Breaking Through: When Your Uniqueness Becomes Your Career

How do you build a successful career path by just being yourself? Foster shares her unexpected journey from actor to film director after the death of her son, while Cesar reveals how he built a successful business without spending a dollar on marketing. They explore the paradox of being a female director in Hollywood and why being yourself is your greatest advantage in any career. If you’re pivoting careers, breaking into a new industry, or building from scratch, this conversation talks practical wisdom about leveraging your uniqueness and creating meaningful connections because truthfully...  success comes from being irreplaceable. 

In this episode they explore: 

• Why grief became the catalyst for a complete career pivot
• The Hollywood catch-22: When diversity programs help and hurt at the same time
• How one person built a 10-year training business without spending a dollar on ads
• The security guard at NYU who remembered every student's name (and what that teaches us)
• Why your unique fingerprint on your work is your only real competitive advantage

Also mentioned: 

• The loss of Foster’s son Wilde: Foster’s Loss: Sunflowers and the Choice to Feel Pain
• Made Public (14 min short film)
• Waffles (4 min short film)
• Platypus (9 min short film)
• Brick & Mopsie (5 min short film)

You can also watch the episodes on YouTube.

If you enjoyed this episode, take a moment to follow Beauty in the Break on your favorite podcast app and leave a review—it really helps!

Reach out to the show—send an email or voice note to beautyinthebreakpod@gmail.com and be sure to follow on Instagram and TikTok. 

Cesar Cardona:

• Receive his newsletter Insights That Matter
• Get guided meditation from Cesar on his website 
• Listen to music from Cesar + The Clew on Apple Music and Spotify

Foster Wilson:

• Buy her poetry book Afternoon Abundance
• Learn about her postpartum services
• Receive her newsletter Foster’s Village

Created & Hosted by: Cesar Cardona and Foster Wilson

Executive Producer: Glenn Milley

This episode is brought to you by Arlene Thornton & Associates

Transcript

I've never seen so many women on set before.

And I learned very early on, there will always be a better trainer.

There will always be a better director.

There will always be a better something, but there won't be you.

It felt like I was at the rock bottom.

Or something that you spot in a movie that say,

Oh, this is probably directed by a male or somebody who doesn't understand the female perspective.

Well.

Welcome to Beauty and the Break.

Here we explore stories of how barriers are broken,

both within ourselves and within the world.

I'm Foster Wilson.

And I'm Cesar Cardona.

This is a home for you.

Questioning the rules you inherited and choosing your own path forward.

We are here with you on this messy and courageous journey.

Let's dive in.

Welcome, everybody, to Beauty and the Break.

Welcome.

Welcome back.

And I am thrilled that you are here with us.

Cesar Cardona, you are getting a very fun procedure coming up.

It's super fun.

I'm thrilled for it.

Just beyond through it for you.

I'm getting a vasectomy.

Thanks for sharing.

You got it.

I figured I might as well just rip the Band-Aid off.

Just cut the wire.

No pun intended.

Yes, I've realized that the overall of my life has not wanted any children of my own.

One, I was worried about giving them depression in my life.

And two, I've always been kind of just on my own path in the world.

And I was like, how do I bring a kid in to understand the way I've done all these weird things?

It doesn't seem fair.

Then I met you, and you had two kids already.

And it was fantastic because I love them.

I adore them.

They have four great parents that can kind of govern all the sides where one parent is a little more academic.

The other one's a little more free spirit.

One of them is testing the boundary of culture and adulthood and whatnot.

And they get all of the experiences.

And I go, this is great.

And they love me, and I love them.

And I'm good with that.

I haven't told my mother.

It hadn't came up.

Maybe I'll tell her right after we get off this line, perhaps.

I think she will be supportive of it.

Oh, yeah.

My mother's always been supportive of me.

And whatever it was.

One time she was on the phone with you, and she said, I'm excited for grandbabies.

She was talking about the kids we already have.

And you thought she meant the kids were about to have.

And you go, oh, I don't know if he told you.

Shop's closed.

Yeah.

Just look at that up front in case you're hoping for something else.

And then I've heard her say a couple times, like, no, no, there are products of their baby.

Shop's closed.

Yeah.

She said that?

Oh, my God.

I heard her repurpose into someone else about me.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Which is fantastic.

You and I have decided to put our energy towards other things, one of them being this show.

We have 50% of our time because we do co-parent with the other parents.

And we have 50% of our time to focus on what we want to create.

And creation, creativity is a life form as well.

And there are a lot of people these days, especially here in LA, who are choosing to not have children at all.

I get it.

Dude, I get it.

Yeah.

I get it.

Yeah.

The more time I spend with our kids, the more I realize, oh, I get that part, too.

I could see why.

Because how much investment it takes, how much emotional investment it takes.

The trial and error of things.

I totally recognize that.

In addition to my family stuff, I'm the last Cardona, the last male Cardona.

I will say, none of the family members on that side have said anything to me about it whatsoever.

Historically in my life, all of my family members, both sides, have always been of the mindset of,

well, Caesar's doing what Caesar does.

Yeah.

At some point, somewhere early, I started asserting, no, I'm doing this.

If you don't like it, that's just, that's your issue, not my issue.

I'm going to do this anyway.

And I think they just got on board.

So no one has told me I needed kids or wanted kids, except for our kids.

Oh, right.

By the way.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Our kids have asked us if we were going to have kids.

Yeah.

One of them was like, but they'll be so cute.

Why don't you want kids?

Remember they sat us down at the dinner table and kind of tried to grill us?

Yeah.

Like, why don't you want to live together?

Why don't you want to get married?

Why don't you want kids?

Yeah.

And then I said, do you want the short answer or the long answer?

They said the long answer.

And I got into a full disquisition of lecturing, not at them, but with them.

And they got super bored.

Yeah.

They're like, we got it.

We got it.

We understand now.

Got it.

Move on.

Whatever.

I told everyone that was what you got me for Christmas.

That's right.

You know what else, dude?

So when I called them, they were like, we have two availabilities.

One is February 14th or March 15th or something.

I go, you mean to tell me that the day of my vasectomy could be on Valentine's Day?

I love you so much.

I should have did it, but we'll be in the cabin.

So unfortunately, but otherwise I would have did it.

Yeah.

Without question.

I almost asked you to not go to the cabin so I could do it for the sake of the story.

Oh, well.

So let's get into what we're going to talk about today, which is about times in our lives that you and I have broken through barriers within ourselves.

Yeah.

When I have listened to podcasts, I always feel like there's something that that person's done that's just ahead of where I am that I can learn.

And I realize, well, what are the things that I have excelled at that I can just start talking about and people can take whatever they want?

And I think a lot of it often is where you are in your career.

I've gone from not knowing a thing whatsoever to completely turning it into a whole business.

Right.

And I found my own ways to do it.

So if I can share that, then I'd be happy to do so.

I think you can do the same thing as well.

Yeah.

I tend to forget what I've done in my life that is maybe impressive or not everybody has done.

Yeah.

And how you say it is I know the way you're saying it, but it also sounds like we could be bragging.

It's not.

We just see an obstacle, a barrier.

So how do we get around this?

You get around it and then you just keep moving.

And then you turn back and say, oh, yeah, I forgot that I did this really cool thing.

Yeah.

So for the person listening right now who's like, I've never broken any barriers in my life, I want you to really think about the trajectory of your life and what you have done that was breaking something within yourself, a pattern within yourself, doing something that maybe the people around you thought was crazy.

So maybe it didn't feel like you were breaking a barrier.

Maybe it felt like you were being weird.

Think about what your family gave you and how maybe you're different from that.

And it isn't until a friend or a loved one or partner comes back to us and mirrors and reminds us that actually we're doing something quite different here.

Right.

You know?

Right.

So if you can't think of anything, ask your best friend or ask your partner because you probably have done a bunch of things.

I think it can start even closer to home too.

Has there ever been a time in your life that you've just ignored a thought?

The thought kept coming up for you.

You can't do this thing.

You won't do it.

And you say, you know what?

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

And then you find out this is much better.

I cannot rock climb.

I'm going to do it.

I'm not going to be able to learn this language.

I cannot apply for this job.

I can't ask this person out.

And then you say to yourself, F that.

I'm going.

That's breaking a barrier.

And that's something even closer to home than the external world.

So for me, what I forget often is how I pivoted from a career in acting to a career as a director, film director.

This is going to sound ridiculous, but all the while being a woman, which we'll get into why that is kind of ridiculous.

Somehow in my brain, you're still this like hot smoking, hot director, even though I didn't know you at that time.

But for me, my first barrier breaking moment that was huge that I can look back on now and say, holy moly, I did this, was becoming a physical trainer at 26.

A self-employed physical trainer at 26.

Tell me your starting point for being a director, for becoming a director.

Yeah.

So my whole career has been in acting, in film, and in theater since I was a kid.

And so that came very naturally to me.

That was my pursuit in college, NYU.

But being a director was not a dream of mine.

When Wilde died, I had my first like all is lost moment.

We talk about Save the Cat and directing and movies and all of that, right?

I had a moment of like all is lost.

Everything I thought I wanted in my life, it felt like I was at the rock bottom.

And I turned towards this group of people that I had been working with that was a small production company.

And we had been kind of reading short films.

And in that process, there was a short film that I liked and I thought should be made.

And there wasn't a role for me in it.

And I just said, someone needs to make this.

And everybody kept turning to me and being like, if you like it, why don't you direct it?

And I was like, no, no, no, I can't do that.

I'm not a director.

And then because I was in such a state of, fuck it.

That's exactly what I said.

Like, fuck it.

I've just experienced the worst loss of my life.

I don't have anything else to lose.

I could fail at this and nothing would happen.

So yeah, okay, I'll do it.

And I literally directed my first film two months after Wild passed.

It was a five minute film.

What was it called?

It's called Brick and Mopsy.

Okay.

Made it for $500, which was kind of what we were doing in this group.

We were just making really short, very low budget films in one location.

We usually two people.

Is it available out in the world now?

It's available.

It is?

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't think you've ever seen it actually.

I don't think I have.

Brick and Mopsy?

Brick and Mopsy.

Oh, that's good to know.

Okay.

And I did that.

And I don't know if it was any good or not, to be honest.

I mean, it's my first film, so it has a soft spot in my heart.

So what you just said was, I don't know if it was good or not.

Are you saying that as Foster right now at this age?

Or are you reflecting on when you finished the project saying, I don't know if this is good?

When I finished the project, I was not sure if it was good or not.

Okay.

Okay.

What I did know was that everybody on set had a really amazing experience.

And that was what I tapped into.

That was what I felt I was good at.

I had so much lack of knowledge about shots and cinematography and equipment and even directing

actors, even having been one, like being on the other side of it is still, there's still

nuance to figuring out how to work with actors.

Editing, all of it was all new to me.

I knew how to create an experience for people that they felt appreciated, that they were

working for nothing, right?

Giving their whole day up and working on my set.

And people walked away from that experience, posting about it on Facebook, proud of what

they did.

I brought out people's best work.

And that was what I remembered about that project.

And that was the energy that took me forward to the next thing.

I wrote a note here.

It said, what was her first aha moment behind the camera?

I'm going to assume that that's probably the first aha moment.

I'm like, oh, I got something here.

This is something for me that made you, that gave you the strength to break through that

barrier.

And so once I got that bug, I was ready to make more films.

And I went and made another short that was a much different caliber.

Like I upped the ante.

What was that one called?

That was called Waffles.

Waffles.

Okay.

And I was riding the wave of this is the new thing that I want to do.

I was also pregnant with our youngest when I filmed Waffles.

Is that the photo I see often of you?

Yeah.

Like you're like in a blue shirt or something like that, I think, by the camera.

Because when you and I first matched on Bumble, I looked your name up and I saw all these photos

of you behind the camera.

And I was like, holy moly, this woman is a smoke show.

And she's directing pregnant.

Here is my panties and my phone number.

That's what I thought.

Why are you smiling?

What's so funny?

Well, yeah.

So that.

So, yes, I directed that with two amazing actors, Janine Mason and Leslie Stevens.

It was great.

It was a fantastic experience.

Is it still out now?

Uh-huh.

It is.

Uh-huh.

Everything's online.

Waffles is out as well.

Breaking Mopsy.

Yes.

Everything's online.

I think you're noticing a pattern of what I'm doing here.

It will.

It will be in the show notes.

I'll link to everything.

So that was a four-minute film that ended up doing a ton of festivals.

And I was very, very proud of that film.

Still to this day, I feel like it's a really good film.

So I then decided I was going to apply for the directing workshop for women, which is run by AFI.

I'd had colleagues and mentors who had done that program.

It's an incredible program.

They take eight people a year.

And it's for women transitioning into who want to work in television and big films.

And a lot of people get reps out of that.

And I was like, this is it.

I'm going to do this.

I have this script that I'm going to bring to it.

I'm going to pitch myself.

And I'm going to do this program.

And I put all my eggs in that basket.

The entire fall, I did nothing but focus on that interview, that project, and that program.

But I did not get into the program.

I was devastated for about one day.

And then this is the other aha moment that I had.

I said, I guess I have to take it into my own hands.

Ah, there you go.

And I immediately called a friend of mine who I knew was also kind of running a production company.

We were doing similar things in our own circles.

And I called him up.

And I was like, I know you're running.

You're making some films over there where you are.

I'd like to be involved.

I'm a director now.

If you have anything, keep me in mind.

And he said, actually on the phone, he said,

I have three films that were being made now.

And one of them is looking for a director.

And specifically, they want a female director.

Now, this is where we start getting into the fact that I forgot that I have an identity that goes before my name.

Right.

Yes, yes, yes.

Right?

Which is, I'm not just a director.

I'm a female director.

Yeah.

I don't want to go too far off the road for here.

But do you have to, at times, remember that sort of stuff in your day to day?

Oh, I'm a woman.

Oh, my God.

I'm blonde, blue-eyed.

Do you have to be reminded of this stuff as you go through your day sometimes?

Only in situations where the contrast, the other person, is thinking of that.

Okay, so it is reminded through that person.

Uh-huh.

I feel the same way about being black, about being mixed, about being a male, about all of that stuff.

Otherwise, I'm just going through life.

I'm like, oh, that's right.

I got to deal with this nonsense until I see the police, until whatever the hell.

Right.

Yes.

Okay, continue.

So this is the beginning of this sort of catch-22 that I experienced as a director.

At the time, there were people who had come before me, a lot of great women,

who had really broken glass ceilings in the industry.

I was coming on the tails of them.

They had 10 years and had already broken a lot of barriers.

There are all these programs, for instance, within Hollywood that are for women.

Some of them are for women and people of color.

This was seen by a lot of people to be a very positive thing.

And I think in some respects, it is a very positive thing.

But I also experienced multiple men say to me, it's a really great time to be a female director.

Okay.

Yet again, I'm like, I forgot that I was also a woman doing this, not just directing.

It offered me a lot of opportunities.

There were definitely projects that I got from that friend, from that phone call.

I booked my first director for hire job for a short film called Platypus.

They were specifically looking for a woman to direct it.

Why?

Because the content was sensitive.

There were people that were going to be semi-nude in the project,

and they wanted the women to feel comfortable.

They wanted a female gaze.

They wanted a female eye.

These are good friends of mine, and this makes sense, right?

But it also creates this identity of me as a female director.

I have something to be that's aligned with all women.

It's both, isn't it?

Yes.

We spend a time getting a title of some sort, and then we get not hung up on the title,

but we assume that that title is us.

Our mental disorders, our jobs, our belief systems, whatever, and we forget that we're supposed

to transcend that thing to the next step.

I'm not saying you're doing this, but society gets that way.

It's like, I'm a female director, so I got to be a female director.

You're a female director.

So do that, but also transcend that thing.

Take it to the next step, because you are the next step.

And same with black male, same with mixed male, same with pansexual male, same with Buddhist

black male with curly hair and who's a physical trainer, all that stuff.

And I have done that as a director as well.

I want to work with a team of women oftentimes.

Most of my projects have been mostly women because on the whole, I find sets to be really

copacetic and really energetically wonderful when we have a lot of women at the helm.

There is a different perspective.

Like, history has been told for centuries by predominantly a cis, straight, white male gaze.

And so in particularly in cinema, we just haven't had a lot of voices behind the camera of any

other variety that's not this sort of heteronormative white male perspective.

Say more about that.

I'm going to, sorry to keep cutting you off here, but some of these things are interesting

to dive into.

The female eye.

Yeah.

Whoever's listening right now is not a director possibly.

When they're watching a film, what is something they're missing or what is something that you

spot in a movie that say, oh, this is probably directed by a male or somebody who doesn't

understand the female perspective?

Well, I wouldn't generalize an entire perspective based on a gender.

I just would say that if we've only had, if we've had predominantly men looking at things

a certain way, then women are going to look at it differently.

Whatever that is.

I don't, my gaze is not the same as, you know, a different female director because the fact

that we're female doesn't mean that we are one thing.

It's just, it's just different.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's why we, that's why there are so many programs here to try to like offer opportunities

to different voices.

I have been lucky enough to be selected into various programs that exist here in Hollywood.

This is a path for people.

Sometimes those programs offer opportunities for directors to be on bigger sets, to shadow

typically, to get some specific training and education, to sometimes make a short film, sometimes

with a budget.

And they also can become barriers.

And what I've witnessed from some of my colleagues is that agents and managers and producers here

in LA will say, oh, you're a female director.

You're a director of color.

Great.

Go do a program or two and then come back.

And they become this extra hurdle for somebody who's already talented, already knows what they're

doing, has a clear vision, probably made three or four films on their own already.

And I had a colleague once who had done five programs, big name programs backed by, you know, big studios here in Los Angeles.

She had done five programs.

She had to start taking them off her resume because she would get into interviews and they'd be like,

why has she done five programs and hasn't directed an episode of television yet?

What's wrong?

And so her agent said, please take those off your resume now.

Like it was starting to hurt her, which is ridiculous.

They don't make white men work this hard.

So I feel really conflicted about all of it.

Honestly, I was lucky enough to do the Ryan Murphy half initiative, which is a program here where they

bring you on.

And I got to shadow a TV director on a show called 911.

Shout out to Joaquin Cedillo because he was the director of that episode.

And he was amazing, lovely.

And I got to go on set for three weeks and shadow the director.

Shadowing is like it sounds.

You get to follow them around and learn, be in the rooms and watch how he works on the set.

Be right at the monitors and sort of watch somebody else's craft and see how they do it at a huge

multimillion dollar level, which was an incredible opportunity.

And it also doesn't necessarily lead to anything.

which is one of the other nuances of these programs is that sometimes they are for show rather than

actually getting people work.

I think what comes up for me more than anything else is all of those things make sense where the thing that is supposed to help you can sometimes hinder you.

That's the trade off of life.

Right.

What intrigues me the most was your ability to see them and continuously navigate through as best as you possibly can.

Mm-hmm.

You saw all of those things and still you persevered and went through.

What was your guiding star for that?

What was your reason to not say, you know what, I'm just going to be back to being an actor?

What was the reason that made you keep driving forward to make more films?

I think in the end, it always came back to that first experience with Brick and Mopsy and realizing that no matter what programs I did, I always got calls from people I had worked with.

The programs were like a resume builder, right?

And then my calls always came from people that I had previously worked with.

And what I realized was that people like the experience of working with me.

And that was my greatest strength.

I had to learn so much when it came to cinematographers.

Cinematography, I worked with two, for most of my films, I worked with two incredible cinematographers, Catherine White and George Sue,

who both educated me so much during the process about lighting and camera movement and lenses and all of the things that I felt like I didn't know.

And so, you know, there's a lot of room to grow as a director.

And I took workshops, I'm working with actors and all of this.

But at the end of the day, I knew my biggest strength was that people enjoyed the experience of working with me and they enjoyed being on a set that I had created.

And that, I mean, we did a film called Made Public.

That was kind of like the biggest film I ever directed that went the furthest.

Also available in the world.

Also available.

Yes.

Vimeo and YouTube, pretty much everything.

That film went to like almost 50 film festivals and won awards.

It was very well received.

It was what led to me getting into the Ryan Murphy program.

It was what led to me getting my agents, my managers.

But what I take away from that film was that we had all these extras.

We had background and we had, it was like a very big crew for an indie film.

And one of the backgrounds said, I've never seen so many women on set before.

The fact that that is a thing to notice.

Wow.

My producer was a woman.

My DP was a woman.

My set designer was a woman.

It was like a beautifully orchestrated symphony.

Yeah.

God, I just appreciated that team so much.

And I just, I think that that is what I kept coming back to when the programs were over.

It's like, I need to make work that I get to have a say in how this is run so that I have

some semblance of control, not control, but ownership over how people experience their day.

Influence.

Yeah.

This is their livelihood.

This is their, they're not doing it for the money.

Let me just say, like no one in film is doing it for the money because it is such a grind.

It's long days.

And we just, we get to work with good people.

If we get to work with good people and walk away and being like, oh, that was an amazing experience.

That is what I care about more than anything.

And I think that's what I come back to with everything in my life, honestly, now.

I like the part that you said about going back to the connection with people.

That was the best job that I've ever done.

That was the best thing.

And then consistently want to keep working with you.

It's not the actual job that you have that makes you whatever.

It's you doing that job.

It's the job iterated through who you are as a person.

Remember that we went to NYU and you showed me your old dorm and that security guard was there?

Oh my gosh.

That man stood at the gate there as a threshold guardian and talked to you.

He was so thrilled that you went there X amount of years ago and he knew every student's name that walked in there.

Oh my God, that's a miracle.

It was amazing.

And it's got nothing.

So it's not about the job.

It's about how the job iterates through you.

And you tapped right into that.

And then from there you get rewarded because word of mouth is the one that serves you and saves you up.

The one that serves you and gives you the next thing and the expansiveness of your career.

Not once as a trainer have I ever paid for advertisement.

Not one time.

When I decided I wanted to be a trainer, I knew that I just wanted to do that to be freed up in my day to do the other things that I wanted to do.

And I had just moved here maybe a year and a half, two years prior.

I was physically fit.

I was working out a lot.

I had been boxing a lot.

I was training with fighters.

Gene LaBelle, world famous Gene LaBelle and Sensei GoCore, they both trained me a lot.

Also another trainer named Dave Gilmore, not the musician from Pink Floyd.

They all trained me and I learned this field and I just wanted to be freed up because I was working a restaurant job.

As much as I enjoy people in the restaurant business, it wasn't my passion.

I was stuck to a schedule from somebody else.

They said, and if they want to cut your hours, they can cut your hours.

So I thought to myself, how can I free myself up here?

And so I started teaching some of my friends boxing.

The stuff that I knew, I'd just relay it back.

And then I'd go home and carve that out little by little.

And then that became an area of challenge because how do I promote this now?

Where do I go?

And I left this restaurant job and I ended up working at another restaurant job in Beverly Hills.

That was a lot.

It was crazy and fun as can be.

The owner, very wild canon woman.

She was sweet as can be, very progressive in her mindset.

But you didn't know what kind of person you were going to get that day.

Not in a nasty way.

She just was always doing her own thing.

But it freed me up a little bit because she gave me a manager position.

And I said, ah, here we go.

And I'm in Beverly Hills.

I can try to find more clients this way.

Because I started training other trainers.

I'm sorry.

I tried to training other fighters.

Boxers have no money.

And I need to survive, right?

I was also in theater school as well.

I needed to find a way to support that and support my drinking and drug habit at the time as well.

At the time.

And so it occurred to me one day that I'm posting all this stuff on Instagram and hashtagging Studio City Park.

Hashtag North Hollywood Park.

Hashtag Hollywood Park.

Hashtag Beeman Park.

And if you click any of those hashtags, it's going to show all the people that have been there.

And I said, well, let me go to each one of those hashtags.

See who hashtagged those parks.

I'll message them directly and say, I see you've been at this park recently.

I teach boxing as physical fitness.

I'd love to give you a first session free.

There you go.

I sat there and did that for maybe three weeks every morning until I messaged so many people.

Instagram stopped me for 24 hours messaging people.

And by the way, I want to side note and say that in my brain, when I think somebody's got to buckle down and do this work, it's like at a table during set of time.

And this, I was laying on the couch while doing that.

I was hyper focused, but I was laying on the couch while doing that.

Because I needed to find a place that allowed me to be the best version of myself to connect.

I gained my first three or four clients from there.

That was in 2016.

I was 26 years old.

That is the last time I've done any advertisement or marketing for myself.

I have existed as a fitness trainer, a boxing trainer for 10 years without marketing myself whatsoever.

And it started off by finding an innovative way to get yourself recognized.

But the real part, to go back to what you had said, it's me.

I'm iterating the job through me.

Your best version.

You have a hand.

I have a hand.

But our thumbprints are different.

Our fingerprints are unique.

So lean into that fingerprint.

Well, let me say, I think you're tapping into something that I have always done in business is know that it is a one-on-one strategy always.

Yes.

A lot of people believe that we should be going to social media and posting reels and hoping to get something to go viral.

That, in my experience, is not how it works.

Things go viral, of course.

What is the...

Who is going to get you to buy the t-shirt from the new company that just popped up, right?

It's because your friend is wearing it and your friend is like, I love this shirt.

Oh, my God.

Right?

It's so soft.

It's got this great message, whatever it is.

Everything is one-on-one.

And you messaged...

How many people do you think you messaged in that time?

It had to be in the 400 or 500 count, maybe closer to 1,000 perhaps.

Mm-hmm.

But one-on-one.

And you got three or four clients out of it.

Yep.

You could have posted a reel that could have gotten 400 or 500 views and not one client.

Yeah.

And not one comment, right?

Like...

Because there's so much separation there.

Yeah.

I did the one-on-one and their one-on-one with somebody else got that second prairie person

to bring me one-on-one with them.

We want in business...

This is not like a podcast about business, but I'm just going to share that like everybody's

got something they've got going on.

They're trying to grow.

Of course.

And we want word of mouth.

That is the ultimate amazing...

Like your project is growing on its own.

I don't have to work for it.

It's just coming to me.

That's what we want.

And word of mouth referrals come one-on-one, right?

So you're going out one-on-one and talking about yourself.

And that is exactly the same concept that I lean into every single time I want to break

a barrier in my life.

What am I...

What way can I do this?

That's my version.

That's me.

Because you're also not going to have any competition if you're just you.

And whatever thing you're doing and however you want to be, not just work as a parent,

as a partner, as a friend, as a jaywalker.

Whatever it is that you want to be.

Cartwheel around that street if you want to.

Just look left and right first.

I found myself just owning it.

Like, first off, we live in an area, so there's a lot of celebrities there.

So some of my clients knew other people who were famous.

And because I trained in an area where people were, I was able to meet really dope people.

You know, for a long time, I trained Guillermo from the Jimmy Kimmel show.

Oh, that's right.

And he is one, a beautiful, amazing person.

And two, hilarious.

And three, it made me realize that the people that I saw in the world who I looked up to,

who were on television doing these things, they were like me.

They were unique in their way, just like I'm unique in my way.

So then I can keep pushing forward.

And he, being as fantastic as he is, still will talk here and there in a text message and check in with each other.

Because again, we're all just humans here.

Yeah.

So it reminded me of the playing field being more even than I thought, especially when I'm being more and more unique.

Not to mention the people that I've met from that field as well.

Our producer, Glenn Milley, is one of my best friends in the whole world.

I met him through another person I was training at the park.

And that person is a friend of his.

And now we are 10 whole years later.

We've iterated our friendship a million times over.

Stay with me on this here.

I trained one person at the Sherman Oaks Park.

And I would just say hi to another trainer next to me and be friendly to him one-on-one.

Right?

That guy's client said, I want to learn boxing.

He goes, I don't know boxing.

But I know a guy who I say hi to at the park.

That's it, by the way.

I just say hi to him.

Here, I'll get his information for you.

She messages me.

I train her, which by the way, still train her today.

She brings me her sister.

Her sister is going through IVF treatment to have a baby.

And their doctor says, you look amazing.

What have you been doing?

She says, my trainer.

That IVF doctor lives in Brentwood.

I train that woman.

Her cousin lives-

You train the IVF doctor.

I train the IVF doctor.

Yeah.

That doctor sends me to her cousin who lives down the street in Brentwood.

That cousin that I trained, neighbor across the street, sees me training with that other woman, brings me on board to them.

I train them in Brentwood.

Her best friend from high school, he lives in the Palisades, asks for a trainer.

I'm training this person now.

I meet her husband, this doctor, this ortho doctor.

In this entire degree of separation has come to find out that every week he works with my lawyer.

One-on-one, one-to-one, word of mouth.

Not one bit of advertisement, just me being me.

Yeah.

And I broke through all of that by recognizing, okay, I can be the best version of myself and let me find something unique to do this.

And it just started off with Instagram hashtags.

Yeah.

And what I will say about that is you are not probably the best trainer in the world.

Like you don't spend all your time trying to figure out the best this, the best that.

You are certified.

You know your shit.

You are excellent.

What people stick around for is you.

Who you are and how you make them feel.

Absolutely.

And that's everything.

That's every job, every career, every connection.

That's everything.

And I don't need to give any advice on this show whatsoever.

But I know that I would keep telling myself and my children, be the person that people want to work with.

Be that person that makes other people feel like they can bring the best versions of themselves forward.

Absolutely.

I did that on set without knowing.

It was a skill of that.

I did that.

Right, right.

And that's what you do as well.

You're not just a good trainer.

You stuck.

People have stuck with you for so long.

You've worked with some people for years and years and years because they enjoy spending time with you and they feel amazing about themselves.

And the physical activity is just a byproduct.

Right.

Yep.

They get a safety that's there in their life.

They tell me all of their stuff and I hear it.

I respect it.

I don't ever judge them for whatever they have going on in their life.

A lot of them have become my great friends because of this as well.

And I learned very early on there will always be a better trainer.

There will always be a better director.

There will always be a better something.

But there won't be you.

Right.

And I just tap into that every single time.

How do I be me in this field?

How do I be me in speaking?

How do I be me in meditation?

So on.

So on.

Yeah.

These people are not only your friends.

I mean, we threw a party the other day.

We needed a bunch of random things.

Oh, right.

We needed a pop-up tent.

We needed chairs that we didn't have.

Tables.

We needed some really weird and unique tools because we were having a jewelry station.

That's right.

First of all, I have to commend you because I didn't know where I was going to find any

of that.

And I certainly didn't want to buy any of those things.

And you're like, no worries.

I got it.

And your network of people, most of whom you've met through, they're all clients of yours.

It was all of them actually.

Yeah.

So every single one, and they all live kind of close by.

Oh yeah, I have a pop-up tent for you.

Oh yeah, I have 10 chairs.

I can not only lend you, but I'll drive them over to your house and drop them off.

And then later when you forgot an extension cord, come back and drop it.

Another extension cord off.

Like over and over again, people just open their hearts and their doors to you.

And it is a testament to who you are.

And I've told multiple people the story because it's so beautiful to be like, this is the community

that Caesar has built for himself in these last years.

And I, by proxy of you, get to the benefit of that as well.

And all of these beautiful human beings.

I think that speaks so many volumes to what, like that can iterate in so many different ways

in your life and your career.

Thanks.

I appreciate that a lot.

I didn't know you were telling people that stuff.

I feel really proud that, that sort of thing.

And yet again, to kind of bring it full circle, I didn't even realize I had been doing all of those,

like networking things until you pointed it out.

You were like, you text me actually.

You said, by the way, thank you for just jumping in on all that sort of networking,

finding the stuff that we needed.

Because I was just like, all right, what next?

This?

Okay.

What next?

This?

That.

And secondly, this is also nothing that is unique to me.

I'm just relentlessly going to be as real as I can, as authentically me as I can.

You know, the only filter I would put through in there is making sure that I am true and kind.

And everything else is the way it is, however it shows up.

Good, bad, you name it.

I don't know.

I just hope today the person listening is taking away what it is that's unique about them.

Yeah.

And just trusting that whatever it is that you want to do in this world,

whatever you need to break through, whether it is something within yourself,

something out in the world, you have it in you.

Lean into exactly who you are and exactly what you do that is unique.

And you just keep being that person and people will take notice.

You got that right.

And it's all from your bliss.

Joseph Campbell says, when you follow your bliss, doors will open where there once were just walls.

Thank you for being here with us today.

Thank you all.

And as usual, please be kind to yourself.

If this episode spoke to you, take a moment and send it to someone else who might need it.

That's the best way to spread these conversations to the people who need them the most.

And if you want to keep exploring with us, make sure to follow Beauty in the Break wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll see you next time.

Beauty in the Break is created and hosted by Foster Wilson and Cesar Cardona.

Our executive producer is Glenn Milley.

Original music by Cesar + the Clew.