Making things

Failure into feedback

November 8, 2025

Sometimes things work and sometimes they don’t.

That is so great.

The trick is to be able to stay curious and cheerful for both. And this can be trained.

What is the feedback we give ourselves and others when things don’t work? When you misplace and finger and don’t get that new jazz chord right on the guitar do you grunt in frustration? Or do you smile to yourself and try again?

I’m willing to bet it’s the grunt. It seems natural to have a frustrated response when something doesn’t work the way we planned. But each time we do that, we condition ourselves like Pavlov’s dog to associate negative feelings with trying and failing.

The key to growth is the exact opposite. How can we associate feelings of excitement, fun, curiosity and a hunger for more to those moments of “failure”.

One step is to stop calling it failure. Call it feedback. We always get ‘an’ outcome, it may not be ‘the’ outcome but you will always get some feedback.

This isn’t just positive thinking, this is practical to your growth and crucially to the growth of those you lead.

I love Benjamin Zander’s exclamation when things don’t go as planned (he teaches all his music students to say this when things go wrong):

“How fascinating!”

Let’s train ourselves to celebrate the micro failures and lean in more, it’s win win really

Overchunking Medusa

November 5, 2025

These aren’t just two random words I put together, I promise.

There’s a balance we have to strike between dreaming big and actioning small. It’s a tricky one to get right.

If we spend all our time focussing on the giant goal- or even the just big task for the week- we can freeze. A bit like Medusa has paralysed us.

This is called over chunking. It’s looking at too many chunks of information or tasks at once.

It’s being daunted by the giant elephant, the whole mountain or the entire dissertation…

I think back to some monumental tasks I’ve undertaken in the past and I’m almost certain I’d never have even started if I knew all it took now.

So when we are at the foot of the mountain, we have to simultaneously know about the peak while just taking one proverbial step at a time.

Get this balance right and I’m pretty sure we can do anything.

Rehearsals build certainty

November 2, 2025

An actor in rehearsal is building the future.

You’ve heard of vision boards, right? Don’t lie I know you have one!

They seem kind of embarrassing when others see yours, but they are powerful visualisation tools. When I first heard of them I thought it was all a bit mystical, but the older I get the more I understand how important it is to see something before it exists.

To build a house you draw up the plans for it.

To take a road trip, you use a map to see and plan the journey.

I knew all this in theory, but I recently realised that the actor’s rehearsal process is also a visualisation exercise.

To get a desired outcome, we have to have a sense of certainty of what it will be like when you do it.

The first day of school is daunting because we can’t picture in our heads what it will actually be like- who will I sit next to? What do the classes look like? What will happen? (Sometimes we imagine it worse than it will be). We don’t have a store of images and experiences ahead of the first day of school, we can’t visualise it, therefore it’s a difficult experience before and possibly during.

The 513th day of school on the other hand, is a lot less daunting- or at the very least we know exactly what to expect.

An actor in rehearsal is laying the foundations and ruts of certainty.

“I will go here, I will do this and then this and then this. The audience will be there, the lights will be there and then I go backstage and have 7 minutes to get changed, have a drink and get the rubber chicken.”

Without this methodical and gradual process, actors don’t have the certainty they can perform at their peak come curtain.

When I think forward to 3 months from now when we’re remounting a show I tour in the US, I get zero nerves because I have laid hundreds of ruts of certainty. I can visualise exactly what it will be like.

So a fun game I’m playing is to create that level of internal certainty for things I don’t yet have in my life.

I think this is what the vision boards are all about. If we can make our desired realities as clear, as vivid and as real as our actual realities, we’re a heck of a lot more likely to get them.

Poke the box

November 1, 2025

Poke the box- or how I learned to green screen.

Seth Godin has a great little book called ‘Poke the box’.

It’s about learning through experimentation. A box has a big red button- what happens it I press it? How about if I press it twice or five times really quickly?

This idea that we’re life long learners is an important one- but what does that actually look like? Watching the discovery channel? Binging youtube videos? Generally being curious?

I suppose yes, all of these.

And I think it’s about experimentation. It’s poking the box. Sure you might watch some youtube videos about the box, but you really just gotta prod the thing.

This is how I learned to green screen. I had to learn about lighting, distance, shutter speed, iso, frame rate, keying, colouring… in other words a lot of prodding.

I’m not super good at it now- but I know more than I did and can do more than I could.

Even though I know this from experience, I still find myself afraid to experiment. Maybe it comes down to stakes (or at least perceived stakes, which is all they ever are)

If I fail to green screen well, I don’t lose a lot; I can just try again. But if I start a new business on the other hand… well!

But what if we could treat the business like the green screen?

What is it to adopt an attitude of experimentation in all that we do?

To try without the need for perfection but to try toward knowing more than before.

That’s success in my book.

Playing for keeps

October 30, 2025

It’s not what you achieve, it’s who you become in the process.

This is one of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned. It seems like a cute concept, but in practice it’s powerful.

For me it’s the idea of playing for keeps.

That means when you go after a big audacious goal, face your fears or push yourself beyond what you thought was possible, the real treasure at the end is who you are.

The person who tries and fails 1000 times is a cool person.

So is the person who has hundreds of difficult conversations.

Who you are on the other side of the big scary impossible is the thing you want, not the big scary impossible itself.

Playing for keeps makes you undeniable to yourself.

Playing for keeps is stepping up to a new challenge, looking back to all you’ve gone through to get here and thinking to yourself “this challenge ain’t seen nothing yet- it hasn’t met me”

This is all just for you, by the way.

Playing for keeps isn’t for others, so don’t bother trying to tell them. It’s about what you think about you.

And you get to keep it forever.

We remember things we enjoy

October 27, 2025

For something to light an audience up it has to light you up first.

I think the same with my students; If I want them to get excited about something, then by golly I better be excited about it first.

We have to find our way in. It may not be immediately obvious, but there is always a way to bring it to life for you. If actors can do it each night in the same show hundreds of times, then so can you.

In an interview, Andrew Scott mentioned the lines he has no trouble remembering are the ones he has fun saying.

Those flying colourful insults and hilarious punch lines.

Actors never forget those lines.

So to help him learn lines he’s looking for the delight in all of them.

It’s the same with all our work.

Find the pleasure in all of it, plug into it and help others find it for them too.

Muddy vs. Complex

October 26, 2025

When is something detailed and when is it just muddy?

As actors we want complex work. We want layers and intricacy in the characters we portray- this is the stuff that mirrors real life most accurately.

We don’t, however, want things to be muddy.

I’m wondering about the difference.

What makes something muddy, unclear and imprecise? And what makes it complex, layered and intricate?

Real life can look and feel messy- so art should as well, right?

Well I think art is actually different to life. Aaron Sorkin said he’d been criticized for the dialogue he writes as it doesn’t feel ‘authentic’.

He retorted that real life can be boring- we don’t want to watch a couple of guys discuss what pizza they’re going to get.

Art is framed. We show this moment- not that.

Art is crafted. We need to be able to understand it to digest it and be moved by it.

So yes, be muddy. But be clear in your muddiness; certain of the uncertainties.

Don’t let yourself off the hook- are you being lazy or have you orchestrated this?

There is always room for us to ask deeper and find more.

How cool.

Do an impression of me- PLEASE!

October 25, 2025

There’s that idea that imitation is the highest form of flattery. If someone likes an artist’s work, they imitate it.

I also think impersonation is similarly flattering. We find ourselves doing impersonations of people like Robert De Niro or Christopher Walken.

Some might find it strange or even offensive if someone is impersonating them, or creating an impression of them.

I guess it can be offensive if it’s done in order to belittle or make fun of; but even then I think it can still be flattering. We can merely remove the person’s intent and look at what they are doing:

They are doing what you do. They are making themselves the way you recognisably you are.

That’s fantastic.

It means what you do is not only clear, but it’s unique, recognisable and it sticks.

You can’t buy that.

You earn that by being you. An impression is the bold cartoonish outline of the bundle of specificities that make you.

I’d much rather be impressionable that generic, abstract or forgettable.

Yes! Do my voice, copy my mannerisms! What are the types of things I say?! Yes go on, say ‘em!

That’s called a stake in the ground.

Eureka

October 23, 2025

Where does ‘a ha!’ come from?

I was listening to a brain scientist talk about his process recently.

He had written over 300 peer reviewed papers- not only is that a lot of work but it’s a lot of seeking and discovery.

That orientation alone is powerful:

I’m looking for something. I’m trying to figure it out.

With this kind of focus, you’re bound to discover something.

Something that has stuck with me is his explanation of how the ‘eureka’ moments happen for him.

He says he lays all the data points out, all the bits are spread out clearly in front of him, and the subconscious does the rest.

He doesn’t think his way to ‘a ha!’ but he lets go of the reigns to allow for it.

The ‘a ha!’ moments feel different to the black and white ‘work’. They rush upon us like any creative idea.

Our job, then isn’t to seek it, but to lay everything out to allow for it.

The audition

October 22, 2025

“Here, this is what I make”

As actors, we can fall in the trap of trying to morph into what we ‘think’ the casting director or director want.

We reach for something and in the process lose our authorship. This is a destabilising place to work from and makes the whole process feel empty.

“Here! Do you like this? Is this what you want?”

The alternative of course is radical authorship. It aligns with this idea of doing in the audition exactly what you would do on the shoot day.

Seems obvious, right?

Of course understanding what the project needs, the tone of the piece and the directors past work can and should feed into your process.

But it’s an interface, not a foundation.

Instead, it’s saying “Here, this is what I made. Here’s what I uniquely bring to this, you likey?”

This is a much more satiating orientation to the audition process. We remove the desperation and we get back to our art.

Every audition really is an opportunity to work, as Bryan Cranston encouraged us. The minute we reach for what we think they want is when we stop actually doing our job. We’re just entering a weird lottery at that point.

Ignite the artist and unleash the full force of your creative craft on that audition.

When you do that, whether or not you book the job becomes irrelevant.

JUSTIN ROGERS

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