133. Unforeseen Actor Success: Scrapping Networking for Community Building

Networking is the key to acting success. But what if it terrifies you? Listen to how I learned to redefine networking into community building by joining a mastermind group, training at The Second City and connecting with a rich range of Hollywood Individuals.

Also, take a trip down memory lane to my days as a hip-hop dancer in the 90s where my  shyness inhibited me from growing my dance career after performing in LL Cool J's "Around The Way Girl" music video. 

Acting Lessons Learned is Produced, Written, Recorded, Engineered and Edited by Tiwana Floyd
If you'd LIKE TO SUPPORT the show, here are 5 Simple ways to do so.

1. Follow/Subscribe
2. A ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rating
3. Write a Kind Review
4. Share an Episode With Your Actor Friends
5. Buy Tiwana a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/TiwanaF

Be sure to follow on Instagram as well.
@actinglessonslearned @LifebyTiwana

Learn more about Tiwana Floyd at https://www.tiwanafloyd.com

Music Pixababy "Mesmerized" 15617 & 11492_comamedia

Chapters

• 0:02 Networking's Power in LA Acting
• 9:21 Learning to Network in LA
• 19:52 Importance of Networking and Community Building
• 27:50 Request for Support and Feedback

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hey, there You're listening to Acting Lessons Learned. I'm Tawanna Floyd. I share stories of the lessons I've learned and still learning as an actor in LA, and I hope my stories help you to prosper on your actor's journey. This is Episode 132. I'll be discussing the significance of networking. However, since the word can be triggering for some, let's refer to it as what it truly is community building. I will be sharing my personal experience of not having enough knowledge about building a community early in my career and how it caused me to miss out on growth opportunities. Talk about how I had to step out of my comfort zone and build relationships with new people after moving to LA, which led to the spaces where I made the most authentic connections that enriched my life and career.

Speaker 1: 0:51

This past week, while at an industry event, I ran into a colleague, a fellow actress. I met this woman through a mutual friend about ten years ago. She and I never truly hung out without our mutual friend. We seemed to run into each other when we attend events dolo alone, and thus we inadvertently become each other's buddies for the evening. I enjoy her company. She is delightful. She's a chatty patty but perfect for my introvert itself. She's a funny woman from the South and she's an Aries, so her fiery delivery on spitting facts always comes with a dose of honey, and I admire her ability to be able to be candid without being hurtful. We spent two and a half hours catching up, sharing life stories about losing family members and talking about the state of the industry right now and how it's adversely impacting us psychologically and financially. She became emotional as she shared with me how she was feeling behind the eight ball, because she felt that she should be further along in her path to success than she was, and I was surprised because I view her as someone with a great resume with great projects. But I also recognize her legitimate concerns, because they're common concerns for many actors, especially those of us that have been in this thing for 20 plus years as age becomes a reality. I shared some reassuring advice in reminding her to trust the process, to release white knuckling how she thought it should be, and to allow whatever higher entity she believes in to take the reins.

Speaker 1: 2:30

While paying attention to the pivot, I can speak from personal experience that when I distrust Hollywood and forget that God is my source, I hear sentiments that make me feel inadequate or like the dream I had will never come to pass. But every time I release trying to control how I think things should go, I get immediate assistance from the universe to propel me into the next thing. Because this has been my practice for 20 plus years, I can move back into possibility astonishingly fast. I trust in the higher power of the divine. I receive intuitive hits that inform me of the next best step, which surprisingly causes me to pivot in ways I never saw for myself.

Speaker 1: 3:18

I'm not one to tell someone how to think or how to be, even though I am guilty of catching myself saying you need to do this. I understand belief systems can be ironclad, but also it's not my place to tell anybody what to do, because it's arrogant of me to think that I have the answer or that I know best. But I can't offer options to consider that hopefully spark insights for the person in the rut. And I'll end by saying you already know what to do, you just have to choose. And when I say that I see whomever I'm speaking to get clarity, I see it on their face. Now, what they know to do has nothing to do with my advice and everything to do with them knowing they had something gnawing at them for quite some time and now action was required.

Speaker 1: 4:08

After my conversation with this Southern Aries on the drive home from the industry event, I recalled having this same conversation regarding feeling like I was missing the comedy train with a male friend, a Detroit Virgo. I expressed how I felt I was always missing the boat on the up and coming comedic groups like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, the chicks from Broad City, issa Rae and Donald Glover. Detroit Virgo said what are you talking about? And he started naming all the people I'm currently connected to and have worked with in our comedy arena, including himself. A couple years back he hired me for a prominent role, a role I have never been hired to do, in his short film that has today amassed over 20 plus film festival laurels and has won best actress and directing. The footage I received from his film is the best thing on my reel to date and it was a wonderful experience for our first time filmmaker.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Director Detroit Virgo pointed out all we've done individually and collectively and how we're still growing and, while we may not be widely known now, we are part of a close knit group of next wave comedy creatives and I was like, damn you right these times of uplifting conversations that keep us going, and had I not met him in a play, or rather stayed in touch with him after the play, we wouldn't have been having that conversation that I so needed. At the time, I started thinking about how I got here, how I had gotten to a place to have these beautiful connections in my life that allow me to help and be helped. And it's all due to the power of networking. And I started to giggle at the times when I didn't even know what networking was and how things could have possibly been better at another time if I had. How does networking make you feel Anxiety, dishonesty, or are you good at it? If you don't enjoy the process of networking, remember that it's the driving force in every business environment, especially entertainment, so much so there is a social media platform dedicated to it, linkedin.

Speaker 1: 6:23

Networking is the process of building relationships and seeking support from peers, potential colleagues or other important professionals in fields that are similar or related to ours, making networking an essential aspect of exploring job opportunities, making new friends, recruiting talent and gaining insights into various aspects of our career. In an industry that is predominantly freelance or referral based, with long, stressful and laborious hours on sets or projects. Many of our job opportunities come to us by virtue of our work ethic, talent, common sense and reputation. So meeting peers and people in administrative or leadership roles can help us advance in our careers while expanding our social network to build strong relationships. If we want to evolve our careers, no matter the industry, we must network, community build, because people need people, people who need people.

Speaker 1: 7:22

But networking can make most of us feel like barfing. I mean, let's keep it 100. I don't know about you, but whenever I'm at a big event and an announcer gets on stage and scoldishly tells the audience you need to be networking, you need to meet at least five new people, I feel tremendous resistance, like why are you yelling and don't tell me what to do? It feels like so much pressure and it's not stated in a way that's conducive to authenticity. And then someone who falls for that pressure walks up to me and starts schmoozing and I don't have the aptitude to schmooze, but I'll listen to the spiel this person had evidently practiced on the way to the location, and it's usually preceded by a disingenuous smile, small talk or a corny joke. It takes a lot of me to muster up the same energy to mirror their inauthenticity. So, depending on my mood, I may greet them with a simple smile and hello, or quickly excuse myself when the grandeur is just too phony. And look, I can't begrudge the folks who came up to me trying to meet their five-person quota, because when I was terrible at networking I was one of those schmoozers people found an excuse to walk away from. Thankfully, I am no longer awkward at networking at this stage in my life, but I can't always say that I enjoy it, especially in large crowds. I tend to stay on the periphery of large groups to mingle with the other introverts hanging on the edges of the fray and if I'm lucky I may meet one person of value. But there have been many times when the energy was too stimulating for me to handle, so I'd go to the bathroom or I'd leave. Can I get a bye-bye from my fellow introverts? But how does one network successfully without feeling smarmy or disingenuous?

Speaker 1: 9:21

After moving to LA I had to learn to be comfortable with the art of networking. I hardly ever networked in New York. I had my core friends and my work friends. We weren't working in a business that required us to build relationships with strangers and I was home. I was home in New York so I had a community and didn't feel the need to look further than that. And in my 20s I may not have even known the term networking, or maybe I always took networking to mean ass kissing, which is very unnatural to native New Yorkers. But if I had known and if I were networking, maybe I would have had a more lucrative dance career.

Speaker 1: 10:04

Before I was an actor, I was a hip hop dancer in the 90s. My first entertainment job was in 1991, when I was hired to dance a choreographed routine in LL Coojays around the way girl music video. I had to audition against hundreds of other young women from all the five boroughs in New York, as a matter of fact the tri-state area and after a grueling three to four hour audition I was chosen for the music video along with approximately I believe it was nine other girls. I didn't have the language of introvert back then. We were called shy and I felt immensely uncomfortable around outspoken, loud or brash personas. For whatever reason, I've never been very starstruck, so meeting LL Coojay wouldn't render me speechless.

Speaker 1: 10:51

I was quiet most of the time because I didn't know how to speak to people. I didn't know what to say or how to break the ice. I was always the observer, seeing everything but not really talking about it, unless, of course, it was my mother or my close friends. Then you couldn't get me to shut up. But also my front teeth were severely crooked and I didn't want to bring attention to them. So something had to be really funny for me to laugh out loud and show my smile, and even then I would cover my mouth. Furthermore, I didn't know. I had a point of view that people wanted to hear. I was the weird or strange friend and I tried to avoid calling more attention to my odd ball behaviors as possible. All of these things made me appear very serious and unapproachable, but those close to me knew me as caring, humorous and goofy.

Speaker 1: 11:43

I'm prefacing to give you an idea of how I showed up for the Around the Way Girl music video. The dancers had three days of rehearsal without LL, and if I said two words it was probably my name. I mean I'm exaggerating, but I didn't ask many questions about the choreography. I would watch intently and pick it up, or if someone else would ask a question, I'd learn from the answer they were given. Talking about this now makes me realize how stealthy. I was to observe something so diligently so that I wouldn't have to ask questions, and it's probably the reason why I comprehend things so quickly. My mind was always is always two steps ahead. The choreographer aligned us into three rows of dancers. I was in a backline with the other two tall girls and on the day of the shoot so much was happening and many more people were in the production that I climbed up even more. But I would engage in minimal conversations with the other dancers.

Speaker 1: 12:41

And now that LL was there, if you can imagine his disposition, he was very personable, outspoken, naturally, funny. He complimented me on my hair. The back of my head was shaved. Last he saw me at the audition and I wanted more hair for the video. So I had gotten a weave, what we then called a Chinese bob. And yes, I know, of course I realize now how problematic that term was, but that is what we called it back then and I think it had to do with a lot of. The fruit and vegetable shops in our neighborhoods were owned by Chinese families and the women always had great bobs, so we copied them and called them Chinese bobs, or at least that's my rendition of the story.

Speaker 1: 13:22

Then LL had asked my name. I think he sensed that I was a quiet one and maybe he had a soft spot for the quiet one. He was very much giving me protective big brother energy which comforted me. When I told him my name he said Tohwana. Now that is a real around the way girl name and I have to believe it's why he used my name in the video's opening. I don't want Ivana, I want Tohwana. It made for good humor and it also drove the point home of a roundaway girl. But this made me very happy because I barely made the video cut but at least LL had given me a roundaway girl street cred. I still feel a rush of embarrassment when I think of how green I was back then.

Speaker 1: 14:06

It was my first time being featured on a professional set. I knew nothing about cameras or angles Like I still don't know where the camera was. Where was the camera? I know it was in front of us but I have no idea where it was positioned. Music videos were 12 to 16 grueling hours back then. I don't know if they're still grueling. I haven't done a music video probably since the 90s, but just like any other set unless you were the crew, dp or director.

Speaker 1: 14:35

The talent had a lot of downtime, so the ladies, the dancers, became more friendly amongst one another and LL. Thankfully, ernie Paniccioli, a legendary hip hop photographer, snapped a dope photograph of all of us for Word Up magazine and I'm so glad I made the photo proof that I was there. Once the video wrapped I believe it was two or three in the morning we were way downtown in Manhattan I feel like it was off of Astor Place. I drove one of the dancers home to Queens and she was the only friend I had made during our four days of rehearsal and the shoot and I wasn't about to let her get on a train alone to Queens at that time of the morning. I lived in a North Bronx and if you know the area you know that I could simply take the Throgsneck or the Whitestone Bridge back home from Queens. Two in the morning, no traffic, it was no big deal to me.

Speaker 1: 15:28

I stayed on a music video scene for several years and I later learned that several girls from the LL Koojee music video went on tour with LL and I wondered why wasn't I asked or how did I miss the auditions? I also learned that those girls who went on tour were either friends of or kept in touch with the choreographer. Damn, I wish I knew about networking back then. I would have known to exchange numbers with everyone and stay in touch. But you know what God favors fools, because with all of the stories I've heard about hip hop tours and how women were treated, I'm pretty sure I was spared a lot of drama and heartache and I was fortunate to have some other choreographers offer me job opportunities. But had I known how to build relationships, I might have had a longer dance career. But hindsight is 2020, right.

Speaker 1: 16:19

When I moved to Los Angeles in 2005, I was put into a crash course of networking and I say put into because networking is the buzzword that everyone talked about, still does, and it was challenging for me due to my introverted nature. But some introverts networked successfully, so I can't use that as an excuse. So what was holding me back? That had corrected my teeth so I could at least smile and laugh, and I had many interests that I was willing to discuss, but I had yet to learn how to network. Now, at this time, I had a subscription to Black Enterprise Magazine and I read an article on six tenants to build a network in a new city or something like that, and I'll share three of them.

Speaker 1: 17:05

Tenant number one was to attend events. One of many things I love about LA is the frequency and the caliber of free events designed to help creatives get a footing in their desired field. I spent little time attending actor groups because, you know, actors' knowledge is minimal. We usually operate from a vacuum. Instead, I followed events catering to filmmakers, writers and casting directors to learn more about their processes, decision making and how they navigated their careers In these settings.

Speaker 1: 17:37

I found short and long-term mentors. Some agreed to be mentors. Some didn't know that they were mentors. For instance, a comedy writer with a lengthy resume of half-hour network comedies shared how he wrote notebooks full of comedy scripts and premises before he became a writer when he was a stand-up comic working local and regional shows. He didn't know that he was mentoring me, or maybe he did. It was never a proper hey, could you mentor me? But he shared a lot of information. His preparedness to write these scripts brought him to LA from New York to write for a one-hour talk show. He shared about how he was released. When the show was canceled. It was through an automated page because that's how long ago it was. He got paged and then he called back and then they told him, yep, show's canceled. And then he talked about how the lyrics of a hip-hop song mob deep scared money don't make money caused him to stay in LA after being fired, even though he was concerned about sustainability. I met this person before I moved here through a mutual friend in New York and then, when I got here, I contacted him and we stayed in touch ever since. Now I may only see him like every five years, but we always pick up right where we left off and we both know that we can call on each other for support when needed.

Speaker 1: 18:55

Tenant number two becoming genuinely interested in other people. In Dale Carnegie's 1936 book how to Win Friends and Influence People, one of the central messages is that the best way to get people to like you is to become genuinely interested in them. There's a casting director that I knew in New York, but she wasn't a casting director back then. We had lost contact for many years I think, maybe like 15 years and when I got to LA I had reconnected with her. At this time she was a casting director and I had watched her career go from just starting out to casting notable TV shows and feature films to becoming a filmmaker and, at every juncture of her career, hitting new benchmarks. I wrote her and I congratulated her on her accolades. I'd go to see her speak on panels and I've even invited her to speak at seminars, which she accepted One year.

Speaker 1: 19:52

I reached out to her because I was really curious about the casting process. She was on the second season as the head casting director on a network show and I sent her an email asking her if she ever needed interns and if so, I would love to be of assistance. I commended her on the casting of some of the actors on the show and then I waited. Her associate reached out to me. I interviewed with the associate and then I became an intern for the show. It was an extraordinary experience because I got to really understand the casting process. I would make short lists for actors for various roles on a show. There was one incident where the showrunners wrote in a last-minute female news correspondent and I was able to hunt down the perfect candidate who passed the network vetting, and it was very insightful to do that because there were so many candidates but most of them had no contact on their websites or in their IMDB, except for this one woman who I was able to get in touch with right away. Sitting on the other side of the casting table was an eye-opening experience, shedding light on all the random ways we don't get the job, and most of the time it has nothing to do with our talent. I'm still in contact with this casting director and I still commend her on her accolades as they come 10 at number 3, expand your Peer Group.

Speaker 1: 21:07

Working community building is not just about connecting with people in powerful positions, but also with a range of various individuals from different backgrounds. I was pretty astounded by the number of actors in Los Angeles that lacked drive, who just wanted to get an agent and then wait for auditions to get work. I had to be highly selective about the actor groups I joined. I needed to find like-minded, talented and ambitious individuals to exchange information with. I joined the actors network, which is now defunct. It was created by Kevin E West and he designed it to be a business school for actors Very helpful.

Speaker 1: 21:48

I also joined a mastermind group facilitated by Christine Aller, and the group consisted of working actors who had been my brain trust for 12 years and were still connected through email. If there's something that we need answers to. We get emails Shout out to all the high-functioning working actors from Christine Aller's mastermind group. The reason why you want to expand your peer group is because no one person can know everything, but sharing information with the community of intelligent individuals allowed me to become the sum of that intelligence. It was helpful for me to hear about the experiences of others, things I knew, things I didn't realize I hadn't yet experienced. I learned how others handle challenging situations so that I had something to draw on when faced with a similar circumstance. This made facing challenges easier, because I wasn't taking things so personally and I had a safe space to share my concerns and receive valuable feedback. And I, too, offered helpful solutions, because you couldn't just show up and leech off the group. You had to make contributions as well. I began training and performing at Second City Hollywood simultaneously with the mastermind group.

Speaker 1: 23:01

Improvisers are like actors on steroids. They are a community of highly motivated self-starters and self-producers. We write something, we cast our friends and then we film it, and then we try to get it into all these other places that get eyes on us. At Second City, we were taught that we are the driving force of our own careers. All of the teachers were alumni and creatives of significant projects, including high-profile, award-winning ones. The philosophy was not to wait for opportunities to come to us, but to go out and create them, and, as students and graduates, we were encouraged to pitch and develop shows and allow to produce them for two or three week runs. Some of them would get picked up for months or a year, and when they did, they gave us incredible visibility.

Speaker 1: 23:52

Improvisation is all about trusting your team to create a comedic story from scratch. The core teaching of improv is to always say yes and to everything, which means that anything is possible. When you work with a team that has an open-minded, anything-is-possible attitude, it's difficult to be stopped by obstacles. We're trained to be solution-oriented. The practice of improvisation taught me how to create something out of nothing, allowing me to become comfortable with risk and uncertainty. Turning a disastrous situation into an opportunity in front of a live audience has helped me to build confidence through facing fears and silencing the inner critic. Once trust is established, we make a pledge to support each other. We have an actual ritual we follow before going on stage, where we pat everyone's back while saying I got you back, I got you back, I got you back and we mean it. And these practices cultivate a community that is impenetrable, because when you fail on stage or you're flailing and your improv partner comes and saves you with something witty or something smart, you just bond it for life.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Having lived in Los Angeles for 18 years, I have developed numerous relationships. However, the strongest bonds have been with the individuals from Second City or the improv community at large. My improv family is responsible for most of my best career opportunities. They are well acquainted with my personality, work ethic and skills as a producer, creative storyteller and actor. Just last week, two paid opportunities came my way from my improv siblings. We're not really precious with the casting process. We know what people can do. We write things and we call our friends based on what we know that they can do and have them be a part of the project, and most times we say yes and end.

Speaker 1: 25:46

I'm fortunate to understand what networking truly is community building and it was all due to a simple article that helped me figure out the importance of networking and how to go about it, and now I no longer cringe when it comes to networking because I don't see it as such. It is community building by way of collecting progressive creatives. It's the thread in a tapestry that holds Hollywood together. I enjoy meeting new people and learning about their interests, so when I look at networking from that purview, it's easier, because people are so fascinating and have phenomenal stories, but you wouldn't know it by passing them by or just looking at them or having a bias Community building. Look, it's intimidating, I'm not going to lie, but it's a crucial tool for career growth. In fact, it's only possible to progress professionally with it, because people who need people are the loveliest people in the world, and I would be remiss if I didn't add a disclaimer.

Speaker 1: 26:51

It's important to be aware of the number of predators in the industry who may try to take advantage of you. Some networkers and community builders aren't really operating from an authentic space. Despite my initial belief that some people were genuine, I later discovered that they were only interested in using me for their own benefit. So it's important to be cautious when dealing with such individuals and trust your instincts. If a person's actions contradict their words, you should be very wary of them. Furthermore, if you're someone who manipulates others for personal gain without providing value in return, just know that people see you. They may not say anything, but they see you and they'll probably either use you before you use them or they'll just ghost you altogether. Authenticity is highly valued, so it's just best to be honest and transparent in all your dealings.

Speaker 1: 27:50

Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode or learned something new, will you help Acting Lessons Learned grow by giving a five-star rating or leaving a kind review or sharing an episode with a friend. Acting Lessons Learned is produced, written, recorded, edited and engineered by Tuana Floyd. That's me. All links are in the description. If you'd like to buy me a coffee or follow me on social media, I'll be back in two weeks. Bye.