The stage or film is your "passion", your thing - your art. What makes you come alive. Telling stories is your trade. But, it's a ridiculously tough and competitive world.

But, if you’re a performer, you first have to get on a stage. Get your start. 

Or you’re a Director and Writer and you need to raise money, find talented actors and crew, pitch execs. 

If you go all in, as Coppola suggests - it's tough. You're putting it all out there. You're vulnerable and exposed.

Getting an audition or a half hour to pitch is only the start.

How to prepare? How to stand out? Be seen. Be heard. Be hired. 

Getting an audition or an opportunity to pitch is amazing.
But now you have to win it.  

Applications, showreels, auditions, interviews. It's relentless.

Sifting the emails, selecting the roles, researching the people. Then agonising over your application. Or your pitch deck. Then comes the anticipation, the hope, the preparation, the suspense... and then the waiting. Than the silence. Then the call you've been waiting for. Or the no email. Then the next advert comes along and it's GroundHog Day. But it's not funny.

I was first on stage when I was 13 at before sports, business and career took over. My career has been helping people perform at their best on whatever stage they have to perform. 

Dead Poets has been one of my favourite films since I first saw it as a kid. When I was first compared to him by the mother of one of my students I was, unusually, speechless. Something got in my eye too. Choked.