Practice

The actor in rehearsal

December 15, 2025

The actor in rehearsal is simultaneously like a kid on a playground and a bomb squad member cutting the red wire… or was it the green one?

Nowhere else have I experienced the utter joy of play and the deepest danger of humiliation.

Actors are uniquely bred to weather both of these.

Play too much and it dies for the audience (you can’t have all the fun, you have to let them it!)

Don’t risk anything and we might as well give the show a miss.

Great actors toe the line.

Andrew Scott said the job of rehearsal is for the actor to try everything they can possibly think of. He often feels humiliated, small, silly or dumb in rehearsal. And the fact that he is willing to do that, over and over again means he gets to deliver ‘Andrew Scott’ performances.

What can we learn from the actors rehearsal room orientation in other aspects o work?

One shot vs Infinity

December 14, 2025

How likely are you to get a ball in a hoop if you had one shot?

How about if you had ten shots?

What about one hundred? It seems obvious, when you have more shots to take you have more chances to get the ball in.

Turns out this goes for more than just basketball.

We have to give ourselves as many chances as possible to strike gold on the thing that matters to us.

Writers have to write as many stories as possible,

Actors need to audition as much as possible

and potters need to make many pots.

And in case you’re wondering, the point isn’t for the hope that one will be a ‘big break’. Sure that might happen…

But what you’re really looking for wears many clothes. With hundreds of chances we can ask ourselves:

Is it alive?

Do I love this?

What does it remind me of?

Do other people enjoy this?

How about this one?

Or maybe this one?

Or this one?

What’s it like when I change this part?

Does it still work like this?

Or this?

The person who takes the most turns gets the most chances and gets to ask the most questions and so they also get the most answers.

Would you place your bet on the player who has one shot to get the ball in or the player who has infinite shots to try?

Its obvious. And with those numbers it’s no longer interesting whether or not she gets the shot in. The player with infinite shots will get it in the basket, but she might also reinvent basketball.

Don’t cheat yourself and just take the one shot.

You have infinity, my friend.

When the going gets good

December 8, 2025

I noticed recently I only wrote in my journal when things were difficult or not going the way I wanted. I supposed it’s why we have the phrase ‘nothing to write home about’.

The problem with this is it’s training my brain to not notice when things are going good. The journal becomes the ambulance at the bottom of the hill, something we reach for as a tool for fixing things.

That’s okay- that’s part of why we journal.

But here’s a note to myself to remember to journal when things are good. Often when things are running smoothly we simply don’t notice. Then when we look back we don’t perceive those long stretches of smooth sailing.

If your perception of your life is just what you remember at the end of it all and you only stop to take note of the hard times, what do you think your perception of your life will be?

We must notice when it’s hard and we must MUST notice when it’s good. Our poor little brains put so much effort into creating an ideal environment for us, we have to do them a favour and spend time focusing on that stuff!

What is really working for you right now that you are not paying attention to?

The edge

December 2, 2025

We’d all do well to remind ourselves what it really means to grow.

Growth sounds great! It’s what we all want and on paper it’s a no brainer.

When it comes down to it though, growth is sweaty, unsure and uncomfortable.

We only grow when we are at our edge. When we try something and it truly “might not work” to quote Seth Godin.

To grow we have to risk something. We have to try something new. And we have to be okay to be in the unknown.

It’s good to remember that sweaty fearful feeling on the edge is the knocking hand of growth.

If we remember this is what it means, we’re much more likely to linger in the uncomfortable and seek it often.

The edge is where the magic happens. And the best part? Each time you meet the edge, a bit more earth grows and extends out the reach of your edge.

After a while you’ll look back at the ground you’ve covered and you’ll hardly be able to see where your edge used to be; there’s just solid earth in it’s place.

Sweat. Grow. Extend. Repeat.

You probably don’t need to learn more information

November 27, 2025

I love learning. And this can actually be to my detriment.

Learning new information is particularly dangerous because on the one hand it is really good! It’s fantastic to gain new ideas, insights and strategies.

The very fact that it’s so positive is why it’s dangerous. Absorbing new information can mask inaction really well.

It’s not often that knowing more was the thing that made the real difference. We mostly know what we need to do.

Here’s a belief to try on: “You have everything within you that you need”

You can start right where you are. Within you also is the capacity to learn what you need on the way.

Trial and error. Hypothesise and experiment.

You can read about swimming or you can dive in the pool. You can probably guess which will get you closer to the Olympics.

Here’s another belief to try on:

The fact that you envisioned the thing you want means you have everything you need to get it. If you can picture it, you can have, be or do it.

Stop learning and jump in the pool.

Output is the outcome

November 23, 2025

We have to do something over and over again to get good at it.

Trying to paint the ‘perfect’ picture today is hard.

Trying to paint ‘a’ picture today is easier. And it still might be pretty good… or not.

But that’s not the point. Great pictures are rarely the result of an artist sitting down with the intention of creating a masterpiece.

The ‘masterpiece’ is one of a long line of drafts, sketches, doodles and scribbles.

You can’t have the masterpiece without the scribbles.

Make repetition your resolve. Invest in iteration. Output is the outcome.

Congruence

November 19, 2025

Things are better when they line up.

My least favourite phrase people say is “Do as I say, not as I do”. Why should I do what you say if you hold yourself to a different standard?

To lead, we have to be trusted and to be trusted we have to be congruent. And to be congruent we have to be clear. Clear on our values, standards and boundaries.

The leaders I admire most walk the talk.

Their actions match their words, their words match their beliefs and their beliefs match their values.

It all lines up.

Not only do we trust these people more, but they have more leverage to make things happen in the world.

Why?

Alignment is strong. Congruence is king.

The scientist’s reframe

November 10, 2025

Scientists, engineers and architects know about this.

They know that to get anywhere we must experiment. And experimenting means that most of the time we aren’t getting the desired outcome.

So why is it so hard for us to come to grips with?

How can we make like a scientist with the endeavors of our lives?

How can we take joy in the process of figuring it out and discovering unexpected things along the way?

They do it. We can too.

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

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.

JUSTIN ROGERS

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