Read Grin and Bear It: How to Be Happy No Matter What Reality Throws Your Way for Free Online Page B

trash-carrying struggling actor/gofer. He actually had an active career, appearing in amajor feature film, How High, and television shows such as Spin City and Punk’d. I think in Chris’s mind, doing a show like Flipping Out was a step down. He didn’t want either of us to be humiliated on national television.
    He had a point.
    When Bravo bought Flipping Out, I had to make a choice—my show business version of Sophie’s Choice—to give up my passion project and put The Wannabes on a shelf or walk away and wait for another shot at stardom. That was really hard.
    I needed to figure out if I should do Flipping Out. I reached out to my acting coach, Kathleen King, who, since the day I met her, has always helped me find answers by asking me questions. And true to form, instead of telling me what to do, here were her questions:
    “What do you really want? Do you want to act?” she asked.
    “Yes, I do!”
    “Do you think this is something where you can learn about a business you want to be in?”
    “Yes, I do!”
    “Has Jeff been successful?”
    “Yes.”
    “Have you learned a lot from him so far?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well then, it seems to me you don’t have a lot to lose.”
    If I agreed to do the show, I would be jumping headfirst into unknown territory. I would have to start being honest and willing to do the hard work that would get me to where I wanted to go with my life and career. No more posturing and pretending that I was further along than I actually was. It took courage I didn’t think I had to say hello to Flipping Out and good-bye to The Wannabes . If I sound bitter, I was … for about two days.
    Although I didn’t know it at the time, looking back, this might have been the beginning of the end to my marriage with Chris, too. He was so angry that the networks were gravitating toward Jeff. I struggled to be happy for Jeff and encouraged him to go for it, but Chris begged me to walk away and pursue The Wannabes —but I couldn’t do it. Kathleen also asked me what would I do if the situation were reversed, how I would want Jeff to support our project. I told Chris how I felt and said I wanted to play it out and see what might come of it. Instead of crumbling in defeat that The Wannabes wasn’t picked up, I did my best to embrace this new, unexpected opportunity.
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    The right people, the ones who really belong in your life, will come to you. And stay.
    —WILL SMITH
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    The first time I met Kathleen was in the summer of 2004 after she saw me perform in a play called Jewtopia, in Los Angeles. The actor she had been coaching played my father in the show and he was moving to New York with the production. Before he left, he tried to recommend her to me as an acting coach when I cut him off. I thought, Awesome! Just what I needed … to meet with another acting coach! I had already worked my way through every great one in the city. But, the next thing I knew, I was in Pasadena at a café sobbing to Kathleen about my not going with the play to New York.
    “It’s all over,” I said.
    “You are crazy talented and crazy brave, but you look just crazy because you are out of control. You don’t know what you’re doing and you have to do something about that attitude and the sneer that goes with it.”
    No one had ever greeted me like that before or since.
    “You need to learn technique and the voice needs a lot of work.”
    I had given no thought to my voice and its current limitations. All I could think was, What a bitch. I had no idea what she was talking about. I was beyond pissed that this complete stranger would speak to me like that, especially after giving what I thought was a supreme performance in Jewtopia . But, in actuality, she was right. I really didn’t know what I was doing. I had no technique. And no one had ever had the decency or the heart to speak the truth to me like Kathleen did that day. (And she doesn’t usually say things like that unless you’re paying her.)
    Within days