My Mom's Greatest Advice
I’m writing on my new blog every day for thirty days straight. This is the seventh one.I was by myself in Death Valley. I was running down CA-190. I had just downed a banana. That banana was fighting to come back up. That banana was in revolt, and it was launching a full-on mutiny along with my legs, lungs, and heart. And I was repeating one phrase to myself over and over again:"Body is weak, mind is willing." Ow.“Body is weak, mind is strong.” Ow.“Body weak, mind strong...”
One day, my Mom picked me up from high school. I don’t remember why, but I said to her, “I don’t think I’m very good at remembering people’s names.” She said back to me quickly and firmly,
“Don’t ever say you’re not good at something; you just haven’t put in enough time to get good at it.”
This has been the single most influential piece of advice that I’ve ever received. It has had a profound impact on the way I approach my career and the way I think about myself.That piece of advice taught me that my skills are defined by the time and work I put into them. That’s what drives my acting career. I know that I can get good at something; it will just take time and effort. I believe that in my soul. If I think I’m bad at something, I immediately limit myself from improving; I discourage myself from ever even trying to improve. So when I fail, when someone beats me, and I want to win, now I say to myself, “just give me some time; you won’t stand a chance.” I pair this with my competitive nature. My brother, Scott, was always better than me growing up. He has fourteen years on me, so he could always beat me in basketball, tennis, and Risk. To this day, I’ve never beat him in a game of tennis. I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder. I’ve always been the guy looking up at people better than me. In my acting career, I don’t really have direct competition like in a game of tennis, but when I think about getting better, I visualize that actor next door who’s trying to put in more time than me.My Mom’s advice also taught me not to label myself. For a very long time, I had accepted that I hated running and that I wasn’t good at it. Then in 2012, I was hired for my first job in Los Angeles at a running store. The fact that I got that job was hilarious to me – I hated running. But over the year that I worked there, I learned a lot about running.When I left the store for another job, I was evaluating the lies that I told myself. The one that stood out to me was that I hated running. So I started to run. I built a habit, and one mile turned into two. Two turned into three. And three stayed at three for a while until earlier this year when I decided that I wanted to push my limits. I signed up for the Death Valley Half-Marathon. I picked it solely because of the name and location. I trained for twelve weeks. Three miles turned into thirteen, and I found myself on CA-190.
“Body is weak, mind is willing” – that was my weak translation of the Bible verse, Matthew 26:41, “keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Jesus said this to the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion. I think it’s a beautiful message. Our spirit, our mind can drive us past our physical limits to do amazing things. Sometimes I just have to push past fatigue to do that amazing thing.I defeated the banana's mutiny, and I finished my half-marathon. I beat my goal time by over three minutes.I’ll never finish my acting race because there is no finish line. So I think I’ll have to fight a lot more fatigue than I did in Death Valley, but my Mom’s advice has armed me to fight. I’m never going to accept failure for long. I will fail – but failure’s just feedback, and all is I need is time to get better.So my brother gave me a chip on my shoulder and my Mom gave me some profound advice. Thanks Scott. Thanks Mom. I wouldn’t be the actor I am today without either of you.