Your mom was right when she told you that “please” is a magic word.

I have another magic word for ya – one that no one has probably told you about yet.  One that, more often than not, will lower people’s defenses and produce a positive response to your request.

The magic word is:

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If you do get a meeting with someone after requesting a very specific amount of their time (as we discussed in part one of this post), make sure that you honor the boundaries of your request.

If you asked for 13 minutes, at minute number twelve say something along the lines of: “I requested 13 minutes and it’s been 12 and I want to respect your time so…”

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“Do you have a minute?”

When someone says that to you, you pretty much know you’ll be talking to them for more than a minute. (And if you get out in under ten minutes you count yourself lucky, right?)

“Just five minutes” really means fifteen… and “fifteen” is around a half hour… and, well, you know the drill.

And so does everyone else!

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One of my favorite (paraphrased) quotes is by business consultant Alan Weiss:

“If you can read with comprehension, write with expression, speak with influence, and listen with discernment – the world is yours.”

That quote is the reason I am contributing to this blog.  Because by helping you learn how to use language to lower people’s defenses, I can help you build a career with far less effort and far less frustration than other, equally talented actors may experience.

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There are a lot of weird, inappropriate people in the world.  And a percentage of them become actors.

Those actors, with their flaky, rude, non-professional, and loony behavior, have spoiled it for the rest of us.

At least it can feel that way.

It can feel like a majority of industry folks (after a couple close encounters with those kind) have concluded that it’s safer just to assume all actors are “psycho until proven otherwise.”
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