Lessons from a Pro Ball Player on Being Ready when Opportunity Strikes

“Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared.” — George Clason

Several months back I was speaking to a close friend of mine who was set to give a big presentation. To say she didn’t enjoy public speaking would be the understatement of the century.

“I’m so nervous,” she told me. “I just want to get through it without screwing up.”

I thought back on the scores of actors I read with who allowed their timidity to overshadow the chance to audition for a major Broadway production.

On the other hand, the seasoned veterans knew they’d been called in for a reason. They mastered the ability to be kind and still claim the time and real estate needed to deliver a terrific audition.

Spread Good Contagion

“This is a remarkable chance for you,” I tried to convince my friend.

“And who knows, nothing may come of your presentation this time around but you might get a phone call down the road for the perfect opportunity.”

I knew this from experience.

Over the years I saw incredibly talented storytellers deliver amazing performances only to be passed up for the role. I’d often sit in a complete daze wondering what more an actor had to do to get a fair shake.

But over time, I saw many of the same storytellers come in again and again for equally promising opportunities, often even better.

They had made a conscious decision to spread “good contagion” and leave their calling card by being kind and doing excellent work.

As a result, they stayed on the short list of casting directors who now felt invested in their success.

Lessons from a Big Leaguer

When I was 8 years old I had the chance to visit the Coliseum, the home of my favorite baseball team, the Oakland Athletics. The A’s won the World Series in 1989 and had some of the biggest names in the game playing in my city’s backyard.

So the chance to walk on the field AND meet some of the actual players was about as good as life could get for a boy.

Mike Gallego was not a flashy player. He didn’t hit 50 home runs a year and probably would not have been on the short list of autograph seekers.

Still, he was a good player with sound fundamentals any little leaguer could learn a great deal from watching.

He also happened to be one of the few ballplayers who had agreed to meet with a bunch of kids for a fielding workshop hours before an evening home game.

One of the things he taught me that afternoon has proved strangely helpful in other arenas of my life.

I remember him saying, “When I get ready to field a ball I stay low to the ground. I like to stay in a position where you can see the top of my cap.”

They understood there are fewer things more rewarding in life then becoming great at something you love to do.

I remember trying to emulate his fielding stance in my next game. And because I also played second base I found his advice particularly important.

“You were a great fielder,” my dad said to me years later. “You couldn’t hit to save your life but you were a really good third baseman.”

The more I thought about it I realized that playing baseball was in some ways similar to pursuing a career in the arts. They were both endurance tests. Each time the pitcher threw the ball I would kick the dirt, adjust my cap, and get back into my defensive stance.

I may have done this 70 times a game, sometimes not getting a single ball hit in my direction, yet I had to be prepared every single time.

Stay Ready

Years later I was having a cup of coffee with a mentor of mine in New York City. The conversation turned to the importance of preparation.

After years of working on his craft and auditioning around the city he finally landed a series regular role on a hit series. He was without question one of the finest actors in New York and had come very close to success for years.

Despite, the fact he’d been ready for a very long time the casting gods would not grant him passage until the ripe age of 48. I almost wondered out loud what chance I had if someone as talented as him didn’t see the fruits of his labor realized until he was nearly 50.

He seemed to sense what I was thinking as he turned to me to say, “You are ready too. Just like I was.”

“Well, what do you do if everybody tells you that you’re ready but you just haven’t gotten that break yet?” I asked.

“You have to stay ready,” he said without hesitation.

Become Great at What You Love

Similar to Mike Gallego anticipating a groundball and my friend waiting for casting directors to finally give him a chance, both men spent countless years working on their respective crafts.

They understood there are fewer things more rewarding in life then becoming great at something you love to do.

And rather than trying to force anything to happen on their own timeline, they made certain that a sound foundation was in place when luck finally met preparation.

To Teach is to Learn

During my sophomore year in high school I had a biology teacher named, Ms. Wirth. She was outgoing, smart, and known for shooting from the hip. I had always considered myself more of a right-brain thinker so learning about cell structure always seemed less appealing than working on a paper for English, or studying the American Revolution. Still, Ms. Wirth was able to take dense material and make it lucid, which for my money is the mark of a great teacher.

One afternoon we met to discuss why I was still getting mediocre test results after studying for hours on end. After a few short minutes of asking about study habits she was able to quickly gather I was focusing on the wrong information. 

This week I was reminded of that time when I met with a teaching supervisor as I prep to teach a class of my own this weekend. She asked how my lesson plans were coming along. "I'm trying to get to the know the book I'm teaching so well I can recite it from memory," I told her. She looked at me quizzically before suggesting I focus more on the lesson plan than the text itself. "It's not about mastery," she said. "You'll always be learning as you go too," she told me. 

For some reason, I'd decided that as an educator I had to know every detail about what I was teaching. The reality is no teacher ever does. In fact, being a teacher or mentor in any capacity essentially means you have a front row seat to the class itself. It's your job to learn as much as it is to lead.

Leave the Audition in the Room

If there's one technique that has likely put years back on my life it's learning to leave the audition in the room.

As a young actor, I'd spend hours and hours working on a pair of sides in preparation for an audition. It didn't matter if the role was for a series regular or an under-5, I wanted to be the best prepared actor to walk in the room.

And though I'm still a huge advocate of working diligently, one must also have the flexibility to not carry the audition with you for the rest of the day.

If the audition didn't go what Robert DeNiro calls, "bedroom perfect," meaning the way I'd prepped at home, then I'd ruminate for hours on ways I could have done it differently. My "Monday morning quarterbacking" wasn't only frustrating but totally unproductive.

Instead, I learned to give it my all once I was in the room and completely relinquish control once I left. There was a freedom in making this decision - in surrendering to the many variables out of my control. All I concerned myself with was my attitude and work ethic.

I later discovered as a casting reader that actors who focus on these two components and have other important interests in their life are appealing to work with. It's like saying, "I would absolutely love to book the role, but if I don't, I'll be just fine. Some other lucky casting director will surely scoop me up."