Today Jason Jackson and Matthew Dearing get on the mics to bring us yet another amazing improvised podcast. The suggestion is recieved on air at the beginning, so you KNOW it's improv! Sit back as these improvisers take you on a ride into your imagination.

Welcome to Mornings With Matt.

This Episode is focused on actors and online creatives who are struggling to stay consistent when creating content. We dive into how to formulate successful habits and unbreakable commitments. At the core of every great success is an extremely powerful "WHY". We talk with basketball coach and aspiring influencer Tyler Weeks on how to maintain his mindset and set a path for ongoing success.

Subscribe and then Comment with your passion. Reach out directly for a chance to be on the show. Tune in with us Live on Youtube every day at 7:00am. To get involved text questions to (480) 485-1211. We appreciate your feedback through comments / likes and be sure to subscribe for more light driven content. Also.. It would mean the world to us if you hit the subscribe button ;)

Questions Discussed:

1. How can I clear my mind?

2. How can I stay consistent during these times?

3. How are ways I can break being hard on myself?

Shifting Negative Thoughts to Fuel Your Motivation, creating life giving affirmations and transmuting hurtful memories into powerful fuel to drive success.

Welcome to Mornings With Matt. This show's premise is to bring light and love to the world as we battle through life's most difficult challenges.

Matt speaks with a young nursing student struggling with how to battle negativity while being stuck at home during the COVID-19 lockdown. Matt helps her to navigate exhaustion and find her specific purpose for making the most of every day.

Trust is built quickly which opens Eliana to be honest and vulnerable. Then, together, they created a plan for successfully making her dream a reality and to defend herself against negative thoughts during these tough times.

EPISODE CHAPTERS

0:00 - BEGINNING QUESTION: How to Make a habit and stick to it?
1:06 - ELIANA INFORMATION GATHERING INTERVIEW: Why are things important to you? What happens if you don’t change your habits? What are you going after and why is it important? What is your dream
5:28 - VISION: How to set your sails and find purpose when you don’t have a clear one?
6:38 - FEAR: Using Positive fear to positive habits.
8:10 - HOW TO FIX IT: The answer for fixing sleep schedule and bad habits
8:48 - GET EMOTIONAL: “What do you want to do?”
10:20 ELIANA’S TWO DREAMS: Nursing & Acting
13:12 THATS YOUR OPINION: “You’re Not Good Enough”
15:05 EVERY PARENT FAILS “You ether hug too much or not enough”
17:30 PUT IN THE HOURS: Nursing school and life
19:40 REPROGRAMMING: Changing negative thoughts to fuel ACTION
20:30 - ARE YOU IN THE RIGHT SPOT: Matt’s Connection to the medical field
22:36 STARTING A DREAM: Don’t jump out of a plane with no parachute
23:44 LIGHT DRIVEN CONTENT: Helping the elderly and those locked down at home
25:20 Combine your passions to make an IMPACT
26:09 YOU HEAR WHAT YOU DECIDE TO HEAR : The Michael Jordan Story
27:48 ACTION ITEMS
29:22 CHANGE: How it affects people
31:05 ACTION ITEMS: (Body/Mind/Spirit)
32:35 ACTION ITEMS: Making Your Dream a Reality

*Tune in with us Live on Youtube every morning at 7:00am. *

Welcome back to another Mornings with Matt Podcast. This episode is revolved around one question, "Do you REALLY Listen?" Active listening is something most of us struggle with, and no one is perfect at it. Listening is something we focus on heavily at the corporate level in our training. This episode gives listeners steps to read the room, listen to what's going on, and adjust your energy for maximum productivity. Sit back, relax, grab a notebook, and Just Listen!

Read the Room

Asking yourself these five questions before you go into any room will enhance your productivity and reduce the chance of having friction or negative energy. Question number one is, "What is the current energy of the room?" It's important to start here because if you don't evaluate where the room is at, you can't adapt to it. Question number two, "What state of mind am I in?" Self-awareness is critical to a successful life and you can't listen correctly without it. Question number three is, "What do I want to accomplish when I walk in the room?" Setting an intention before you move into something makes the worlds difference. It allows you to have a strong why that helps you make quick decisions in the moment. Question number four is, "Do I want to be seen?" This question is extremely important because it is your strategy. Last but not least, Question number five, "What is the current situation in the room?" By assessing the situation before walking in, you've armed yourself to present solutions instead of problems. 

Okay, so this is Podcasting 101! You have to watch your insights and get excited for certain milestones. Every podcaster can't help themselves from checking their podcast download numbers. Todays goal & the reason for this episode is we are pushing to 1,000 downloads in one month! We need your help, so we hopped onto the mics at 11:30pm and brought a midnight episode! Tonight, Matt and Joey talk about changing focus as a company, the importance of learning new skills, and the difference between arrogance and laziness. Welcome to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast 101! 

Personal Brand Statement

We just had an amazing episode of our morning show, going over this exact thing! Ian Segears joined Matt on Mornings With Matt to talk about branding himself as an actor. Matt starts by complimenting Ian on his personal brand statement. He then advises Ian, who wants to be an actor and use that platform to motivate and inspire others, to teach and critique using himself as the bad example. He then gives multiple examples of how he does it himself to our students, and our staff members. The best place to teach from is "I could be wrong" and that is something Matt has always preached!

Falling in Love with Learning

Sounds cheesy right? It's not! Knowledge is the single most valuable thing we can possess as human beings. Those who commit to mastery never grow tired and give up on their craft. Instead they understand that to become a master is to commit to being a student for life. Matt has been buried in numbers and SEO the last few days and it can feel like a brick wall with no progress. However because he stuck with it and was consistent, the terms and the knowledge he was seeking not only helped him with the website he was working on, but also translated to helping others. 

How to stay Focused

This pandemic faced many of us with a choice, and a very big one at that. You can either find ways to innovate, grow, and think outside of the box; or you can try and keep things normal and hope for the best. We chose route 1. The reason is because our staff saw this as an opportunity. We've always wanted to go online and effect people outside of Phoenix Arizona. This gave us the opportunity to do just that. Our staff went ALL IN on youtube and online courses and we failed... HARD! But on the other end of that is success! Suddenly we've found ourselves with something we love doing online and would have never made the time to make it our focus before. 

Welcome back to the Dearing Acting Studio podcast! On this episode we have Shadow Mountain High School senior, Keegan Sinur. Keegan came into the studio to apply for an internship to get school credit hours and learn more about the acting industry. On this episode, we take a quick glance at what it's like to have an Arizona Acting Internship!

Keegans Backstory

Most of you know our studio producer, and director of media Joey Sweeney. Well, funny story, when Joey moved to Phoenix and transferred to Shadow Mountain, he met Keegan in the drama department and they quickly became close friends. They did multiple shows together including The Addams Family and Rock of Ages, but even after Joey graduated they kept in contact. When Joey heard Keegan was coming in he was ecstatic!

Expectation vs. Reality

Keegan came in expecting this internship to be the typical one we've all heard of. You come in, get the hours, and then it's all over and you forget about it. He was surprised to find that was NOT the case. Keegan says the job exceeded his expectations because he's learning and having a ton of fun! He was super nervous after the tough interview but was ready to take the opportunity and show he had what it takes.

Valuable Lessons

In just this ten minute podcast, Keegan and Matt reflect on the lessons he's learned so far and add a couple onto the list live. Matt believes in the "wax on, wax off" method for our staff. We've all been through it and Keegan was no different. He preaches it's the people that love you the most in life that are willing to critique you. The lesson we uncovered right here in this episode was the difference between saying "I have to" or "I get to". Saying, "I get to" is a positive way to frame a task. You can look at anything with a mindset of I get to, and realize everything you are blessed with. We're so excited to have Keegan in the Dearing Acting Studio fam! 

You might be reading this title thinking, "Find your Purpose?" Pretty big question there buddy. This week on the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast we have a special guest Brad Sweeney. Brad is a store director in his 40th year with Bashas Supermarkets. He is also Brian and Joey's dad. In this episode, we talk about the positives and the negatives of being on the frontlines during this crisis, Review the growth of the studio from Brad's perspective, and the importance of a positive outlook. 

Growth

We start off talking about Brad's memories and outside perspective of the studio. The first thing he said was, "mcdowell road." He's referring to our second studio location, which was in a bad neighborhood, right between two freeways. Matt then talks about how the studio was started in 2007 during the recession but we succeeded because we learned how to grind and didn't know any better. Brad then shares the story of Brian being in the hospital long term in 2018. He remembers Brian's strong purpose to keep pushing Dearing further from the hospital and his refusal to let the studio die. Brian explains his reason why, which was he's never seen a facility focused on love and pushing the person.  

Giving is Powerful

As a store director, Matt brings attention to the fact that Brad is on the frontlines. Brad talks about how there are good moments and bad moments and shares an incredible story. He practices what we preach when he describes the bad moments because he gives those people the benefit of the doubt. He says that the people who come in the store stressed are the ones who are struggling, and they have big hearts even if they aren't showing it. The good is still present. He shares about two customers who came in and chose to GIVE. They bought $1,000 worth of gift cards from small businesses and gave them to his employees. This helped the small businesses, and acknowledged the hard work from the employees. 

On the Next Podcast

As we wrap up with Brad, we called Shea into the podcast to talk about her latest blogs & our upcoming episode of the podcast. Shea has been grinding from home writing these amazing blogs trying to make a difference. Check out her blog on non-essentials and what that means for us as an acting school. 

A Message From Joey

Having our Dad on the podcast today was so much fun. He raised all three of us to live by the golden rule, "treat others how you want to be treated." My dad has faced a ton of hardships in his life. One of which was helping Brian and I fight through living positively with our blood disorder, ALPS Gene. When Brian was in his coma, my dad always kept hope and was a rock for our family. I will never forget being quarantined on my birthday when I was younger with low blood numbers. My dad invited two of my closes friends over and had us decorate face-masks & play video games. He is an inspiration for me to be selfless and always care for others, and I hope his story inspires you all to do the same! 

Welcome back to the Dearing Acting Studio Kids Podcast. We promised our Youth Improv students a personal podcast to help them practice improv from home during quarantine. As the coronavirus has shaken the nation, we've been forced to move our classes online. In 13 years of operation, we've never closed our doors and we refused to give up now. Our Wednesday online Youth Improv class was a huge fail forward. Navigating different programs, and technical difficulties we fought through and had a fun class, but it was far below our expectations. 

What are our expectations?

Our guardian team at Dearing Acting Studio runs on a belief in the 10x rule. We repeat it day in and day out and the concept is simple. You give ten times the value of what the person is paying for or expecting. The key is to do this selflessly seeking nothing in return. We believe that giving is one of the most powerful things you can do in this world, so we seek ways to help every day. Even though the class technically "worked" it wasn't smooth, organized, and seemless yet, and that is what we shoot for. 

What is Yes Because?

Yes because is an improv exercise that helps with building your scene. You might have heard of the famous second city exercise, "yes and" which is what we used to teach. We've transitioned into using because for what it does to the scene. Yes because is a vertical move. What that means is it pushes the scene forward into a new direction, building off of what has already been established. Yes and is a horizontal move. This adds new information to the scene instead of building on what's right in front of you. While they are both great tools, yes because is the foundation for our program.

Teach Me How

Yes because starts with a relationship based statement to your scene partner. For example I might say, "Mom you always make me smile." The second step is agreeing to the information that your scene partner gives you. For example, you would respond by saying, "Yes I always make you smile because..." The third step is giving a logical reason for why the information is true, this is your because statement. For example, "Because we have a strong relationship." From here the exercise continues, with you repeating the latest statement and adding because! 

Welcome back to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast! In this episode Matt and Joey talk about FEAR. With the world in a state of panic over the coronavirus, we sunk right into the topic of how we can transmute fear into positivity. Matt is a personal development coach, and has done extensive research on what fear is and why it is so deeply present in our world. He believes that there are good fears and bad fears. A good fear is something that prevents you from making big mistakes. A bad fear is a fear that prevents you from trying something new. Bad fears are where we need to learn to transmute fear into positivity.

Hard work pays off

Joey spends time on the mic reviewing the past couple of days for himself. We had 4 podcasts to record today, one of which started at 6:00am. He didn't get to sleep until 1:30 the night before and still made it in at 4:00am to set up. This was our last podcast of the day; and we were challenging ourselves to figure out the new live stream technology and go live on facebook for the episode. Long story short it took about two and a half hours to figure out how to get a strong wifi connection and manage a back link to facebook. As you can imagine he was exhausted, but he pushed through and couldn't express enough how great he was feeling. 

Finish Strong

Matt always reminds our guardian team to "finish strong." It's a concept we have all bought into and that is the idea that it isn't about how you start something, it's about how you finish. If you haven't met Matt before, he's one of the most loving and straightforward people you will ever come to know. All he expects from us is our very best from start to finish, on whatever project we are tackling that day. He expects us to fail, but only asks that we learn and grow from our failures. Working in this environment has completely changed my life, and it's something I believe we can all learn from. 

Welcome back to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast! Today our Guardian team had three loaded topics that we reviewed. Masterclass, Goal Rocks, and Teaching to the Person. Let's dive in and unpack these topics as we head into March.

Masterclass Intensive Scene Study 

Our Masterclass scene study intensive is one of the highest levels of mastery training offered at the Dearing Studio. Within a four day period, students perform various scenes from award winning plays receive critique by master coach and studio director, Matthew Dearing. Each scene performs twice over the course of the 4 days, with a day in between to rehearse and apply critique from day one. Matt chose to model this intensive after training with the highly coveted acting coach, Larry Moss. 

Each one of the Guardians team has performed in the Masterclass. We have all had transformative experiences as we have grown as performers and human beings. Each story is unique in the way that our struggles and demons  to light. Although our stories are varying, the outcome was the same for all of us... LIFE CHANGING. We believe in using acting as a vehicle for personal development and this class is a direct representation of that. 

The "Rock" Idea

We revisit our goal "rocks" as Matt explains how the idea originated from Gino Wickman's book, Traction. Wickman speaks about creating small but big goals that are concrete and attainable to hit quarterly. Of course, Matt being Matt encourages us as a team to take a mini field trip to the "mountain of beauty" as his daughter calls it. :) We all gathered different rocks and assigned them goals. We all connect with having a "physical" elements constantly present and reminding us of the goals we set. 

Teaching the Person

As a team, we typically will de-brief after each class to go over the celebrate the successes, but most importantly, discuss growth points and evaluate where we can grow as high-level coaches. Brian mentioned to us that his transformation happened when he was teaching the student instead of teaching the piece. Every student that walks through our doors is coached from where they are at. This means, their state of mind, their skill level, their work ethic, and of course, their willingness to grow and succeed. 

Thank you for listening to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. Please like, subscribe.....and have a Dearing day! :) 

In this episode of our professional development podcast we discuss the importance of seeking new clients while you are having success. Or in other words how to "Plant While You Harvest". We're excited to have special guest Tony Calvis on the mic with Brian Sweeney, Matthew Dearing, and Joey Sweeney.

Tony Calvis and the Nextiva connection to professional development

Tony Calvis is an extremely successful human being who believes in constant growth. He works with Nextiva, one of the top business communications companies in world. Nextiva's CEO, Tomas Gorny, is a visionary in the tech industry. Nextiva has been using our Professional Development Services for years. Dearing Acting Studio has partnered in Nextiva for Corporate Training, Keynote Speech Writing, Speech Coaching, Team Building and Sales Workshops. Matthew Dearing also reflects back on the early days of Dearing Acting Studio and how we first came to meet Tony. We enjoyed going down memory lane to celebrate our growth.

Other topics include casting in phoenix, video production and mastery mindset

Tony Calvis is the creative content director at Nextiva. He is also an expert in video production and video editing. Tony was brought into the studio to check out our acting classes, theater and online acting courses in order to help us find ways to continue to grow. In this podcast we go through the importance of conflict within the work environment, having a mastery mindset, casting in phoenix, production best practices, and more. We hope you enjoy this episode of the Dearing Acting Studio Professional Development Podcast where we discuss the connection between life and acting. Please Like, Subscribe, Share and have a Dearing Day!

To see the full video of this podcast go you the episode HERE on our Youtube channel.

The Power of Focus is becoming a superpower. In this episode Matthew Dearing and Joey Sweeney of Dearing Acting Studio talk about the power of protecting your time and zoning in to one thing at a time. Matthew Dearing explains these concepts in detail through his book Acting Is My Day Job: Seven Strategies to Market and Make Money as an Actor. In the book we give specific directions on how to organize your life, track your time and most importantly focus on what's important. 

Celebrate the wins in life

Matt and Joey also talk about funny moments that have helped to shape who they are today. We teach people in our acting classes and professional development courses to celebrate the wins in life. Of course you should be striving to go next level in everything you do but it's also essential to celebrate the small wins along the way. The key is to celebrate where you are, learn from past mistakes and then find ways to grow.  

Focus on the good and good things happen

This simple concept will quite literally change your life. The truth is that what you focus on will become your reality. So do yourself a favor and focus on the good no matter what the circumstance and good things will tend to follow. There are always opportunities to become better and stronger no matter where you are on your journey. A great example of this idea can be found on the Dearing Acting Studio Stories page. Here we discuss how training has impacted our student's lives outside of acting. These stories are all very inspiring and show amazing people from all walks of life finding a way to celebrate where they are while remaining focused on getting better.

To see the full live video go to this Facebook Link.

-Now- Let's get real here. Hanna had no idea who she came to play with when she entered into the Dearing Studio. She had no idea she would fall victim to Shea's ridiculous habbit of nicknaming everyone who walks through the door AND on top of that, she let it slip that her alma mater is none other than the University of Arizona.

If you didnt know, we are a Devil house around here and really into Arizona Sunde football. ( Cue Matt throw up the fork sign )
Fun Fact: We even have a button on our sound board that so beatifully exclaims: "GOOOOOOOOOO DEVILS".

Anyway, let's get into our chat with "Hanna with no "H"".

Topics include:

• Background of Phoenix Theatre (Coming up on their Centennial year!)
• The age of Theatre and where it's headed.
• Hanna and her many hats. (P.S. She got her start selling concessions and is now the powerhouse Director of Summer Programs at PT)
• Dedication to an inclusive and welcoming atmosphere for children of all abilities.
• Can you guess what style of Dance Hanna trained in throughout her formative years?!

Signing off with Devil pride,

The Dearing Team

This week was all about perspective and the power that saves you when you choose to claim it.

Quote of the week:
"You are where you are right now, and that's the truth.....and you own it, you deliver and say "here I am"."

Below is an inside look at our discussion:

-The Dearing Team cannot all be healthy at one time. Like, ever.
-Deflating the power of negativity.
-Culture is everything. Atmosphere is everything.
-Finding power in honesty and accountability.
-The evolution of master coaching.
-Making the choice to find "light"