If four years of university can increase your effectiveness of what you can do for others in the name of Christ, it is the best investment that you can make. But if the education is simply to get a job to make a lot of money, you have to raise the question of why you're doing it.
My job is making money, helping other people make money. I am spending money, trying to make sure more people get rich, because you cannot spend a lot of money, right? So my job is spending money, helping others. This is a headache.
In my opinion, you have to have a vision for how you add value to others through your product or service. Why do you exist? All of us need a reason to get out of bed in the morning and enthusiastically approach each day. Some people say money is their purpose - - my reaction is that, if money is your purpose, you risk running out steam well before you make a lot of money. Money is an outcome that comes as a result of adding value for a sustained period of time. I encourage people and companies to search for and articulate the vision for why they are doing what they're doing.
Make money. Make more money. Make others produce so as to make money... However you get them in or why, just do it.
Make sure you know your identity is in Christ, so that when you get laid off from your job, or when you get a raise from your job, or when things don't go right, you're not up and down, up and down.
People think that athletes have it great, and we do in a lot of regard, but universities make a hell of a lot of money off of players. You don't get a free education: you work full-time year round for five years for an education you could pay for three times over if you just got your market value.
The only person over whom you have direct and immediate control is yourself. The most important assets to develop, preserve and enhance, therefore, are your own capabilities. And no one can do it for you. You must cultivate the habit of leadership effectiveness for yourself - and doing so will be the single best investment you will ever make.
There's an imperative to make sure you distinguish fiction from the fact, because if the fact is doing the work, why did you do fiction? And once you raise the question of why - why do fiction? - then you have to answer it in your text as a kind of enactment of the answer.
Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don't make compromises. Don't worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work and make the right choices and protect your work. And if you can build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.
The trouble is, the older you get, it's hard to find time to make a film: it's a year to write, a year to get money, a year to make it, a year to edit. It's four years of your life.
A lot of youngsters want to be footballers and a lot dont make it. It is very difficult but if your education is good and you work hard and do everything the best way, then why not?
My first six years in the business were hopeless.
There are a lot of times when you sit and you say "Why am I doing this?
I'll never make it.
It's just not going to happen.
I should go out and get a real job, and try to survive."
The best way to find a balance between doing your best and showing that you're ready for more is by developing other people. As tempting as it is to hoard knowledge, don't. Instead, make certain that there are others who know how to do important aspects of your job.
If you know why someone is doing what they're doing, why they're behaving the way they are, then that's your job to reveal that, and often that's situational. The storytelling does that, and then some of it's your job as an actor to make that subtext come to life.
To me, you get into this business to make money and to make a name for yourself. And the fact that you're on the indies for 15 years is not a badge of honor.
It isn't called TV money for nothing. There was a time where I paid my rent by doing theater for years, and I was able to buy groceries and pay my electric bill. I considered myself to be making a living as an actor. This kind of money that we make is a whole other level, of course. But it really is simply the cherry on top of a job and a role that I adore.
I will tell you, in the case of education, you have to make the investment if youre going to get the return. Theres no doubt about that. Its a proven fact the return is there if you make the investment. It really is about priorities.