Pete [00:00:09]:

Welcome back to not a straight line with me, Pete Daly-Dickson. This is the show that explores the non linear journeys of artists and entrepreneurs to inspire you as you zigzag through your own non straight line life. And this week, I had the chance to sit down with my very dear friend, Samantha Bennett. Sam absolutely embodies the artist entrepreneur life with her zigs and her zags, taking her from Chicago to LA to Connecticut and back again, all while pursuing her life's dreams. She's had health challenges. She's also had amazing opportunities that have sent her life in different directions again and again, all of which we'll discover in our conversation. Sam is an amazing humanity with an incredible capacity to both care deeply for you and give you the kick in the pants that you need to get moving. I truly relish every single chance that I get to spend time with her, and I'm sure that you will as well.

Pete [00:01:16]:

It was funny, before we went away, I had a podcast conversation to record. Got about ten minutes into it, and I suddenly said, oh, by the way, welcome to the podcast, because we just got. We just went straight into it, so let's not make that mistake again. Sam Bennett, my dear friend, welcome to not a straight line.

Sam [00:01:34]:

Thank you so much for having me.

Pete [00:01:36]:

I'm looking forward. I know a little bit about your story. You were a guest on a previous podcast that I did several years ago when we were partners with Infusionsoft. So I know a little bit about your story, but I'm really looking forward to spending some time with you, going back in time and walking with you on some of the zigs and zags that have made up your life. So thanks for being open and sharing with us over the next hour or so.

Sam [00:02:03]:

No, my pleasure, my privilege. I'm delighted. And anything I can do, honestly, to help deconstruct this notion that success is a straight line, or that life is a ladder, or that the journey is one step in front of the other, because that's not true. Time bends and loops and braids and success and failure happen entirely in the same moment. And it's just not what anybody. It's not what Hollywood like it is.

Pete [00:02:29]:

I know. Exactly. Yeah, fuck Hollywood. So I am curious. When I first, because we fell out of touch for a while for personal circumstances on both our parts, so we reconnected a month or so ago, and I told you this idea that, how about the podcast? Not a straight line. What did you immediately think about it? What was your response to it?

Sam [00:02:50]:

Yeah, exactly that. I mean, one of my favorite pieces of writing I ever did. It starts with exactly that. That the world loves this idea that somehow we're in a constant state of improvement, or that you set a goal and you go from here to there, and if somehow you don't go from here to there, or the world has different plans for you, that somehow there's some failure in that. And I would really love to disabuse people of that notion and kind of on both sides, because it's like, it's not like you can't do and have the things you want to do and have, you know, people tell me all the time, like, oh, I wish I could write a book. I'm like, you can grab a pen. Really? You're probably writing all the time in your mind anyway. Might as well just start writing it down.

Sam [00:03:32]:

Or that, you know, anybody's story, yours, mine, or anybody's, looks great in retrospect, looks like, oh, of course, of course they succeeded at this, or of course that went well, or of course they made a million dollars doing this, or of course, that, you know, was a big hit. There's no of course about it while it's happening. And there's plenty of other things that we're leaving out of the story that were terrible belly flops. We're like, okay, moving on, you know? So, yeah, so I like taking apart all of those things.

Pete [00:04:00]:

So let's dive in at the deep end, if you like. When you think back on your life in retrospect, there was maybe quite a lot of pressure on you. The stakes felt particularly high, and the result of it was, I guess, a change of direction of some sorts.

Sam [00:04:19]:

I mean, where my mind goes is actually a time when everyone else felt like the stakes were really high. I felt like they were really low when I decided to drop out of Northwestern University because I felt like it was getting in the way of my acting career. I wasn't getting a chance to do the acting I wanted to do at school. I wasn't really a good fit at Northwestern as a student. I didn't love it there.

Pete [00:04:39]:

What were you studying?

Sam [00:04:40]:

Theater. Time to do a double major in theater and education, which they would not let me do. They didn't offer that. And I was like, well, why not? Yeah. So I just decided that it wasn't worth the time or the money. Like, nobody cares if actors have college degrees. And I was fortunate that I went to a really fantastic high school. So I sort of got a lot of what a person normally gets out of college.

Sam [00:05:02]:

I think I had already gotten from this really fantastic high school. So, yeah, then my mom still talked about how I sat her down. I was like, I'm leaving, by the way. I'm not enrolled. We're done.

Pete [00:05:12]:

So just going back a little bit further. Then this love of theater and acting, where did that come from?

Sam [00:05:19]:

I was born with it. I showed up this way. Somebody asked me once, the first play I remember doing, and I said, I remember doing a production of stone soup, that folktale, this russian folktale of stone soup. And I said, I remember doing that in kindergarten. My mother was there. And my mother said, yeah, sam, she goes, you actually produced it. She said, you made them do it. You brought in the script, and you brought in the costumes, and you made them do it.

Sam [00:05:43]:

Now, I was four, four and a half maybe. Like, how did I even know what a play was? But to me, it was a very natural progression. I learned to read very early. I always loved reading. I still love reading. It's still my number one favorite activity. Okay, second favorite activity, but reading, to me, I think it was a short step from like, oh, I love reading this story, too. I must share this story.

Sam [00:06:04]:

We need to act out this story. We need to be in the story together. So, yeah, I always loved acting was always the only thing I ever wanted to do. I went to theater camp. I put on shows in the living room. Like, I was totally that kid. And like I said, I was very fortunate to go to a school, a high school that has a really great arts department and great theater department. So that was always, that was always my plan.

Sam [00:06:23]:

I never had a plan b.

Pete [00:06:24]:

So when you left Northwestern, what happened? Where did you go?

Sam [00:06:27]:

Well, I had gotten a job at the box office at the second city theater in Chicago, which I thought was, which was next door to fame, which it kind of was. I mean, the comedy scene in the US, particularly in Chicago in the late eighties, was epic, and it meant that I was, and I got to take free classes there. And it was a whole social life because it's a comedy theater. So it meant that I was hanging.

Pete [00:06:51]:

Out with just to kind of cast you slightly. The audience of this podcast are entrepreneurs and artists. I speak to both, so any artist or actor in particular listening will almost certainly know what Second City Chicago is. But for the sake of the listener who doesn't know second city, can you kind of just give a bit of context for that?

Sam [00:07:10]:

Yeah. Second City is a legendary improvisational comedy theater in Chicago. Also, they had locations in Canada and in LA for a while. It's sort of the, all the second city, all the Saturday live cast members came from there. Not all, but a great deal of them. John and Jim Belushi, Gilda Radner, even going back to Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Severn Darden, like, some incredible voices in american comedy. And up until the time that I was there, there's a picture of me in my first wedding, and you can tell it's me because I'm in the one in the big white dress, and, and it's all our work friends. So it's Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris and Jim Belushi and, like, all these people who are Nia Virtallis and Ian Gomez and people who are now, like, legends, you know, Adam McKay, Rachel Dratch, like, but we were all just kids together, you know, doing comedy shows.

Sam [00:08:03]:

So.

Pete [00:08:04]:

So you got a job at the box office there.

Sam [00:08:05]:

So I got a job at the box office, and I ended up having almost every job in the theater, including executive assistant, executive producers, which was really a great training ground in terms of learning how the sausage gets made. And I finally demoted myself down to actor. I would audition for the company every year, and every year they would not take me. And I worked there for almost ten years. And finally, the last year I worked there, you got to remember, I was 20 when I started. No, I wasn't. I was 18 when I started working there. And finally, I think when I was 26, they finally hired me as an actor, and then we moved to LA.

Sam [00:08:39]:

But as a consequence, I'm friends with a lot of really, really famous comedy people, which is great.

Pete [00:08:45]:

Well, what I found interesting is that you left. You were presumably acting at Northwestern University on your course, whether you was it was it.

Sam [00:08:53]:

I mean, it was a very clicky environment at Northwestern, and they, from my perspective, anyway, cultivated a very particular kind of actor, and they weren't that interested in me as a performer. And I didn't love the acting classes that I was in. I didn't love the teachers I had. Yeah. I was interested in something a little more vivid.

Pete [00:09:19]:

So what I heard you saying then is you left northwestern because you weren't performing in the way you wanted to perform, but then you went to Second City and you still weren't performing. So how was that? What was the difference there?

Sam [00:09:30]:

So then when I wasn't trying to go to school full time, I could audition for. So I was doing plays in other theaters around Chicago and taking classes with all kinds of different people. And I was taking classes, like I said, at the second city. And at almost all the levels, certainly as we moved our way up, we would perform as part of the training. And even that, like, in my level five class, that was the highest level, was level five. And you got to do a level five show on Monday nights in the little theater. It was great. And for whatever reason, the way the timing worked out, our level five show ended up running for, like, an inordinately long time, I think.

Sam [00:10:05]:

I can't remember what happened that we got to perform for so long. But the people in that class, I mean, Peter Murrietta, who is a huge showrunner now, he's created a bunch of sitcoms, was in that, I mean, Scott Adset, who was the voice of big hero six and was on 30 rock, and, I mean, like, even in my little class, there was a lot of people who turned down to be really heavy hitters. So it was delightful and hard. And then you're just living the theater all the time. Like, we're in the theater, working at the theater during the day, we're at the shows at night. We're at the bar after the shows. I mean, it was a really all consuming graduate school.

Pete [00:10:38]:

What I hear is that it was what you were looking for. That was what Northwestern wasn't giving you.

Sam [00:10:42]:

Yeah. Yeah. I felt more like I belonged anyway, if nothing else was a lot more fun. And I really loved that concept of something wonderful right away. You know, I loved improvisation as a. As a tool, as a concept, and as a performer. It was just incredibly, it's the greatest high wire act there is.

Pete [00:11:01]:

So let's speak about that for a little bit, because one of the things that I want to do in this podcast is encourage artists to be more entrepreneurial and encourage entrepreneurs to learn and lean into stuff that artists and actors take for granted. So what is, and I know that you have a. We're going to bounce around, but what you're doing now isn't what you've just been talking about in terms of acting and performing. But what did you learn about improv and about that kind of performing at Second City that an entrepreneur listening could actually benefit from and take away?

Sam [00:11:42]:

Yeah, I think really, almost all the life skills a person needs are embedded in the craft of improvisation. So if you are looking to zhuzh up your life, if you want to try something in the performing arts, you never have before. An improv class is an amazing place to start because it's really fun. The people who do it are really nice. It's usually not a very competitive environment at all. It's usually a very supportive environment, and people who are drawn to improvisation tend to be very team minded, very, you know, one of the first rules of improvisation is make your partner look good. Like, that's the idea. It's one of the foundational concepts.

Sam [00:12:16]:

I will also say, just as a PS to anybody out there, if anybody out there has children who look like they're threatening a career in the arts, please don't worry. Don't panic. Everything will be fine. Because first of all, again, the things that people learn, especially studying theater and performing arts, because that's my background. But even, I think in the visual arts, the things you learn stand you in such good stead as you move forward in your life. If nothing else, just the ability to stand up in front of people and speak, which most people are terrified to do. So to develop that skill alone is worthwhile. But then and again, I'll just stick with acting because that's mostly what I did.

Sam [00:12:51]:

But everything you learn about language and how to use it, about body language and how to use it, about emotions and how to portray them, about understanding other people, about breathing, about voice, about movement, about energy, about, you know, what in corporate, they call teamwork, and in the theater, we call ensemble. And perhaps the most legendary lesson of all, you know, the show not only must go on, but it is going on. And if we're opening Friday, we are opening on Friday, and it doesn't matter that that guy still doesn't know his lines, and that prop never worked, and we don't know where the matter shows opening on Friday. And that kind of vision and drive and dedication to purpose has served me really well as an entrepreneur. It's like, well, it doesn't matter because I don't know what I'm doing. It doesn't matter that I don't have anybody enrolled. It doesn't matter that I don't know if I'm going to hit my quota or not. This is what's going on.

Sam [00:13:39]:

So this is what we're going to do.

Pete [00:13:40]:

Yeah. And the idea about the deadline of the show opening on this particular day, irrespective of what shape it's in, like, you can't change it. There are going to be people who've paid money to sit on those seats, and you're going to have to find a fucking way to make it real. Yeah. I hadn't actually translated that as a lesson from the performing arts into the world of entrepreneurship, but it actually makes sense. And it doesn't have to be perfect either.

Sam [00:14:07]:

Oh, it's never going to be perfect. Absolutely not going to be perfect. 100% it's not going to be perfect. But to understand that there is such a thing as positive time pressure and positive peer pressure and this thing, like, okay, we're opening on Friday. I don't. I've done plenty of shows that I did not believe in the show, or I was like, and particularly after tech week, especially like the week before opening.

Pete [00:14:27]:

You'Re like, this is gonna bomb.

Sam [00:14:29]:

This is never gonna work. Nothing about this is ever gonna work. And yet, you know, you realize that, yeah. You don't have to have confidence in order to succeed. You don't have to believe in it. You don't have to. You just have to show up and do it. Show up, do the work.

Sam [00:14:45]:

Show up, do the work. Show up. Do the work to the very best of your ability. And don't blame other people.

Pete [00:14:51]:

Yeah. Take full responsibility. I couldn't help but smile when you were talking there, because I distinctly remember thinking and feeling when I left drama school, after I left drama school 30 years ago. That doesn't really matter whether you. I remember thinking, it doesn't matter whether you want to be an actor or not. I think everybody could benefit from spending a year at drama school just because of what you, you learned about yourself and other people. You mentioned there about emotional intelligence and movement and bodily awareness and. Yeah, interesting that you felt the same.

Sam [00:15:19]:

Absolutely. History, poetry, I mean, it all comes into play. I have a friend that I knew as a director. He was a director in Los Angeles, and he went on to go take what we might call a real job at Apple. And he said every time he's interviewing a new applicant, he can always tell who's got theater experience and who doesn't. And he feels like it should absolutely be mandatory. Like two years in the Peace Corps, like two years in the theater. Everybody has to spend two years in the theater.

Pete [00:15:44]:

I don't know what it's like in America, Sam, but certainly in the UK, there's increasingly defunding of the arts and arts programs. Firstly, why is it you think that is? And secondly, what do you think we can do about it, particularly in light of what we've just shared there, about the power that the arts have and the relevance that the arts have in arenas that are not artistic, in inverted commas.

Sam [00:16:14]:

And I will say, from my own experience and the experience of thousands of others, theater teachers save lives, music teachers save lives in the same way that athletic coaches save lives and band leaders save lives. You get a kid who's trying to grow up, which is no small thing. You know, everybody feels a little weird. Everybody doesn't fit in somewhere. Everybody's insecure. And to have a place where that's the whole idea. The idea of performing is not to get everything perfect. The idea of performing is to perform.

Sam [00:16:47]:

The idea of singing is to sing. The idea of making music is to make music. So, yeah, the fact it's certainly the arts have been drastically defunded here in the United States both professionally and at the academic level, across the board, top to bottom. And it's devastating.

Pete [00:17:02]:

What do you think might be by the fallout of that as well? Kind of add that into the mix?

Sam [00:17:06]:

Yeah. I mean, why does it happen? I've certainly heard the theory that it makes some sense to me that there's, you know, if we're gonna go with there's two kinds of people in the world. There's the kinds of people who really like black and white thinking. They like orthodoxy, they like plans, they like rules, they like to know what's going on. They like to try and sort of lock stuff down and have it be measurable because on whatever level that feels safe to them. Then there's people like me who really resist black and white thinking. I really resist orthodoxy. I love nuance and subtlety and gray area.

Sam [00:17:41]:

If you tell me something absolutely has to be one way, I'm like. I'm immediately like, no, it doesn't. You can't. No, that's ridiculous. And I like to dwell in a much more like, well, let's see and let's experiment. And I don't know either. Let's try it. And I think it is that the truth is somewhere in between these two things.

Sam [00:17:58]:

And I think a healthy society, a healthy world, a healthy marriage, a healthy friendship is built when these things cooperate with one another. When there's somebody to say, great, definitely play in the uncertainty and let's put a deadline on this. Yes, let's be in a state of exploration and just the sheer joy of creation and let's put a price tag on it. Let's see if it really works. So I think there's some mix. What I think happens often, but we see that played out in our political parties, right? And it's a lot easier sell to say, let's invest in stem, let's invest in football, let's invest in the new stadium, because that matters. And these fluffy arts things don't matter when, in fact, when we look back through all recorded time all we have from other civilizations is their art. Right.

Sam [00:18:52]:

We don't really know their science. We don't really know, you know, those things that we think of as being sort of hard and fast. We know their poetry, we know their art, and we can relate to it. It's still true. It's still living for us today. So, yeah, I get very chasty when people talk about the arts like they don't matter. When I want to say, all we do all day long, all everybody does all day long is tell stories about other people. We are endlessly fascinated by other people.

Sam [00:19:21]:

We want to watch them on tv, we want to hear songs about them, we want to spy at them through the window, we want to hear gossip about them. Morning, tonight. All we want to do is take in more information about other people. And most of the way we do that is through artistic expression. So to pretend like it doesn't matter is ridiculous. And the economic impact of the arts is incredible. I mean, in the US, the arts that, oh, there's no money in the arts. Bullshit.

Sam [00:19:45]:

There's tons of money in the arts. And the arts is a bigger contributor to the gross national product than trucking. So, you know, even if we want to look at it purely from a numbers standpoint, it matters. Art matters.

Pete [00:19:58]:

I certainly does. And I'm hoping that this podcast goes some way to getting that message out there. I might be misremembering and not paying enough attention, but it seemed that you got quite emotional when you were talking about arts teachers save lives.

Sam [00:20:16]:

Yeah, I mean, I was a deeply weird kid and living through some really troubling circumstances as a kid. And this is back in the seventies, and there was no such thing as childhood depression, there was no such thing as neurodiversity. There was no such thing as any of it. I was just weird. I was just a weird kid. And to have a place that was safe for me to express my feelings, a place where I didn't have to be myself, I could pretend to be somebody else. That alone was fantastic. A place where my love of language had a home that was, again, not just me being kind of a nerd, but actually useful.

Sam [00:21:03]:

It was beautiful. It was an amazing thing for me. Million kids just like me. You know, anytime you can make a home for the kids who don't obviously belong anywhere in particular, you've done God's own work.

Pete [00:21:17]:

It's interesting, what you mentioned there is that on reflection, I was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year, and on reflection, I wonder if that contributed to my love of acting was in terms of I was constantly being told not to be me as me. And in that environment, when I was acting, I was allowed to be somebody else. So it's interesting that you had a similar experience.

Sam [00:21:45]:

Yeah. And I think there's a lot about, especially working in the theater, but maybe in the arts in general, that plays really well into the ADD ADHD spectrum, because, yes, not only do you get to be somebody else if you want, but being high energy is great. Being super focused for a very short amount of time is great. Having the supportive peer pressure of, like, no, everybody else is at rehearsal at two. We're at rehearsal at two. You know, that it's very physical, that it's not just an intellectual exercise, but it's a physical discipline as well. I think all of that goes a long way to helping kids learn all kinds of things about themselves and the world in something that's not sit still and memorize this, you know, not sit still and do this equation.

Pete [00:22:30]:

So finally, at 26, you got to perform with Second City.

Sam [00:22:33]:

Finally, I got cast as an understudy for the touring company, which means I got to sit in a van and drive down to Bloomington normal, Illinois, and do a show that somebody else had written for $75. And it was great. It was great. It was hard and complicated. And, you know, there's nothing like being in a van for 6 hours with a bunch of other comic actors, most of whom are men, among other things. I'm now unshockable. There is nothing you can say. There is no language so foul that I have nothing.

Sam [00:23:02]:

Not only heard it, but probably said it myself.

Pete [00:23:04]:

So what vision did you have for your life? You're 26 years old. You're probably feeling a sense of invincibility, and you're in this environment that kind of is stimulating. You've got a social life built into it as well. What did the 26 year old Sam think? How did you think your life would turn out?

Sam [00:23:24]:

Yeah, well, I had. Like I said, I just got married. I got married at 25, and we decided to move to Los Angeles. We really were aware that we were doing well in Chicago, my husband and I. And it was either time to sort of settle down and buy a house in Chicago, and there was a thriving theater scene. We made money doing a lot of industrial theater, like doing business theater. So tech international tire repair hires us to write a sketch show for their salespeople, their conference in West Palm beach, and flies us down, and we go do the show in West Palm. So there was, you know, it was definitely a good life, teaching, acting, going on auditions, we could make it work in Chicago.

Sam [00:24:03]:

So the thought was, well, do we stay or do we go play with the big boys in Los Angeles? And we decided to roll the dice and come to LA, which was a really transformative event. Not only is the landscape of Los Angeles very unlike any place, any place else at all, much less the midwest. I was loose to a lot of flat and a lot of straight lines, and all of a sudden there's mountains and curves, you know, a lot of buildings. A lot of buildings. But not like, it's not a concentric city, like, where there's a downtown and then it goes out from there, like Chicago or even London. Like, there's downtown, it goes out from there. No, LA is like a lot of weird neighborhoods and things all sort of mush together. And if you don't know where you're going, God help you.

Sam [00:24:46]:

But it was also really exciting, you know, and it certainly made me up my game as an actor. All of a sudden, I was like, oh, shit. Because the best people in the world live there, and if they want somebody who's exactly like me but speaks French, they have that girl's number. So it made me up my game and get better as an actor really fast.

Pete [00:25:05]:

And what did that look like?

Sam [00:25:07]:

I joined a theater company. We did a lot. So I tried to make it. My whole rule for myself when I was an actor was that I had to do something for my acting career every day, because obviously the amount of things a person could be doing is endless. Just like entrepreneurship, right? I mean, there's no end to the.

Pete [00:25:23]:

List, so no shortage of shit to do.

Sam [00:25:25]:

No shortage of shit to do. And the real lack of wisdom about, like, what would make sense to do, what's going to pay off, what's not going to pay off, you never know. So that's a little opaque. And of course, we had absolutely no money whatsoever, so that always factored in. But my rule was for, like, I had to, you know, so either I was at a rehearsal or at an audition or doing a show or doing a couple of shows or running monologues or dropping off headshots at a casting director's office or meeting with my agent, or, like, I had to do something every day. And so being a theater company made that a lot easier and gave me, again, another community. And maybe that's, you know, I hadn't thought about this, Peter, till, really, this very second. But I think maybe a lot of the reason I loved being part of the theater is because it did give me a built in social life because I am, despite the way I look and sound, super shy and super introverted.

Sam [00:26:18]:

And so to have a group of people that just sort of were automatically my friends made that a lot easier for me.

Pete [00:26:25]:

And how did it pan out from there? I'm kind of guessing it wasn't a straight line.

Sam [00:26:30]:

It wasn't a straight line. You know, I had one of those acting careers that, you know, went well enough that you don't want to give up on it, but not certainly well enough to support a person.

Pete [00:26:39]:

What do you mean by that?

Sam [00:26:39]:

Well, like one of the super cool things I got to do. I got involved with the company, actually. My husband and I both did. My then husband and I both did. There's a company called La Theatre works that would do live cast recordings of plays for the radio. And they would put them up in a week because there's no blocking and no costumes because it's for radio. So it's really cheap and easy to do. And they could get really famous people to do it because for them it was like doing a play.

Sam [00:27:03]:

But it all happened within a week. And they did it for a while. They did a series in Chicago. So we got involved with them in Chicago and then we moved to Laden. We continued to work with them. I worked with them both. I often had this thing of, like a dual job as both administrator and an actor. So I would work for them sometimes as an administrator, but then also when they had roles they couldn't fill, they would hire me to do it.

Sam [00:27:22]:

So all of a sudden I'm doing a show with Richard Dreyfus and I'm doing a show with incredibly famous people. So how I met Ed O'Neill, who's still one of my closest friends. And who else was in that? Harry Hamlin and Amy Peetz and some really just. I got to do a show with Elaine Stretch, which was epic. Epic. One of my favorite moments of my life. We had the table read. I was too shy to introduce myself.

Sam [00:27:48]:

We had the table read first morning table read, which is when you sit at the table and read the whole script, by the way, if you don't know what that is. We finish, we get up to get a coffee, she walks over to me, hits me in the arm, points at me and goes, you're very good. And I was like, I can die now. I can die. My life can be taken from me and I will be fine. Just put on my tombstone. Elaine Stretch said I was very good. So here I was doing these incredible shows with these incredible people.

Sam [00:28:17]:

And it paid, like, you know, $275 for the week, like, not enough to live on. I also had the experience, and on my long list of questions for God, this is definitely one of them. There were shows, probably five or six shows, honestly, that I would get called in for over and over and over and over and over and over again and never booked. Now, as an actor, if you make it to callbacks, you've done your job. Like, that's it. You are qualified. You are eligible. You have done what you can do to get cast.

Sam [00:28:48]:

After that, it just depends. And maybe you look too much like somebody's sister, or maybe they write out the part, or maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe a million other things happen. But I called in for Star Deep Space nine a lot. And one time I was auditioning there, and the casting director, Ron Surma, and Levar Burton was directing, and the casting director turns to me, he goes, well, you've done the show before, Sam. You know how this goes, because on Star Trek, they do so much makeup and stuff, they can hire the same actors over and over again, and nobody knows because they're in this really heavy masks and stuff. So you've done the show before, sam, you know, and I'm like, no, actually, funnily enough, I have not. You've just auditioned me so many times that you think I have done this.

Pete [00:29:32]:

What's that like?

Sam [00:29:33]:

It's really frustrating because it's like, it would be one thing if I was just terrible. I'm just terrible, and nothing ever happened, then fine, give it up. Move on. But to get so close over and over and over again, by the time Gilmore girls went off the air, they were calling me in every week. They were like, we don't really. We feel terrible. We've called you in so many times, and we've taken you to producers so many times, and we've never. And I was like, it's.

Sam [00:29:57]:

And they're like, we're just trying to find you something. And I'm like, I really appreciate that. And they never did. Like, it never happened. And I don't know what. I don't really know what's going on there. I don't know what happened. I don't know why I would get.

Sam [00:30:10]:

And it happened in the theater, too. I would, like, it would get down to me and the other girl, and the other girl would get it. And then sometimes I'd run into the director later and he'd be, I really wish we'd gone with you. And I'm like, thanks. Thanks for telling me that with the.

Pete [00:30:21]:

Passing of time, do you, do you have any, any insight on it now, why that might have been the case?

Sam [00:30:27]:

The only thought I have comes from along the way. I also. I wrote a musical, right? I wrote the, actually wrote the book to the musical, so I wrote the script and some other friends of mine wrote the music. Although we all collaborated on the whole thing when we were producing the show in LA, it was really successful and fun. And as we were casting, I was there, and I'd been on the other side of the casting table plenty of times as a director and a producer, so I was fairly used to that. And it is really interesting. People walk in the door and almost half of them walk in with a don't hire me vibe. You're like, okay, we won't.

Sam [00:31:01]:

But there was one woman who came in and just knocked it out of the park. She just killed it. She got every bit of the part, she got every bit of the humor, every bit of the fun. She got laughs on things that I hadn't even written as jokes. I'm like, you are magnificent. So we get to the end of the day, and we're sifting through people's headshots, and this woman, let's call her Elizabeth. I don't remember her actual name. Elizabeth's photo is there, and the casting director and I are both like, well, obviously we have to call back Elizabeth.

Sam [00:31:29]:

She was incredible. And the director, a woman named Kay Cole, said, no. And we're like, what are you saying? She was amazing. She was the best person we saw all day by a mile. And Kay said, yeah, I know, but she's not Nancy. The name of the character was Nancy, because she's not Nancy. She's amazing, though. I mean, like, really, she could do anything.

Sam [00:31:49]:

It was ridiculous. And she said, no, she's not Nancy. The director had an image in her mind of what she wanted this character to be and to look like. And no matter how gifted Elizabeth was, Elizabeth was never going to match that. And I had. And at that point, I thought, oh, I wonder if that's what happened, because I'm 511, you know, I don't look. And there's, you may have noticed, but there's not a lot of tall girls in Hollywood. And the ones who are tall are, tend to be very tall and very thin, sort of Alice and Janney type.

Sam [00:32:15]:

So, like, other than Queen Latifah, there sort of wasn't really anybody else who looked like me. And she's had to fight hook and claw for her own career. So that's my only thought, is that just that there was this sense of, like, no matter how good I was, I didn't match whatever thing they had in their head. And so therefore I didn't get the part. But I don't really know. I still don't know.

Pete [00:32:40]:

Like, another question for God.

Sam [00:32:41]:

Like you said, another question for God. And it is, I think, another one of the things that makes Hollywood and LA in general kind of weird is that everybody's there. Everybody who does make it big knows ten other people who are just as good or better than they are, who could have easily gotten the job and just didn't because it just wasn't their day. So the whole thing really feels built on shifting sands.

Pete [00:33:00]:

You know, a while back, one of the. If you haven't recognized it already, one of the hallmarks of a not a straight line podcast conversation is that we tend to bounce around a bit. You mentioned about childhood depression. Is that something which you didn't know about at the time? When did you kind of start to realize that? Is it still still with you? What role does depression play in your life?

Sam [00:33:22]:

It's very much still with me. It's very much still with me. It's the wallpaper of every room I'm in. Sometimes it's more forward, it's more present for me, sometimes less so. But I don't know that it's ever not there. And I don't know that it's always a curse, either. I mean, I think it's one of the things that's made me more sensitive to feelings, mine and other people's. I think it makes me slow down sometimes when I really could, because sometimes I'll go too fast otherwise.

Sam [00:33:53]:

And it's okay to be sad. You know, there's a lot of sad shit going on, and it's okay to feel that and to take that into oneself.

Pete [00:34:03]:

When did you know? I think you were perhaps just about to go there.

Sam [00:34:06]:

Yeah. When did I know? Yeah. So I don't. I remember being in my early thirties talking to that same friend who got the job at Apple, my friend Charlie. I said something about like, oh, I don't know, I'm probably just depressed. And he said, really? Are you really, like, are you diagnosably depressed? And I was like, I don't know. Because depressed is depression and anxiety, it's a little tricky because they're words we use to describe a mood as well as a clinical diagnosis.

Pete [00:34:30]:

Condition. Yeah.

Sam [00:34:30]:

You know, this is terrible. I had a friend, one of my friends from Second City killed herself. Really super sad. And I was talking to a friend about it, and they said, well, was she depressed? I'm like, she was a comedy writer. Of course she was depressed. We're all depressed. Who isn't? Is there another way to be? I don't really know what you're asking me. So I was saying to Charlie, and he said, you know, are you actually depressed or you're just, like, having a depressive mood? I'm like, I don't really know what you're saying.

Sam [00:34:57]:

And he said, get this book. There's a book called the Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon. And I said, okay. So I got this book and it blew my mind apart. It's an incredible book. It's a beautifully written book. It's the best book about depression I've ever read. And believe me, I have read all of them.

Sam [00:35:14]:

This one's the best. He just described the feeling of it so accurately that all of a sudden I was like, oh, I'm not crazy. I'm depressed. Like, this is not a character defect. This is a medical condition. And, you know, I got myself to therapy. I got a therapist who had one eye.

Pete [00:35:36]:

Sounds like the beginning of a joke.

Sam [00:35:38]:

I know. And I was so depressed at the time. And she walked in with one, and I was like, of course. Of course I have a psychological therapist. Of course I do. And I was mad. I did not like her. I did not like being depressed.

Sam [00:35:51]:

I didn't like having to go to therapy. I didn't like taking medication. I didn't want to do it. And now I would bite anybody who got in between me and my antidepressants every morning. It just puts a basement on the house. I mean, it doesn't make everything all yippee skippy all the time, but it does keep me from getting to the very lowest of low points that I used to before I had medication. So. Yeah, and then I found out that there was.

Sam [00:36:10]:

And then I said, the more I thought about it, the more I was like, I've always been this way. This didn't start. I came this way.

Pete [00:36:16]:

Do you think it had any bearing on your experience in LA that we were just talking about?

Sam [00:36:22]:

Sure. I mean, there are a lot of things that were. That really threw me off. You know, you hit one of those depressive troughs and you just can't do anything, and then you get to feel like a failure for not being able to do anything. So now you've doubled your own misery and cut your productivity even more. And the things that people say to do, you know, well, do something nice for somebody else. You know, quit thinking about yourself so much. Go do something for somebody else or take a walk or get a massage or go find some children, play with some children.

Sam [00:36:52]:

They're great. That'll cheer you up. And I, the way I can tell it's depression and not just a bad day is I can do all of those things. I can give to other people. I can be with children. I can walk in the sunshine. I can get a massage. I can get a hug from a friend.

Sam [00:37:07]:

And it doesn't help. It doesn't move the needle at all. And, yeah, when you hit those walls, it's really. It's hard, you know, you just. And then you don't go to the party to visit the person. You don't, you know, make the connections. You're not open and available in the way that maybe it would have been helpful to be open and available. I will also say, though, there's a lot of it going around in Hollywood.

Sam [00:37:30]:

Another reason why a lot of Hollywood parties are really weird is because, again, we were the weird kids. Like, we were the ones that go up. We were not dancing at the school dance, you know, unless we were, like, doing the choreography from Pippin or something. We were not, you know, we were not the popular kids. We were not the. We were the weird kids. And I. Then we all grow up, and we're still weird.

Pete [00:37:50]:

It's still weird. So you mentioned that your acting career was one that you didn't want to give up on, but it wasn't supporting you. So what was the crunch point for you there? What was the pressure point that made you change?

Sam [00:38:05]:

Yeah, I started teaching the class, get it done in, like, the year 2000, I think maybe 2001. And it was just because I saw a need. I mean, I was good at getting things done. I was good at getting projects done, and I saw a lot of my creative friends suffering from indecision, not knowing what steps to take. And it's just a quirk of my mind that I can go, hmm. Well, how would a person solve that problem? Like, how do you know what project to pick when you could pick anything? How do you know what to do to promote your career, when you could do anything? What do you do? Do you have a podcast? Do you start dressing in only purple? Do you stand on the street corner with a sandwich board? Like, what do you do? And there isn't a right answer to that question. Right? There's no right way. There's just your way and the more you can do it your way, the more genuine it is and also the more sustainable it is because you're doing something that you like and will, in theory, benefit from doing any way, even if you don't get the result you want, which is sort of the ultimate, not a straight line thing, right? Yeah, yeah.

Sam [00:39:00]:

Like, let's do it so that the doing is worthwhile. And then if the result also happens, that's an extra win. But we like the journey 100%. So, which is one of a lot of things I was doing. Like I said, I had a million different jobs and gigs and projects and shows. I delivered flowers, I was a barista. I even had a job flying back and forth from Burbank to San Francisco because this rich guy was like trying to game the airline points system or something. I don't know.

Sam [00:39:24]:

But I was. I mean, it was nuts. It was nuts. And then I was talking to a friend of mine and he said, wait, so you have this class that you teach that you love and it sells out all the time and you're not doing that full time? Because I was like, oh, well, that's interesting. That's an interesting thought. I never thought about that, but even so, I still resisted because I was like, no, I have a job. I have a full time job. My acting is a full time job, and then I have 900 other jobs on top of that.

Sam [00:39:48]:

But the acting is really where my focus is. And then in early 2009, I just had a big hole in my calendar. A gig I had had ended, a thing I thought I was going to be doing ended up not happening. And all of a sudden I was like, oh, shit, I've got to go get another office job or something, which I really did not want to do. And I thought, well, I wonder if I could do this full time. And then I thought, I guess I should order business cards. Like I knew nothing about starting a business. Nothing.

Sam [00:40:20]:

I knew nothing about entrepreneurship. I knew nothing about marketing. I knew nothing about sales. I knew nothing about email, I knew nothing about nothing. But I made it my business to learn. And once you get past the language barrier, it turns out it's not that hard. I had to learn a whole new vocabulary of lifetime customer value and trip sequence and nurture.

Pete [00:40:40]:

And how quickly did you recognize that actually all the time that you had spent in the theater and performing wasn't actually wasted? Just going back to what we were saying earlier about transferable skills.

Sam [00:40:53]:

Well, anybody who says the teaching isn't acting is lying. And I knew that already. I mean, I had been teaching since the eighties that wasn't teaching acting, teaching improv, teaching this get it done thing that I made up. It's also funny, I also thought get it done was a terrible name and I was going to have to really do something about that. And of course, now it's like my whole brand. Yeah, it seemed to take advantage of all the stuff I knew how to do. I mean, it was a lot about writing because I was communicating pretty predominantly through email. I still do almost all my business through email.

Sam [00:41:22]:

So that ability to capture someone's attention and tell them a story, move them from one place to another through story, through language. At that time, we were teaching on instant teleseminar. There was no zoom yet, but there was instant teleseminar. So all the voice work I had done, all the breath control, all the, everything I knew about how to communicate energy vocally came into play. And I also started again because nobody. So many of the successes I had, I had just because I had no idea that it wasn't the way to do it. I just, I didn't know what I didn't know. So I didn't know it was supposed to be hard.

Sam [00:41:53]:

I didn't know you weren't supposed to do it that way. So I taught my. I got infusionsoft. I started in January, I got infusionsoft in March. I sent my first broadcast, I think April 1 of 1990 or whenever that was 2009.

Pete [00:42:05]:

And Infusionsoft, just for the listener, is.

Sam [00:42:08]:

It'S an all inclusive sales marketing system. And at the time, it was the only software that did this in the whole, that I could find anywhere because I built my own website out of iweb and was sending emails through constant contact or through my own email system. But I was hand sorting my list. Every time I sent out an email about a class, I was like, oh, yeah, I should definitely send to that person. I think that person moved back to Chicago. I'm not sure. Like, oh, I'm not even sure. My list was outgrowing my brain.

Sam [00:42:38]:

And I just couldn't believe that with everything the Internet could do and everything computers could do that there wasn't some way to, to do that, to like, have a list and say, like, oh, I want to send a list to the alumni, oh, I want to send. To people who are in Chicago, oh, I want to send. So I got infusionsoft, which was, like I said, it was the only game in town. It was $5,000 to get in the door, which I did not have and had no way to make. But I knew it was where I was going. I knew it was what my business needed. I knew it was what I needed, and I didn't know it was supposed to be hard. So I taught it to myself in a weekend.

Sam [00:43:08]:

And that year, then I was an ultimate marketer finalist for them that year. So I won an award for. For marketing from the marketers my first year in business, when you didn't have.

Pete [00:43:19]:

A fucking clue what you were doing.

Sam [00:43:21]:

Not even the slate.

Pete [00:43:23]:

God.

Sam [00:43:23]:

They called me to say that I had been, that I was a finalist and that I would be presenting at this conference in Arizona. And they said, yeah, so we'll just need your PowerPoint by this date. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure, sure. I'd never paid a PowerPoint before. I wasn't entirely sure what a PowerPoint was.

Pete [00:43:41]:

Hilarious.

Sam [00:43:43]:

I mean, the same thing that makes, you know, a good improviser. A good improviser is the same thing in entrepreneurship. We often call it quick start. Right on the Colby scale, it's quick start, that sort of, like, how hard can it be? What's the worst that can happen?

Pete [00:43:58]:

Just say yes. Just say yes.

Sam [00:44:00]:

Yes. Say yes. Say yes and jump off the bridge. You know, jump off the bridge before you burn it. I don't know. See what happens.

Pete [00:44:06]:

So, at that point, had you gone all in with get it done and what you wanted with that, and so just talk me through that sort of transition from being a full time actor, albeit having 900 other jobs on the side, to what did you think? What did you think about, what did you think about get it done in terms of your life going forward from there?

Sam [00:44:26]:

Well, it was really delightful to be my own economy, that I could pull the lever and make money when I needed to make money, that I didn't have to rely on somebody to give me a job or a gig or how. How much they were paying or not paying, and the more I understood about pricing and offers and client retention and all those things. And again, when I realized, it seemed so complicated, and then you figure out, oh, it's really just about being authentic, being of service, and telling a great story, which is what theater people do. Falling out of bed in the morning, I'm like, this is so simple. I often say that I would like to write a business book, but it would be too short because it's just called treat them like you like them. Treat your customers like you like them. Treat your team like you like them. Treat money like you like money.

Sam [00:45:10]:

Like, just so and it was a fairly gradual unfolding. Like, it kind of like it did start out, you know, I did consider it my full time job, but I also still had a bunch of other jobs, and I would pick up freelance gigs and this and that. I was still going on a ton of auditions. And then, I don't know, a couple years after that, maybe 2012, something like that. My second marriage fell apart. Now, I love all my husbands, but, you know, when your life falls apart, you spend six weeks on the couch crying. And then I just had one thought, which was maybe I could move to carpenteria. Carpentaria was a little beach town about 90 minutes outside of Los Angeles.

Sam [00:45:48]:

It's heaven on a plate. And I had always loved it. I would go there for lunch, I would go there. Anytime I got a chance to go there, I would go. It always seemed like some incredible fantasy that a person could live there. But I realized, like, wait a minute, I'm teaching online. Like, I don't have to be. And I was.

Sam [00:46:03]:

My acting, I wasn't putting as much energy into my acting career. And frankly, 90 minutes is not that far to drive in LA. It wouldn't make that much bigger difference to drive another 90 minutes to get somewhere, because it was already. You're already 90 minutes across town. And my closest friends were also, you know, my best friend lives in Chicago. My other best friend had moved to Oakland. And, you know, so while I had certainly had a community of friends in LA, like, I think I could just go there. And so I did.

Sam [00:46:26]:

I moved to the beach. And it was incredible. I had built a life for myself that I had never dreamed was possible. Go for a walk barefoot on the beach every day and come back to my little apartment and write emails and make money. Like, it was amazing.

Pete [00:46:41]:

What's not to love?

Sam [00:46:42]:

What's not to love? It was incredible.

Pete [00:46:45]:

Well, I guess what's not to love is the acting. Going back to the four year old Sam, that's all she ever wanted to be and do. So what was that like for you?

Sam [00:46:56]:

Well, the thing that really changed was that the last gig, the last real gig I did, actually, was I got booked on Modern Family, which is still a fantastic show at the time. It was one of the best shows on television. It was winning all the awards for everything. And I got cast in a very cute little part. The best 32 seconds of television you'll ever see. It's adorable. But the director was a director. I loved Gail Mancuse.

Pete [00:47:23]:

What season? What episode?

Sam [00:47:25]:

I don't know what season. The episode is called Flip Flop, I think. And they're trying to flip a house, which is why it's that. And it's a scene in a diner with Ty Burrell and Rob Riggle. They were delightful. The whole set was delightful. Everyone was wonderful because they knew they had the best job in television. And in general, people in LA are really nice.

Sam [00:47:43]:

I know it gets a reputation for being super fake, but, no, they're not fake. They're actually nice. Cause when you're working 14 hours days, niceness is important.

Pete [00:47:52]:

You don't wanna spend that amount of time around. Awesome.

Sam [00:47:54]:

That's right. So, yeah, so here I was, you know, in this great gig, and, I mean, the casting director who Jeff Greenberg was to cast me in, that he was the one who had called me into Frasier 750 million times. Like, he was another one that I had auditioned for a thousand times. And finally he's like, finally, we're hooked. Like, amazing. Thanks, jeff. As it happens, that show also had started Ed O'Neill, who, again, was one of my closest friends. So I got to hang out with Ed.

Sam [00:48:23]:

So really, all this is to say, it was a great, great day in Hollywood, and I was kind of bored. I was kind of bored. I wasn't loving it. For all artists, the moment you're not loving it, step away, because it's way too hard to do if you're not loving it, it's hard enough to do when you are loving it. So, yeah, so I just sort of set it to the side, and I never, I mean, like I say, I was born an actor. I'll never not be an actor. I will always have that on my, you know, if somebody says, what do you do? I still say, I'm an actor, but I do. But now I miss it more and more, so I'm gonna have to find some way to get back to it more intensively.

Sam [00:48:59]:

Like, occasionally I'll dip my toe in and take an acting class here or there, take an improv class, or just, you know, somebody asks me to do a reading or something, and I just, ugh, my soul just sings to the sky. It's really great. So. But I think the older I get, the more castable I am, too, because, again, you know, there's not a lot of roles for young, authoritative women, but the, you know, postmenopausal. I can be the judge, the head of the girls school, the head of surgery, the, you know, all those. All those bossy lady parts.

Pete [00:49:29]:

Yeah. When. When we caught up a couple of months ago, you did share with me though, that that might be a challenge for you. Do you want to talk about your current situation?

Sam [00:49:40]:

Yeah. So two and a half years ago, I got Covid and never got better. I have long Covid. If you don't know what that is, count your blessings. And if you do know what that is or you have someone in your life who does have it, please be very nice to them, because it's really hard, long haul. Covid is a collection of things. It's an umbrella term that covers a number of disorders that come from having had Covid. The most common symptom is they use the word fatigue.

Sam [00:50:11]:

But I think we need a different word because fatigue sounds like, take a nap. Like you're tired, take a nap, then you'll feel better. But it's not like that. The feeling in your body is like, I feel like my bones are made out of concrete and someone is holding me down. If you ever had a really bad flu, you sort of remember that feeling, that heaviness, and you're like, oh, God, I'm just dead. It feels like that all the time. Pretty much.

Pete [00:50:34]:

Wow.

Sam [00:50:34]:

Pretty much. And there are a lot of days when, yeah, not just can I not get out of bed, but, like, rolling over seems ambitious. So that's the number one symptom that people have, and it's turns to chronic fatigue syndrome, or myelagic encephalomyelitis, I think is what they call it, which is another, you know, it's a disease with no treatment and no cure. I also have a thing called pots. Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, which means that if I stand up for too long, my heart starts to go really fast and I run out of breath really quickly. So things like going to the grocery store or taking a shower is challenging. I also have a thing called. There's another thing called post exertional malaise.

Sam [00:51:15]:

Post exertional malaise should absolutely come with its own bottle green fainting couch. Right? Post exertional malaise. I can't possibly. And it is kind of that when it happens to is if you exert yourself just a little bit, you're down for three days. So I lift something heavy, and that's the end of the day for me. So all the things that intuitively feel like they should make sense, like, well, can't you go for a little walk? Like, maybe a little walk would be good. I'm like, I would love to take a little walk. A little walk sounds amazing to me.

Sam [00:51:44]:

And I might be able to do a little walk, but I guarantee you I will not be able to walk back. And then there's some other little bells and whistles on it. But those are the main things that. That hold a person down and. Yeah, and some people have things that are even worse. They have chronic pain, although you could make an argument that chronic fatigue is chronic pain, but they have, like, joint pain. Some people have really bad digestive issues. I don't have any of that, but so it shows up differently in different people, and it super, super sucks.

Sam [00:52:11]:

It's really restricted how much I can. I have, like, three tablespoons of energy a day, and once I'm done, I'm done.

Pete [00:52:18]:

Well, thank you for. Thank you for spending at least one of them on this. On this call.

Sam [00:52:22]:

I can't think of a better place to put my tablespoon.

Pete [00:52:25]:

Well, I can certainly see how that would get in the way of you being cast in films or anything.

Sam [00:52:30]:

Yeah, I mean, I just. I don't know if I have the stamina to do it, you know? I mean, even just auditioning is like, kind of. It's a lot of energy to do that. So. Yeah, so that it may have to. It may have to wait a little bit. But again, I will say thank God for a lifetime in the theater, because I do these podcast interviews I teach. I can still get online and do what I need to do, because when it's showtime, it's fucking showtime.

Sam [00:52:56]:

And as I say, a weasels could be gnawing off my legs right now, and you would never know. And then we're done. Me and the weasels will go to bed.

Pete [00:53:05]:

So you're 90 minutes north of Los Angeles, living your dream life, going for walks on the beach. Where did your life zag after that?

Sam [00:53:14]:

The building got sold and turned into an Airbnb, and my cat died, and my best friend died, and my father got a terminal cancer diagnosis, and I got cancer and I broke my leg and then Covid.

Pete [00:53:31]:

But apart from that. Apart from that.

Sam [00:53:33]:

Apart from that, everything was going really, really well.

Pete [00:53:37]:

Wow. Talk about pressure. Both internally and externally.

Sam [00:53:40]:

It was a lot. It was a lot. It was a lot in a row. I mean, any one of those things would have been hard and heartbreaking and was hard and heartbreaking and all of them, one right after the other, it was just this nonstop nut punch of, like, be kidding me.

Pete [00:53:55]:

How did you get through it?

Sam [00:53:56]:

I don't know. I mean, a lot. I have a really strong spiritual life. I think that helps me a lot. I spend a lot of time in prayer and meditation. And that helps. And I cry a lot, but I don't really know. I don't really know how I got through it, and I'm still getting through it.

Sam [00:54:15]:

And so what ended up happening is I ended up moving to Connecticut, like you do. My sister had moved here a couple years ago with her family from Brooklyn. And then when my father was. We moved my father up here for the last year and a half of his life. So I was coming and going quite a lot, and I quite liked it. And then, like I said, I got kicked out of carpenteria. And there was nothing. There was nothing to buy.

Sam [00:54:41]:

There was nothing to rent. Not in Santa Barbara county, not in Ventura county, not in Los Angeles county, not a fucking tin shack in Pacoima. We were qualified for half a million dollars in mortgage and there was nothing. Not even a condo. I mean, I don't know how. I still don't know how people do it. I'm like, I don't know where people are getting all this money from. So we were really sort of stuck, and we ended up just renting a place in vintage because we had to be somewhere.

Sam [00:55:06]:

But that was. It was, you know, $3,200 a month for a kind of met. It was a nice apartment, but it wasn't that nice. So now I was in this really expensive place that. In the town that I did not love, that was not heaven on a plate and trying to figure it out. And that was sort of an interesting process of like, well, you know, I could move back to Chicago. Chicago's a great town. My partner at the time was from the UK.

Sam [00:55:26]:

We were like, well, we could move to the UK. Turns out there's some issues if you're not married. I would have some issues working there. But then I found out that I could buy a four bedroom house with private lake access for $370,000 in Connecticut. So I was like, all right, let's try that. So we did. And then in the last year that my partnership with the UK guy broke up, he ended up moving back to England. And my 80 year old mother has moved in with me full time.

Sam [00:55:58]:

So now I'm a full time caregiver living with a full time illness, trying to run a full time job. And did I mention I wrote a book? Not what I planned.

Pete [00:56:07]:

Life is the Zag, isn't it?

Sam [00:56:09]:

It is. But it's like sailing, right? I mean, you don't sail somewhere in a straight line. You sail somewhere by tacking. You just try to make sure that the zags don't go too far off point in any one direction. But yeah, you get there by in fits and starts, you get there circularly, you get there, you know, we don't know where this is going and it's the whole underlying purpose of my business. You know, what I do is help overthinkers get shit done. You know, what I do is help highly creative people get their work out of their heads and into the world. And it is motivated by this deep understanding that again, I have had since childhood that we are dying now, we will die, will end and we do not know how many days we have between now and the end.

Sam [00:56:54]:

So the time to get your work out there is now. And the fact that you don't feel ready and you don't think it's good enough and it doesn't match up your standards and other people are better at it. Nobody gives a fuck. Just do your thing. Do the thing that matters to you to do. Don't wait. There's no better time than now.

Pete [00:57:09]:

And that sounds like a message as applicable to entrepreneurs as it is to artists.

Sam [00:57:13]:

Absolutely. And do it your way. This is the thing I don't get. Like entrepreneurs claim the entrepreneurship for themselves to like have all the freedom and do all the things and then they immediately lock themselves into a little box in which they have no freedom and they're not doing things their own way. It's like you guys do this your make the business you want to live inside of whatever that looks like. That's the whole privilege is that you're the boss, you get to do it the way you want to do it. So quit trying to play everybody else's game.

Pete [00:57:41]:

Personally, I think you should get off the fence and say how you really feel about it.

Sam [00:57:47]:

Enough with the pussyfooting around. This is what I call bringing down the hammer of sunshine upon them. Yeah, quit fucking around.

Pete [00:57:57]:

You mentioned a book in passing. I know that there's more than one. So tell me and the listener about that experience, how they've come about and what you've learned about yourself and the world as a result.

Sam [00:58:12]:

Yeah, the first book was called get it done from procrastination to creative genius in 15 minutes a day. And it got published by New World Library. And I swear the only reason they picked me up was because I was an entrepreneur. I had an email list of whatever it was, 5000 people at the time. But I demonstrated that like, I could sell things and that I had people who were interested in what I did and I had already sold this course and another little book that I wrote to. So I think that was enough to get me in the door. And then Seth Godin endorsed that book, which I'm just completely not over. Like, talk about an amazing zag.

Sam [00:58:44]:

Like, that was. That was amazing.

Pete [00:58:46]:

How did that come about?

Sam [00:58:47]:

I have no idea. They asked me, the public. So I had some. I had some endorsements from my Hollywood friends, and they were like, okay, that's very cute that you and your Hollywood, but we really need some real people, Sam. I was like, no, okay. And they said, who's on your, you know, who you like, you know, who would you like to endorse the book? What would be your dream? And I was like, I don't know. Who's available? Jesus. The Heath brothers, Seth Godin.

Sam [00:59:11]:

Like, that was my list. So they sent it over to Seth God. And then he got back to us right away with the most wonderful review I could ever have imagined. And then when I met him, he was a couple years later that I met him, and he maybe later that same year. And the first thing he said to me was, hi, Sam. And I'm like, don't freak out. Don't burst into tears. Don't freak out.

Sam [00:59:29]:

Don't burst into tears. He's like, hey, Sam. He goes, I bought, like, three copies of your book already. Like, oh, my God. Seth Godin has bought my book. So, yeah, that was amazing. And then I wrote another book called start right where you. How little changes can make a big difference for overwhelmed procrastinators, frustrated overachievers, and recovering perfectionists.

Pete [00:59:46]:

Seems like you like long subtitles.

Sam [00:59:48]:

I do. I do. I like words. And my publishers, of course, were like, that title is much too long. And I'm like, oh, no, you have not seen people's faces when I say it, because when I say it, then people's eyebrows just go up and up and up.

Pete [00:59:59]:

They identify. Yeah, absolutely.

Sam [01:00:00]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus, it's like a little poem, so get it done. As sort of project management for highly creative people. Like, how do you move forward when you don't care who's moved your cheese? Start right where you are is a little bit more of the inner work, kind of that, of how you change your life. It's sort of my testimony around, like, you know, all this personal development shit really works if you do it. You do have to do it. You can't just read about it. You can't just go to the workshop.

Sam [01:00:25]:

You actually have to then incorporate it into your actual life. And it's. And the payoffs are amazing. I mean, when I said I had literally a touch of the cancer, like, I had the smallest amount of cancer you could possibly have and still have cancer. And when the nice doctor broke it to me, he's like, you know, we see something and we're not really sure what it is. We'd like to do biopsy. And I'm sure this is very stressful and scary for you. And I said, hold it right there.

Sam [01:00:48]:

I said, this is not stressful and scary for me. I said, this is fine, partly because I'm pretty sure it's nothing. I said, and if it's not nothing, then we'll deal with that. But I'm not going to get upset or stressed out about something that I don't even know if it's happening yet. And he was like, wow, good attitude. I'm like, again, thousands of dollars of therapy, books and workshops, right? This is where the rubber meets the road, right? That's when you can go, okay, I can meet this difficulty head on because I'm not even sure it's a difficulty yet. And I'm not going to get freaked out by some story that it's supposed to be hard, amazing. And as it turned out, it wasn't.

Sam [01:01:21]:

It was not that big a deal. So. And then, so the new book is called the 15 minutes method, the surprisingly simple art of getting it done. Although now I'm wishing I titled it the subversively simple art of getting it done. Maybe I'll see if I can get it to change the title in the next edition. But it's really about, the whole message is for everybody. For everybody in the whole world is spend 15 minutes a day doing something that matters to you. That's the whole banana.

Sam [01:01:47]:

From that, however, there's a lot of ways to go, but that's really what I want, is for everybody to spend 15 minutes. We get everything done for everybody else all day. We spend all day stressing out over 900 other things. Spend 15 minutes on something that lights you up.

Pete [01:01:58]:

Reminds me of the quote from course in miracles. Be determined each day not to leave your function unfulfilled.

Sam [01:02:04]:

Exactly.

Pete [01:02:05]:

What's your function, Sam?

Sam [01:02:06]:

What's my function? I uncork communication.

Pete [01:02:11]:

Does it come with a sound effect?

Sam [01:02:13]:

It does. It does. Because it makes it sound like a party, which I like and like. There might be booze, which I also like, but it's. I uncork communication both intrapersonally and interpersonally, often with language. My favorite is with words, because I love words and I'm finding the right words for things, but not always. Not always with words, sometimes communication without words. But that's what I'm always doing.

Pete [01:02:35]:

Do you see that as the thing that you will always do in some way, shape or form? I guess where I'm getting to, I'm just, you know, conscious of the time we've been speaking. Nearly an hour and a half we've been going, my goodness, they say time flies when you're having fun, and this has been immense fun for me. I hope it has for you as well. You're smiling and laughing a lot, although I know that you smile and laugh a lot anyway. And how are those weasels, by the way? Are they still, still gnawing, gnawing your legs?

Sam [01:03:02]:

We're good. We're good, we're good. We're hanging in there.

Pete [01:03:07]:

Your life's not been a straight line journey to where you are now. What sort of vision do you hold for your life going forward? Where do you see it? I mean, we know it's not going to be a straight line in getting there. But you've moved to Connecticut. Do you think you'll stay there?

Sam [01:03:22]:

Yeah, I really don't know. I recently, like yesterday, found out that my house actually appraises for way more than I bought it for. So I don't know. I don't know. I might stay here. I really miss California a lot. I miss the place of it. I miss the air.

Sam [01:03:39]:

I miss the light. I miss the eucalyptus trees. I miss the Pacific. I miss those beach walks a lot. But I don't miss the fires and the earthquakes and the insane cost of living. So I don't really know. It's a little bit of a mystery. I will say that one of the qualities I think of performing artists and also of entrepreneurs is this possibly toxic optimism.

Sam [01:04:04]:

Like, the fact that I am. Anyway, I'll speak for myself. The fact that I am constantly like, oh, I think this is really going to work. Like, this is going to be the one that really. This is going to hit it out of the park. I know this one's going to. Oh, we're going to fill the room. We're going to kill it.

Sam [01:04:16]:

This is going to be great. Every time I think this, and then every time, I'm so surprised at how hard it is. Like. Like what? Everybody didn't buy it just the first time I mentioned it. That's great. Crazy. All right, I guess I'll do more with the lunch model. So I do have this perverse, against all signs and signals to the opposition, I do feel like there's more like, I'm not done yet.

Sam [01:04:41]:

Like, something will happen and a lot like, all those auditions that I went on, like, I always feel like I'm very close. No, it's, you know, this. The 50 minutes method book could be, you know, turned into this worldwide phenomenon, and that would be amazing. I would love that. It, like, became a thing where people like, oh, what did you do your 50 minutes on today? Oh, I wrote some crappy poetry. I love crappy poetry. I'm working on a needlepoint project. Oh, that's cool.

Sam [01:05:09]:

I teach my lizard to do backflips. That's cool. Like, spend 15 minutes on your thing so, you know, that could work to play that musical that I wrote that could get produced, you know, that was about to go on the road. We were doing a national tour before COVID hit, so it kind of has been sitting in the parking lot all this time, but that could easily get back. You know, all kinds of things could happen.

Pete [01:05:31]:

So do you see more writing? Just you mentioned there. Do you see more writing for the theatre and for film or.

Sam [01:05:38]:

I have a. I'm not very good with screen, with screenwriting, with television and movies. I don't think visually, particularly. And those are very visual mediums. So I do have a play I want to write, and I have a couple other books I'd like to write. So, you know, if I keep getting to do that, I'll feel very lucky. And again, in the weird things that we give blessings, thank God I've got this life. I mean, I can't imagine if I had long call Covid and I was still working as a barista, rehabbing houses in historic West Adams, you know, stripping furniture, flying back and forth to Burbank.

Sam [01:06:13]:

Like, I don't know. I don't know how I would have done it. There's no way I could have done it. The fact that I am self employed and can make my own schedule and so much of my business is automated and happens without me actually having to be there is incredible.

Pete [01:06:24]:

And you make your own money on your own terms in your own time.

Sam [01:06:26]:

Exactly. I guess the answer is, I don't know.

Pete [01:06:32]:

Which I guess is the right approach to the question. I don't know. Just keep putting. Like, the guy that I interviewed that I had a conversation with this morning for the podcast, that there's nothing special about me. I've just. He's got a global tech business. He said, I just keep putting 1ft in front of the other and just keep connecting to people and with people. Yeah.

Pete [01:06:54]:

And I think if you stay true to not leaving your function unfulfilled each day with helping people uncork communication.

Sam [01:07:04]:

Yeah. And I think the thing your friend said is exactly right. It's absolutely 1ft in front of the other. And it is absolutely the people you hang out with, I mean, find the people that light you up, that make you feel great, that you're interested in, that you want to talk to. Like I said, I had a lot of day gigs and some of them were in offices, and the oppressive nature of those communications and those relationships were really hard for me to take. So, yeah, if you're not, what's the saying? Right? Go where you're celebrated. Don't stay where you're tolerated.

Pete [01:07:34]:

I've not heard that before. Well, you light me up, and I adore spending time with you, Sam. So I'm so glad that we've reconnected. After a couple of years, I hope to spend more time with you.

Sam [01:07:45]:

Yes. Well, thank you so much. I love talking to you, too. It's always a pleasure. And you asked me the questions that nobody ever asks me about thinking about this for weeks now. Like, what did I say?

Pete [01:07:57]:

Well, you'll find out. So at the end of the conversation, I always ask my guests, let's pretend that your episode's already been and gone and you found out what you did say and you're not too embarrassed. No, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's just a wonderful archetypal, not a straight line journey conversation for the podcast. But you subscribe to not a straight line on your podcast app, and six months time, you get an alert and you see that the latest episode has dropped onto your podcast app, and you look at who my conversation is with and you go, I really want to hear that episode. Whose name is on that episode?

Sam [01:08:37]:

Well, we mentioned Seth Godin, and he does a great interview, I have to say. And I think I also recommended my friend Rose Abdoux to you, who is another one of my second city friends. And she has also had a very not a straight line career, but way more successful as an actor than I ever was. But she's just a wonderful, delightful person. So I'd be interested to hear what Rosie had to say, too.

Pete [01:08:58]:

Great. I'll put them on the list. And anything you can do to make those conversations happen, amazing. I love you, Sam. Thank you so much.

Sam [01:09:06]:

I love you too, honey. I'm so glad to talk to you.

Pete [01:09:15]:

Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of not a straight line. If this conversation helped to reorient your internal compass or inspired you in any way, please let us know by heading to podcast Dot, not a straightline dot life rate, and leave a rating and review. Thanks as always to Matthew bliss of MB podcast services for his exquisite engineering of this episode. If you'd like him to help you with your podcast, contact details are in the show notes. And if you'd like to be a guest on the show or there's someone who's non straight line journey you'd just love to hear, then please visit podcast Dot, not a straightline life forward slash guest. Thanks for being here with me, and I'll see you next week for another amazing, deep, inspiring non straight line journey. Love you.