Milestones – Setting and Achieving Goals – An Actors Story

Mine was a big one. I had made a promise to myself, about one year ago, that I would have a TV credit for a speaking tole to my name by year’s end. I had no idea how I would achieve it. It didn’t matter. It was gonna happen.

Postcards mailed.

Resumes and head shots stamped and sent out into the wilderness.

Connections via inter-webs made.

The silence was deafening.

Goals are a dangerous thing once uttered. They become sort of cosmic law. If you fail to achieve them, the self-loathing can be exquisite.

I had all but given up hope.

Then, through no fault of my own, it happened.

A friend of mine, a casting director, called me out of the blue. I had taken a master class under his instruction nearly two years before. As it happens, his daughter goes to the same school as my son. We bump into each other a number of times a week.

I am heavily involved in the school. A card-carrying member of the board of the school’s PTA. As such, and being largely left to my own designs most days, I am on campus A LOT. If there is a school function or a fundraiser involved, chances are better than average I will be there.

As it so happens, one particular event, I was helping run the thing. Hustling to and fro, walkie-talkie at my hip, ear piece. The works. In this frenzy of activity, who should I run into?

Yup.

My mentor.

He points at me and says “You’re a cop.” This is not unusual coming from a man who casts people for all manner of TV role any given day.

We exchange howdies and laughs and continue with our days.

Not one week later I get a call from him asking what my union status was. He has an under-five that I would be perfect for that very Friday. In TV parlance, “Under-five” refers to any role that has five spoken lines or less. Turns out, I would have fewer than five.

I would have one.

It was all I needed.

It was all mine.