story that the author or the writers trying to tell, right? And you do all that analysis before you

start doing anything. Because if you're doing that analysis as you're trying to perform, it's going to look fake. It's not going to look real. So what I tell people ask me this question. When you're acting, what you're doing is you're learning how to be yourself. you're learning about yourself. That's what you're learning. So you're learning, you're not necessarily transforming yourself into another character. You're drawing on things you already know and you already have experience with. And then you're applying that to the character because it's coming from within you.

It's not coming from somewhere out there. If it's not coming from within you, it's not going to be real. It's not going to be authentic. So you have to figure out a way with each character to get, what they're all about from from within your gut within your heart. That's the best way I can explain

and then turn off your brain. You can't be thinking, oh, the character would cough at this point in time. You know what I mean? Like people do that when they act and you can't do that. You just, it just does not look,

it's not going to be authentic. It's not going to be real. It's going to look fake. It's going to look like, oh, you just told yourself to cough. So, you know, if you're going to, If the character is going to cough, it's got to come naturally. It's got to come from inside. Okay. So let me follow up with that.

Like, I'm listening to this audio book. It's called Green Lights with Matthew McConaughey. And he goes into his first, like, movie that, or production or film, that kind of set him off. And that was dazed and confused. And he didn't have any lines except just. I think there's maybe like a couple lines that he was talking about. And he had to fill the role of what he imagined the rule would be. And he used his older brother for an example.

Like he was a popular guy. He would go to after girls and talked about drugs and having a nice car. So he's like he's got all three, but he doesn't have a girl. So then I'm just going to go for it. And that mentality kind of set him up for success. Right. So that's kind of.

I mean, what any actor does, what he did. There's he internalized what his brother does. It made it become part of him. Because if you're trying to imitate somebody, that's where you have a huge risk that you're not going to look real. You're going to look fake. So you have to take those characteristics and you have to make them part of you. Yeah. So with the characteristics that they have, now you're making them part of your personality for the character.

So you're making them part of it's the character's personality. but you they're really your person that's your personality at that point in time everything has to come from you that has to be grounded in you it can't be grounded in outside stuff or it's not gonna it's not gonna work so then would you suggest that people have a good understanding of themselves prior to going down that kind of a line of work that's what you're learning when you're learning acting okay that's what I just said that's how I started it all you learn about yourself you're learning about yourself wouldn't you get stuck in the role Like, do actors get stuck in that role?

Sometimes, and that's why it's important to keep, keep studying, keep practicing because you need to expand. And so the thing that actors say all the time, that I hear actors say all the time, is that they can do any part, but you can't do every part. So you need to, part of learning yourself is learning what your capabilities are as an actor.

And if you want to do a part, that's, you know, that's, you know, that's going to be stretching. It's better to do that in class in a class situation because, you know, it's a safe space. You can get feedback and you can work on it. And I'm not saying that an actor can't ever do any part, but you need to, it's not something that just comes like that. It's something you need to work. You need to work on if you're doing parts that are outside your normal self. So, you know, that's what actors do.

They try to expand what they, the roles they can play by doing that, by, by, it's by internal them, they, their, their own personality and internalizing what they know about themselves. And that's how they expand the roles that they can play. So, and that's really what it is. It's really learning about what you can and can't do, what your capabilities are. You know, what about what if you're, what kind of person you are, you know, like, you know, act is, it's really therapeutic. Acting is really therapeutic because you learn a lot about yourself. And there's things about yourself that you, you might not like.

Right. And, you know, that's, that's sometimes, sometimes actors are also, they have things that happen in their past and that comes up. And that's why they'll take drugs or alcohol. And, you know, they, if you get down that rabbit hole, sometimes you can't get out. So that's also learning. You know, I learn about, I learned that with my acting teacher. That's we, we work on all the time. You know, she can get me down there, but she wants me to get out of there.

Like, she doesn't want me to stay. You know, if it's a, if it's deep, deep, deep sad part. you know like I can get down but can you go down there now like that's that's that's the professional part in acting but it's still coming from in you so like if you're getting if you're going down deep and you're being playing a a sad character and you got to be it's got to be you got to draw an experience to be sad you can stay down there you can stay down there and just you know get the press and start drinking you got to but you can't do that like actors need to know how to get and go get in and get out.

And that's also a part of being a professional trained actor. Usually you have a support system that will kind of help pull you out essentially when you're in that. Yeah, you have a coach. But what the coach does is, you know, you're teaching and your people. They're not really, like you have to do that for yourself. Okay. Like your coach, if there's something that I'm using that's getting me into a part where I'm, you know, playing somebody that's depressed and sad.

Right? To me, that's real at the time. So I need also something to get, that I can associate with to get myself out of that space too. Gotcha. Because there's a danger that when you get yourself down there, you can stay there.

Okay. And that's what I'm telling you. A lot of times when I hear people that they take drugs, they'll take drugs or performance they'll go to the model it's because they got themselves down and they couldn't get out

maybe it was because of acting or maybe it was because of something outside of acting but you know gotcha that deep space is that could be dangerous so you know that that's that's another part of learning

and that's another part of being in a safe space where you can do it in class and the other thing that I find when I act I get what they call the post-production blues. So, like, I'm so much into my character and I'm so, the character's so me that when they, when it, production's over and I'm done, I, I, I'm like a good week and I'm like down in the blues. I'm down on the depths. I'm sad. Is it the dopamine like that you were getting from being on stage,

doing the acting and all of a sudden you're not doing it anymore? That's part of it. It's, it's part of just the exercise of going, you know, getting into character and then when you're coming out, you're like, oh, I'm not doing this anymore. This character's gone forever. You know, and it's, that's part of the sadness. You're never going to be with that

that group of people again. So sometimes you really like your other actors and you like your crew and you're never going to, that's not going to happen anymore. That's done. The plug gets pulled fast. So, you know, all that stuff contributes to me.

I get the post-production blues. But it does sound cool that you surround yourself with unique types of individuals with the same passion that have learned the tricks of the trades. And they kind of pass that along. Now, when you're doing acting and you come across people that are trying to be a certain way, but it's coming off as inauthentic, I can see that it could be an indirect observation of learning more about yourself on knowing what not to do based on their own actions. Yeah, I mean, people, when most of the time when people are coming off as inauthentic, they're thinking too much.

They're in their head. You know, and you hear that all the time. Get out of your head. All the time. I get that all the time. That's what it means. Like, just stop thinking and let whatever's going to happen come and feel it. you got to open yourself so the feelings can come in because your head blocks it your head blocks

those feelings from from happening so get out of your head just basically means hey you already did all that thinking before like if you did the if you prepared properly and you did your thinking about what the the act that what the characters about if you have the viewpoint of the of the artist i mean the author writer in mind and that's how you're speaking from that viewpoint you can then you can get out. You don't need to think anymore. You don't need to think. And if you have your lines down, you know, you have to obviously memorize because if you're thinking about lines, that's also in your head. And you know, the character's not going to come out. So you have all that stuff you do before. That's your prep. So that when you actually perform, you're not thinking

about any of that stuff. Like that's all rehearsal. So that's all behind you. Now you're performing. So now you're opening. You're opening yourself up. I'm not thinking. I'm just feeling. Whatever comes up comes up. Okay, can I do like a real live like a little scenario? Like if you were to, if I were to put you on the spotlight and say like Robert, can you just act out how a serial killer would approach a approach his victim that he's been stalking for weeks and now finally he's about to make his attempt to get him or her? what would it look like? So for me to do that, it would be me. So I would be, I'd be like, you know, let's just say you're good, you're my victim.

Sure. And I'm coming for you. So it would be something like, hey, how you, how's it going today? How are you? It's nice to meet you. What's your name? My name's Greg. It's nice to meet you too.

Hey, where do you work? I work in in St. Louis, Missouri. I work at home so you can find me if you look at my address. Oh, okay. What do you do? I'm a podcast host. Nice. We're in St. Louis.

I would say it's towards a big fan and 141. So tell me, do you have time to do you have time to, to hang out with me for a little while. I do. Yeah. All right. Let's go over the bar. You go, yep, I'll buy you a drink.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't have any friends. So I feel like that would be great. All right. Come on. Let's go. Then when I get you to the bar, I'll drop a roofie in you and you drink. And I got you.

It's just, it's more. So there's many ways to approach the character. That's the point. So when you think serial killer, I mean, what does that mean? Dissociated individual who has experienced trauma and thinking about altering that history with a new version of history in the current present. Right. I agree. But how would you show it?

That's the thing. Like if you start to be like deranged, if I go, oh, come on, let's go to the bar. You know, like, you're not going to come with me. You know what I mean? So that's not how serial killers act. And that's the other thing that you learn about acting. You should learn a lot about human nature. You learn a lot about human nature.

So everyone has, there's no, a serial killer is not one dimensional. They're just not demented, right? A serial killer has all feelings. Yes. Joy, sadness, madness. They get upset, right? So you're still playing a full character, a full, person when you're playing a serial killer.

But there's just certain traits you're going to give that, that killer that he's going to do so that the audience knows. It's really up to the writer too, what they want to give the traits to the character. You know, like maybe, like I said, the roofie, maybe that's what I do to my victims. And then when I go in my pocket, I start to pull out the roofie, then you know that, okay, serial killer's coming out. You know what I mean? So.

And if you study. serial killer is it's what they do they don't they lure their victims they know they're nice most of them are very charming yeah right so you can't really distinguish it

what I would try to look at is like understanding learn behaviors later on in life versus behaviors that were naturally given to us as a child and being able to recognize and distinguish

between the two regardless of the individual. I mean, from my understanding, I would say there's a slight delay that it's a conscious effort to make those natural reactions look natural. So I talk about this all the time too.

This is a debate that I have, whether people are born inherently good or inherently evil. If there's any control over that, like when you're born, are you good or you're evil? And I use the example of my twins. when my twins were little little little babies,

you know, a few months old. One of them would just sit there and be fine. The other one would go up to her and push her over or throw a bottle or something, knock it down. So I always called one of the twins good, one of them evil. Right. So how much of that, if you let go,

if you don't correct it as they're growing, how much of that just continues on and makes the evil person and narrowly become stay evil versus learning about no, this is what society wants you to do right? So you correct them versus staying good.

I don't know the answers to these questions but it's just something that I think about. You know, like if you leave an evil person, someone that's going to punch you and throw bottles at you and you don't correct that behavior. Are they going to stay that way for the rest of their life? The nature versus nurture aspect.

Exactly. Nature versus nurture. So, I mean, It's, it's a, it's, it's, it's, I'm fascinated with that. So, you know, but that's what I'm saying. Everybody has that in them. Everybody has good and evil in them. You know, what, what shows, what comes out, that's the, that's the, that's the

fascinating part. And that's the part that you can, you can emulate when you're, when you're acting and use that for your, your repertoire of characters. So you got someone who's evil, someone who's good. What do they do? You know, how do they, how do they, how do they, how, how, you know, how, how, how, you're, how, they act in certain circumstances

you know are they inherently good are they inherently evil you know and serial killers are inherently they're evil obviously right they kill people are going around killing people but they don't act like that all the time right there you know like Ted Bunn's for example well someone would look at it they're doing justice like they could be thinking this is normal

when it's definitely not allowed or even yes that's my point They think it's normal because they were not corrected possibly, right? They were not corrected. They were kids. They thought that that's, oh, killing squirrels is normal because no one corrected them. They didn't have the guidance. That's one theory.

Like I'm not, obviously I don't have, like I said, I don't have the answer to this, but I don't need the answer to this. It's all theoretical. This is observations that I can use for my acting. I don't need to have the answers to these questions to put them into a character. So in fact that it's better that I don't have the answer. Because then that's the kind of stuff that you can use organically, stuff that comes up without having to have a solution to it. And that's where your brain comes in.

It's messy. It should be messy. Because the messiness illustrates authenticity. Exactly. Art is messy. When you mess it up, the more authentic, more real, the more complex that it is. the more that you try to make a nice neat and put it into categories that's boring it's not act that's not that's not that's not art no science putting it in the little neat packages or ocd well it could be behavioral I guess if you have if you're acting with OCD it's not going to it's not going to be interesting put it that way so you must watch like a lot of

movies and kind of can just pick up different like aspects of things and kind of use putting your toolbox i do it's so that's another thing like when i watch tv or when i watch film i try to stay into the story without trying to pull it out analyze it pull it apart so much you know what i mean because because i know what went into filming a scene you know i know what they did sometimes i get caught up into that it's like wow look at that that was a great shot of you know the Look at the lighting on that. You know, like I get caught up on the technical side, but I try to not to. I try just to, to concentrate on the performances and the story when I'm watching a film or TV show.

But, you know, in a way, in a way, being a producer and an actor, kind of ruins ruins movies for you. So, and you can recognize as a pro, you know, what's done well. So, but you really have to, again, you have to get rid of the thinking when you're, when you're watching. a film or a TV show. So you get into the story and you're not, you're not thinking about all the technical aspects of it. When you say that, like being a producer ruins a lot of movies,

are you, are you kind of referring to like this thought that I have? Like the more you know, the more you hate life, essentially? No, no, what I'm saying is I look at it

from a different viewpoint. I'm not looking at it. I'm not necessarily watching the story, listening to the story. I'm sitting there saying, oh, man, that angle was terrible. Why did they use it?

why didn't they put the light why'd they put the light here you know like second guessing how they're the filming of it because i know how they what they did to get the shot or oh man that was a cool drone shot you know like when you show the shot overhead instead of like oh wow that you know they're instead of the picture i have to try to show you i'm looking at it like how they shot it so okay and the same way when it comes to people acting in military uniforms and then the ranking is upside down i'm like that's not authorized that's not authorized that's not real this is now I can't watch the movie. Yep, exactly.

And the same thing when it's illegal, when it's a legal movie. I can, right away, though that's not right. That's, that's BS. But that's what I'm talking about.

Like, as a producer, same thing. Like, you can get caught up at all the technical side of it, and forget it, but wait a minute, this is actually,

this is a good story and there's good acting here. So, and then when I watch actors, I, I see how they, I'm not necessarily looking at their thought process, and how, they got to the character, I'm looking more, more technical when I'm watching an actor.

So, you know, like, I'm looking at their movements, looking at their facial expressions, looking in their eyes. You know, those are all things that, those are all the nuance that make a really, really, really, really great actor. And they say that the greatest actors are the ones that do the best acting when they're not speaking. So like when they're reacting to other characters like that's that's how

you can tell a great actor from a good or very good actor. When they're not speaking, what are they doing? Wow. In between the lines. In between their lines. I'm looking at that too, but sometimes you can't like it's better for theater to be able to do that

because you can't sometimes, you know, like on film they'll cut away and then do another close upon another actor so you can't really see what they're doing in between. between their lines. That's interesting. I really like that. I want to just transition a little bit to looking at like digital marketing and just

marketing in general. Is there like, is there a similarity between marketing and acting? Yeah, sure. I mean, what you're, there's a similarity with everything in life. Yes. What you're trying to do what a person is trying to do, at least in my opinion, is trying to connect with other people. I try to make a connection with other people.

So when I'm arguing with a case, I'm trying to make you a connection with the jury or judge. When I'm acting, I'm trying to make a connection with the audience. When I'm digital marketing, I'm trying to make a connection with the person that can use those services. Right? So if there's somebody that you're marketing to and they can't use the services,

there's no point in marketing to them because they're never going to make a connection. So like that's part of part part of marketing is turning over rocks and figuring out which people are right for the services or for the goods that you're selling. They're marketing. So yes, there's a connection and all those things. And all those, that's what I was trying to say earlier too. Like all the common thread is law for me because that's how I learned to connect originally. So then I use that for acting. Now I use it for marketing. I use it for whatever I'm doing. I'm trying to make a genuine connection with the person. them speaking with or communicating to.

No, I like that because that's what I'm using is organizational leadership with the podcast and then vice versa with getting that degree. And now I want to take it further, but I'm still trying to decide how I want to go about doing that. And I don't know, what would you suggest for somebody like myself that wants to take it to the next level for like towards the audience to expand out further so that's a tough question to answer because what you need to figure out is what is going to get you the maximum amount of connection with your audience you know what what avenue is it going to be social media is it

influencer road is it youtube videos um is it all the above so it's just a matter of of how, well, first of all, figuring out who you connect with. That's the first thing. Because if you just throw stuff up on the wall and hope it sticks, it never works. You just waste money and you waste time. So you really need to figure out who watches you on a consistent basis. And then target them, talk to them. Those are the people that you want to talk to.

So if, you know, let's just say it's lawyers that watch you. just for an example, right? I would be targeting every single law group, every bar association, every Facebook page that has lawyers. I would, that's where I'd go to get more eyeballs on me. Right?

And it's just an example. So I don't know the core who watches your podcast. So I wouldn't be able to answer it specifically. But that's the first step, finding out who watches your, your podcast and then go out to them. That's where you start. And then you can always expand from there,

you know, then figure out, okay, who are people similar to lawyers that I can market to police? All right, let's go into police groups and see if they,

if they respond, right? So you can start expanding your audience based on who have similar characteristics to your main group. So who, do you have stats on So I've had a lot of stats and my issue was I've moved around from hosting to hosting.

So I lost a lot of consistent research, but I have all the research. And then I had my account getting hacked from an X that took over my iCloud and stole my identity and all that stuff. So that was a huge roller coaster. And I feel like that is when I'm focusing on with this next 30-day challenge, I'm calling the 2430, where it's to help individuals who are dealing with recovery, addiction, narcissistic abusive relationships, and just rediscovering things that I used to enjoy. And for the next 30 days, I would be putting that out there on every channel, and each channel will have a specific nuance that I highlight.

And I feel like that's going to be a beneficial thing for everybody, but also for myself, because I want to illustrate as much raw, vulnerable, like, moments of myself because I feel like it's therapy, like you said, with acting. This is same with me with recording. I don't know how or why. I feel like it's stressful as fuck, and I hate doing it, but I love doing it at the same time.

So that's every, you just described every artist on the face of the planet. Every artist is a stress to the anxious that the one's going to like their work. And that's the stuff that I'm talking about. You've got to distance yourself from that. And be vulnerable, like you just said, open yourself up, be vulnerable and not worry that people are not going to like what you're doing. Just do what you enjoy. Do it because you enjoy it.

And if you're enjoying it, great. If your audience doesn't enjoy it, there's nothing you can do about that. You have zero control over that. But if you're marketing to people, you can modify your message to a little bit. You can tweak your message a little bit so that you can make a better connection with that. Yes. That's a book that I'm reading is called Hook Points. And it's able to help people stand out in a three-second kind of crowd when we're constantly

getting shuffled around with all digital marketing. Exactly. I mean, you can you can really make a connection with everybody on a certain level. So, I mean, that's one thing that I try to do. When I meet new people or talk to people, I try to connect with them in some way. And I, you know, I've done many, many things.

And I've, you know, I play golf and I've played sports and I watch football. And so, you know, I can connect with different things with different people. So I try to find that common ground. when I'm meeting new people, because it just makes your conversation a lot more interesting than just, hey, how are you doing? How's the weather today? I can't stand conversations like that. I walk away.

It's superficial. So, you know, but it's the same thing in marketing. Like, so if you can find that common ground with who you're, who needs your services or products, then you're, it's much easier for them to decide that they want to, they want to buy your products or your service. So or watch your podcast. So let's transition a little bit to looking at law a little bit because now we're in the digital age where everybody's curating content. And I feel like eventually we're going to, somebody's going to cross pass with somebody else that has similar ideas.

Yep. Or it becomes now a possible copyright infringement. How do you look at that and what could you teach our audience about that kind of stuff? Yeah, it happens all the time. copyright and trademark. I see those infringements a lot.

Well, first of all, I'm going to approach it not talking about artificial intelligence AI because that creates a whole other issue, which is much more complicated. But artists sometimes

do copy from other artists and not necessarily on purpose. They get the same ideas. So copyright will protect your idea. it so that if someone does copy it too closely, then you can prevent them from making money off your idea or without at least sharing with you. So that's what copyright does.

So you write the next great American novel and you copyright it and someone else, if they intentionally steal your characters or your story, then yes, that's an easy infringement case. But if they do it, if it's very similar and it was unintentional, you still have a copy. copyright infringement case. So you can, that's the importance of registering your works so that you can pursue it. Trademark, I see it all the time. So I'll see bands that use the same name. I'll see voice over artists that use the same tags, logos. So it's important to trademark all those specific brands so that you can stop that too. So the voice over artist uses the same tag that you've been using for years. go after them and, you know, if you trademarked it and, you know, say, cease and desist, stop using it. So that's how you protect yourself as an artist, then you should.

All artists should be doing that. If unless this is what I tell artists, if you don't care about rebranding, then don't worry about trademarking. But if you're working on branding something and you want that stick, you need to trademark it. You need to protect it so that you can have other people stop using your brand, your brand. your unique brand name. So that's interesting with not caring about rebranding. Like if we were to look at entities, legal entities being forced to rebrand for some reason,

like what should be taken into consideration prior to getting to that point of having to rebrand? Like that was like the mentality of not carrying to rebrand. Like I don't understand that. So some companies. rebrand voluntarily. They just rebrand. You know, like X Twitter to X, right?

They just decided to do that. They didn't get sued. WWF, which is now WWE, got sued by the World Wildlife Fund, who owned the trademark to that. That's why they're WWE now.

Right? So that's the difference. That's what I'm talking about. WWF, World Wrestling Federation, didn't want to change their name. They had to. Right? Because they were infringing out

World Wildlife Fund's trademark. X was not infringing on Twitter was not infringing on anything or weren't being infringed on so that they just decided to rebrand to X. So that's my that's what that's what I'm trying to say. If you're a company and you're thinking about, oh, I don't really care about this brand. I'll rebrand it and I'll relaunch. I don't really care. Then you don't necessarily need to trademark.

But if you really are building a brand that you're what to stick forever, like WWF, you need to trademark. You need to trademark it. And now WWF, you know, of course they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're strict about going after people that they think are going to infringe on their trademarks because I had one, there was a, uh, a show called raw, the raw word. And I had W.W.E. write me and say they, they, they wrote to the trademark office and objected and said we couldn't use it because it was, it was too close to raw. Oh, wow. The wrestling raw. So they're strict about their brand because of that, you know, because of what happened with

WWWF. So that's an example. That's what I'm talking about. If you want to keep your brand forever and you would be a big hassle and detrimental to your business to rebrand it, then you better trade market. If you're okay with, you know, I'm just using this brand to see how it works. and if someone steals it, I'll just rebrand, then you don't have to worry as much.

Okay. Well, let's go deeper with this. When we're creating a brand and trying to protect herself, like what are some things that we can protect? I mean, of course, we can protect our logo. We can protect the name. What about our color scheme? Like, what if we had this unique color scheme that's badass?

And then somebody takes it. Yep. So the color scheme is going to be part of one of the other things. It's either going to be part of the name. It's going to be part of the logo or it's going to be part of the slogan. So you can make that color specific if you want to or just do plain black and white. That's up to you when you do the trademark, file the trademark. It asks, is color part of the, his color and integral part of the trademark?

Okay. So you can, that's fine. Yeah, the color scheme can be, can also be protected. But it's not going to be on its own. Like if you use purple as you're, as you're, your color you're not going to be able to go after everybody that uses purple you know what i mean it has to be part of the logo or something so that looks as similar to what you're doing so you you have to maybe able to make a connection okay interesting so i'm going to leave the leave you with the floor and uh kind of let

you share what you would like to share that things i haven't gotten to address sure i mean um the one thing that i want to share is that and the one thing that i learned is always teachers always learn. Keep going. Learn new things. Don't be afraid to learn new things. And don't be afraid to, if you want to try something, do it. And don't let time and money be an excuse as to why you don't want to do it. Right? Because when I started, I was an attorney for 10 or 15 years. And I decided to become a voiceover artist just because I took a class. I took an adult dead class and I liked it.

So I started taking more voice classes. Cut my demo. Started doing acting. To apologize for the sirens in the background. Oh, is that yours? I thought it was out there. I don't know. Get me.

I don't know if it's you or me. I'm just going to say something. Yeah, I don't think it's me. So I was looking around. Yeah. So when I be, when I was transitioned, one of the things I, I said to myself was I don't have time for this.

I don't have time. So what I told myself, but I started, I wanted to do voiceovers, is I'm going to make the time, and I'm going to find the funds. And what I did was I gave up my golf. Golf was my hobby.

So I, and I played a couple times a week. So, you know, I figured 10 hours, but it was about 10 hours a week. So I gave up that time to pursue voiceovers. And it was also,

you know, a couple hundred bucks around. So, you know, for a hundred bucks around. He has a golf shirt on right now just so you all know. Well, this is Ocean City, New Jersey. It's kind of a velvet shirt. But so I would, that's how I started. I took that time and I put it toward voice order.

Right. And then I started doing acting. And I remember that it was, it was like March of 2006. And I had already used up all my vacation time with my job. that I was working like 60 hours a week at because I was doing I would go in and do go to the city New York City to do voice acting gigs and acting gigs right so I got an offer from Disney to do a 13 day background acting job. So I showed my wife and I was like, look, I got this offer for 13 days, but I can't do that.

I don't have 13 days of vacation left. So what she told me, she said, quit your job. She's like, she knew how much I hated that job. She said, quit it.

Just do this. This is something, this is an opportunity of a lifetime. You know, if you get into this, if you're on the final cut, we can show our grandkids this. And then she just said,

just make sure you pay the mortgage. So like that was, what I did was I went back out on my own as an attorney. I rented an office and a friend, space that was in town here, started working on my own, and then I was doing the acting at the same time. So if I had let fear hold me back at that point,

and I've not looked back, that was 2006, I'm still on my own as an attorney, I'm still self-employed as an actor, as a producer. All that stuff happened because of that move. And if I had not done that, if I had that fear take it over on me, And if I didn't listen to my wife, I would probably still be an employee. And I never would be doing what I wanted to do.

So, you know, find a way. Don't be afraid. Jump, take a leap. You know, and just don't take a full leap. You know, make sure you're doing it in a way where you're still, you know, you're not going to bankrupt yourself. So there are definitely ways to do it so that you're not going to be in the poor house and you're going to still be able to pay your bills. Interesting. Yes.

No. I wanted to just highlight your book a little bit on what you've already written and published. You can share that with our audience. Absolutely. I wrote a book called VoiceOver Legal. And it's funny because when I started doing voiceovers, a lot of the voiceover actors knew I was a lawyer. So they started asking me questions. You know, oh, should I set an startup in LLC? Should I trademark my logo? Right. So I started writing all these things, all these questions down. And that's how the book was born.

So I did a chapter for all the questions. And I gave real life examples. And it became a bestseller. You know, it's really, it's the book that voiceover artists buy when they have legal issues or they want to learn about the legal issues of not only voiceover, it applies to acting as well because they're very similar. So link that in the show notes. Great. Yeah. So I'm working on the second edition now.

That'll be done. And pretty soon I'm going to talk about AI, artificial intelligence. I need to upgrade for that because that's a big issue now. But yeah, that's the book. So it's funny because voice server artists and actors know me as the attorney. And my attorney colleagues know me as the actor. So that's how much it complements each other. Like they know me as the opposite thing.

So it's amusing to me. that'd be a cool name for you like they call me the attorney nice you like I'm imagining I'm you for a second yeah because then that would make you unique be like I don't know like a superhero name kind of something I don't know I've got to come up with a better superherer name the attorney that that's or if we look at it as a contract killer who we're going to hire oh the attorney yeah there you go Yeah, he's good. He's really good.

I like that. I'm going to write a screenplay on that now. Definitely. The attorney, serial killer. Yeah, long as you can incorporate me into it, I would love to participate. Nice. Yeah. Because, I mean, who would think that an attorney would be a serial killer?

That's by, that was the point I was making earlier. Like Ted Bundy, like Ted Bundy was very charming and he, you know, he charmed a lot of women, and he ended up being a damn serial killer. I don't know many I've never heard of many attorneys that are serial killers I've heard of attorneys that killed people but I've never heard of them being serial killers I think that would be a good story

Yeah because it's what is it like If you're getting like investigated It's like attorney client privilege So they can't ask you shit Well it also is just You know attorneys are fiduciaries They're trusted with money and stuff So you have to, if you have to trust your attorney, really.

So if you're, if you're giving all that kind of trust to an attorney, then the attorney is like in a perfect position to be a serial killer. And I'll say he has like a code and he doesn't hire or he doesn't take, he won't be hired by the bad people that he would consider because he would just end up killing them. That's a good, that's a good twist on the plot right there. Yeah. So he only takes clients that are bad and he kills them. Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

That's awesome. Yeah, I love that. So he takes evil clients and kills him. Yeah, so then they never make it to court. I don't know. Or never make it to their next victim. I love that. Yes.

Yeah, this is going good. I like this. All right. Does that script? You and I are co-writers. Beautiful. Do I have to copyright that? After we write it, yeah.

You have to copyright it. Hell yeah. This is perfect. I will link this. I'll link everything we talked about into the show notes, but was I able to ask you everything you wanted to address? Yes. Oh, actually, I want to talk a little bit about,

I also have a new membership program that I started called attorney on demand. A-T-T-Y-on-demand.com. And it's for businesses and artists. So if you want an attorney, you want them on retainer and not pay a lot of money, You can join our attorney on demand and ask me as many questions as you want, get free contracts, get reduced trademarks, reduced LLCs, reduced fees. So that's a new, it seems to be resonating very well with the artistic community.

So I thought I'd mention it. Beautiful. No, I'll definitely link that into the show notes as well as long as you provide me a destination link where they can go. Absolutely. Yep. Excellent. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show today. Appreciate you having me.

Thank you. Yes. And one last thing. How can our audience get in touch with you? They can go to my law website, which is R-O-B-S-C-I-G-E-S-Q.com. Robsig-sig-Sk.com. That's easy way. I mean, you can Google me and find me.

I'm all over the Internet, too. Thanks for joining us on this adventure of growth and discovery. If you're ready to achieve a sustainable transformation, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And hey, if you've enjoyed the show and want to support it, take a moment to leave a podcast review on Apple or your favorite podcast platform. Stay connected with us on social media for behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, inspiring quotes, and the latest updates. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Just search for YT. the podcast.

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