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How do you know, how can you tell what is your attitude?
I have always wondered where good acting comes from… acting that almost no American actor does well… almost, I said.
But where do the attitudes that give the foundation of a scene originate.
But this morning I got really lucky. I saw a few interviews with Larry Thomas who played the Soup Nazi in Seinfeld.
In all of Seinfeld that I never saw on television but have the whole however many seasons, downloaded onto my PC, that was my favorite part… the Soup Nazi.
I was sure, until today, that the episode and the character wasn’t an actor. Why? It was so real… Authentic. I think I have even written about it before…
Anyway, watching and FEELING this actor create the inner dynamic of this character brought it to my conscious awareness that I FEEL the muscles of my face move, documenting the creation of the attitude… whether it’s mine or someone else’s.
I knew that my ‘homepage’ attitude is ‘I am personally offended’ and it is all in the mouth curving downward…
I needed to know that or I’d never become the person I am… I’d always remain that ‘it’s all about me and it should be different’ twirp.
But today I realized that all behavior, all attitudes come from the micro muscle contractions, and a good actor initiates everything from there.
This is, maybe, the reason I can ‘watch’ a movie not seeing it at all. Except for the environment, which I can’t feel, I don’t have to see the actor to feel what his facial muscles tell me he feels.
And this is how I know that American actors don’t know that (except the few good ones), because they don’t play they follow instructions, nobody home.
When I ask students and clients what is their attitude, they don’t go to their faces. They go to their minds, their stomachs, or their chest… but not where it comes from.
Unless you get familiar with the invisible or hard to see, you’ll be always blind and fly blind… and that is dangerous. Deadly.
Start paying attention to your facial muscles.
It is part of self-awareness… or we could say it is 01% of self-awareness.
And whatever you can’t see/feel you can’t manage, you can’t change, you can’t be responsible for.
And because responsibility is your access to power, you can’t experience power… boohoo for you.
This is why I will do two (2) live workshops teaching you to feel your face and your facial muscles… I can’t and won’t attempt to teach you to feel someone else’s, because you can’t… but you can learn to pay attention and evaluate the meaning of that micro expression…
We’ll attempt to identify these attitudes and feelings ON THE FACE.
Personally offended, disappointed, disgusted, distrust, doubt, hesitation, contempt, etc.
These are different than what ‘they’ teach, these are from MY ’emotional/attitude vocabulary’. They are powerful in that when you can identify them, you can own them… you can change them, you can manage them, so you can achieve more in life, get more out of conversations, courses, interactions… out of life.
You’re almost certainly worse at understanding your own biases than you are at recognizing them in others.
Go to step 2PS: There are a few students and clients I have a vigorous email conversation going with.
Occasionally I recommend something, and they don’t know how they take it… but it would be useful if they did.
Why? Because they could own it, they could choose it, and then be ready to choose what I recommend or not, instead of the unidentified feeling choosing it.
That feeling, in this case, is more often than not, a feeling that they don’t or didn’t measure up, and that I want them to do something that will rub it in.
No… that is never my intention, and they do measure up…
That ‘I don’t measure up’ feeling has a micro expression all about the mouth… rounding the lips that the mouth is closed forcefully… a child’s reaction to a distasteful piece of food… lol.
If you knew that the child just saying no… you could laugh and look again. Wouldn’t that save some time?
