Episode 15. Vete Para La Calle: Angelina Barbieri's Vertical Hustle

Angelina Barbieri is a first-generation Latin American actress with a career spanning film, TV, and comedy, including Transporter 2, HBO's Ballers, NCIS: Los Angeles, Anger Management, NBC's The Night Shift, Rosewood, and HBO's How to Make It in America. After an eight-year break from the industry, she returned two years ago and pivoted into vertical drama, booking eight roles since October 2025 across platforms including ReelShort, FlareFlow, Shortical, GammaTime, MicroCo (aTwist), and PocketFM — and winning the Visionary Award for her role in Santos. In this episode, she talks with Pauline about reinvention, the immigrant hustle behind her career, the rise of brand integration in vertical storytelling, and what success looks like now.

Connect with Angelina:
IG Handle : @angelina_barbieri

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome to the Vertical Reach Podcast. This is where storytelling meets strategy. I'm Pauline Gray, and each week I sit down with the creators, innovators, and voices shaping the world of vertical storytellers. Let's tell stories that connect. Good morning, everyone, uh, or good day, wherever you are in the world. It's Pauline Gray again with the Vertical Reach Podcast. As many of you already know, the vertical reach conceptually comes from athletics and it is the height an athlete can reach on his or her vertical jump. But essentially, the vertical reach on a personal spiritual level is when you decide to extend upward past what you believe or others believe to be your limit when staying at the same level or the status quo is no longer comfortable for you. So it's the act of rising higher, whether with your body, your spirit, your work, or your ambition, or your relationships. This podcast is about people who didn't just pivot careers, they changed altitude altogether. This season focuses on filmmakers and creators entering the vertical micro drama space. This is usually part of a larger emotional, spiritual integration or invention of the self. So my goal is to document a real-time transition, not to give this polished hindsight. And today we have in the guest chair amazing actress Angelina Barbieri. She is also spreading her wings into producing, but I always love to hear the actor's perspective in the vertical space as a transition for longer formats. Angelina is a first-generation Latin American actress with a broad background in film, TV, and comedy. She started acting and modeling at 17, which led her to New York City to complete a two-year conservatory program at Esper Studios, training in Meisner. Her acting credits include Transporter 2, HBO's Ballers, NSA Los Angeles, Anger Management, NBC's The Night Shift, Rosewood, and HBO's How to Make It in America. Then she entered the vertical space with roles on platforms such as Real Short, Flareflow, Shorticle, Gama Time, Micro Crow, A Twist, and Pocket FM. This also includes her winning the Visionary Award for Santos, the acting role, in the Real Shorts Verticals contest. And now Angelina is expanding her creative pursuits into producing verticals. She wants to focus on fresh ways to invent visions of beauty, advertising, and branded content for vertical and social first viewing. Her goal is to craft projects that push boundaries and foster new conversations in the industry, in which today will be a great new conversation. She's also a family person. Outside of acting, she enjoys time with family, a strong mindfulness practice, staying active and being part of the deep community that she's a part of. Her credits are on IMDb, obviously, and she's been in eight verticals since October, which was just what six months ago. So Hollywood Starlet, Plaything of the Mafia King on Charticle, Rise of the Cage King on Real Short, The Summer Turn My Sexiest on Gamma Time, Love and Death on Flareflow, Love's a Dangerous Dance on Real Short, Sandpost, Story of Alina, an indie for real short, and The Alpha's Bride for Pocket FM. So pretty impressive, girl. Keeping busy. So that was my literal interpretation of your past, I guess, 18, 24 months. But tell us, take us on the roller coaster. What's gonna strap in and take it away?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Woo! Are you guys ready? What a journey. Oh my gosh. I've been in entertainment over 20 something years, you know. It was it's changed. It's changed so much. It's changed so much from when I was 17 and walking the streets of New York, going to each place, seeing each casting director, reading for each role in person. Everything was print form, even our headshots were print form. I mean, you hear this all the time, but it really has changed from that to digital. And then when things became e-commerce also in modeling, that was a big deal. Photoshop, it was like, what's happening to the model's faces? Like everybody just looked like this, you know? Um, and then just the buyouts for things also have really changed. You know, what you would get for a campaign for print is not in perpetuity how it is now. Everything was basically, for the most part, at least what I worked in, was union. Uh, those residual checks are still bigger than the things that I have done in the last, you know, 10 years. So, really, a lot has changed. Roller coaster is the best way to describe this industry. It's part of being in the circus, but I mean, I'm amongst my people. What if they want it any other way? I really wouldn't, other than the eight years that I took off to have kids and get married. Okay. Oh, wow, amazing.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

Okay, amazing. That's so great. So I'm curious because I didn't realize, quite honestly, coming out of the commercial world, this is all new information, like commercial advertising, producing, onset space, always screenwriting. I didn't realize that print campaigns had residuals too.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

No, not the print campaigns, they had buyouts. But the residual, yeah, the residuals from you know, unless it's a commercial, unless you're in a national commercial, then you're usually you might be getting some stuff. But that doesn't even happen anymore. But more so it was the buyouts. It was the buyouts. So if they were gonna be using something for just packaging, you know, then it would be used for that. If it was, you know, in magazines or whatnot, that would be added to it. If it was gonna be international, there would be more funds added. But now everything is like flat rate perpetuity. I see, I see. Okay, I'm curious about that. Um yeah, it's very interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

So now I'm curious, what was your moment when you realized, or you may be realizing it's still in real time, that your horizontal growth as a performer, as an actress had kind of reached either a plateau or a pinnacle, and you decide to reach higher or differently? Was it that you're offered a vertical role and you said, What's that? Or did you did you sort of start kind of feeling out being like what was your moment?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

What was your pivot? Yeah, great question. And I love that you use like athletics and the reach and spirituality and all that, because I truly do believe we pivot or perish. Love that. One in a wonderful woman in social media marketing said that once, and that stuck with me. That was like about two years ago. And I totally believe that. My one thing that I also was taught growing up is that you can reinvent yourself a thousand times over. I saw my mother do it, I've seen my family do it. Part of being immigrant as well, like, you know, in my roots, right? So, with that said, I re-entered the industry after leaving. I had an eight-year break. I took an eight-year break from 2016, no end of 2016, all the way till two years ago. Well, okay. So, two years ago, I got back in the industry. And I got reps, I got everything, all the stars aligned, and I was gonna just do what I always did, right? I was sending out my stuff. I'm gonna get into the rooms because I used to get into all the rooms we used to with my credits, and we're just gonna go back and roll. I knew that it was gonna probably take some time because I hadn't seen, you know, people in those rooms in a while, and it wasn't happening. Did you discover there is no room or what happened? Well, that's that's part of it too, because I I left pre-pandemic. So there was no room. We were starting to do some self-tapes. If we couldn't get appointments in the room before I left, you know, left, had my hiatus. But when I came back, everything was self-taped, and I couldn't even get self-tape auditions. And I had reps submitting me and pitching me, and nothing was moving. So with that, I got, you know, an actor's access account, right? Breakdown services for us, where we can see some of the breakdowns. And I saw tons of vertical auditions. I mean, that was now we were hitting at 2024, beginning of 2025, and there were so many. And I asked my agent about it or my manager, and they were like, no. So, you know, yeah, you know, we all have heard the story, right? It's the fear of the unknown. I totally get it. Also, we were coming from a standard of union work, right? So it didn't make sense, and it was coming from a different culture. So, yes, we all know the story because we've all heard, you know, the basis of where vertical started from. So, no need to talk about that really. But I went back to it and I saw there's something here, there's nothing else going on. I'm doing everything I can. I've redone my headshots twice. I'm in classes, I know I'm good at what I do, I'm well trained and have credits. So let me tap into this a little bit more. And I did, and I I booked one. So I'm submitting stuff and I got my first one of the Alpha King. And I was like, Okay, this is great. So I went on set, it was an easy one line, and I was in and out of there in like three hours. I was like, what are people complaining about? This is amazing. You know, they like paid me cash. I think I was like, this is great, you know. Every part of yeah, I was like, sign me up. And then I was able to start auditioning and seeing what were the bigger roles. Now it was a little tricky at first because of my age range, right? Because there's the 19 to 25 that are playing 30, and then there's the 30s and 40s that are playing 50, right? So it was kind of tricky to start at first, and also the writing was a little bit different. By the time we started getting into end of 2025, beginning of this, and then to the beginning of 2026, then there started to become roles that women are not take a SMBS, the paramedic, the CEO, the funny best friend. And I am so unbelievably grateful that those are the roles I've been booking. Amazing, amazing. And I'm like, that's what I've wanted to do coming back into the business. So tell me about your first time on the set and what your experience was as you started booking more roles. Yeah, so the first time on the set, my first time on the set actually went really well. I had a good time, it was three hours of work. They paid me right there, and I was like, I don't know what everyone's complaining about. It is different formula and format of writing. And I've always learned as well to not judge something. It's really easy for us two as human beings to be like, well, that's not how I would do it. It's like, well, maybe how you do it is not how somebody else would do it. And what's really great for somebody else? Yeah, someone might like peanut butter, the other person doesn't. Then they try peanut butter like this is disgusting. The other person they could take it on an island and eat it for five years, you know, forever. So it's not science. That's the difference, you know? Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Exactly. So really just trying to keep an open mind. However, by you know, getting in touch with other creatives and the vertical hub and you know, different communities, I saw how much potential there was in this space, and that everything is always constantly changing. And as creatives, we have so much opportunity to make something that's in its baby phase grow and change and become, I mean, who knows? And so I went with that. That's what I chose. And then I think energy that you feed is also what grows. And then the roles that I started to get were, you know, the empowered CEO, the director, the paramedic that doesn't take any BS, the best friend that's like, you go tell that man what's up, but like, let's drink some wine, like fun, you know? Stuff that I would want to play on TV. So there you go. Right? I find it very interesting how that happens, you know, especially for actors, like the roles that we end up playing and then where we are in our lives. I feel there's always a little bit of like a mirror effect. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. If you're in a good spot.

SPEAKER_03 12:09

You know? Where we are, that's your method, you know? But let me ask you this. I'm curious. I'm I have immigrant roots too. I'm a first generation. Well, and where are you from? South America. Where's your family from? Oh my god, Central America. Honduras, where are you from? Guatemala. And you?

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Panama? Oh my god, Guyana. Where?

SPEAKER_03 12:31

Guyana in South America, Guyana. So so I mean, I want to go to Panama so badly. Like it's not off track, guys. But that is where I want. I mean, I hear so much. I mean, Boca.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Oh, I got married there.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

My husband and I got married there.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

So, yeah, I mean, it's it's listed as one of the top ten places for Americans to relocate. Straight fled from Miami. Anyway, let's okay. It's not a tourist show. But anyway, so let me ask you this though. Yeah, dale. As an immigrant, a first generation, I'm really curious about this integration that I think we are so adept at as immigrants, first generation that not so much make do culture, but make it happen culture. You know, the rubbing sticks together culture. And I don't know if you remember in Living Color. Yes, okay. But I always laugh because in Living Color, there is this family called this, there's this kid called Amon, and it was this Jamaican family that had 14 jobs, you know, and it was like, I'm a cook, I wash the clothes, I I I ironed the clothes, I tried white cleaner, I won the restaurant, I that's what's like, you know? And so I don't know about you, but for me, the idea on a very core, almost genetical level of just having one job or one skill never crossed my mind. Same, you know, it's like you're always entrepreneurially trying to figure out like how can I take these two mangoes and turn them into five coconuts?

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Yes. And if not, you have a coconut mango shake, you know, and then you're like great, you know, like that's all about that.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

Yes. Make a sort of smoothies at the beach.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's as easy as your cousin America sends you a blender.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Yeah, I see it. That, yes. And I believe that we have also the uh work ethic of like following the breadcrumbs and then working with community because I mean I grew up in Miami. How it works is you have one family member come in from the country, and then little by little the other family member comes in, and the other family member comes in. And it's just and it takes the community to be able, can you imagine trying to wait for your brother and sisters for like 10 years for your whole family to make it to the other side, you know? I I was the child. So we're very flexible because we're not just, you know, it it's I'm very proud of that. I'm very grateful for that.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

We are the original chain migrators. I mean, I don't know about Panamanian culture, but definitely in West Indian culture, my parents came to America and they left me and my sibling in South America. Yeah, they you're the the exact example of it, yep. With the grandparents, yep, and the grandparents took care of us in a very national, organic way until our parents could send for us. Yep, exactly. You know? And let me ask you this. I mean, we're taking out track. That's yeah, it's literally it's exactly my cousins. Yeah. Like in Paradise, do you guys have the tanda? Mm-hmm. You know, so the tanda, we call it a susu. Mm-hmm. You know, which I think is might be uh maybe even a Swahili word, actually.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Um, where for those of you don't know, yeah, right now you're gonna whole culture episode here.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

I was raised in the States and I was raised in Miami. So I have like Panamanian culture, Costa Rican from my stepfather, Colombian from my stepmom, my dad's Perubian, so certain specific things I don't know. That's also the other part about being first generation. It's like a melting pot of all these different cultures, you know. Yeah, you are Latina. I am Latina Latina, and that's the funny thing too, not looking like it necessarily, but being very passionate about educating that Latinas are even blonde haired and blue eyes. Yeah, you're like a weird you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

But real quick, because I started to open up the Yeah, yeah, absolutely, please. So Susu or Tanda is when a group of women, always always women, met men can't be involved, they'll fuck it up. Yeah, you know, yeah, you know, female immigrants, especially at that time, women can even have bank accounts. You know, for a long time we can have bank accounts. So you would have your girlfriends, like five or six of you, would each put in a set amount every week. Like $100, say. And if six, let's say if six of you put in a hundred dollars every week, one person would have six hundred dollars once, once every six weeks. And so with that, you could then buy the refrigerator, buy the thing that you couldn't get credit for, or you couldn't get a bank account for, aside from gender or your situation, you know. So it was a collective informal arrangement amongst the women that was like a sub-economy that transformed lives, and it still does. Women and we're back.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

No, and we're back, but it does come full circle because it is part of what we're doing now in our own way, you know, and and a big thing in this whole industry right now is rates, right? And that's also why I really aspire to bring in advertising and branding and start bringing in more narrative because that's how the rates are gonna change. So when my babysitter is asking for $30 an hour, you know, I can even now if I'm not making a sufficient amount, like necessarily because I have to travel and all these things, and I still want to pay her what she needs and is asking for because that's how things are gonna change. So one thing that happens also is an immigrant family being raised up, you know, is the money's out in the streets. That's what my mom always in my family have always said. Get it, go get it. Get it. You know, you sitting whining and complaining about why it's not here in your roommate, shit gonna change. If you want to see a change, then get out there. Bate para la calle, see what's going on. And if something doesn't work, come back, regroup, keep reaching out, talk about it, and try again. Like that's like the mentality. You know what I mean? And it's not that I'm complaining as I have to pay more for my babysitter. No, she's the aspiring generation, she's the one that's paying for gas and going to college, you know. I have my stability in other ways here at home, but let me keep working hard on my end so that I can eventually get the right funding for these projects, so then my daughter can be on set with me possibly, and I have child care, provided. Exactly. Money's out in the streets, it's there. We know it because we see it in tech, we see the trillions and the billions and all these numbers. It's not that it's not there, it's that it's just not being distributed necessarily in the certain places, and a lot of things are out of our control and my control. But hey, I can try. Women do you I have people I aspire to, like, why not? And if not, maybe I'll be that person. Someone's gotta be.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

I mean, I love it. Vete parlakaye. I love it. Go, go, go out to the street. That's a new motto. Bete barlakaye. So, and it's I love that. Like, I'm Buddhist. Oh my god, yes. Japanese practitioners. In Buddhism, our second president of of a Buddhist organization, he said there's always money in the universe. It's always flowing around you. There's tons of money everywhere. You need to use your good fortune that you accumulate through your faith in your Buddhist practice to be able to funnel to funnel it to you, you know? And I totally believe that and I love your insight on this, but I was speaking recently to a young woman who is 24, 25. And she lived in London and she was in a position to maybe have to go back home, return to her to her native country. And I was crushing her against that for a host of reasons. But was because I felt that she might get quote unquote stuck there. And the other thing was that she might lose her English is her second language. And I was said to her, look, I said, girl, what you don't realize to the point about money being everywhere. I said, There has never been a time in human history when a single woman of any ethnicity, class, or race can become a billionaire with just her phone. That's freaking powerful, Aline.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

I said, you know, even like my mother's generation, you know, nurse. Yeah, it was you know, I said, you know, literally, I said, this is the first time you will ever be a time when a female nothing it's men, nothing it's not, but no, it's just it's different. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. As a female, the only man's input you need to get rich is Steve Jobs. His inventions are all a woman needs to get away in this business in life. And I said, So don't go home yet.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Yeah. You know? We do have a lot of opportunity out here too, you know, we really do.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

I mean, I am very aware of dialogue. I've aware of dialogue and

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Oh my god. The mom was like, I need to make a call. You can't make a call. I'm online.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

I remember very clearly. I mean, I'm a little older, but I remember first it was call waiting. Yeah, I had call waiting too. Then it was anti-machines.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

With the with with the tape. Mm-hmm. Roll it back. Mm-hmm. Gotta roll that.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Anyway, we digress. So tell me, let's talk about brand integration and how that may be the next one. I really think it's the next thing. I do a lot of research. So one thing when I started in the vertical space, knowledge is power, right? Again, I'm not reinventing the wheel here. I mean, you know, there's so much out there. So you research, you get to know and and get into community. And what I love about the vertical space is it's still so small. We really are a very small community. And a lot of it I did in in the beginning with my phone, just reaching out to people because I live three hours from LA. So coming from speaking about brand integration, it was something that was just starting out at the end of last year of 2025. We had Crocs come out with this episode. We had the Golden Pear Affair, which was Procter and Gamble native body wash products. And we had Maybelline. Maybelline, yeah, Christmas. On real short. And everyone's like trying to figure it out. So I've really been following this. And if we look back at even when soap operas started, they were selling soap while they were selling the stories. I mean, you guys, like it's it's in history. Yeah, it's right there. But the only thing is, is even we were watching Back to the Future the other day, everything wasn't at it's like JC Penny's right behind them. You know, like every like you know, Coca-Cola. Like it's just our audience. Our audience has gotten a lot smarter, right? And people get it. So they people still like to consume whatever people's opinions are of that too, and capitalism and all that. I'm like, but I don't got time for that again. You know what I mean? Like, whatever, it's your choice. Like, I'm in entertainment. I want to entertain you. Whether you decide to buy the lipstick or not, that isn't on me. Sometimes I'm like, I love being around entertainment. The truth is, if you can sell the lipstick while you sell the story, that's gonna be really good for whoever's investing in your story, right? And so that's why I really truly believe it's where it's going. So I'm just trying to keep the conversation open. I'm starting to create pitch decks myself and see how I can start reaching out to brands. No, I do not have the data or the statistics. I'm not head of marketing, that's not where I was educated in. But girl, I could sell some ice to someone where it's melting. Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Like, you know.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

So so let's let me ask you this. The capitalism part, you know, my motto, and I actually have a deep background in capitalism in the sense that perfect. See, we're meant to talk today. Yeah. I I I was a poly science major at Occidental. I'm a Marshall scholar. I do a master's degree from Lun School Economics, so it came more capitalist than that, you know, in Anshaw's economy. And one thing I've learned, which trust me, you don't gotta go to college, you don't gotta go to lunch school economics, you don't gotta be a martial scholar.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Because that did it.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Yeah, yeah. Take it from me. There's one law of economics that'll carry you forever, and it is that capitalism always wins. It is never lost, ever. In all of human history, capitalism has always won, but always will win. So there we go. There's your master's degree, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yeah. And we don't need to judge it. You know, again, if we go back to those Buddhist practices, you know, because I, you know, am Reiki practitioner, Reiki master in Japanese Buddhism, you know, and esoteric Buddhism, it's about non-duality. It's about non-judgment. It is what it is. The more that we hold on to something and we're angry and mad about it, like it doesn't matter if you it doesn't matter. Like you're angry and you're mad about it. What matters is are you happy and joyful and carefree? That really is, I think, the most important part of anything that we do.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

Yeah. And the thing with I find is that as a capitalist Buddhist, the thing is, you know, there's this sort of this world where people think that neither just Buddhism or life's about not having desires or something. But the fact of the matter is, not wanting to have desires is a desire.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah, exactly. Are are we controlling? Yeah, exactly. It's a new form of, you know, holding, yeah, holding on. Like I will not desire, you know, it it's another three. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:43

And the other thing, too, we're totally going off the political thing, but I love talking to you. The other thing is anger as a Buddhist is that anger does two things. Anger, first of all, it first indicates a couple things, and it does a couple things. Anger at the very core, you know, means you fundamentally believe there is something you should have, but you don't. And it can be a car, a respect, a spouse, whatever it is. It's an emotion built in lack. And the other thing too with with anger is that anger fundamentally lacks, I mean, this sense of like empowerment. And also it's like, I mean, anger like blocks relationships and it blocks everything.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Flow, everything, creativity, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

I mean, with relationships and money, you know, I mean, I've I I was told it's a long time ago, but it was like anger blocks relationships and money because how do you get money? It only comes in a relationship. Someone always has to give it to you. If there's a penny on the street, someone else left it there. Yeah, you know, so took me back to brands again. So with me, I come from advertising background and I've seen to your earlier point the evolution of, you know, the residuals. And I've lived through all the strikes of all the unions all the time for the past, since probably since 1998 was the first strike I lived through. And uh and I really do believe now that the brand integration is probably the ultimate solution. I personally have written a script for Laftanza narrative.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

Really?

SPEAKER_03 28:16

Yeah. Stuff for I've done stuff for United Nations. And on the Proctor and Gamble side, Proctor and Gamble is actually, I've discovered working with them a lot more innovative than people really give them credit for. Right. I mean, on so many levels. I mean, aside from the fact that they first embraced the vertical space so deeply, you know. Yeah. And on my work with them, they were the first people that my first brand to acknowledge, for example, there was a year, I think two Olympics ago, where there are all these African American black women who are the Winter Olympics for the first time. And it was amazing because it was such a cultural transformation because winter sports are very class exclusive. You know, regardless of your race, you might not be able to just buy some skis.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Right. I was thinking that just how how pricey it is to be able to even do those sports. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 29:16

Yeah. So it was really about we were really attracting the stories of how these different black women, you know, ended up in winter sports. Yeah. One amazing woman, I forget her name, but she won the gold, I think maybe several times for speed skating. And what happened was she was doing roller derby.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 29:38

In her native city. And she was super fast. She's like, What? And the next thing you know, she went to the Golden Olympics.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah. She pivoted. She pivoted and she kept an open mind. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

Yeah. So So yeah, so tell me more about uh how you how would you define success differently now as an immigrant in the vertical space, integrating brands, being a having jerking being a ma, being a ma, living outside of LA, so lies kind of the day-to-day mayhem and chaos. Give me a kind of a broad strokes on your your current lens for success in your life.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

The current lens to success is non-attachment. Yeah. That the more I grasp, the more I'm get try to keep my hands and everything too much and control it. That's when, you know, success is when I feel peace and light and joy, you know. There's this thing of this old belief of like if you're in success, really high success, you're also suffering. There are stresses, yes, but we can be successful and still have a good time. And with that just comes balance. And I think that it's the mindfulness practice. When I have that, because before I was super successful when I was younger, but I was freaking miserable. I wasn't healthy. I didn't take care of myself. My relationships were shit, you know. So what's which one's success? Success is different to me now. I don't want the same thing that I had before, you know. But I really truly believe that now, with you know, all the tools that I've learned with time and, you know, and growth and healing, that I can have both. I can have, you know, happiness and success. Or combined.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

Or combined. You know, I always say, like, if people think success is hard, try failure, you know. So I'm curious. Um, this is where I call to give our audience listeners an Angelina Barbieri autograph permission slip. Okay. And that means that I fundamentally believe that most people want more or something else or something different. It can be incremental or it can be major, but very few people are just chill. And I think most of us, myself included, at various parts of my life, have told ourselves that we don't want to step out of our quote unquote comfort zone. What I discovered is that I we don't actually have a comfort zone. Instead, we exist within the zones of comfort of other people who we're allowed to be. And we may spend a lot of time wondering what whether neighbor, spouse, family, mom, granddad may think if we dot dot dot. And of late, in the past three years, I've said, Pauline, no one is looking at you because they're looking at their phone. Let it go. But so, Angelina, can you, those people who are kind of itchy in their skin, but want a permission slip.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Give them given the permission slip. Oh my goodness. The permission slip is that you don't need any permission. Everything that you want to be, you already are. It is, we are the sun. The only thing is that the clouds come through and it makes us think that we're not. And that's when we start to get in worry and fear and anger, because that person and this person, and what if I do this? And we're all up here. But our true nature, our Buddha nature, is that just as we are today is enough. And when we feel that, even if it's for little moments, because we all have it, and you and a lot of times it's when it's something that we really love too. You know, whether it's creative or this, but you know, there's like it comes with conflict at times for whatever reason. But just keep going back to that. You already are. Permission is already there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:36

Well, let me ask you this, my friend. Circling back in the vertical theme, what is your next swipe up?

SPEAKER_00 33:43

My next swipe up is keep moving forward and being a strong voice. I have a project that I just booked that I am very, very excited about. And I am just here to color it with, you know, my personality and my vision of what I want to see in the space. And, you know, keep baby stepping, just little steps, like a little bit, you know. I'm not waiting for some big cause like Steven Spielberg's ready for it.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Just mistake.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

It's just day by day, little by little.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

But hey, remember us, Steven. Well ahead, just look at it. You want to know.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

If you heard your first. All right, thank you so much. Um Angelina, amazing. This is such a great, great hour to spend with you. Amazing. And to my amazing listeners, I want you to remember as always, if you're building something new or becoming something new, this is the Vertical Reach. And please keep swiping up. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Vertical Reach Podcast. If you enjoyed the conversation, make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If it sparked something for you, please share a call storytelling. Until next time, let's talk stories.