It’s a stressful time of year. Many of us cling to whatever form of sanity (read: wine) to help us survive until mid-April. But as you all know, the more we let anxiety and stress into our bodies, the harder it is to function. So here are a few helpful mantras or mindsets to aid your sanity this pilot season, and beyond.

Remember these buzzwords: ENCOURAGEMENT, ENTHUSIASM, PASSION, TEAMWORK, GRATITUDE.

And here’s how you can apply them, (these are just a few examples. There are MANY ways you can connect these to your careers and lives):

1. ENCOURAGEMENT: “Casting WANTS me to be the one!”

• Seriously, we are ON YOUR SIDE. If you are the one, that means that A. You’ve validated our creative choice to see you in the first place, and B. Our job is done (at least on that character.) Walk in to every Casting office and remember (no matter how cranky we are,) we are ROOTING FOR YOU. Feel the love, y’all.

2. ENTHUASIAM: “I love a challenge!”

• Pilot season is hard, the audition process (any time of year!) can be stressful, things move quickly, sides change at the last minute, self-tapes are due in a matter of hours, etc. Prepare for these opportunities as if you’re running towards a hurdle; put your heart and energy into it and then fly, my friends. The immediate moment after can feel like a MAJOR “fuck yeah!! I did it!”

3. PASSION: “Every audition is an opportunity for me to do what I love.”

• Sure, auditioning isn’t the best part of being an actor, but every chance you get to sink your teeth into a new script, embody a new character and perform or workshop a scene is a big win. Enjoy the ride, my friends.

4. TEAMWORK: “Every Casting office that sees me sets the course for a new relationship or strengthens an old one.”

• It’s a business of relationship folks! If you go into a room or send in a tape and nail that read while behaving/communicating professionally, you will UNDOUBTEDLY audition for that Casting team again. Strengthen the connection, make Casting fall in love with your talent and attitude, and you will be back before you know it.

5. GRATITUDE: “I’m grateful I have a strong team that works hard to get me these opportunities.”

• In signing you, your reps have said “yes, I believe in your talent.” They’re working hard, doing their part to provide opportunities so you can go shine. Remember to acknowledge them in your heart, AND out loud.

Work hard and stay positive, my people! You got this.

My Grandmother can easily be credited with kick-starting my Casting career.

When I was 15 or 16 years old, we were watching a movie together and as the end credits rolled, I saw “Casting By Ronnie Yeskel.” I turned to my Grandma, “Are we related to Ronnie Yeskel?” (My Grandma’s sister married a Yeskel.) “Yep! Distantly,” she answered.

My interest was piqued. I had ZERO idea what “Casting” meant, what it involved, how you did it or how you became someone who had a career in it, but I had a good guess that Casting was related to actors. And through Ronnie, I sort of “knew” somebody who did it. Those two things seemed pretty awesome to me. My Grandma, ever the educator and go-getter, saw my interest, (and also saw that I was in North Dakota where I was unlikely to gain any sort of relevant experience or find any information on the career,) and set out to help me learn more about it.

During one visit to Manhattan, she bought me an issue of the Ross Reports. There was a big article listing that year’s “Top 10 Casting Directors” with interviews and the occasional (gasp!) email address. (This was the late 90s… Casting was still very much a messenger/snail mail field.) I wrote to every CD who listed an address, asking how they became Casting Directors and what I should do to follow in their footsteps. One of them wrote back. I don’t remember much about our exchange (and those emails have gone the way of my aol account,) but I do remember him saying that there’s nothing you could study in school to be a CD and that I should start interning immediately.

Thus, my NJ-based Grandma set out on a quest to find me an internship. She doesn’t have any direct connection to the industry herself, but she has friends who have friends and she’s not afraid to ask. A few months before I graduated high school, my Grandma called to tell me that she had gotten me an internship at a NY talent agency for the summer. If I wanted it, I had to call this number and say I was Marion Landew’s granddaughter and yes, I’d be thrilled to have the opportunity.

So I did exactly that. I was 18 years old, taking the train from my grandparents’ house in Jersey into Manhattan every day. After a few weeks doing all kinds of tasks from calling to release clients after a commercial hold (ugh,) to sorting head shots, to working the front desk, some kind agents asked me what I REALLY wanted to do. “I think I want to be a Casting Director,” I said. The next day, one of the assistants called to tell me that instead of coming in to the office, I should go to this other building. I was going to help out a commercial Casting Director for a day while she had a session.

I sat in that hot waiting room, (July in New York with maybe a whiff of window AC,) checking actors in, taking their Polaroids, answering phones, pointing people in the direction of the bathroom… it was a (sweaty) three hour day of work and it might’ve been the most exciting three hours of my life. After that, I had no doubt that I wanted to be a Casting Director.

Flash forward a few years… I’ve just graduated from USC and I’m trying to find a job as a Casting Assistant in Los Angeles. By now, I’ve had about eight different internships, many of them coming by way of the previous thanks to that very first Grandma-supplied opportunity in New York. Lo and behold, one day I see a notice that Ronnie Yeskel is looking for an assistant. I’m literally panting with anticipation as I shoot her an email and not-so-subtly say that “if nothing else, it would be great to meet a member of my family.”

A few days later, I go in to interview with Ronnie. She asks me some cursory questions and then after a few minutes blurts, “so, HOW exactly are we related?” I explain: my grandmother is Marion, her sister is Evelyn and she’s married to Stanley. Ronnie nods and then dials someone on speaker phone. A woman picks up and Ronnie says, “Mom… do you know Marion Landew?” “Oh yes!” her mom says. “That’s Stanley and Evelyn’s sister. You’ve met her before at so-and-so’s Bar Mitzvah.” The conversation goes on a few more minutes. Ronnie is smiling ear-to-ear by the end of the call and I leave that meeting having been given a job assisting the woman who first piqued my interest in the field.

If it weren’t for my Grandmother, there’s a decent chance I would be doing something else right now. When I was first interested in Casting, there were not many places I could go to find information. It was at such a pivotal (about-to-apply-to-college) point in my life, that I could’ve just as easily gone on and studied some other part of film (or something else entirely.) She guided my research and knocked on doors when I had no idea where or how to begin doing either.

I name-dropped the hell out of her to get my first internship and my first full-time gig. But then, I have always been proud to introduce myself as “Marion Landew’s granddaughter.”

My biggest career regret doesn’t actually involve Casting. (Lord knows I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my career, but those all feel like true lessons and growth experiences, not regrets.) I think about this particular story often because when I was faced with a clear choice, I made the objectively wrong decision and the pain of that is still with me to this day.

When I was 23 years old, I was the associate producer on a big annual showcase. I had never had that kind of responsibility, and I truly LOVED it. I was so proud of the show and of our actors. I was beyond thrilled to be involved, especially in (what I deemed) was such an important capacity.

Three days before our first performance, during a tech rehearsal, I got a call from my Mom: my 92-year old grandfather (in North Dakota) had passed away. It’s Jewish custom to bury the dead quickly, so the funeral would be in two days, (the day of our final dress rehearsal and when everything needed to composed, compiled and in tip-top shape.) I was not close with this grandfather: there’s a mile-long story there, but suffice it to say that I would only want to be at the funeral to support the rest of my family. So my first reaction in hearing this news was to cry not in mourning but in total unfairness at the TIMING. This was my first really big and “important” job, and now I would have to fly home (at great cost,) to North Dakota to help eulogize a man for whom I didn’t particularly care, getting me back to LA after our opening performance. Not to mention that it was January and when you’re flying in and out of North Dakota in January, there is ZERO guarantee of getting anywhere, let alone on time.

My parents, being as supportive as ever, told me not to worry about coming home. Everyone understood that I had a “big job” and it was ok to stay in LA and focus on it. I told my boss what was going on and she was kind and sympathetic, but she also didn’t try to convince me to go. I took that as a sign that I really was NEEDED in LA, and flying home would clearly leave too many people in the lurch. I called my parents and told them I wouldn’t be there.

The day of the funeral, my Mom thoughtfully called me and held up her cell phone during the graveside service so I could hear what was happening. (Technology was pretty crappy then… I really couldn’t hear anything.) But by (literally) phoning in for the funeral, I felt absolved of my guilt for not being there. The service was short, and afterwards I hung up and went back to the booth to check on lighting cues.

The next day our show opened and everything went great; audiences loved it, the actors were getting great feedback, and I was flying on pure adrenaline. It was about a week later, once the dust had settled and life started to feel normal again, that I felt this hard stone of regret in my belly. I couldn’t shake the shame that grew from it and to this day, many (cough) years later, that lump of remorse is still very much with me.

At the end of the day, despite any nuances in my reasoning, I made a conscious decision to forgo a major family event because I thought I was irreplaceable and that they, (the show, the actors, my boss,) couldn’t function without me. (Hint: they ALL would’ve functioned JUST FINE without me. Self-importance – 1, Me – 0.) I will never forget the moment when it finally occurred to me that I had put my career before my family, and the clarity of how wrong that was.

So to all of you hard-working artists, you self-employed passionate people, heed this advice: you are human beings FIRST. Your family, your/their health (mental and physical,) should ALWAYS take priority over work, even when it feels like a career-ending decision. (It won’t be, I promise you. That was the first and last show I ever produced.) Ever since this experience, I do whatever I can to show up for my family, including flying cross-country for 24 hours out of a week-long family vacation. It was a painful lesson to learn, and I’m grateful for how it’s changed me, but I wouldn’t wish the experience on anyone.

Mark my words: there is no job that will pay you enough (financially, creatively,) to make up for endless regret.

Several years ago, we were casting a pilot with well-known producers and a big name director. It was an ensemble cast, but there was a leading man role that you could assume would be offered out based on his description, (40s, male, former hero and “leader of the pack” type,) story line and the people involved with the show. We had our lists of namey-name actors, and we did try to offer it out to a few of them, but nothing was sticking and after seeing some guys read, our producers wanted it to come from someone who would audition. So, we read guys, and re-read them, tested a few with no success, and pulled self-tapes from England, Australia, Canada, the moon and beyond.

As we were getting down to the wire, we brought in an actor who had everything we were looking for: he had a leading man look, charisma, and was age-appropriate. He had been the lead of series previously, (not super recently, but nonetheless,) and he could certainly handle the material.

He shuffled back toward our audition room with his shoulders slightly slumped and his head down. As we were mic-ing him and providing some additional back story, he looked at us and said, “I’m not really sure why I’m here.” My boss and I looked at him, a little dumbfounded. “What do you mean?” she said. “Well, I can tell what you need in this character, and I’m sure I’m just not enough of a name for it, so I don’t really know what I’m doing here.” He didn’t say this with any sort of disdain. He stated it with the utter sadness of not being talented or well-known enough to even deserve a shot.

We spent the next five minutes trying to explain that he truly DID have a shot, for the reasons I’ve already mentioned and many more. We also told him that we wouldn’t just be reading him for the hell of it this late in the game. You could see that he took our emphatic reasoning as lip-service. He listened, acknowledged what we were saying but didn’t truly believe it. Unsurprisingly, he gave a vaguely depressing read with zero heart or energy. He left looking just as disappointed as he had when he walked in.

The moral of the story is this: you will sometimes go out for roles that you think, “I’m totally wrong for this,” or “they might offer this out,” or you may even go in for roles knowing that there is CURRENTLY an offer out on that role. In all of those scenarios, you STILL have a shot at that role, (Casting wouldn’t be reading you otherwise.) And if nothing else, give a great read and Casting will be excited to think of you for something else.

If you think there’s been a MISUNDERSTANDING – something about your headshot or resume made it seem like you were capable of something that you really aren’t, THEN it would behoove you to have your reps call Casting to ask if you should still read. If it doesn’t matter that much, we will tell you to still come in. If it’s utterly important to the character or world, we will appreciate your honesty and read you for something else down the line.

Otherwise, you should always walk into the audition room with the confidence that Casting has selected YOU, out of THOUSANDS to be there. If you’ve gotten that far, you’ve got a real shot at it. Check your emotional baggage at the door and focus on being there, in that moment, and having fun.