If you have done any work in the theatre, then you most likely have taken at least one class that addressed the man in the picture above. What I have found very interesting is how applicable his teachings are to business and entrepreneurship. His system dealt with some very specific points that you would address in every scene you worked on and each of these steps has its own life in the world of business.
To start with, he was obsessed with the objective of each character in the scene, and would ask each actor what in essence they "wanted"
In business we do the exact same thing. We decide on a financial or personal goal and we state it. We write it down.
Then there is the idea of the strong action verb for what the character is doing to get what he or she wants. Each actor is encouraged to really think carefully about this strong action verb as it helps sharpen the focus of the scene.
In business we also make the decision to act on particular things over others. We decide if we are adding more focus to our marketing, content creation, customer service or development etc.
Next comes the obstacle. The actor is asked what is getting in the way of the thing he or she wants. The actor is asked to specifically define this and that information informs the rest of the scene.
In business we constantly have to ask what is getting in the way of us hitting our revenue projections, benchmarks, etc. The more specific we are the easier it is to solve the problem.
Finally, once all of this information is accumulated, the scene is broken down into beats each with their own objectives, tactics, and obstacles.
In business we break each project we are doing down into beats and continuously explore what is working and what is not.
Each stage of the business is in essence a scene and we are asking ourselves what we want, what we're doing to get it, and what gets in the way.
The real magic for both the actor and the entrepreneur comes when we answer the final, most important question:
Now that we know all of this, what do we do next?
What do YOU plan to do?
Excelsior!
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