“Until you're crystal clear on what you're willing to give up for your goals, you'll never achieve them.”
—Craig Ballantyne, Author/Speaker
The Perfect Day Formula
While it must be admitted that training, even if it is intense and focused, will not always bring home a gold medal or create an Oscar-worthy performance, it is a necessary component to excel in any field. It can come in many different forms, depending on your goals and style, but training instills discipline, and discipline breeds consistency.
The mental game I've leaned upon as an actor was honed over years and years as an athlete. Putting up with, and playing through, hardships and physical pain is necessary if you want to be a contender by the time playoffs roll around. Showing up twice a day to football practice in the middle of August when the blistering sun was beating down, knowing classmates were at the beach, my teammates and I developed grit. Our job as athletes, which is the same for me as an actor or for anyone attempting to attain any goal, was to tap into our passion on a regular basis by remaining focused on our long-term goal. This is how we got ourselves through the temporary pain. Late into a football season, or early in a lacrosse season, when the East Coast weather was cold and wet, we found ways to continue trudging through because that was what was necessary to perform well on game days and remain standing at the end of our season.
The best actors I know do not just rehearse when inspiration strikes. The best have a discipline that is enviable. Most have specific regimens or a particular approach to their work, but these can be as varied and unique as the actors themselves. The quality that all of them possess is a constant quest to be better than they were yesterday and to learn from those who are better than them. Since the advent of the smartphone, my close friend Chris Messina, who is one of the most disciplined and talented actors I know, has sent me a steady stream of texts with links to articles about and interviews with legendary actors we love. When a new actor arrives upon the scene with a great performance, I am sure to hear about it from Messina because he is eternally obsessed with mastering the craft of acting. These texts serve as a daily reminder to me that there is always someone out there from whom I can learn. They push me to know that, somewhere, someone is working harder than me or just possesses more talent. If I lose my discipline, I lose my edge. And if that happens, it is less likely that I will be able to put food on the table on a consistent basis.
“A great fallacy regarding progress is that it is defined by constant forward motion in the same direction.”
—Alison Levine, New York Times Bestselling Author, On the Edge: Leadership Lessons from Everest and Other Extreme Environments
While there is a competitive spirit linked to chasing something, other people's successes should not deem our accomplishments to be null and void. Instead, the competition is internal, which is why the elite are competing against the best version of themselves. Whether it's Michael Jordan, Meryl Streep, or Christian Bale, underneath the pursuit lies passion. It is a fervent quest to find something that flows in a way that cannot be grabbed or handled. And, while the best come closest, they are the first to agree that there is no such thing as perfection and our work is never done. The manifestation of this internally competitive pursuit comes in the form of training and discipline.
Every high achiever I've sat down with, regardless of their profession, agrees that rather than try to reinvent the wheel, it is wiser to stand on the shoulders of giants in the pursuit of excellence. This is usually done by finding coaches, teachers, and mentors who have been where you want to go or helped others achieve their goals. While the best version of this is a flesh-and-blood mentor, you can also easily find books and interviews from legends you admire. In this day and age, where virtually anything can be found on the Internet, our heroes, role models, and mentors are only a click away. With the advent of social media, not only can you study the giants in your field or find tape of them doing what they do, you can many times interact with them as they have become increasingly accessible through blogs, live posts, mastermind groups, and weekend retreats. The excuse that you have no access no longer holds up.
There is an epidemic, however, that impedes the growth of many people. Ironically, it is perhaps even more prevalent today than in the past, despite the fact that everything is accessible. This epidemic results from the lack of understanding that there is a difference between something being informational versus transformational. Informational means that you can read all the books, listen to all the podcasts, and go to all the seminars you can afford and still walk away unchanged. Transformational means you are implementing the principles you're learning about and applying them to your life. This is why mentors are so valuable. Because they can give you hands-on accountability and allow you to “buy speed,” as 10,000 NOs podcast guest Sharran Srivatsaa describes it.
Srivatsaa knows about buying speed because, with the help of mentors, he took Teles Properties, Inc. magazine's fastest growing real estate brokerage in California, from $350 million in annual revenue to $3.5 billion in revenue in just five years. Not only did Srivatsaa learn speed-hacks from CEOs he sought out and paid for access to their knowledge, but he implemented everything he learned by instilling an incredible, company-wide culture of discipline. With monthly, weekly, and daily practices, Srivatsaa was able to teach the speed he had bought and increase his company's value ten times in a time frame that previously seemed impossible.
Talking the talk as if you are an expert is easy. Listening to an expert, like Srivatsaa, is inspiring. It is also easy, because it doesn't cost you anything. Actually applying these lessons to your own life is the biggest challenge because it requires discipline. Discipline implies that there is a cost to attaining things that are sought after by many. It may cost you time, money, freedom, or any combination of all of these plus more, but it will cost you. Discipline carries with it a sacrifice because in order to do one thing, you may need to cut out many other things. A lack of discipline, along with self-limiting beliefs that I was unaware I'd been carrying around with me, is why I have failed many times in my life. But rather than lacerate myself for my failures, I will share this one story of a success I earned through discipline.
After a long drought of unemployment, I found myself in the enviable position of winning the role of Jason Alan Ross on the Netflix comedy series Huge in France. What I loved about this role was the change my character had to go through from the beginning of the season to the end. When he first appears on screen, Jason might erroneously be pegged as an alpha male bully who knows his way around a gym but has no awareness of his own vulnerability. But by episode two, his tough and confident exterior begins to peel away with such speed that we soon realize this is a man whose entire persona is built upon a house of cards. He is anything but secure.
After reading the entire eight-episode season, I knew there was only one way to fully pull off this portrayal. It would require incredible discipline to get it done, but given the fact that Jason's identity was so tied up with his external appearance, I knew that my performance would suffer if I didn't get myself significantly more fit than I was at the time I was cast. While my own workout and diet regimen is relatively consistent, to play Jason I needed to be on a different level. With his acting career in the pits, Jason has been relegated to being a glorified babysitter to his girlfriend's son. His primary task is to mentor this spoiled teenager through a modeling career mostly by keeping his gym routine and very specific food intake on track. In exchange for his efforts, he receives a small stipend and the privilege to keep living in his girlfriend's mansion. His lot in life is pretty pathetic and the way I saw it, his physique was one of the only things he had going for himself. Not only did I have a target body composition, but also a specific date by which I needed to hit it. The day I was cast, I was given a shooting schedule, which included two comical—mostly naked—sex scenes I had to shoot in just 22 days.
“I can't let Jason Alan Ross raise my son. He worships this Jason guy. He waxes, he tans. How can I compete?”
Gad, Huge in France
While the waxing of my chest, stomach, and arms was almost as painful as it was funny, the real work lay in the adherence to a training and eating regimen. My friend and top strength coach Jay Ferruggia assigned me to a six-day-a-week training program, but that was not much different from my normal routine. Contrary to what most friends and acquaintances thought when they saw me begin to transform, the real challenge was not in the gym but the eating regimen. Ferruggia is one of the most deliberate and specific people I know, which is how he maintains his incredible physique year-round in his mid-forties. It was no surprise, therefore, when he tweaked my weight training and dialed in on my diet to the point where I knew what I'd be eating every day for every meal for the next 22 days. Just because I expected it, did not make it any easier to execute.
It took a lot of discipline for me not to abandon Ferruggia's program when friends, seeing me shed weight, began to say I was getting “too skinny.” If they had known my history of not being able to pack on the pounds and gain muscle in high school sports, they would have realized that I hate the word “skinny” when it's used to describe me. The mere mention of even a temporary weight loss for me is probably what has thwarted any previous attempts like this one from succeeding. Ironically, Jay's plan wasn't starving me at all. I was eating four meals a day, but the timing, the food combinations, the water intake, and the training style were producing different results. One of the biggest lessons I learned through this experience was that a large amount of preparation and planning mitigates the reliance on willpower. Preparing my meals in bulk ahead of time so they would be ready and waiting for me at the right times made it automatic. My whiny brain was not given the chance to chime in and clamor for more, or different, food. Because I trusted Ferruggia and our collective vision of where I needed to be by day 22, I maintained my discipline. Having the target so clear in my mind was instrumental to keeping me focused despite the attempts of my inner critic to sabotage me.
The little hacks and details that make an endeavor less challenging are funny and surprising. Had I been able to afford a private chef, this might have been a lot easier, but that was not the case. Instead, I purchased slightly higher-end Tupperware containers that inspired me more than the cheaper ones we typically used in our house. While this may sound nonsensical, the additional pride I was taking in my food prep, even down to the containers that were being used to hold it, helped me to be even more invested in my mission. I would also purchase chicken breast in bulk and, much to my wife's amusement and annoyance, fill the entire grill with it to prep for several days' worth of meals. I would steam large amounts of spinach and cook large pots of white jasmine rice, the only carb I was allowed, so that I wouldn't waste time individually preparing each meal. The operation was astounding and eye-opening and reminded me why I didn't take the time to do this year-round.
The results, though, were more than physical. I texted Ferruggia shirtless selfies every few days so he could chart my progress and tweak the program if need be (he was on the road, as he often is, so this is how he kept track of my progress). While we were both serious about this joint mission, we had some laughs over the selfies, mostly at my expense. The beauty was that the changes were not only occurring on the surface. I discovered that the actions I was taking taught me more about my character than any amount of reading I could have done as research. Because I was actually doing what Jason would do, I began to have firsthand experiences that gave me insight into Jason's self-involved psyche. I would later shoot scenes where Jason is drinking protein shakes and chattering incessantly about his diet that sounded frighteningly similar to the interactions I was now having with my wife as a result of this obsessive regimen.
“Viv: See? This is why you can't handle acting. You go too far with it.
Jason: There is no such thing as going too far!!!”
Huge in France, Netflix
Season 1: Ep. 4, Episode Quatre
One such interaction came near the Fourth of July, as we were getting ready to go to our friends' house for a day of swimming and barbecuing. Unbeknownst to my wife, I had snuck my prepackaged chicken breast and spinach-filled container into the bottom of our beach bag. Finding it, she looked at me, incredulous. “You're not seriously taking your own food to their house, are you?” I replied, “What?! This is what I need to do!” Anyone who has seen the series will remember many such scenes where Jason, a self-proclaimed method actor, is vehemently defending his self-involved actions to his girlfriend, Viv, claiming that they are a necessary ingredient for his art. Through discipline and training, I had found my character's voice and mannerisms. As one friend jokingly ribbed me after seeing a scene like the one above, “Cuts pretty close to the bone, huh?”
While I hope this story is funny and entertaining for you, there are many lessons within it about the power of discipline and training, and how that power can many times exceed our expectations. I have a brother, as well as many friends from college and adult life, who are in the finance industry. Jokes are often made about how different he is from my sister and me despite the fact that we are blood-related. The general thrust of the jokes is that he is extremely detail-oriented and uber-disciplined, whereas I can be more “go with the flow.” While there are pluses and minuses to being either more structured or looser, I believe there is a need for both. I'd venture to say that all three of us have different combinations of both sides. But while people perceive artists to be “touchy feely” I have found that the greats, while incredibly sensitive and open to spontaneity, are also incredibly disciplined and attentive to details. Training is the concrete process in which those details are adhered to and systemized.
Ferruggia created a system that worked for me by keeping it simple. Before designing my training and diet regimens, he first asked me to define my goal. When my muddled answer, that I wanted to gain muscle and be more defined, contradicted itself, he didn't placate me. Given my tight timeline, he forced me to make a choice. His advice was to get more lean because it would be more effective on camera for what I needed. He took the guesswork out and made the plan easy for me to follow. Even though he has worked with others in more intricate and sophisticated ways, he knew I didn't have the time or bandwidth to do that. Instead, he laid it out for me in a basic way so I could follow it to the letter. He knew that discipline was the most important factor, so he designed it so a monkey could follow it. It was so pragmatic that there was nothing to argue with. Either do it, or don't do it. The choice was mine.
“The first time you walk into a gym you don't say, ‘Because I can't squat 225 or 315 now it means I'll never do it.’ Same thing with this. Anybody can get better at this stuff. You track your squats or chin-ups at the gym, so I would say, ‘Okay, how many compliments did I give?’ And I'd write it in my journal. ‘How many times did I start a conversation with somebody, in the line at Starbucks or at the grocery store?’ I'd just push myself every day. And, now, that's my thing. It's super easy now. It was just work, that's all it was. Just repetition.”
—Jay Ferruggia, Strength Coach and Speaker, on being a former introvert turned superconnector
When I was in the third grade, my teacher gave my class an assignment in the beginning of the school year, due at the end of each semester. Not being much of a disciplinarian, she never really mentioned it after that. If she did, I certainly didn't hear her. The assignment involved reading short stories in our textbooks throughout the semester and answering six to eight questions per story. It was the kind of assignment that would have been easy if it were done throughout the year, but by the end of the semester, when we were reminded of the due date, I was caught completely off-guard. Not ones to mess around when it came to my education, my parents did not give in to my pleas to finish it after going to a popular annual carnival in our town. Instead, they set up a folding table in my bedroom and essentially locked me inside until all my work was done.
After much twisting, turning, and schmoozing to try get out of it, I realized I had no choice. Once I settled down, I actually found a joy, and even comfort, in the work. I liked the feeling of progress. When I finished, I felt a real sense of pride and accomplishment. I told my parents I wished I had read the stories earlier because they were actually good. I was not lying to them; the discipline really did feel great. And yet, at the end of the next semester, unbelievably, I had done it again. As the due date approached, I hadn't touched the stories. And, again, my parents locked me up and threw away the key until I came out with all the work complete.
Sometimes, because we are imperfect beings, we have to be taught lessons a lot more than once before we learn them. The universe has a way of continuing to throw the same lesson our way until we finally wise up and can handle it and move forward. If I hadn't learned my lesson by the end of the third grade, my fourth grade teacher, Ms. Taylor, whom everyone feared, was sent by the universe to do the trick. My Dad still reminds me that it is Ms. Taylor who changed the course of my life through sheer discipline. I got straight E's (for Excellent) and straight 1's (for good behavior) all year long. In fact, I excelled in school in general from then on. When my parents went to see Ms. Taylor for their parent-teacher conference that year, my Dad gestured to her head and asked, “Where are they?” Ms. Taylor looked confused until my father grinned and said, “Your horns.” They all laughed and my parents thanked her profusely for having the tough love to teach me one of the most teachable difference-makers one can learn: the power of discipline and good study habits.
Discipline is necessary if not easy. While some have it naturally, it can be honed. Like nearly everything else in this book, it is simply a choice. When you get to the point that the actions you've been taking are no longer bringing you satisfaction or joy, you will likely be at the juncture where you decide to give discipline a try. Once you begin, you may never stop because you'll learn that structure will bring you freedom, and every habit that you choose to give up will be replaced by a better habit that brings you joy rather than misery and frustration.